[2012]

There is this fabric softener smell that Jiwon’s brain has associated with Hanbin, and somehow it reminds him of his mother’s pile of fresh laundry.

“Good afternoon to you, Doc,”

And Jiwon hears a whine of protest when Hanbin proceeds to sit on the chair next to him. He wears button up shirt underneath a grey sweater and his hair is styled neatly today. It’s a good hairstyle on Hanbin because Jiwon thinks Hanbin’s forehead looks nice.

“Don’t call me that,” he said while putting his laptop and cellphone on the table. The library is nearly empty in lunch hour, especially in Jiwon’s self-claimed private spot on one corner by the biography section. Nobody will shush them for having normal voice conversation. Sometimes he likes to write lyrics, or take a nap, or really study because at the end of the day he still has to pass the subjects.

“Why?”

Hanbin sighs when he unlocks his phone, paying little to no attention to Jiwon who sits with legs folded while scribbling on a disastrous looking small note. The usual Hanbin always looks tired after horrible morning classes, but he would be up and determined after fifteen minutes of nap he tries to fit between classes. Jiwon had figured the pattern since Hanbin started to join him sitting in the library at lunch hours, saying that it’s a great place to hide because it is a little bit secluded in the far back of all sections.

“I don’t know…, it reminds me of all these responsibilities. Feels like a burden, I don’t know.”

Jiwon nods in acknowledgement, mentally storing the information to things that he shouldn’t do. Hanbin types on his phone a little too aggressively, Jiwon noticed. He also looks more nervous than tired, and Jiwon finds it unusual that he doesn’t go straight to his nappy session once he arrived. Jiwon figures maybe there’s something bothering Hanbin when he taps his phone so seriously, and then he slowly lifts his left hand only to gnaw on the cuticles of his little finger.  

He looks more and more nervous as time passes, and Jiwon can see him switching finger to gnaw on, as the little finger had bled a little.

“Don’t do that,” Jiwon reached to Hanbin’s hand and tries to stop him from literally chewing on his fingers, “is there something wrong?” he then asked, and Hanbin nods without looking at him.

“Yea, my father’s here.”

Jiwon always has that question for months now.

“Your father?”

Then Hanbin’s phone rings and he picks it up so hurriedly. His expression changes so suddenly and Jiwon swears he can see Hanbin’s face gets even paler.

It was such a short phone call that Hanbin only says yes a few times, and chew on his bottom lip for the rest of it. He hangs up after only like a minute.

From the look of it, Jiwon can take a conclusion that Hanbin isn’t really happy of his father being at the university. But the next question is, what is his father doing here? It’s not like Hanbin has something to be afraid of if it comes to his academic performance. Yes, he messes up here and there but as far as Jiwon knows Hanbin is still one of the smartest in his year.

Without paying much attention to Jiwon and his curious look, Hanbin dials a number and put the phone to his ear again.

“Is he still in your class?”

Jiwon cannot help but to observe how Hanbin look neater than he usually is, but somehow messier. Like his mind is all over the places and he cannot seem to really pay attention to his surroundings. He looks distracted and worried, and if Jiwon links this to his father being in the university, more questions are coming.

Hanbin takes his glasses off and massages the bridge of his nose with his free hand.

“Did he ask you anything about me?”

And Hanbin hangs up after a minute, looking a little bit relieved now that he slumped his upper body on the table, letting out a really heavy sigh. He uses his left hand as pillow, facing Jiwon who is still watching his every move. But Hanbin closes his eyes then, doesn’t really pay attention to the curious look Jiwon had been throwing at him since he arrived.

“So you’re just not gonna tell me why you’re so tense like this?”

“Ah… sorry. My father was here. Kinda ed up with my mood and everything.” Hanbin doesn’t even bother to open his eyes.

“Why is your father here and why are you so tense? It’s even worse than ten minutes before verbal test.”

“He’s the guest lecturer, and now about all first and second year med students are in the hall for his lesson.”

“Then the hell you doing here?”

Hanbin breathes deeply and then exhale. His speech has gotten a little bit slurred, means that he’s minutes away from sleeping.

“Running away.”

“I don’t get it,” Jiwon said, “I mean, he’s your father, what’s the worst can happen?”

Hanbin opens his eyes and immediately rises up and face Jiwon, he clearly looks a little bit annoyed by the question. His eyes get narrow when he’s looking at something that pisses him off—just like how he looks at people who tug too harshly on their dog’s lash.

“He can see me.”

The answer is firm, and Hanbin looks like he’s going to get mad if Jiwon keeps bugging him.

Jiwon is a curious person by nature, and he has tendency to ask a lot of questions to satisfy his curiosity. There are a lot of things he wants to know about Hanbin; how his mind works, how he sees the world, how he handles his fears, how he sleeps so soundly and what he dreams about. But out of all things he wants to know, the only thing that keeps bugging him is why he cried at that night of their first meeting. The sadness was so real and the tears he shed seeped through Jiwon’s chilly little heart.

“Okay, geez, I will not ask any more questions if you’re gonna be this scary about it.”

Jiwon comes back to his disastrous notebook to avoid Hanbin’s eyes, scribbling things that only himself can actually read. He then hears a groan from the boy beside him followed by a thud, the sound of Hanbin slamming his forehead not so lightly on the table.

