For you, with love
Unspoken Words~~~~~
The first time you meet him, he is an awkward, gangly kid of fourteen, towering above you in a mess of beanpole limbs that had probably sprouted too quickly, shifting his weight from foot to foot. The teacher pairs you together for the Dragonboat project, and you cringe at the thought of working with a new student fresh from China, complete with the intense eyes, mismatched name and uncertainty of someone who doesn't really understand anything at all.
He turns to greet you, and you extend a hand. "Nice to meet you."
You conclude the exchange by handing him a paper with your address, a time and a date written on it. "To work on the project," you explain when he furrows his brows. "Don't be late."
It isn't a great start, but even the best stories begin with lines of miswritten words.
At exactly 3pm, he arrives at your house, as if he had been waiting outside until the minute hand ticked into place. He has brought a collection of school materials and sweets, offering them to you while nervously making some inane comment about the weather. You take pity on him. Instead of working on the project right away, the two of you begin conversing, sharing meaningless little details about yourselves.
You see the differences first. He likes dogs, and you like cats. He picks blue, while you choose red. He reaches for a purple lollipop just as you find a yellow one.
He doesn't have the mercurial charisma of other guys in the school, but when he diligently takes the papers and fold them evenly, matching edges and corners until the sheets are transformed into little boats, somehow it begins to matter less. For all his tallness and impossibly long bones, his hands are surprisingly dexterous. He patiently instructs you in the making of these little ships, but soon you have transcended a mundane school project to talking about unrelated topics. You learn that he has spent time in both Canada and China, and that he secretly likes it better over there. His favorite sport is basketball, because it's one where his height is an advantage. You share similar tastes in music, and movies, both agreeing that horror movies are overrated.
The hours melt away. By the time your boats and poster are finished, the sky has darkened into a gradient blue, with stars splattered against the fabric of the night.
"There is a dessert house nearby," he says, and you begin a weekly routine that doesn't fade away even after he does.
He isn't the best singer in the world, but neither are you. Between the two of you, you can barely carry a tune, always half a tone higher or lower than you should be, never in sync. Somehow, that doesn't stop you guys from taking advantage of the karaoke system in the little dessert house tucked away in some alley near the Skytrain station. Thankfully, you are the only customers in the store, and the manager just chuckles occasionally as your voices crack trying to match the soaring heights of JJ Lin's tenor.
Upon reflection, it wouldn't have been unbelievable to say that the combined cacophony of your voices probably scared away any other potential visitors that night.
You pair up with him frequently after that. The teacher doesn't complain; rather, she seems relieved that the kid who joined her class midway through the year has made his way out of her hair. Neither of you are particularly loud, but that's okay because you sit together during lunch, letting the ruckus swirl around you.
School and its members are less overwhelming when there is somebody to share in the tranquility of taciturnity.
He slides you a white paper boat made with an unused napkin, lips curled in a sly grin, as if the two of you are spies conspiring to overthrow some regime. You roll your eyes, but bring it home with you anyways, where it joins the first boat he made in a shoebox beneath your bed.
To be honest, most of the time you guys work together is spent pouring over movies and manga, so there are instances in which the assignment remains tucked away in your backpack until you are awoken by an relentless feeling of dread. You reach for your phone, dialing his number with speed that comes only from practice.
"Hello?" His voice is bleary. You can picture him propped up on one elbow, his hair sticking up in every direction.
"Our homework. We forgot to finish it." Or well, more accurately, you forgot to start it.
"Oh shi-" There is a bang as, most likely, he forgets that his height doesn't allow him to sit up fully due to the elevation of his loft bed compared to the unfortunately low ceilings that plague his house. "What do we do?"
In the past, you may have cared more, but this time all you do is laugh at the hopelessness of the situation and roll back into bed. "I'm going back to sleep," you say.
He is already snoring.
"Bubble tea does wonders to cheer people up," you say when you catch him slouched over, seething because no one on the basketball team would give him a chance even though he had been team captain in China.
He glances up, and two seconds later, takes your hand.
Perhaps in exchange, that night a little red paper boat shows up at your doorstep.
Over a homemade, but surprisingly edible meal, he informs you that in the very beginning, he hadn't known there was a difference between Point Grey and West Point Grey. "So there I was talking to some pretty girl wearing this uniform, complaining about my school, when she suddenly asks me which one I went to."
