Hospital

“He will never see it. There’s no point.” Yellow paints splatter on Hongbin’s jeans, the tiled floor, and the completed flower mural in Seonkwang’s room.

Hongbin clasps Seongi’s small, trembling hand. He stooped down to the child’s height. He has nothing better to tell her other than her brother will appreciate the artwork from above.

Seongi’s eyes are blood red, though no tears come. Her painted fingers rub against the painting, smudging the first layer of the flower. “I really want him to see it. Why didn’t you paint it faster?” She screams at Hongbin.

Hongbin would tell her “I’m sorry for your loss”; he withholds those words too. He has nothing to be sorry for. Seonkwang was dying. His end did not surprise Hongbin one bit. It didn’t surprise Seongi either. But she has to grieve. He brushes her bangs out of her eyes. She is a pretty little thing that is beaten by the unfairness of her life. Why did it have to be her little brother? Why not the others? Why me witnessing her pain?

“How come you never visited my brother?” Seongi asks.

“I did once.”

“You always watched him from the outside. How can you draw him properly if you never got close?”

I don’t want to get close to him. Dying things are not pretty. They are horrible.

Hongbin doesn’t tell her that either.  “I have my imagination.”

Seongi scoffs. “That’s not the real thing.”

“How long are you going to be depressed?” he asks.

Soengi scorns, reprimanding him for asking a stupid question. “Forever.”

Forever is an awfully long time for a pretty little thing.

“How long are you going to draw him?”

“Forever.”

Hongbin glares at Seongi. They are still at the hospital. They still sit side-by-side at the foot of the wall after one week past. Today, Hongbin has started on a fresh new wall.

His attention is drawn away from the wall, however. He looks down on her chibi drawings. Her brother and she race across a simple-looking flower field. Cartoon butterflies and bees encircle the siblings. The brother is no longer on a wheelchair. They are happy.

“Can you draw me a hamster? I don’t know how to draw animals.”

Hongbin takes the pencil and sketchpad from her. He draws a few close-knitted circles. “There you go, sweetie.”

Seongi gags. “You’re an artist?”

“It matches with your drawing.”

Seongi slams her sketch against Hongbin’s arm. “You .”

“You bet he does.”

Hongbin looks mortified when Leo strides in.

“So you’ve been hanging out here?” Leo raises an eyebrow at Seongi. “I’m Leo,” he tells her.

“I’m Bang Seongi.” She lifts the corners of her skirt and dips a curtsy.

A fond smile blooms on Leo. It is a dazzling one that Hongbin never saw. “You grew up so fast. You were a baby last time I saw you. How old are you?”

“Ten. Who are you?”

“Minah’s old classmate. Now I’m her sunbae at work.”

Bang Minah. Her name tastes foul on Hongbin’s tongue when it came out of Leo’s mouth.

“What are you going to draw on the wall?” Leo asks Hongbin.

“My brother riding a horse,” answers Seongi. “He never got to learn how to ride but he really loves white ponies.”

“We’re not drawing your brother,” says Hongbin flatly.

Seongi curls her fists. “We are.”

Hongbin bends his knees and clasps her shoulders. His gaze pierces straight through her eyes. “I have enough of your brother.”

Seongi screams. “Get out.” She screeches and punches his shoulders. “How dare you.” She screams and screams and screams, until Leo drags him out of her sight.

“Are you crazy?” Leo asks once they are outside of the room. “She just lost her brother.”

Something wet sticks on Hongbin’s cheeks. He doesn’t moan. He doesn’t sob. He doesn’t look at Leo either. He looks at Taekwoon who was playing basketball. Taekwoon who was drinking bean-paste soup. Taekwoon who was just standing. Only the ghosts of him and Taekwoon playing video games in the living room lingers. The smell of their burned eggs teases his nostrils. Their whispered secrets echo in the stretched corridors.  The last page of Hongbin's sketchbook was a picture of Taekwoon dozing off to dreamland.

All of that feel so real to Hongbin.

“Hongbin, are you listening to me?”

Hongbin finally looks at Leo. His broad palm creeps onto his cheek. 

“Leo, you are so unreal.”

 

Jellyfish Entertainment

Hongbin. Pick up the phone, Lee Hongbin.

When N does hear his voice again, it was a voice message: “I’m at the Inner Chamber. You’re too beautiful to find my place.”

N throws his phone down on the long table. His hands grab onto his hair, letting out a silent scream inwardly.

What kind of game are you playing now, Lee Hongbin?

We are suppose to visit the cafe trending on Naver. An contemporary art gallery-slash-cappuccino goodness. We are going to talk about all the artwork you can buy on Ravi’s budget once he becomes the art director of Lost Land.

N picks up his phone again. He dials a new number. He’s not going to ask how he is with Ken. “Hey, Ravi. I need you.”

N disappeared from Hongbin once. He is not about to repeat the tiresome history of cat-and-mouse.

The Thirty-Sixth Floor

Hongbin twirls the wine in his glass. He peers over the swirls before taking a small seep. He places it back down next to his plate of fully done steak. Looks like Ravi remember what Hongbin told him once: bloody meat is so not romantic. Hongbin’s smile is faint like the aftertaste of a vanila ice cream. Hongbin lifts his glass to the air, tipping it towards his guest across the long table. “Cheer. To our friendship.” Hongbin finishes his glass.

