I got lost when you walked with my hand in your hand
I got lost when you asked me if I'd like to dance

Dawning of Spring
- Anson Seabra

»»————-　➴　————-««

The déjà vu seemed to attack him in waves of familiarity, reprinting itself onto his skin.

They say photographs can't capture the true essence of something the way our naked eyes do. They must be right. Taehyung didn't feel this weight on his chest when he saw the photograph, but now it left him gasping for air.

"Ghostie?" Jeongguk whispered, standing close.

He almost forgot he was with him.

"I've been here," Taehyung blurted, blinking rapidly, "I don't know how... or when but I have."

Jeongguk looked down, eyes widening when he noticed the ravenhead's feet sinking into the cement. "Um," he peeped, "Are you okay?"

"I need to go inside."

"It's Saturday. The theater closes on weekends."

Taehyung wasn't listening, storming towards the entrance as if tranced. His feet dropped deeper and deeper into the surface, swallowing him up to his knees—

"Stop!" Jeongguk cried.

At once, a dozen eyes were on him. He didn't have his phone pressed to his ear.

"I'm sorry— sorry," he rambled nervously towards the murmuring passersby. He reached Taehyung with a few big strides and rosy cheeks. "Look at you! You're sinking," he hissed.

The ravenhead finally snapped out of it, levitating back to ground level. He met Jeongguk's doe eyes with his own, equally horrified.

"I don't know— I don't— That never happened so quickly before." Taehyung instinctively reached for Jeongguk, seeking stability, but his hands went right through him. Shaken, he curled himself into a ball and crouched down.

"Hey."

Steadying his breathing, Taehyung slowly reopened his eyes. The chestnut boy had kneeled beside him, concern layered on his features and camera bag on the floor.

At this point, everyone around them must've thought Jeongguk had gone mad. But his attention had zeroed in on none other than Taehyung.

"What just happened?" the chestnut boy asked gently.

Taehyung sighed, eyeing the few women who stand by the pavement staring. "I think I got overwhelmed— in a bad way. It happens. Just— never that deep, never that quickly."

More worry laced into Jeongguk's eyebrows as he blocked out the sunlight with his arm. "I want to help you."

"I'm okay," the ravenhead intercepted. He inhaled, rising back onto his feet. "I just need to find a way in."

Jeongguk didn't defy his decision this time. "Is there a back door of some sort so people can quit staring at us?"

It was as if the question had sparked an immediate response from Taehyung. "On the left side, under the wing," he said, clasping a hand over his mouth immediately afterward, "I don't know why I know that."

"Let's go then. If it makes you feel better."

They rounded a corner, reaching the door partially hidden behind two parked trucks and a giant oak tree. It read in big bolder letters—

STAGE DOOR

"It's locked," Jeongguk said, gaze narrowing at the buttons demanding a passcode.

"That's perfectly fine," Taehyung replied without batting an eyelid. His dead body had evolved past the laws of physics.

"Hey but—"

Taehyung turned to face the prominent frown on the chestnut boy's mouth. It thickened the air of innocence around him.

"What about me?"

The ravenhead shrugged. "Wait for me or you're free to leave. It's your call."

"I want to go in with you," Jeongguk insisted, readjusting the camera bag strap on his shoulder. Leaves casted shadows down the side of his face. "I've never been inside an empty theater before. I want to see what it's like."

"Jeongguk." He was still unfamiliar with the name. "You do know you'll be breaking in, right? You're not above the law."

"You're a ghost!" the chestnut boy answered enthusiastically, "You can bust me out when that happens." His cheekbones heightened with a smile.

"Oh, no," Taehyung chuckled nervously, hands raised in surrender, "I'm not invincible, Jeongguk. I'm just here to collect my afterlife ticket and I'll be on my way."

The boy's eyes grew to the size of saucers when Taehyung leaked vital information. "Afterlife ticket?"

The ravenhead sealed his lips after that, swiveling around to abandon Jeongguk.