"What did you say?"
"West Point Grey of course."
You stare at him incredulously. "Dude, shouldn't you know the name of your own school?"
"Hey, it wasn't my fault. Everybody always talked about West Point Grey so I thought they were the same thing!"
"What happened?"
He buries his head in his arms. "It turned out that she was from West Point Grey. Ah...my life…"
It isn't meant to be funny, but you end up laughing at him anyways before handing him a cup of bubble tea when he shoots you a betrayed look. Really, only he could pull that off.
Slowly, like the emergence of the morning sun, he divulges bits and pieces of his life over mugs filled with a mixture of instant hot chocolate. How his father found a younger women. How they went bankrupt after he gambled everything away, and the girl took it all. How his father only visits to ask for more money and more time and more chances. He is filled with a righteous anger that tightens his grip on the smooth ceramic handle.
"I hate him," Kris admits.
You understand, but you say nothing, only listen to the soft stirrings of the wind outside.
Another red boat to add to your collection.
At home, everything is falling apart. When your parents ask you what to do (individually, because they never talk anymore), you throw out ideas like lifelines, willing any single one to grab ahold of solid ground.
You hang on, because that is all you know how to do.
It takes much longer before you trust him enough to tell him your own secrets, and even then, they are shared only when both of you are lying down, half-asleep on the floor with papers filled with diagrams and charts strewn all around you.
"I'm only fifteen," you mumble into your pillow. "Why do they ask me for the answers? How can I counsel a marriage if I haven't even fallen in love before?"
He understands, but he says nothing, and you are soothed by the rain pattering on the leaves outside.
The boat is blue this time.
You remember the night he approached you, tears crystallized on his eyelashes, and muttered, "I've had enough. I'm going to Korea to forget everything, to leave all of this behind."
Even me? You want to ask him, but you don't have the heart to say it aloud because you understand him better than anyone, and you aren't sure what to do with the weight of the responsibility that was pressed into your palm the first time it contacted his.
That's why, when he does end up at the airport, all his belongings stuffed into a single overweight suitcase, you can only smile and bid him farewell, telling him to take care and send you pictures of all the singers he meets. You don't tell him to take you with him because you can see the burdens he is struggling to remove, melted on him like a leather jacket in the summer, and the last thing you want is to be a part of it.
He says he'll stay in touch, but that he's changing his name. He says Li Jiaheng, Kevin Li, will not exist anymore, and neither will any traces of his father. He plans to adopt his mother's surname Wu, but he asks you to help him come up with a suitable name.
"I'm not the one who should decide that," you reply, because a name is a label that will stay with him for the rest of his life and not a peel-and-stick tag that can be ripped off so easily. He grins, shrugs, and is lost in a crowd of travelers.
Later that afternoon, when you are sitting by yourself at the Starbucks conveniently attached to the airport with the two pieces of something that has cracked down the middle, you realize that what you should have said is, "I'll miss you."
You pull out the shoebox sometimes, blowing the layer of dust away. Each time the lid is pried open, it is as if you are unwrapping some present at Christmas, even if the contents never change anymore. A stack of paper boats; nothing else.
Sometimes, you imagine that they can be unfolded to reveal secret messages, scrawled in his chicken scratch writing, but you know if you did, they would never return to their current state. That's why you only count them, count eleven plus four plus two, and stow them away once more.
When your mother lashes out at you, demanding that you leave the house because all she wants is a happy family, a façade of a fantasy, and all you have ever done is tear her away from that, you run. You run all the way to his house, lungs collapsing, legs numb. You bang on his door, over and over again.
There is nobody home, not there, and not in yours either.
He calls you often. You watch your phone ring.
It is selfish and you know it, but you can't help yourself because he is the one who chose to leave, and he is the one who was supposed to be there for you, unmovable, a rock against the tempest winds. You wish you could throw a tantrum like a child, pound your fists against his chest, but explosive arguments and a broken family have taught you nothing else if not how to stay quiet.
The ringing stops as it transitions into your answering machine. You ignore that too.
You stay up late to watch the release of their first song, huddled in your blankets with a mug of tea and two biscuits. Suddenly, his face appears, and you reel back in shock. His hair is blond; each step he takes is b with confidence; every expression is fierce and deliberate. You realize that the man you see is Kris, Wu Yifan, leader of EXO M and every bit the polished idol he is meant to be. On stage he has been replaced by a shell, an actor who is playing the role of some fabricated God.
