(phrase) to try to get or achieve something that is difficult or impossible.

기억 – I

상기하다 2014-2-19

“I don’t want to remember.

But I think I have to.”

            Sehun remembers a time when he wasn’t alone. It’s been a while – a long, long while – but he still recalls once being able to reach out in any direction at any time and touch another pair of waiting hands. It wasn’t a family in the strictest sense, but it was damned near close to it, caught in the confines of his childhood neighborhood. Whenever he thinks of that place, a fixture still permanent and fresh in his memory, faces flicker at the back of his subconscious, and he can’t discern if he feels less lonesome or more. He remembers Jongin, his next door neighbor, who used to catch frogs with him in the man-made pond behind Sehun’s house. Tao, who lived across the street, who used to carry a purse full of pebbles he found in his gravel driveway and hit people with it when he was frustrated. Jongdae, who sometimes chased them around the cul-de-sac pretending to be an allosaurus (“Not a T-Rex, they’re so overpowered!”), roaring and stomping and occasionally charging more like a bull than anything.

            Most of all, though, Sehun remembers Luhan. He remembers him seeming so old, in middle school while Sehun was trudging behind in primary. He’d always wished he was as smart and sophisticated as Luhan was, even if he’d never dare to say it. Sehun remembers him being so soft-spoken and shy the first time he met him, even though Sehun was practically still a baby. He also remembers the way he warmed up to him, teasing him and ruffling his hair and calling him yeodongsaeng, little sister, even though Sehun would always protest that he was just as much a boy as Luhan was. Luhan had always been one to look at the world through rose-colored glass, and he never forgot to remind everyone that he loved them. Jongin and Jongdae would say they loved him back, but Tao would roll his eyes, and Sehun would usually just laugh in his face. Luhan would call him off-color, but Sehun didn’t know what that meant. When he asked, Luhan didn’t know, either. “My mom says it.” Sehun thought Luhan’s mom said a lot of fancy things, and even though he knows what they mean now, he still thinks she spoke too elaborately for a toddler and a pre-teen to understand.

            He remembers how Luhan would always take his side when Tao kicked his shins for tackling him too hard, or when Jongin said that he’d caught the frog with the pretty red spots and he should keep it, or when Sehun said Jongdae looked more like a camel than a dinosaur anyways and Jongdae gave him a bloody lip for it. Luhan always played with Sehun’s hair and scavenged his house for superhero band-aids when Sehun got scrapes and bruises, and even though he said it was childish, he helped Sehun fill Disney coloring books with the hues of his Crayola box, although he always colored Ariel’s hair purple and Eric’s skin the lightest shade of blue. Sehun told him those colors were unrealistic, and Luhan told him they were more realistic than the real world was. Sehun never knew what that meant, really, but he thinks about it from time to time whenever he remembers.

            He’s spent far too much time remembering since then, in any case.

            Sehun remembers the other parts of his life vaguely. He had kept himself consumed with his friends, because even though Tao bullied him about picking his nose, and Jongin reminded him twenty times a day that he was three months older than him and was therefore in charge, and Jongdae used the “you’re rubber and I’m glue” comeback more times than should be legal, they were all better company than the inhabitants of his house. He doesn’t know much about what went on there because he would run away the second anything started to stir – when he heard his mom raise her voice at one of the men she’d brought back from the streets, or when the crashing happened, the sounds of struggle and of harsh words at top volume. He’d tried to help before, when he was younger and more naïve. The only things it ever earned him were bruises, black as night, and his mom’s blank gaze. She was never appreciative or unappreciative, really; she was just utterly barren. Unconcerned. After having one of the men lift him off of the ground by his shirt collar and shake him out like a wet towel once, Sehun decided that her having no reaction at all was probably worse.

            He was never there when his dad came to visit; he made sure of that. He’d conditioned himself to recognize the loud stutter of his truck’s engine, puffing exhaust like a pack-a-day addict, and he was out the window in an instant if he ever heard its familiar roar. It always ended badly when his dad came. He was worse than all of the strangers that frequented his house combined.

            So he’d sneak out. He’d sit in Jongin’s front yard because Jongin’s parents were always nice to him, or he’d climb Jongdae’s fence so he could play with their dog in the backyard. Sometimes he even took refuge in Tao’s garage, digging through the giant bins of dolls that Tao didn’t want in his room but wouldn’t let his parents get rid of, either. Nobody ever protested or told him to leave. None of the adults really talked to him much at all, only gave him these sad, sympathetic looks that he wasn’t entirely sure he understood and let their kids come outside to keep him company.

