PRESENT
2^nd Of April, 2013

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Incheon International Airport. Local time is 12:15am and the temperature is 13°C.”

It’s weird to look out of the little oval window. To see the clear, blue sky of my home country after two long years away, knowing that soon I’d step on that warming asphalt again and I’d walk through the terminal and be back to start over again.

People around are taking their jackets and bags, ready to put them on while stuffing their headphones back into their pockets. They’re in a hurry to get out of the plane. I don’t know if they are back at ‘home’ again, or if they just passing through. They’re not like me, who keeps still on my seat and watches through the window.

Another plane on the other side of the airstrip is about to leave, and in a minute it would take off wherever it is going to.

The announcement the steward is reading doesn’t have my attention. I can’t focus on anything else but the terminal looming ahead few hundred of meters away from me.

When the older woman right beside me starts to get up and shuffle her lavender colored spring coat on, I catch a few words of the announcement echoing inside the plane.

“On behalf of Korean Air and the entire crew, I’d like to thank you for joining us on this trip. We are looking forward to seeing you on board again soon. Have a nice day!”

And here, restlessly biting my fingernails I’m not sure if I am ready to be back again.

The stream of people walking through the terminal makes me feel out of place even though I’ve always lived in crowded places, and have always been comfortable when people around don’t know me. But here, inside a long, long tube I am uncomfortable.

It’s warm when the sun is beats down to us through the huge glass windows, and although it’s much colder here than where I come from, I have already taken off my thin leather jacket. The jacket hangs from the crook of my arm, my quite worn out passport on my other hand, fingers pressing it hard onto my palm. The sweat dripping down on my neck is not telling about the weather, but the slight childish stampede rising inside of me.

Although I’m trying to tell myself that I don’t know why I’m so nervous, I can’t lie to myself. I have learned to understand myself throughout the years, and this is not one of the days when I wouldn’t know the reason. I know why I’m afraid to be back. To be back at the city and country I have always lived till two years ago.

I’m afraid because I’m not sure if the things will ever be the same, even if I don’t know if I want them to be.

There are lots of things I’d like to forget. My childhood wasn’t a peaceful one and even today some things still hurt. Yet I’m already missing the past times and all the good things that happened to me till I grew up. I know those things are only memories and moments that I can’t have back, and I’m both afraid that nothing has changed but also afraid if things actually have.

The clerk has to call me twice before I realize it’s my turn to go through the passport control. The woman in her fifties looks at me with a scowl, and with an uncomfortable smile I hand her my passport and wait for few awkward seconds before she’s already giving it back to me. As I walk through the gate, headphones in my ears shielding me from the background noise, the churn on my stomach only grows.

Everyone else rushes to get their luggage, as if to be able to get home sooner, and it feels like I’m the only one trying to delay the inevitable exit. The worn out rucksack on my back I stroll through the delis, souvenir shops, currency exchange offices and the people waiting for their relatives, friends or lovers to arrive, or to leave. It reminds me the day I left, but I don’t want to start thinking about it. I walk through the shiny tile floors, but before passing the doors I stop to buy a lighter even if I already have one in my pocket, hoping the time would freeze.

I don’t know why I can’t control the fear and shivers running through my spine. Being in a place I don’t have problems communicating with people, where I exactly know where to go, I'm terrified. For the past years I couldn’t have been more confident with myself, yet here, in a familiar airport I’m like a fish out of the water.

It’s hard to breathe, hard to raise my feet and force myself to keep walking.

When the Incheon’s crispy spring-air finally reaches my nose, a heavy exhale flows my lips. I can smell the scent of bright yellow forsythia flowers, the lingering exhaust fumes, and the smoke coming from the people smoking their cigarettes outside the building.

I know I’m almost back home, but my feet still aren’t very co-operative with me, and I just stand there like an idiot tourist who isn’t sure where to go. Even trying to decide taking a bus or train is too much. After lighting up a cigarette I inhale with trembling fingers I try to put the wire back on my phone so I could listen to music to calm myself with this female artist’s voice.

