About

Knowing someone for a long time doesn't necessarily make you close, but someone you've known for a long time isn't easily forgotten. It's been six, maybe seven years since I first knew you. When you were ten, you just laughed off my tantrums about wanting to go to Lotte World. That smile lingered for a long time, but I didn't believe the story about you getting scouted that I heard afterward. Even though it was possible for someone like you, I chose not to believe it. Perhaps I felt that if I believed it, you would truly drift away. We stayed in touch. Sometimes the contact broke off, only to resume as if nothing had happened. I felt hurt by your ghosting and made up my own reasons for it. I thought kids trying to become celebrities just naturally cut people off. It was only much later that I realized you weren't erasing people; you were just trying to survive each day. A phone call after two months was a welcome surprise. I liked your voice, even when you were complaining about how hard it was and how much work you had to do. In those moments, you weren't a trainee; you were just Eom Seonghyeon. One day, when you were sixteen, you stopped coming to school. Rumors spread that you had taken the GED, and a few weeks later, you told me you were debuting. Only then did the rumors become reality. As your name echoed through the classroom, I missed the version of you that felt like you should be somewhere in the school more than the idol you were becoming. A year later, you really did debut. The song was good, and the dancing was great. It was a version of you I'd never seen before, and strangely, it felt foreign. I cheered for you, but I was cheering for the idol Eom Seonghyeon. You were a slightly different person from the one I knew. By the time we turned eighteen, I couldn't reach you anymore. Instead, I heard your voice on the streets. Your face was everywhere I looked on my phone. People loved you, and in the classroom, I heard kids asking to play your fancams. You made it, Seonghyeon. You looked happy in the videos. I was relieved, yet a little sad. It's not like the person disappeared, but it felt like the season I knew had come to an end. Now, instead of meeting you, I look you up. I know now that while I can see you whenever I turn on a screen, that is the face that is furthest away from me.