            His favorite thing to do in these times was to climb the tree next to Luhan’s window. He’d tap the glass four times because two wasn’t enough but Luhan didn’t like the number three, and no matter what he was doing, Luhan would always open the window and clamber out onto the limb to sit next to him, chattering far into the night. Sehun, to be such a hyperactive kid, was surprisingly calm when he talked to Luhan, knees curled into Luhan’s sides and eyes attentive to every movement of Luhan’s mouth. Luhan used to tell Sehun to go home when it got so dark and cold that he’d start to shiver, but when he realized it made Sehun’s eyes widen and face fall, he started just slinging his arm around his shaking body instead. There was once that Luhan invited him inside to stay the night, but when Luhan’s mom found them huddled together on Luhan’s bed in the morning, she instructed Luhan to never let him in without Sehun’s mother’s knowledge. When Sehun tried to explain that his mom wouldn’t mind, that he’d stayed the night with Jongin for a straight week one time without telling her and she hadn’t gotten mad, Luhan’s mom only bit her lip the same way Luhan did when he got uneasy and asked them to go outside and play a while. Sehun saw her talking seriously with Luhan’s dad as Luhan dragged him out by the wrist, catching the words “nobody should treat their kid that way” before he felt the sun on his back and heard Luhan scream something like “Catch me!” before darting off into the bushes.

            Then, he forgot about it. Sehun’s always been bad about forgetting.

            A week later, Sehun’s dad came, just like he did about once a month for reasons that Sehun never really cared to find out. Sehun clambered down from his second story room, the same as he always did when the beast of a car grumbled into his driveway, except this time, he lost traction on the bricks. It had just rained, and the world was still slick with the dewy remnants of the storm. Sehun had made the descent a thousand times before in worse conditions, but something happened – maybe the wind blew, maybe his hand slipped, maybe he was pushed by some invisible creature for a laugh – and he tumbled. He managed to land upright, but one of his feet slipped on damp grass, and his entire leg buckled beneath him. He cried out as he stumbled onto the ground before clapping a hand over his mouth, wincing and breathing heavily.

            He knew the second he couldn’t walk that he should get help. Every adult he’d ever met had told him so, when he got hurt – his teachers, his friends’ parents, even his mom, when she found the occasion to concern herself. He also knew, though, that even if he went inside his house now, his limp would be ignored in favor of yelling and smashing and bubbling anger between his mom and dad, just like it always did and just like it always would.

            It was never actually a choice, to go back inside, but sometimes, Sehun still wishes he’d chosen differently.

            He dragged himself to Luhan’s house, and even though he could hardly put any pressure on his ankle without making little mewls of pain, he tugged himself all the way up their tree, hugging the trunk every few feet and panting softly. When he made it to the top, he tapped on the glass of Luhan’s window four times, and then another four times, and another, until Luhan was suddenly there, peering concernedly at Sehun and rattling off a thousand questions as he took him into his arms and pulled him inside. Sehun collapsed on Luhan’s floor. He didn’t even realize he was crying until Luhan’s hands were on his face, wiping his tears away.

            “What happened?” Luhan asked, again and again, each time his tone growing more worried, more agitated, more frightened. Sehun could only manage to grip his collar, burying his head in Luhan’s chest.

            Luhan called for his mom, and Sehun shook his head, murmuring, “I’m scared, don’t bring her, I’m scared,” but it was too late by then. She was already there, and then she was at Sehun’s side, too, yanking him from Luhan’s arms. She looked down at him, and Sehun noticed how much she looked like Luhan, the anxious lines of her face puckered in all the same places that Luhan’s were. He wanted Luhan’s arms back, so he reached out to him as she inspected his injured ankle. Luhan immediately interlaced their fingers, pressing a tiny hand to Sehun’s tiny forehead, as if trying to take his temperature.

            “He’s just got a twisted ankle,” she said, seeming relieved. Sehun nodded timidly, an apology on his lips. “How’d this happen? Does your mom know you’re here, honey?”

            Sehun shook his head, fiddling with Luhan’s hand. “I fell out of my window,” he said in a small voice.

            “Why didn’t you get your mommy, Sehun?”

            Sehun curled up further into himself. He could barely hear his own words. “Because Daddy is here.”

            Luhan’s mom’s face got dark, but the reassurance in her eyes didn’t change. She vanished briefly to get some things to take care of Sehun’s ankle, promising to come back before he could blink. Sehun panicked at first when he did blink and she was still gone, but she returned with bandages and a much gentler smile than she left with. When his ankle was dressed and he was safely tucked into the left side of Luhan’s bed, his mom told him that he could stay the night, and that they’d go to the hospital in the morning to make sure it wasn’t worse than she expected.