The thing about Jiwon is he sympathize a lot about people, but he has no clue of how to actually show it, let alone to do something to help. The next thing he knows is his hand already on Hanbin’s nape, caressing it lightly aiming to transfer some positive energy, or just to let the latter knows that he actually sympathizes, not only curious.

Jiwon swears he heard Hanbin’s little purr, but maybe it’s just his mind playing tricks on him as usual. He’s never one hundred percent awake so maybe it’s the hallucination from lack of sleep.

But Hanbin’s body does relaxes a little, how his shoulders hunch down even more as he exhales. Jiwon hopes it’s not weird, but Hanbin’s nape is so soft against his palm? Or it’s just his palm that is too rough?

“I’m sorry Jiwon, it’s just…,” Hanbin rises up again, adjusting his seat to face Jiwon but eyes locked on anything that is not Jiwon’s face, “listen, my father is an alumnus who helped build this faculty’s reputation back then. He’s a respected doctor and somehow now is in the health ministry. Almost all of the lecturers here were his friend, you know what that means, right? I ed up a lot and that will definitely reach his ears. He has all this reputation to maintain and an incapable son just won’t go well with the image, you get the picture now?”

Out of all the new information of Hanbin that he tried to store in his brain, Jiwon cannot believe that it’s how Hanbin really thinks of himself. All these stress and gloomy mood is because he thinks he’s ed up in some ways and he thinks that it’s his obligation to maintain his father’s reputation.

“You are not incapable, you’re one of the best in your year.”

“I ed up last semester and by this point everyone is talking about me behind my back that I’m here because of nepotism. I actually heard with my own two ears that people whisper about me, suspicious about my grades got marked up when I enter the university.”

“Well, but that’s not true, right?”

“I worked my off I got admitted to hospital twice in a month.”

Jiwon raised his left eyebrow in confusion and disbelief, “Damn, Bin… You really lived like this?”

“You see now where this came from, right? I cannot let people think like that about me, most importantly, I cannot let my father hear any of these ed up things about me from people.”

“Who cares what people say, you’re still better than they are.”

Hanbin groans and he runs his fingers through his hair, messing it up a little.

“My father does, big ing time!” Hanbin’s breath gets faster, “damn, you just cannot understand, can you?”

“Hey, I am just saying that—”

“Why did I even think you, out of all people, will understand this?” Hanbin collected his laptop and handphone, getting ready to leave, “You live without expectation, everything is easy for you.”

“Hey, hey, Bin, you know it’s not about that,”

Jiwon had grabbed Hanbin’s upper arm by then, demanding attention from the younger boy. Being the laid-back person he is, Jiwon never really feel the need to deal with angry people. Most of the time Jiwon will not really notice how people got angry at him, not if they don’t tell him in person. But right now, Hanbin’s anger feels like his responsibility somehow, maybe because it’s caused by his continuous questions. Maybe because he failed to understand how Hanbin feels. Or maybe just because Jiwon doesn’t want Hanbin to get angry at him, that make sense, right?

“I need to go.”

That sounds very cold on Jiwon’s ears.

“Come on, dude, Bin, look… I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t mean to upset you even more. Really.”

“Yea, I just… I need to be alone now.”

Jiwon loosen his grip a little, but when he feels Hanbin slipping away, he reaches out to him again.

“We are cool, though, right? I mean… You’re upset now, but we’re… we’re—”

There is a pause, and Jiwon can feel his stomach churns a little from the way Hanbin looks at him. His tired eyes still look sharp, and Jiwon hopes that it is not his hallucination when he sees those eyes soften a little.

“…yeah. We’re cool, Jiwon.”

Jiwon doesn’t even realized that he holds his breath, and when Hanbin flashes him a faint smile—veeery faint, he almost cannot see it—that’s when he can actually let out a loud exhale.

Jiwon almost doesn’t want to loosen his grip on Hanbin’s upper arm, but he needs to. Once Hanbin’s arm slipped away from his grip, the younger boy just goes away like that, without looking back at him.

And when Hanbin disappears, only then Jiwon thinks about how it’s totally unlike him to get worked up upon someone getting mad at him. But apparently Hanbin is a different case. It’s so weird that the softness of Hanbin’s nape lingers on his palm. Also the smell of fresh laundry, he smells… clean, and it reminds Jiwon of days where everything is good and nice. Jiwon doesn’t even know if that’s understandable, though. Hanbin is a mass of weird feelings and habits Jiwon doesn’t know he can—or should—feel.

.

.

.

“My head is gonna explode. Drown me in Han river or something.”

Jiwon hasn’t even said hello, yet Hanbin’s usual mumbling voice sounds really like an order instead of a request.

“Ask Yunhyeong. I can’t go to jail, I have dogs to put through college.”

There is a small chuckle, and Jiwon thinks it’s better than nothing at all.

“I’m on the bench outside your faculty building.”

“Don’t engage with anybody there. They dislike med students.”

“Oh, like we don’t hate yall too.”

Jiwon had shoved his belongings into his backpack and half running out of his empty class, actually risking his life by going down three stairs at once.

“Run faster you loser.”

Jiwon doesn’t even know why he’s running. It’s not like Hanbin will disappear if he just takes the stairs like a civilized human being. But it’s been a week since the last time Hanbin joined him in their library corner. Every day in that one-week Jiwon had thought about contacting Hanbin first, but it would seem too needy. He had thought about visiting his dormi