Y así pasan los días,
de lunes a viernes
Como las golondrinas
del poema de Bécquer.
De estación a estación,
enfrente tú y yo,
va y viene el silencio.

And thus pass the days,
from Monday to Friday.
Like the swallows 
from the poem by Bécquer.
From station to station,
between you and me,
the silence comes and goes.

Jueves - La Oreja de Van Gogh.

Kyungsoo always takes the same train.

From Monday to Friday, after his dancing lessons finish, he goes out of the building and makes his way to the nearest station. He actually doesn’t mind, routine. Knowing the train will leave at 9:05pm that day and the other and the other one, it only makes him feel like some things at least are safe, secure.

He always goes at the Starbucks near the entrance and buys a Frappuccino. Medium, please. Even if it’s Winter, he takes it firmly, and the numbness that invades his hands after a few seconds makes him feel alive somehow.

He’ll buy the ticket, and he’ll enter the station.

The train is always empty, so he can choose where to sit. A place where he can look out the window will be his usual choice.

And then he will hum songs and think about life and how he wants another beverage so badly.

There will always be a homeless man with a dog, and they share smiles when their gazes connect. Then he will close his eyes and wonder why, out of all the people in the world, he’s there in that place and that train will always make the same route.

He doesn’t mind routine, but he thinks it’s the most unstable thing it could ever exist.

Kyungsoo always takes the same train but it’s never the same train.

If that makes sense.

He’s in a hurry because Chanyeol is a and entertained him because ‘only Kyungsoo will appreciate seeing me how I make birds with paper’. He must admit the kid knew how to make them – and they were pretty cute – but that only made him run so he’d be able to catch the train. 9:05pm.

The station isn’t as empty as always, and a mother with her daughter and some drunken friends are filling the platform with their voices. He smiles to himself and takes the mobile out of his pocket, puts the earphones on and plays the first random song.

He goes to rest on a column, and waits.

And as the train arrives, he’s already choosing the same door as always and waiting for his 30 minutes ride. He sits in the same place – he likes to call it his place - but the homeless man is not there. The woman and her daughter slowly enter the same wagon and sit next to him, making Kyungsoo a little mad because now he can’t listen to music properly and get lost in his own thoughts.

And that’s when he notices that someone’s seated in front of him, with his eyes closed and earphones on. He has black hair and full lips, and looks like a ghost being in a place like this.

Kyungsoo finds it strange he hasn’t noticed his presence before, but smiles and just puts his thoughts aside.

He closes his eyes and when he wakes up he’s already at his stop.

The boy is not there.

Kyungsoo thinks the homeless man might have found a new place to sleep, because he’s not seen him on the train for weeks now. He somehow misses the dog, because he always wanted to have one and his mother wouldn’t let him. ‘We have enough with you’, she would say. Kyungsoo would always stick out his tongue and smile.

He’s sitting at the same place thinking how boring his life is, when the doors are closing and someone gets into the wagon out of breath. With the hands on his knees, the boy takes out his earphones and slowly lifts up his gaze, looking at Kyungsoo. And only then he realizes it’s the same guy as the other day.

Routine starts to make its way again.

The boy smiles as in saying I know I look sort of ridiculous now and Kyungsoo smiles back as in don’t worry.

The boy just sits and puts on his earphones again before Kyungsoo could say anything.

Kyungsoo is doing a Sudoku but there’s just one line that he still can’t get. He bites the pen nervously, making soft noises out of frustration. The boy next to him giggles, and Kyungsoo just hates the days he takes the same train as him because they never talked but knowing he’s there just – well, he just hates it.

“I think you just have to put a 5 here, a 7 here and it’ll be done”, the boy stretches his arm and points at the places in Kyungsoo’s paper. Then everything falls into place and the Sudoku is done.

“Thanks”, he mutters.

And the boy just smiles, pearls in his mouth, and slowly says, “My name is Jongin.”

And Jongin then starts taking the same train.

Always.

One Thursday Kyungsoo is monitoring himself, seeing a video of himself dancing while he’s on the train on his way home. Jongin is sitting in front of him, doing his homework, but slowly puts it back inside of his bag and sits next to Kyungsoo.

“Is this you? Do you dance?”, his face is surprised, forming an ‘o’ with his mouth. Kyungsoo thinks it looks kind of cute.

“I actually take this train after my dancing lessons, because it’s too late for my mom to pick me up.”

And then Jongin smiles more than usual and it even creeps him out. Takes out his mobile, and says, “I dance too.”

And the thought that Jongin, the perfect boy that dances perfectly and with such feelings in his moves, is right next to him – makes him hate the world a little bit more.

Even though, he smiles and watches his sort of train-friend dance, and wonders why he’s never at home but feels like he is when he’s with Jongin.

He is wearing a colorful jacket because the cold is so severe these days, and gets closer to Kyungsoo because ‘humans are warm when they’re alive’. He doesn’t question him, and just lets him rest his head on his shoulder, looking at their reflection on the train’s window.

They look like a married couple, and Kyungsoo just shakes his head.

When they’re still midway from Jongin’s stop, he feels how his hand is slowly covered by another one. Jongin interwines their fingers and Kyungsoo swears he sees him smile, a little bit.

He gets a weird feeling in his stomach, but just takes them firmly.

“I love you”, the words come out of Jongin’s mouth as if nothing could go wrong, and locks his gaze with Kyungsoo’s.

He doesn’t know how to answer so he just stutters and lets out strange sounds and moves weirdly his hands and ends up looking at his knees in embarrassment.

Jongin starts laughing and Kyungsoo soon ends up doing it as well, falling silent slowly while they’re looking at each other and their gazes are growing tense.

“I love you too.”

Jongin never gets into that train again.

It’s been two years and Kyungsoo still gets into the same train. He doesn’t believe in routine now, because when routine breaks it’s never the same thing again.

He now just tries to forget about the news he keeps into his closet, about a guy that died stabbed by a homeless man while he got out of the train station. He tries to forget the smile he once had in his face and how someone was willing to share his happiness with him. He tries to forget how every time he dances, another boy would come up in his mind and dance with him. 

The third year, Kyungsoo stops going to dancing lessons.

The train from 9:05pm is always empty.

PD: Soo this is it. I got inspired by this song and here you can see the english subtitles.