The first day we met, we were in elementary school.  I saw you on the playground, long-limbed and skinny, chasing after some kid who had snatched your soccer ball.  Before he’d gotten very far, the kid with the ball under his arm tripped on one of his shoelaces and landed hard on his side.  There was a scream, then chaos, a teacher came running… I caught the ball.  You barely stopped running long enough to grab it from my hands.  You flashed a smile and ran off in the direction of home.  The next day, you found me at the same spot on the playground, and asked if I liked soccer.  It was only my favorite pastime.  Before long, we were running wild, one never without the other.   We were thin as rakes, but taller than all the kids our age.  They feared us and stayed well clear; we had no time for them.

We smuggled a bottle of soju and a pair of cigarettes into your house when we were twelve.  We didn't dare touch them with your dad around, but we got to it.  We felt tough and all grown up with the smokes on our lips.   You coughed up your lungs that first time, but we didn’t stop.

We were fourteen when your mother died.   A lot of went down that year.  She was thirty-six years old.  That day, the head-teacher called you out of class to her office… You came back and collected your things in tears.  I skipped school and followed you home.  We sat on the bus in silence; you sobbed; I put my arm around you.  I asked what happened; you wiped your tears on your sleeves and did not speak.  It hurt to see you so crushed, but I would not cry in front of you.  I figured I was being brave, for you… I held back the tears.  Later that night, I bawled.

I had no father; you had no mother.  We understood the loss, bore the ache, and did our best not to dwell on it.  When your father lived on soju, slept his days away and eventually lost his job, you told me I was the one true thing left you knew you could bet your life on.  I said I could do the same.  On those days when your dad was gone for a week at a time, leaving no food or money at home, we killed time at my house.  There was enough trouble to stir, a ton of comic books to inhale, and no shortage of idiots to beat up; homework was never on the agenda, much to mom’s dismay.  On one of those nights, you brought up the subject of your mother... you missed her like mad.  You said everything went to crap after she left.  You didn’t speak of her too often.  You said you couldn’t wait to break out on your own – get a place.. your own place, make some money somehow, no school and no ties to this town.  You asked if we were in it together.  We laid side by side in my little room and stared at the dark ceiling as if it were a starry constellation.  Without giving it a thought, I told you I loved you. 

When mom’s illness took a turn for the worse, you showed up at my house with a pot of seaweed soup.  Who knew you could make seaweed soup?  She rubbed your shoulder and beamed at the effort.  She sat down and ate a bowl of it, even though we all admitted it was too salty and needed a bit of garlic.  Back in those days, she called me your Shadow. What will you do when he gets a girlfriend, Park Heung-soo?  You follow him around like you’re his shadow, she would tease.  We didn’t have the time to care.

A year after the incident, I ran with a new crowd.  The guys were tougher, the cuts deeper and our patience thinner.  We had chips on our shoulders and were determined to do whatever we could to shake them off or cement them on, depending on who you asked.  My mind stayed a maze of rage, confusion, hunger, grief, of you..  I saw your face when I didn’t want to and heard a voice like yours when I craved oblivion..  Yet, you stayed scarce.   One moment, we were everything here and now, and the next, we were nothing but a cave of echoes.  I thought of the things I would say if I ever saw you again – they were too many, and each ran parallel to the other.  I thought of mom’s words… So much for being your shadow.

Not too long after that, I ran into one of the guys from our early days.  He told me what he’d heard… Seungri High.  I took a week to make up my mind.  Then I had to go, had to check it out.  After three days of hanging around there past school hours, I saw you… sitting on the steps… still skinny, still a head taller than most everyone else.  So this is where you ended up?  This is where you ran off to without a ing word..

My mind darts back and forth tonight.  The past sits heavy on my chest – I venture a peek within and drag up bits of us that once thrived far beyond a dream.  Which ones do you remember?  

Tonight, you stood before me and said I am the one thing you would give up... the one thing you hold most dear.  Is this a game you play?  How can it be?.. When we know the things we know and built these walls upon our very own backs. I saw your tears, heard the fracture in your voice, did all I could not to reach out to you.

Did you wipe the slate clean?  Do you still think of the old neighborhood?  Do you remember those blue-framed sunglasses you got me for my twelfth birthday?  Or the night I wiped the blood from your brow?  Or the bmx bike we thought we could build?  Did you know mom is now gone too?