The timetable before my eyes is a blur when I’m still contemplating which transport to take. The cigarette between my fingers is burning itself to its end, and my eyes are raking the table even if nothing actually registers.

“Donghae!”

There’s someone making noise in the background, but can’t hear anything because the music is shutting everything else out of my head. I force myself to stare the table although I’m not actually seeing anything, but the noise isn’t going anywhere. It’s only increasing with every passing second.

“Donghae, is it you? Donghae!”

My whole body wavers in frighten when another of the earbuds is being pulled out of my ear, and the music is long forgotten when I see a familiar face. A face with way too familiar dark single-lidded eyes and plump lips.

The chorus is still echoing inside my head when we stare at each other, figuring out that the person we’re looking at is in fact the person we spent our whole childhood, teenager and early twenties together with.

I freeze when arms circle around me into a manly bear hug. I don’t know what else to do but trying to do the same. With my whole body trembling I hug him back. Then it finally strikes me after a long, long while.

Home. I’m actually back home again.

With Hyukjae being there I’m finally pulled back into the present moment. It’s the same feeling you get when you take off your earbuds after a while, and all the noises around you are so bright and clear, like a screech in the void.

When Hyukjae pulls back and straightens his spine to stand straight, there’s a bit of an embarrassed grin on his face, like a kid who isn’t sure what to do in a more serious event. But I’m starting to realize that the expression is just a mirror of my own.

Standing there with a huge, worn out blue rucksack on my back, dressed in ripped jeans, a sleeveless Jack Daniel’s top and a leather jacket under my arm, I can't help but devour the sight. Hyukjae is wearing slim and neat black jeans, a white dress shirt, a black tie and a black blazer with dark sunglasses hanging from the highest button of his shirt. We’ve always been different, but he’s still the same. I’m still the same. Even after two years apart with the world changing around us, the core that makes us whole is still the same.

5^th Of September, 1998

The teacher let out an exasperated sigh. Taking his round glasses off from his face he turned to gaze back towards the two boys with a frown.

“Lee Donghae and Lee Hyukjae… How should I deal with you?” he murmured, bothered to ponder this issue once again.

The two twelve year old boys seemed to sink even deeper into their seats, the other one a bit more even though he had the part of a victim here. The other boy in the other seat bit his lip and didn’t dare to look at their homeroom teacher when he definitely knew who was the reason they had to sit there once again in a mere week.

Even though their teacher usually seemed very strict about the rules, homework and stuff, with things like these he was actually very understanding. He just couldn’t figure out why Donghae had taken Hyukjae as his eyesore.

“Well, I’m not going to tolerate this kind of behavior anymore, Donghae. You can’t keep taking and hiding Hyukjae’s belongings like that, or keep tantalizing him. That has to stop. Why do you keep doing this?”

Donghae wiggled on his seat.

“I don’t know,” he muttered, eyes glued onto the floor, legs dangling restlessly over the edge of his seat.

“Do you understand how Hyukjae must feel like being treated like this? He hasn’t done anything to you to deserve that,” their teacher said sternly, eyes softening when he glanced at the taller boy whose books Donghae had hidden fifteen minutes ago - which was the reason they were there now.

“Hyukjae, how does it make you feel when Donghae does things like this?”

The boy sitting on the left chair had never liked these situations. It had all started two months ago when Donghae had started to take his pencils without his permission, escalating to his school books, clothes and even to his lunch boxes. And because Hyukjae was a shy boy, he hadn’t been confident enough to order him to stop. But at last, their teacher had taken a note of it.

Hyukjae twiddled his fingers, afraid if Donghae would take vengeance on him after this.

“I-I don’t l-like it that you keep stealing m-my things. I-If you just n-needed to borrow s-something, I would, if you just a-asked. But I don’t like it when you pick o-on me all the t-time either…”

Donghae turned his head towards the few months older boy, biting his lower lip and sighing as he waited for Hyukjae to look at him again.

