Jihyun does not technically live at school. This is a detail that's more or less negligible, the sound of Jumin's car horn beeping outside to remind Jihyun that it is exactly 4:57 a.m., and that once again he's taken too much precious time spreading butter over the pain de campagne his parents seem to always have in the house even when they're out travelling, moved too slowly pulling uniform-standard socks over his feet as the sun rose outside his window.
"I'm sorry I'm late," he says, crashing into the back seat, and Jumin says, "Sometimes I think if we didn't pick you up each morning, you'd never come to school at all."
"I would come," Jihyun insists, faux offense mocking itself across his features. "I'd simply be…"
"Late," Jumin fills in, rolling his eyes. "You'd show up for your photography class, then get lost in the hallways and fail to attend anything else."
"The art room is easier to locate than our classes," Jihyun says, but then Jumin raises his eyebrows at him and Jihyun is left with no choice but to look away. "… I concede."
"Heh," Jumin smirks, and Jihyun smiles privately to the streets moving ever quickly outside his window. There are some benefits to spending all his time at school: being surrounded by students is preferable to being alone at home. Jihyun's name is spoken often enough in the hallways, generally in relation to Jumin, but his classmates are eager enough to engage him in their conversations even if they don't invite him to coffee afterwards.
Besides that, though, there's the photography teacher, a woman of perhaps thirty years. Jihyun had initially enrolled in the course out of simple curiosity, but on the first day of classes, Ms. Jong gave him an appraising once-over and declared, "I like the look in your eye." She waited patiently when Jihyun's hands were shaking too much to handle the camera, this tool Rem had seen others use so many times in this life and the last, the tool she'd been mimicking use of with her phone since an afternoon in middle school. In retrospect, it seems silly, if Rem had ever asked for a camera her parents would surely have provided it, but the thought hadn't occurred to her— not like that.
She pointed the lens at her teacher, and Ms. Jong smiled when Jihyun closed his finger over the shutter. Since then, he's acquired a camera of his own, a semi-permanent fixture around his neck as he sits with Jumin in study halls and attempts to help others in his night classes with questions he barely understands himself.
For his birthday, Jumin gives him a corkboard, and at Jihyun's questioning tilt of the head Jumin says, "You don't have anywhere to put those photos you're always taking, and I know you won't think to buy one for yourself."
He doesn't mean it as an insult, and Jihyun doesn't take it as one. Dew on the branches of early April, close shots of Jumin— his hands, the place where his striped shirt collar meets his neck, and now the sun-bleached grass and flowers in an array of colours fully bloomed decorate the once-bare walls of a bedroom he hardly spends any time in.
Ms. Jong has perfect posture, wears her hair in a bun atop her head that never seems to fall out of place as she flits about the studio, nods approval, asks questions of students, and raises her hands to frame imaginary shots.
"I hear she has a tattoo," Ahn whispers to Jihyun, pencil sketches and eraser dust cluttering her workspace. "On her hip, that's what Sung-min told me. She hides it under the long shirts, but he saw it peeking out once, he said."
Decorating one's body with artwork; it's one of the most beautiful ventures Rem imagines a human can undertake, and when she lets the word 'tattoo' slip into conversation with her teacher late after class one day, Ms. Jong agrees.
"It may not look very professional, but I think all art is a form of expression," Ms. Jong says.
"What does photography express?" Jihyun asks, and Ms. Jong pauses for a moment, touches the pen she's stored behind her ear in thought.
"What do you think it expresses?" she asks, and Rem is much worse at answering questions than asking them. But lingering in her dreams is Misa's smile in the photos on her internet browser, the way the sun reflects on mountains in the early morning, the shimmering fabric of gowns in the photos Jumin gave Rem of his father's wedding because he didn't want them.
Jihyun's face is blemished, as are the faces of many others in his year. Not Jumin's though— Jumin has a dermatologist, and though he's offered Rem the opportunity to see his several times, she's not certain even with all her parents' money it's worth approaching them about. Light Yagami never had any, that Rem is aware, even though he was only just emerging into adulthood when she knew him, and neither did Misa— but Misa had an elaborate routine, strawberry-scented scrub that Rem can't appreciate properly until she's at the mall with Jumin one day, taking turns sniffing the different fragrances in the store.