"Wait—" Jeongguk pounced after him but was blocked by the solid surface Taehyung disappeared through.

Damn these ghosts.

The chestnut boy slumped onto the ground, back against the door as a minute dragged by. Well, this wasn't the first time he'd been abandoned. He began counting every white car that passed by, burying his disappointment deep within him. But then—

"Over here."

Jeongguk perked up, searching for the source of that voice and realizing Taehyung was waving at him through an open window nearly two meters off the ground.

"Think you can climb this?" he asked, pointing down at the high stack of trash bins, baskets, and buckets.

"Yes!" Jeongguk exclaimed, not wanting to waste another second before Taehyung could change his mind. Stumbling over his feet, he clutched the indents of the brick wall and hauled themself up.

"Please be careful," the ravenhead winced.

It took a good thirty seconds and a few scratches for Jeongguk to throw himself into the building, landing not so gracefully on the hardboard floor.

"Are you okay? I was gonna open the door for you from the inside but that didn't work." Taehyung crouched down next to him, holding a hand out to help the boy up. "That's an awful lot of scratches."

Stupidly, Jeongguk reached for it, only to erupt into muted laughter when he realized his mistake. They couldn't touch. "Socks has done worse."

"Another reason why you shouldn't keep that beast."

Jeongguk found his balance, checked the state of his camera, and finally scanned around the room. He spotted himself in the large mirror on the wall, lined with round light bulbs. Chairs tucked neatly under each station and powder sprinkled on the floor.

"Stage makeup," Taehyung elaborated.

Jeongguk raised his camera and a satisfying click punctured the silence.

"Come on. We don't have all day."

Taehyung moved with a purpose, eyes set on his tasks while Jeongguk wandered aimlessly after him. It was quite the labyrinth, the two of them peaking into hollow rooms every few steps. The white walls were gray with the lack of illumination and the carpet cushioned their footsteps. Though Taehyung had no problem not making a sound.

"I wonder what happens during the opening days," the chestnut boy noted to himself.

"You mean opening nights. Shows, performances, choirs. It's buzzing with preparation most the time," Taehyung responded without much thought.

His words startle him into a halt and Jeongguk with his lack of an attention span accidentally walked right through the ghost. "Sorry," he apologized anyway, a cold shiver shredding through his body.

Taehyung's hand was pressed against the wall, staring hard as if he was summoning his memories, willing them to come back to them. He failed.

"Jeongguk."

"Yes?"

"I need you to talk."

The boy's eyebrows crunched at the untimely request. "Huh?"

"I need you to talk to me— ask questions. As many as you want. Just don't stop talking."

Jeongguk stilled. It had always been hushing and pained reminders to be quiet. It had always been organizing his thoughts and revealing the only ones that mattered before he bored someone to death. Never— never this.

"Did you just ask me to talk your ear off?" He needed to know his mind wasn't playing tricks with him.

"Yes. Go on. You've already done it on our walk here. Might as well continue."

Jeongguk let out a half-giggle, half-snort. "If you insist, Bartholomew."

Taehyung huffed like he was offended. "Which part of me looks like a Bartholomew?"

"I don't know," Jeongguk admitted, an added skip in his step as he gestured at the curtained doorway near them, "But I do want to know where this leads to."

"The main stage." Once again, the words spill out of his mouth like an unleashed secret.

"Have you been here?" the chestnut boy interrogated as he pushed the cloth out of his face and ducked under it. They were enveloped in denser darkness, no window to provide them light. The stale odor of leftover popcorn and sweat reached his nose.

Taehyung's answer came automatically. "Yes," he spoke, "Go on, Jeongguk. I need you to jog my memory."

Unfortunately, the boy took a different path. "Have you lost your memories, ghostie? Is that what happens when you die?"

"No, Jeongguk." Taehyung treaded carefully towards his voice, just as blind as he was. He didn't know why he was so afraid to trip and suffer a concussion despite having achieved immortality.

"No?"

"No."

"Then what are you forgetting?"

