Amicus verus est rara avis

A true friend is a rare bird.

Junhong remembered Yongguk.

He was taller than him and had already reached that fascinating time of being a teenager that Junhong was just shy of by three years. Yongguk was smart and studied extremely well. His test scores were phenomenal. The nuns liked him especially. With his uniform pressed and his back stiff, he presented himself like any other model student would, and everyone loved him as well as his charisma.

The day Junhong first met Yongguk was merely a week after his parent’s funeral. Junhong was young, afraid, and for the first time into an unfamiliar environment. Having never been to a school -- or really ever outside of the thick walls of his home -- he had no idea what to expect. Those nuns weren't as maternal or kind as he'd had expected. They'd given him the cold shoulder the moment he walked through the door, and when he woke up in the middle of the night crying for his mother he was told to be quiet rather than being consoled. He was alone, terrified and without any sort of support.

And that's when Yongguk stepped in.

Yongguk filled the vacant space that Junhong’s parents had left. On the nights when he was awoken by night terrors, Yongguk was there to hold him and rub his back until his tears stopped and he passed out from over exertion. During the nights when Junhong couldn't get back to sleep, Yongguk brought him downstairs to do something that would make the nuns lose their habits in rage. He'd turn on the old television in the common room and turn down the volume as low as he could. Him and Junhong would sit and watch old movies until the early callings of dusk. Watching them made Junhong fantasize of the times before when things were all in black and white, and he wondered how they discerned pink shirts from blue ones.

As a roommate, he was amazing. Somehow, Yongguk managed to finish every one of his towering piles of work in just a handful of hours. He had more than enough time to help Junhong through the puzzling maths and enigmatic English worksheets. The awards that sat on the shelf on his side of the room was riddled with awards for his academic prowess and exemplary accomplishments. It seemed as if every other day he was meeting with the principal during free time.

But he wasn't just a good student. Yongguk was a golem, a protector. It could have been the air of intimidation about him or the way he carried himself, strong and proud. There was something about him that gave off an aura of don't mess with me. He protected Junhong from the harsh metre sticks when he could as well as from the volatile pointing fingers from classmates. All he wanted was peace, he'd explained one night after Junhong had woken up just before the giant wrinkled hands of Sister Jane almost squashed him.

“I want to take all of the violence out of the world,” Yongguk's hands were clasped together and resting on Junhong’s side as he embraced him. “No one deserves sadness or pain or despair. I want to change that; help everyone.”

“You can do it.” Junhong had cheered weakly, rubbing his eyes.

“I wish.” He laughed dryly. “It’s such an unrealistic goal. Happiness can't exist without sadness. We wouldn't cherish it without having experienced the opposite of it.”

He was always like this. Profound in a strange sort of way. No one would expect it from someone as reserved and studious as him, yet it was such a crucial piece of him, Junhong learned. The tangents that be went on seemed to delve into the deepest workings of himself, and the expressions he made and statements he said resonated right from the centre of his being.  Everything that spilled from his lips were things he held close to his heart. It was as if he'd experienced them himself, despite only being sixteen. Even in his youth he had all of the wisdom of someone well into adulthood. Junhong liked this side of him more and more as he got older. Yongguk was the type of person he could talk about the world with.

But just like that, he left.

Suddenly two years meant nothing to him. Two years of monotone movies, of study sessions well into the night, and of course talks that lasted until the bright hours of morning. He left in a whirlwind of personal possessions, textbooks, and certificates of gratification. Junhong had run into their shared room with nothing short of pure joy. There was an English paper in his hand with an A+ written in red ink on the header. It was an essay he’d done all by himself, but when he rushed in to show Yongguk there was no sign that he had even lived there in the first place. The only thing left in his wake was a clean room and a vase of purple larkspurs from the academy’s garden that sat on his nightstand.

