A cat gets hit by a car in the middle of the night. Jaebum doesn’t see a thing, but he hears the sharp screech of tires against the broken asphalt and the even sharper caterwauling of pain echoing into the night.

It startles him out of bed, disoriented and panicked. He pulls on a jacket and braces himself for the winter chill. He shines a flashlight from the balcony

He doesn’t find the cat that night and by morning the cries of pain have ceased. Jaebum checks the alleyway in the morning and sees nothing but a stretch of dark red dried and flaking on the pavement.

Jaebum never finds the cat’s body.

He never finds Jinyoung in that lifetime either. It’s useless to try and connect the points when he’ll never know anyways, but there are nights, the coldest ones when the heater won’t turn on, that Jaebum wakes up to the sound of a cat’s helpless mewling and his own shallow breaths.

And he can’t help but wonder.