"I suppose you like that one?" Jumin asks, and Jihyun pauses, candle still at his nose.
He closes his eyes and inhales again. "I don't know," he says. "I think I like it… but that may just be because it reminds me of someone."
Jumin reaches over and gently takes the candle from Rem's hand to smell it himself. "Who?" he asks, wrinkling his nose just a little before taking another whiff. "Hmm. This is all right."
"You don't know her," Jihyun says, and Jumin sets the candle back on the shelf.
"I forgot you know people I don't know," he says, and Jihyun laughs, maybe because Jumin has no idea, maybe because Jumin is right.
"I think my favourite is the one that's meant to smell like the sea," Rem says, and her friend nods his approval.
Jumin likes the scent of pomegranates, the look of vertical stripes, the sound of music that employs cellos— often regardless of genre. He reads avidly— nonfiction mostly, though he enjoys the occasional light fiction novel, and he can guess to Jihyun the probable ingredients of the marinade for any given steak after a single bite.
Rem looks at the photographs on her wall, the simple monochrome shirts and coats of her wardrobe, the carefully bundled and string-tied envelopes of every letter Jumin ever sent her. Ms. Jong's black heels click across the floor, Sayeon's phone charms dangle from the zipper on her backpack, her mother's paintings decorate the walls of every corridor in her home, and when Rem opens the door to Jumin's car to spend her entire day at school, he says, "You're late," and Ms. Jong says, "I like the look in your eye," and Min-a says, "Thanks for being such a good listener," and Seojun says, "How do you get your hair to wave that gently?," and when she looks at them, they look back at her.
"I have to go to a dinner tomorrow," Jumin sighs, dropping his books in a neat stack on the desk before their night class starts, and then takes the seat beside Jihyun. "And I can't decide on a stupid tie to wear."
Seojun stands straight from where he'd been leaning on Jihyun's desk. "I'll talk to you later I guess," he says. "Text me about it, though, maybe?"
"Did I interrupt something?" Jumin apologizes.
"Class is about to start anyway," Seojun shrugs, and Jihyun promises to send him the message, though Rem isn't sure explaining that she combs her fingers through her hair until it arranges itself into something that looks deliberate will be much help to him.
"What kind of dinner is it?" she asks Jumin, and Jumin presses his fingers to his eyelids.
"I'm meeting with a business partner of my father's, I believe," he says. Jumin doesn't technically work for C&R International yet, but this is a regular occurrence. He describes his father's insistence on involving him with the business before he's graduated high school as "being offered opportunities." Rem has had enough with opportunists, but Jumin's relationship with his father isn't for her to question.
"Try green this time," she suggests, and Jumin pauses for a moment.
"Which one?"
"The one that alternates with silver," she says. "It'll look nice with your eyes."
"All my ties look nice on me," Jumin tells her, but agrees to take her advice as the lesson starts.
Ms. Jong adjusts Jihyun's hands with hers to suggest better angles, apologizes when she finds him alone in the darkroom, though she couldn't possibly have ruined his photo with the sliver of light she let in before quickly shutting the door. She leans back in her seat and waits as Rem tries to gather her thoughts, gesticulating with her arms to try to describe the images in her head that she can't draw or speak, only capture on camera. Ms. Jong nods, and Jihyun's exhales cleanse through his system.
"I'm thinking of dying my hair," he tells Ms. Jong one day.
"Oh?" she asks, and Jihyun pauses a moment, then nods. Rem's hair— the closest to hair she could get, once— was pink, and ugly, and as Rem lies awake in Jihyun's bed at an hour she knows is going to make her late on Jumin again in the morning, she thinks it was one of her favourite things about her old appearance.
"It's not expressly forbidden in the regulations for this school," he explains, and Ms. Jong smiles.
"They might make it so if you dye it, you know."
Jihyun shrugs, but that doesn't relieve the feeling that something is weighing on his shoulders.
"Dye it," Ms. Jong tells him.
Perhaps he should've brought Jumin with him, pushing open the door to a small hairdressing shop in the mall. The people in the pictures on the window smile less convincingly than Misa used to, or else tilt their chins away from the camera, eyes hooded and lips pursed in a grimace. The Internet was some help in recommending this place as somewhere she could access using public transport, but the advice she found on bleaching and dying hair were all things she already knew from watching Misa turn her hair blonde.