Ravi leaves his glass untouched. He probably thinks that this set up is a joke, but Hongbin is the host. He would trap is guest on the thirty-first floor in the banquet hall with the silhouette of Seoul beneath their feet as he wishes. Only three candles that shapes like devil’s daggers light up the dim room. The white wax drips on the black table cloth, creating a pattern of a split heart. “How’s the steak?” asks Hongbin.

Ravi still doesn’t say anything. In Hongbin’s mind, Ravi is done speaking to him. He was a discarded toy tossed in a dumpster anyway. The doll actually has a soul and crawls back to him. Pathetic.

Hongbin gets up from his throne. His silky kimono drags flutters around his heels. The fluorescent light from the city lights up his bare torso and traces the dibs in between his abs’ lines. Hongbin places his elbows on Ravi’s chair. His hands cups Ravi’s chin from behind. “I thought you weren’t that important to me. I didn’t know that you were grounding me to what I had. I didn’t know that I was happy with you. I wanted something else so badly. I wanted the perfect man.” Hongbin forces his index finger into Ravi’s lips, prying his teeth open. He picks up a glass of wine and spills it all over his pearl teeth, pink lips, white suit, streams of wine like bloody river flowing through their veins. Hongbin walks away.

He faces a painting on the wall. A boy entrapped in the frame is buried in letters and books. “I thought I didn’t care if I lose you, but I did. I wasn’t a bad guy. You thought you loved me too.” Hongbin walks up to Ravi. “All you want is a perfect story under your control. And I want the most beautiful, flawless world for myself too.

“We are the same person, Wonshikkie. Isn’t it scary?”

D-Day

Ken hyung is withering in front of Hyuk’s eyes.

Ken wrinkles his salmon pinkish dress shirt as he paces back and forth outside of his apartment. Hyuk picked that outfit for him. Ken grinned ear-to-ear. When Hyuk asked him why he was smiling so much, Ken told him that Ravi bought it for him. Before Hyuk can chuck it back to the closet, Ken intercepted it from his hand. The wind brushes through Ken’s hair. The hair that Hyuk carefully gelled and constructed is coming undone. They are still waiting for Ken’s prince that will never show up.

Hyuk grips on Ken’s wrist. He looks back at him. He drags him to the roadside. Ken lags behind him. Hyuk leads him through the cold. He expects him to sticks at one spot, waiting for his pumpkin carriage to appear before twelve. Hyuk hails a cab. He opens the door and pushes Ken in. He recites the grandma’s address perfectly to the driver. His hand locks tight around his wrist.

Ken is about to tell Hyuk something, he has a feeling that his hyung is going to tell him off. But a message tone interrupts whatever he’s going to say. He checks his message, before resigning into his seat. “Ravi is looking for Hongbin right now, with N.” Is that a sigh of defeat over a single syllable? “I guess it’s only you and me.”

Hyuk tries a lame joke or two to get him to smile. Forget about that message. Forget about what that jerk had to say. Forget about Ravi. Ken doesn’t smile. So Hyuk smiles brighter to light up both of them.

Whoever on Ken’s arm does not mean anything to him, all he has to do is walk through the little kids and their parents all crowd in the peeling and spacious living room. They ought to be hugging their nephew or cousin or grandson, whoever Ken suppose to be to them. But nobody dares to go near him because of the man on his arm. Their gazes linger on Ken longer than he remembers they would.

Hyuk, on the other hand, was smiling on the ride here, now his expression is closed against the world. He did make eye contact with the first person he saw on the way coming in. The person was smiling at him, but his eyes weren’t. He was chatting to Hyuk about the weather, asked about their works. His eyes looked back and forth between Hyuk and Ken. Hyuk gripped his arm tighter around Ken. Ken laid his hand on top of his. Immediately, the cousin said he needed to find the cat and walked away. Ken burst in laughs, making Hyuk giggled.

There’s no cat in this house, Ken told him.

Then they are serious again. The hard gazes would not leave their sides. Ken whispers comforting words, telling Hyuk that it will get better after he met his grandma. Everything will be better after going through Hell.

Now Hyuk has a taste of what Ken feels, he will run away. “Hyukkie,” Ken says next to his ear. He catches his aunt’s sneer out of the corner of his eyes, and he glares back. “Hyukkie, wait for me here. I will say hi to my grandma for a few minutes, and we’ll leave right away.”

Hyuk looks down at the gift wrapped in red paper in his own hand; Ken can’t recall giving it to him. “You and Ravi hyung bought this?”

Ken nods.

“You guys should give it to her.”

Ken puts out his hand for the gift. Hyuk doesn’t let go of it immediately.

His hand covers Hyuk’s feathery crown. “You can give it to her yourself. She’ll like a good kid like you.”

The first real smile of the whole treacherous night surfaces. It places a collar on Ken’s big black dog that makes his every step heavy. Ken opens his palm. Hyuk’s big hand narrowly fits in Ken’s willowy fingers. They march past the same people who feel less hostiles. They march upstairs. When Ken was young, he walked up the stairs with his head held high next to Hongbin to meet his mother---a scar that Hongbin wanted to hide. But he’s not Hongbin. Today with Hyuk, he won’t hide.

A/N: A lot of things have been happening lately. It's a shame if the Hongbin's storyline went a bit abstract and confusing for you. Please tell me how to make it clearer. 

Also,Hyuken or Kenvi? :D

If you are enjoying the story, please comment, upvote, and sub. :) 

Hope you guys/gals have nice summer days to relax. Don't work yourself too hard!

-suzyelf