Chapter 100 – The Space He Didn't Fill
POV: Hyunjae (AUREUS member)
It had been four days.
No messages.
No activity.
No digital prints, no shadows, no Jaeheon.
Not even Jihoon-hyung — Jaeheon's own brother — had answers. That alone terrified Hyunjae more than anything else.
Because Jaeheon wasn't the kind of person who vanished.
He was the kind of person who watched people vanish.
And now—he was gone.
Hyunjae sat in the recording studio, staring at the half-written lyric sheet Jaeheon had left behind before their flight home from Italy.
He had been the last to see him—airport lobby, a nod, that signature unreadable look.
Nothing strange.
Nothing final.
"I'll see you soon," Jaeheon had said.
But soon never came.
"Where the hell are you, hyung…" Hyunjae muttered, voice cracking into the silence.
The group chat was flooded—Minjae pacing, Rin trying to act calm, Sungchan throwing out wild theories, none of which made sense.
"He went off the grid."
"He's writing."
"He's with his brother."
"He's pulling a stunt."
But no theory explained the ache in Hyunjae's chest.
The kind that whispered, something isn't right.
He opened the private folder Jaeheon once let him glimpse—song titles written in code, hidden drafts.
There was one he hadn't seen before.
Track: "Orbitless"
The file wouldn't open. Locked behind a password.
Hyunjae didn't even try guessing.
It wasn't for him.
They all knew Jaeheon was strange. Cold. Brilliant. Distant.
But loyal. Always.
He didn't just disappear.
He didn't just not say goodbye.
"I checked with Jihoon-hyung again," Rin said, slipping into the room.
"He's worried."
"Did he say anything?"
Rin shook his head. "Only that Jaeheon will come back when he's ready. That we should trust him."
"That's not the problem," Hyunjae whispered. "I do trust him. I just… I don't know what broke him enough to make him leave."
No one dared say it, but the group was fraying.
Without Jaeheon, AUREUS felt unanchored.
Like the sun had gone out, and no one wanted to admit the cold.
Hyunjae stared at the dark screen. The reflection of his own tired eyes.
Where would a man like Jaeheon go?
Who could he go to?
There was no one.
No family that close.
No lover.
No past.
He never dated. Never brought up names. Never showed interest.
If he loved someone, they were invisible.
So invisible that none of them could even begin to guess.
The only thing Jaeheon ever said about the woman he loved—years ago, in passing—was this:
"No one will ever guess her name."
At the time, it sounded like poetry.
Now, it felt like a lock they would never break.
Hyunjae closed the lyric book and leaned back.
No tears.
No panic.
Just a quiet resignation.
Wherever he was…
He hoped Jaeheon was breathing.