The first thing to hit Jihyun is the smell, soapy and fresh, hairdressers moving around carrying scissors like the teachers in Kindergarten always said not to. The clients are of all ages, relaxing in dryer chairs and describing their desired cuts. The customer closest to the door looks around sixty years old with a magazine grasped in her wrinkled, manicured hands.
"Can I help you?"
The man behind the counter dries his hands and then folds the towel into a perfect square, laying it down next to a computer mouse without taking his sharp, green eyes off Jihyun the entire time. Jihyun can see the faintest hint of brown behind the contact lenses, exactly like Misa's were.
"I was hoping to bleach and dye my hair," Jihyun tells him, and the man types something into his computer.
"Do you have an appointment?"
"Yes," Jihyun says. "I was told Hae-il would be available?"
The man smiles. "That's me." His hair is short, sleek, a silver that absorbs the lights of the shop instead of reflecting them. He asks Jihyun a few more questions, and Jihyun realizes he forgot to choose a colour to dye his hair to. Hae-il tells Jihyun it'd be better to bleach it after he's chosen a colour so they know how light to go with it, but he's already here and doesn't want to wait anymore.
"Well, if you want it really light, you'll have a few days to decide, I suppose," Hae-il says, leading Jihyun to a chair positioned in front of a mirror. Jihyun squints for a moment under the harsh lights. "I can make it any colour you want, probably."
Jihyun believes him. The shop's website lists that Hae-il's work has been featured in many magazines throughout the years since starting as a stylist, and Jihyun doubts even Misa would've been able to afford him without some great effort. Hae-il nods approvingly when Jihyun tells him his budget, and while it's not a habit of his to make extravagant purchases, this feels important somehow. Hae-il places a booklet of colours in Jihyun's hands to flip through while he does his hair.
Hae-il doesn't talk much when he's working, his eyes focused and intent, cutting strands of hair away with a precision that reminds Rem of Jumin. Occasionally he catches Jihyun staring at his hands in the mirror and gives him a small smile that makes Jihyun's cheeks go red, much more red than Jihyun would ever give them permission to.
"Your hair is really nice," Hae-il comments. "Thick, healthy."
The bleach feels strange against his scalp, not really stinging but not exactly pleasant either, and Hae-il is impressed with how light Jihyun's hair goes once they've washed it out and blow-dried it.
"Your hair is pretty dark, so I thought we might need two or three sessions, but I actually think depending on the colour we should be able to put it on today," Hae-il says. "Or, well… I can, anyway."
His confident grin makes Jihyun laugh, running a finger through his now-yellow hair in awe. His reflection looks like a different person, his skin less pale, his blush deeper.
… Great.
"Have you decided on a colour?"
"Um."
His finger is on the page in the booklet with the different shades of pink listed, but now that he's being asked to make a decision, he's not so sure. He glances at Hae-il, who's rolled a chair over to sit beside him. The other man's back is straight, nails painted plum.
"I feel something toward the colour, I guess," Jihyun tells him, tracing his finger over the page. "Like it was important to me once, in another life."
Hae-il watches him carefully. "And what about this life?"
Jihyun sucks in a breath, and Hae-il stands. "Well, no rush."
Jihyun's already been here for hours. Six hours, to be precise, though it doesn't feel nearly that long. Time in the human world never feels very long, though.
He picks up his phone. Maybe he should ask Jumin— no, he doesn't want Jumin to know he's doing this, and Jumin's even worse than Jihyun is at making colour-related decisions, anyway. He looks up at his reflection.
His eyes are still his most striking feature, their blue the most colourful part of his face at the moment. As a shinigami, her eyes were yellow, like caution tape, or a more highly saturated version of what her hair looks like right now. The blue is pale, almost green, like the sea-scented candle beside her bed, the one she'd chosen to take home after almost three entire minutes of sniffing the one that reminded her so much of Misa.
Her chest squeezes and she looks down again, absently flipping through the pinks back into the purples, and then to blue.
Jihyun raises his head and signals for Hae-il to return.