This is what he wanted, you tell yourself. This is what will make him happy.
You aren't convinced, and for an inexplible reason, you don't think that smirking face on the screen is either.
They win an award for the first time. All of the EXO members gather at the front of the stage, bowing, breathing out inaudible sighs of gratitude. Kris is there too, of course, clapping and nodding.
You wonder what Kris told the other members, such that they can stand as a unified group before the cheering fangirls and the cameras and the thousands of malicious eyes hidden behind a veil of anonymity. He has never wanted to be a singer, or a dancer, or an idol. What drew him into the industry was not the promise of fame, but of falsities, of a mask he could adorn.
The credits begin rolling, and soon you are staring at nothing but a black square with a single replay button. How ironic it is that in trying to run away, Kris has escaped into a life that can be looped over and over again, and with only a single click.
Threats of suicide are pressed against your throat, holding you hostage in a house that is crumbling away. You are afraid to move. Internally, you want to ask her why, why, why is she doing this to you, because doesn't she know that the façade is fading away, disintegrating before your eyes? Why can't she let go of something that was never there to begin with? But inside you know where the answers lie, because at the end of the day, everything is about money anyways.
She screams at you to tell your father he can go die because she will never stop, never leave. Because she deserves everything she has and she will never let it go.
A human soul can only blacken so much, you think, yet she has proven you wrong every time. Greed is boundless; it cannot be satisfied.
There is something vibrating on your desk, but you can't bring yourself to pick it up.
Kris is a smooth-talker, cool and collected in his interviews. He shows off his language skills, displays his model-like proportions in a catwalk, and captures the attention of girls everywhere. While his dancing is subpar, he makes up for it with his transient smiles that vanish if you look away too long. The other members adore him; he is the big brother who leads them by example.
He is picking up the pieces and making something of them, while you are stuck deep at the bottom of a well. Somehow, this thought is comforting. At least one of you will make it out alive, you think.
It is long past midnight as you sit at your desk with a chest that is empty and throbbing all at the same time. You don't know what to do and you just want to scream or vanish or maybe both. Fingers that have pointed blame at you entangle themselves in your shuddering breaths, clawing down your throat. There aren't any answers; all you have are the hyaline shards of what was once a family pressing into your arms until there is red everywhere. Blood chases away ghosts, someone once told you, but the real demon is the one who once held you in her arms, so the imaginary rivers of red do nothing to protect you.
You hear his voice, and think it is just another illusion until it pierces through the miasma of guilt and grief and greyed images fluttering to the ground. "It's okay," he says, without hesitation. "It's okay, everything will be okay."
You cradle the receiver in your arms as if it is a child, and sob soundlessly, all while he repeats it over and over again until you lapse into a state of nothingness, letting the sleep overtake you.
The scariest thing, you tell him when you work up the courage to call him again a week later, is that sometimes you aren't sure if you want to wake up.
You start looking up their videos, watching the overly exaggerated variety shows with a tepid amusement. In the half-scripted, half-intentional scenes, you search, taking in every gesture, because you think he might still be there.
There is a moment as Kris picks up a piece of fried chicken he had rejected only minutes earlier, and you see the faint, shimmery outlines of the boy you remember. Like with his name, Kris hasn't been able to transform himself completely.
Just for that, you keep searching.
The two of you keep in touch after that incident. Conversations flow, with him describing the mischief and antics that seem to occur with clocklike regularity in EXO. He doesn't ask you what happened so you don't have to explain anything; instead, he asks you if you've chosen a university and what you want to do.
"Anywhere away from here", you answer casually. He pauses, then nods.
"That would be good for you. Go somewhere else and extend your wings."
"Normal people don't fly," you say. "I'm not a dragon you know." It takes him a minute to comprehend, but when he does, he flushes up to his ears.
"Wasn't my idea," he mutters, though the grin peeks through like a candle during an eclipse.
"How about the 'ulf'?"
At this, he groans. "Don't even ask."
At some point, he says, "Please don't watch our shows."
"Why?" You ask, curious.
"It isn't me. It isn't me at all."
This you know, but you nod anyways. "If you don't want me to, I won't. Just…"
Please be okay, you don't say.
"I want to go back to how things used to be before we grew up and everything just turned into a ty mess."