Junhong was overcome with a flurry of emotions. That was the day he was going to tell Yongguk the truth. He would explain why the hugs between them lingered and why his heart fluttered every time Yongguk hovered over his shoulder to help with his work. He was looking forward to the smile on his best friend’s face as he said “Yes, Junhong, me too.” The events that transpired afterward would be wonderful, surreal, and happy because no one had made him happier than Yongguk.

There was nothing that could pull him from his grief. He began to fall back into the same rhythm that he had when he'd first arrived. Yongguk wasn't there to help him through his sleepless nights and when he tried to quell his sorrow with a movie there was nothing but the blank, shrill cries of a damsel in distress that -- on more than one occasion -- got him in serious trouble due to the volume. The nuns began to target him with their unforgiving questions and punish him with more fervour than ever before. He became unruly, defiant, and without a doubt noncompliant. His sudden change behaviour could have been passed off on age, after all he was in the awkward stages of a pre-teen. But it wasn’t. He misbehaved because there was no one to ground him. Without Yongguk, Junhong had no one to talk to or to confide in. His new roommate was just awful. Always complaining and always selfish. He wouldn’t give in to Junhong’s conversational advances nor would he help him with any tough schoolwork. They were distant, and Junhong longed for things to be like they had been before when Yongguk was there.

But now he was here. Junhong hadn’t even realized it. When a strange man walked through the old automatic doors of the supermarket he didn’t even take notice of his mysterious, yet familiar aura. Not even when he invited him to coffee, and then all the way to Thailand. It was as if each and every precious memory that had been imbedded in his mind had been taken and hidden away to never be dwelled upon again. He’d locked away such wonderful times of happiness only to never have feel the pain that came along with them. It was strange how three words brought them back. Junhong remembered that, too.

Yongguk never said goodnight and he never said goodbye. They were too unfeeling, he’d explained one night. There was no real meaning or thought behind such overused formalities. So, in spirit of his own peculiar and sincere ways, he came up with something else. It was more meaningful to him, more heartfelt. Whenever he helped Junhong to bed he said it in the hushed words of night and when he left for classes the phrase was left in his wake. Junhong expected it the day Yongguk had left, too, but it never came. After all these year some part of him that he thought he’d stuffed away to never be heard from again yearned for it, and finally, he heard it.

“Peace be with you.”

Junhong ran. He ran as fast as his long, aching legs would carry him. He’d long since calmed down from his unexpected fit of tears. All he needed right then was Yongguk. He craved the gentle embraces and the long talks and the gentle guidance. His lungs burned and yearned for air when he finally stood in front of Yongguk in front of the temple. Fresh, new tears were streaming down his face as he huffed and puffed from the sudden exercise. He wasn’t sure as to what exactly he’d say, but he knew it had to have the same profound ring to it that his elder instilled in him. Finally, it hit him like the memories he never knew he’d forgotten.

“And with your soul.”

The smile Junhong received was genuine and full of so much life. Yongguk looked so full of nothing but pure joy. His smile was radiant and contagious, making Junhong smile back at him with the same kind of delight. It was a meeting of old friends, ones who had years upon years of growth and change between them.

“You remembered,” Yongguk’s smile grew wider, and it shone like the dried yellow calla lilies he had in his herb room. “I thought you’d forget forever. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

Junhong wasn’t sure what to say. On one hand it was true. What came with Yongguk’s departure was nothing but heartache, yet the memories that they made together were full of the jubilance of children’s laughter.

Yongguk’s soft chuckle broke him out of his deep thinking. “It’s alright, kid. I’m glad you’re here, really. Things are about to get a lot more interesting for the both of us.”

With that, Junhong truly began the gruelling training it would take to start him on the path to a neverending journey. Yongguk warned him it would be hard in the first place, and damn was he right. Nothing came naturally. It had to all be forced out through a great amount of effort and endurance. They started with the smaller, finer things, but even those were unachieveable most times. He wouldn’t quit, though. As Yongguk had mentioned before, this was his responsibility now.