"Dying doesn't mean you lose all your memories. I just died differently." He purposely kept it vague. "Jeongguk, ask me how I've been here."

The boy obliged as he felt along the walls for a switch. "How have you been here?"

"I was a backup dancer for a Don Quixote performance th-three years ago?" Taehyung spluttered, the end of his sentence tilting up into a question. He shocked himself with the revaluation. "I was a... dancer?"

Suddenly, the room flooded with brightness, Jeongguk's finger on a light switch as he gawked confusingly at the ravenhead. They mirrored each other's expressions.

"Close your mouth. I'm just as shocked as you are." Taehyung cursed under his breath, hands trembling as he stepped over the metal poles laid on the floor. "What even is Don Quixote?"

"Do you want me to ask you?"

"No!" he rushed to say, frantic, "I don't need to dig any deeper. I just needed to know why this place seemed so familiar. That's it. That's all I need."

Jeongguk could see the fight in him. The inner conflict that seized his jittery movements. The fear that controlled his clenched fists. Maybe the term lost soul was most fitting, but he had not a clue how death worked.

If death was supposed to bring people peace, Taehyung certainly didn't look at peace.

"Let me help you," he murmured, lathering each syllable with thick sincerity, "I'm serious. Let me."

"No."

He had it coming. It didn't puzzle him any less though.

Jeongguk frowned. "Why?"

The ravenhead rubbed his eyes as if a ghost was capable of being tired. "Jeongguk, we've reached the end of our deal," he steered the topic away, "You've brought me here. Thank you. Now take a picture of me to hold up my end of the deal, and then please, leave."

God, that was cold.

Defeated, the chestnut boy merely nodded. He approached the place where heavy curtains hung in sections and motioned for Taehyung to follow him onto the stage.

"No." There it was again— the fear.

"I want my subject to stand on the stage," Jeongguk stated, presenting his client voice, "Please cooperate."

Hesitation latched onto Taehyung's chest, his eye twitching involuntarily. Jeongguk resisted the urge to clap when he eventually stepped forward.

Standing on the elevated stage in front of a sea of empty seats stirred something in the ravenhead. There was a pit in his stomach where the butterflies' wings had wilted— except he never knew there were butterflies in the first place.

Jeongguk had launched himself off the platform, searching for the right angle to shoot. The opened skylights provided rays of warm sun as Taehyung stood cold in the middle of it all.

"So," the chestnut boy started after a long, awkward pause in their conversation, "You're a dancer."

Taehyung visibly cringed.

"Wanna pose for me?"

Taehyung met his eyes through his viewfinder. "I can try."

Jeongguk waited patiently as he shifted around, adjusting his limbs effortlessly even though his wary expression told a different story.

"You're a natural," he voiced his encouragement.

Taehyung had his arms raised in an oval above his head, left foot pointed outward. He felt incredibly insecure in his skin and Jeongguk noticed immediately.

"It's okay," he coaxed, lowering his camera for a moment, "Everyone gets a little nervous in front of this guy for the first time." He jostled his camera. "Take a deep breath and pretend I'm not even here. It's just you and the stage."

But that was exactly what Taehyung didn't want. The essence of this place was drilling into him like a dully-sharpened blade.

"Just take it." His words came out harsher than intended.

Empathic, Jeongguk did as told, fixing his depth of field before capturing the shot.

Taehyung's arms fell immediately, cradling into his chest to stop himself from violently shaking. He watched the chestnut boy stare down at his camera.

Jeongguk made a noise of bafflement.

"What?"

He approached the edge of the stage and showed the ravenhead his screen.

There, in the middle of the stage and the gorgeous streaks of sunlight, in the spot where Taehyung had posed— stood nothing.

__________

news flash: ghosts don't show up in photos
oops
looks like tae has to find some other way to hold up his end of the bargain

tae trying to rediscover his past is honestly one of my favorite things to write about in this book, especially knowing how scared he is to accidentally find out what caused his death

also, tae as a ballet/contemporary dancer?
chefs kiss

see y'all in the next chapter :))
- hay