“But you look like an anchovy – or a monkey.”

“I-I don’t!” Hyukjae whimpered.

“Donghae,” his teacher threatened, deep eyes narrowing as bridge of wrinkles grew between his eyebrows.

“I don’t mean it as bad thing, Mr. Han! I really don’t!”

“It doesn’t sound like a compliment either.”

“But I like anchovies and monkeys so it is a compliment!” Donghae whined with a deep pout on his face.

“Donghae. You see, you have to think about Hyukjae’s feelings too. If you say something, you should think about the fact if he sees it as a compliment. Everyone doesn’t think like you do.”

Hyukjae was a bit confused and now he had a thin shade of pink covering his cheeks. He hadn’t thought that Donghae could actually like him at all.

“I’m sorry if you thought of it as a bad thing,” Donghae murmured, not being confident enough to look at his classmate when he had actually been the stupid one.

“O-okay.”

“Can you forgive me?”

“M-maybe.”

At least, the boys seemed to have arrived to an understanding. The teacher knew either of those boys weren’t stupid, and Donghae was probably too uncertain of how to approach Hyukjae.

“Boys, do you want to hear your sanction?”

“Do we get detention…?” Hyukjae asked, afraid that his mother would get angry if he’d get detention because of this.

“No. But you’re going to sit next to each other in class.” Their desks were always in pairs. “You have to start being friendly towards each other – and Donghae has to remember manners. You have to be nicer to Hyukjae. I will watch you two closely from now on, and if things don’t change we’ll start to think about more serious penalties for you two. Is it clear?”

“Yes, Mr. Han,” they both said, almost in unison.

“Good. You’ll be friends sooner than you notice if you give it a try.”

When the two were finally dismissed, it was already time for their lunch break. Hyukjae dragged himself to his locker, taking out his red lunch box. He still wasn’t sure if Donghae would change, but at least he would have to try if he didn’t want something worse to happen. As he went back to his desk and was about to start eating, he noticed a familiar figure beside him.

Donghae didn’t have a lunch box like he did, but he had two flavored milk cartons on his hands.

“Hey, Hyuk…”

He turned his dark almond orbs towards the other one who now had a shy, uncertain smile on his face. Hyukjae raised his eyebrows, and Donghae handed the two cartons towards him.

“You can have the other one.”

“R-really?” Hyukjae inquired, still not sure if Donghae could actually like him.

“Really! Do you like chocolate or strawberry?”

“…I like strawberries.”

“Strawberry it is then!” Donghae said with a wider, toothy smile, although one of his teeth was missing.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome!”

Hyukjae had few cookies inside his lunch box, and when Donghae focused on drinking his chocolate carton, he managed to slip one chocolate chip cookie on his desk. But when Donghae noticed the cookie in front of him, his eyes started to sparkle.

“Ooh! Is this for me...?”

Hyukjae nodded when Donghae dangled the cookie between his fingers, stunned that such a small gesture managed to make the other so happy.

The grin on the smaller boy’s lips was the widest he had ever seen, and it lit up the whole room like the first rays of morning sun.

17^th Of March 1999

It was one of the late afternoons when it was just Hyukjae and his mom at home. His mother doing those usual mom-things, making food for the two of them while the twelve year old was sitting at the table, wiggling the pencil between his slim pianist fingers and trying to focus on the homework he had gotten from school. It was one of the days when the setting sun was still shining through the vertical blinds and made shadows behind all the stuff on the table. One of the days when the sun was annoying the boy more than making him excited about the upcoming summer.

He was way more interested to go out and play with his best friend, than to sit in the kitchen and listen to the ratter and clatter coming from the kitchen. But his mother had said that, yes, he indeed had to sit at home and do the loads of homework before his teacher would send another note to her telling that he had ‘forgotten’ to do them. And it wasn’t even because he had forgotten; he had just been too busy playing with Donghae at the river that day, so he hadn’t had the time to do them.