Me too.
His dad tracks him down, and approaches him for money, thinking that as an idol he must be earning a fortune. It isn't true, of course, and whatever money he does receive goes straight to his mother's bank account to pay for her rent.
He is beyond furious; you can imagine him slamming a fist against the wall, shoulders shaking, his breathing harsh against the phone. "It's ridiculous. ing bastard won't leave. Won't get out of my life."
You want to help him, but you are halfway around the world and sunk too deeply in your problems to go. That's why all you can do is tell him, "It's okay. Everything will be okay."
It's a lie but you say it anyways.
Mommy...why?
He tells you he needs you; even over the phone you can smell the alcohol on his breath. He says he has always depended on you. He says he misses you. He says he loves you.
You don't respond, and soon all you hear is the sound of your combined breaths spanning thousands of miles and footsteps. I need you too, you try to say, but nothing comes out except empty air. I need you too, but it doesn't work that way. The two of you are just like black holes waiting to be filled. Somewhere deep inside, you know that once two voids collide, they will consume everything until nothing is left.
That is why, when he whispers, "Do you think we can-" you snap the phone shut, as if severing the connection can prevent his question from lingering in your mind.
Perhaps it is genetics, or karma, or maybe some hearts are just made to be broken twice.
One of your old highschool classmates casually asks you for a date. You decline at first, but when he insists, you figure you have nothing to lose. It goes fairly well- the boy is sweet and easy to talk to- so you accept his invitation for a second date. And a third.
Secretly, part of you hates yourself for it.
Yet, you know it cannot be helped. You and hat man you see only through a computer screen are like two children on a merry-go-round, trapped in the circular motions, never able to reach each other. You have grown accustomed to watching him from behind, but what he needs most is somebody to reach out a hand to guide him forward.
You are not that person. You don't have the strength to save him.
Please be okay.
The next time you two talk, he asks you to come visit. He congratulates you on your boyfriend, a mutual friend and sends you his best wishes. There is a lull in the conversation, one you aren't quite sure how to fill.
Do you tell him how sometimes being together with somebody is the loneliest feeling in the world, because that somebody isn't him, and doesn't understand what it's like to sing without caring about strangers in a dessert house, and doesn't understand the significance of paper boats and doesn't understand you in the same way he always has?
Or do you simply say 'thank you', because you need to pull yourself up, like lifting your rain boots out of the mud, before you can move on?
I need you.
"I'll be there," you say instead.
He has grown taller, if that is possible, broadened. He is no longer that kid who would sneak to your house at night seeking comforting words or a listening ear. You look at him, really look, and you can see that while Kris is content, he isn't happy. Under layers of makeup, and the harshness of stage lights, through the distorted lenses of the camera and grainy screens of laptops, it isn't visible, but now you can trace the strain of fame in the weary lines on his face.
You wish you could reach up, and with a gentle touch erase it all, but you restrain yourself.
He doesn't move either.
Between you guys is a mountain of should-have-beens and could-have-beens, stacked one on top another like a pile of varicolored leaves. The silence is as vast as the Pacific Ocean that has stretched between you for the past five years, and neither of you know which words can breech that distance, what sentences to set sail.
Have you kept the faith that the other shore is waiting for you across the span of water? You aren't sure anymore. The beach you stand on today is not the same as five years ago, and the footprints to lead you back have already been erased. Life continued its journey, and so have you.
(Yet, a part of you has never moved on, has remained faithfully anchored by the image of a boy you couldn't give up.)
He presents you a sheet of paper, and just like before, you sit side by side, pressing the paper into a sequence of shapes that have somehow never vanished from your memories. The motions are imprinted in your muscles.
You have an idea, and dig out two pens from your purse. He accepts one, his fingers clenched in understanding.
The words come easily, dyeing the sides of the little boat in blue ink. You write everything down, everything you have ever wanted to say but couldn't, squeezing them in to each crevice until there is nowhere left for you to fill. Beside you, you know that he has done the same.
Wading into the water, boat cupped in your hands, you keep going until your knees are submerged. He joins you, and together, you place the boats into the water, releasing them. They float, both of them, bobbing up and downs with the waves. Two specks of white that move away, slowly, further than the eyes can see, and further still than that.
Only then are you able to pull up anchor, and start sailing forward once more towards the waiting horizon.
~End~
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