            Luhan was tickled pink with Sehun’s sudden permanence, jumping into the bed and hugging Sehun as tightly as was physically possible. He was very careful not to disturb Sehun’s bound leg, but it didn’t stop him from crawling on and off the bed, hopping down to grab something or another and scrambling back up to show Sehun with all the wonder of a child, just like he did every time they were together. They spent the night discussing marker colors and the tint of the sky, Luhan animatedly acting out his words while Sehun watched from his place propped up by pillows. When he eventually calmed down, Luhan looped his arm through Sehun’s, and they both stared up at the ceiling. Luhan’s lungs were background music. Sehun could practically hear the rainbow in the sound of his breathing.

            “Sehun,” Luhan said, biting his lip like his mom did earlier. “You said you were scared before. Are you still scared?”

            “Nope,” Sehun said confidently. “Your house makes me feel better.”

            Luhan turned to look at him, eyes jaded in a way a twelve-year-old’s should never be. “Do you ever get scared that your parents will leave you, like they do on TV?”

            Sehun thought for a bit, wrinkling his nose. “No,” he finally said, meeting Luhan’s eyes. “I think I’d only be scared if you left me.”

            Luhan grinned at that. “Like I’d ever. Pinky swear!” He held out one slender pinky, and Sehun remembers being glad that he hadn’t sprained his pinky instead because that would have made promising a lot harder. They linked pinkies, and then Sehun had gone ahead and linked all their other fingers, too, and Luhan had laughed and let him. They fell asleep shortly after, practically in sync, breathing softly into each other’s ears – Luhan’s colors and Sehun’s shades of black.

            Sehun spent his last few days at their house. Luhan’s mom took him to the hospital, whose employees had instructed him to never walk on a sprained ankle again because it made it swell up worse than before. Luhan’s mom looked a little upset at that, but she hadn’t said anything. They had given him a proper splint and some crutches that he used more to terrorize Tao with than anything else. Jongin had been impressed by his injury, mouth in a small “o” as Sehun proudly catapulted himself up the stairs to Jongin’s house to prove his skills with the crutches. Jongdae had made it his goal to knock them out from under him, so Sehun predictably made it his goal to knock him out with them. Luhan just laughed at them as they bickered and lashed out at each other. Luhan laughed more than Sehun would have ever thought was acceptable, but he didn’t have crooked teeth like Sehun, and his face lit up into colors, so Sehun had thought it was pretty okay.

            (Sehun often wished he was as pretty as Luhan was, that his eyes would sparkle bronze in the sun and his teeth would shine white like fresh snow, the way Luhan’s did.)

            His mom didn’t look for him up until the very end, when the blank white vehicles showed up in their driveway. It was almost like the times when Sehun’s dad came but worse, so much worse. She came out screaming the same way she did to his dad, something about “a crazy stealing my kid,” and Luhan’s mom had screamed back just as loudly. Sehun doesn’t remember many of the details now, but he vividly recalls Luhan coming up behind him as he was hiding behind the doorway and linking their fingers together, just like their first night.

            “We’ll always be together, right, Luhan?” Sehun whispered as he watched his mom lash out at all the workers in their strange white suits. One of them unsheathed something that glittered with energy and she fell to the ground twitching.

            “I’ll never leave,” Luhan had replied, squeezing Sehun’s fingers and pulling him away from the sight.

            Sehun figured out later that “I’ll never leave” is much different than “I’ll always be with you” when he was packed into the same van that his mom had screamed at and carted away from his neighborhood. Luhan wasn’t the one to leave; he was never meant to be.

            Sehun was.

            A lot of the details have blurred together since then – whether his mom was left in the front lawn or carried in, or whether Jongin or Tao or Jongdae had come outside to see what was going on. He’s forgotten the colors of the wilting flowers in his mom’s garden, or of his house’s trim, or of the windowpanes, and he can’t for the life of him remember whether his house had two bedrooms or three.

            He’ll never forget Luhan, though. He’ll never forget how Luhan gripped the sleeves of one of the workers, pleading for Sehun to stay. He’ll never forget how Luhan begged his mom to let them keep him, or how he’d tried to run to the van and climb in next to him, to link their fingers together one more time. The way he’d watched from his mom’s side as the van drove away is permanently imprinted in Sehun’s mind, tears streaming down red cheeks and wide eyes puffy with strain. Whenever Sehun thinks about times when he wasn’t alone, that’s the first image that comes to mind and the last one that lingers along the corners of his memory.

            After all, you don’t forget the face of the person who was your last hope.