“That’s why I’m making for you some time to do them,” his mother had said the next day, looking angry, exhaling heavily. What could she do? Boys would be boys, and they would always keep forgetting their homework if she didn’t change a thing.

Hyukjae had, of course, huffed in annoyance. His mother didn’t know anything about how important their play had been. Even though they had had the whole weekend to spend at the river, building their little secret shelter only to go home to sleep and eat some breakfast.

The stable black haired boy, with his inherited single-lidded eyes, sighed in frustration while his mother kept cutting the carrots.

When another sigh came, mere minute later, his mother turned around. Wiping her hands on the apron she was always wearing when she was cooking, she had to ask. “Sweetie, why are you sighing like that again? It’s exactly what your father tends to do when he has to do the laundry.”

The boy in a red hoodie and khaki colored cargo pants glanced at his mother, as if it was obvious why he was doing that.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he tried, lowering his dark orbs back to the math book. The assignments weren’t even that hard - and he was good in math anyway. He just didn’t want to do them, although it would have been over faster if he had.

“Try me”, the woman murmured with a slight smile on her face, telling that she had a hunch what was bothering his son. “I might understand more than you think.”

There was a third sigh, and theatrically Hyukjae put his pencil down on the table, leaning against the backrest of the wooden chair.

“It’s better when Donghae is with me,” he said after biting his plump lower lip for a while.

His mother was about to give him a smile, but seeing the troublesome look in his son’s eyes prevented her from doing that. Hyukjae was just twelve, and it seemed as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“Hyukjae dear, could you explain more specifically? You don’t usually seem so troubled.”

“It’s just… He’s safe with me, mom.” Hyukjae didn’t look back at his mother, now focused on the one unsolved math assignment which he could’ve finished in minutes. “I can’t talk about it. I promised.”

The look in his son’s eyes was so honest that she couldn’t push it.

“Alright. But if something is really not alright, you should tell me about it, Hyukjae. I might be able to help him,” she replied, getting a glance from the boy in his pre-teens.

“I promised that I wouldn’t tell. And I promised I would protect him, like he protects me.”

She nodded and stood up from the seat, getting back to her cooking. She could still remember the days when Donghae had actually bullied Hyukjae. The days when her son would come home with a scowl on his face, sometimes even crying. And now those two were best friends. It was almost funny, and somehow adorable. Nowadays Donghae was the one usually looking after his son, actually making Hyukjae more confident. But Hyukjae's words forced her to think if something wasn’t quite right with Donghae’s family. So many times Donghae came by with clothes that were usually dirty and even more often a bit too small for him. He was a growing kid who needed new clothes quite often. Now, Hyukjae was a bit taller than the other boy so she was able to pack some clothes for Donghae which already were too small for his own son. She had never heard the two mentioning Donghae’s mother either. It made her even more suspicious. Did Donghae live alone with his father?

Hyukjae was almost done with his homework when his mother turned towards him with a questioning look on her face.

“Honey, it’s your birthday soon.”

“Oh, it is?” Hyukjae asked, raising his eyebrows. He still wasn’t very fond of with the calendar.

“Yes, it is, you’re turning thirteen. I was wondering if you wanted to hold a birthday party—“

“No, mom, I don’t want to,” Hyukjae refused.

“Are you sure? Then what are you going to do then? It’s an important day for you, after all.”

“Can I just spend the day with Donghae? I don’t want to be with anyone else.”

“But don’t you want to your classmates to come over?” she tried.

“Not really.”

“If you say so,” she said with a tender voice. A soft smile lingered on her lips. “What’s so special about Donghae that you don’t want to spend time with anyone else?” She wasn’t mocking at all; she just wanted to understand his son.

“Because he’s Donghae. He’s everything I need.”

His mother didn’t ask further as she turned her attention back to her cooking. Yet she had to wonder if she would ever understand the deep connection Donghae and Hyukjae already had.