Staring down at your wounded beauty

_____________________________

Mother, mother
who am I? If he
will just come back once
and kiss me on the face
his coarse hair brush
my temple, it’s throbbing!

then I can put on my clothes
I guess, and walk the streets.

Mayakivsky - Frank O'Hara.

It is that time of a year, again. Sleepless Seoul is turned up by thousands of light strings at the malls, accompanied by Christmas music in every street corner. Song Minho doesn’t remember the last time he saw these many peoples in such colorful outfits being in the same place. Funny, here they have the freedom to actually talk to each other without facing disciplines, yet nobody chooses to. Everyone is either gluing their face to their smart phone or stuffing their ears with headphones while avoiding eye contact with everyone. It’s like if someone can materialize “communication” into an object, it would belong to a museum now. People would buy tickets to see it, all by themselves, take pictures of it from countless angles, and post into their choices of social media outlet, with such hashtags as #reminiscence, #backtothefuture, #memorylane. Some would even be so bold to add a caption that they “used to have communication back in their day,” so that the youngsters can vote down and comment something like, “lol tell me if it’s true @dinosaur.” Exhibitions that portray the linearization of communication would go something like, “premodern communication,” “contemporary communication,” or even “dystopian/apocalyptic communication.” So pathetic. Song Minho thought to himself as he passes by yet another person with stooped back and tensed shoulders, holding their phone so close to their face. But he isn’t really in a position to judge. After two years of service, Minho comes back to Seoul like a stranger in the city, who finds himself lost amongst the familiarity of this place. He doesn’t really have a place to return to – or rather, he doesn’t want to return to the family that rejects him in the first place.

So, at times like this, when people – despite how disconnected they seem on the streets – rush back home to join families and loved ones, Minho realizes a fact which he didn’t have to confront during the last two years in service: he doesn’t have a home. There are no options other than wandering around the street with his backpack on, checking his phone to find an inn where he can stay temporarily. Back then, he was never that financial stable to get a mortgage, so his last apartment was rented. And after breaking up with his partner right before joining the military, Minho lost the apartment too. If he would have remembered then, that he didn’t co-sign the apartment but only chip in the rent, he wouldn’t have packed all his stuff and left abruptly like that. But again, packing was way too easy - all he had was only a bag of clothing, two pairs of shoes, a laptop, a pair of expensive headphones, some collections of vintage vinyl records, and a box of miscellaneous stuff. He brought everything with him to the military.

+ + +

“I should have known you’re a boy.” His partner had yelled at him when she threw his precious records out the window. Minho could have gone to hell and back and would still not raise his voice at her – he adored Clesias. If everything he asked for in a partner could be combined into one figure – that would be her. Tender, kind-hearted, educated, caring, responsible, respectful, beautiful – those are a few words on top of his head if anyone asks him why he liked her in the first place. But not my records, woman, they are my babies. Clesias’s only weakness – the fatal one – was that she would hit where it hurts the most whenever she’s pissed – just because in everyday life she’s also that much considerate. Minho didn’t learn his lesson after the first time she dropped his PS4 into the bathtub. They both love Jesus but only on that day he got to truly understand just how much damage Judas could have done to Him. So, she must be right – he must have been a boy, for shaking a woman such as herself and making her do something that distasteful. Still, not my babies, woman. He didn’t remember what the fight was about, but he remembered hastily packing everything up in twenty minutes; the whole time, Clesias was right next to him screaming about how he ruined her adult life. She was talking about their joint bank accounts and their shared pet, Johnny. [“Who named their cat Johnny anyway? I can’t believe I let you name him when YOU are the one who will be leaving him behind!” But let’s be honest, if he would have brought Johnny and the only one left was her, it wouldn’t have been cute.] Or that the decent-sized one bedroom apartment that they lived in was the best economical effort from both of them; let’s face it, if he was leaving, she would have had no other choice but to leave as well. No , not my babies, Satan. He ran off the door without saying a word – like that was the one thing that he yearned for. Perhaps it was.

Song Minho was twenty eight then. Clesias was the last committed relationship he was in before joining the military. Minho had always been in a relationship. He was the type that could never stay alone, and one of those lucky souls whose puberty treated them well. He wasn’t the most popular boy in highschool – but he was also too cool for that. He liked to think that he was more special than superficial, and that his good-looking facial feature never outshone his charming personalities. So he went from girls crushing on him in middle school, to puppy loves in high school, then by the time he got to college, everything was an option. He enjoyed guys’ companies too, especially biual guys like Taehyun and Seungyoon, the musicians from Music department. [He almost dated these two at the same time – but the three were also best friends. A three-some was something that almost but never was. It was -y somehow]. He never went “full gay” – for reasons probably different from what Jinwoo, a senior from Performance studies department who specialized in drag performance, suggested. “I think you are still holding on to that slippery boundary of normativity. I don’t think you like women. I think you are just afraid you are going to lose that precious ticket back to being a boring normal dude.” Way to reject biuality, sunbae. He told Jinwoo that day, which resulted in the pretty guy refusing to ever blow him (in drag) again. But Minho didn’t care much – he won’t ever be “fully gay” if that means he is going to forget that biual people exist too. Biual guys and their mutual identity helped the relationships between him and them remain drama-free – except when Taehyun dumped him for being “such an egocentric ” while Seungyoon called him “vintage vinyl records banger.” He minded neither those nicknames nor the breakups, and jumped straight to the next relationship.  

The last nickname that Clesias gave him, “boy,” was a very contemporary one, he thought. It emerges in such a weird moment when telecommunication and social medias became too dominant in his generation’s lives. Asking his parents and they would have no idea what a boy is, except that it really sounds like Minho. But that also wasn’t an option– his parents cut all ties with him when he was a senior in college. He went against his parents’ wish of him to be a doctor, took a bunch of student loan and applied for a private liberal art college instead, majoring in Visual Arts. And also, he screwed the Department’s chair’s son. And got expelled. [He managed to come back and finished his degree somehow – but it was irrelevant because the expensive art degree didn’t turn him into a money making machine; he still work three jobs and making art became a luxurious hobby.] Also the son, Lee, turned out to be a trans-woman. (She wanted to be called Lily now, and Minho begged her to be more creative. He had at least five Lilies in his phone and didn’t want to risk mistaking them. It didn’t matter, because Lily, with her pre-opted man leg, kicked him out of her fancy studio near the beach).

Nevertheless, Lily’s newly found identity marked him as panual no less, but he didn’t know how to explain to his religious and old-traditional parents who thought he was possessed by the devil. Bless their naïve heart – they are a Christ-loving traditional middle-aged Korean couple who met each other through arranged marriage – what else were they going to do? Mino thinks hard about it, and chose to respect his parent’s opinions about him. Still, if the devil is already summoned to represent the severity of being gay (which is not even, because for the love of God, he also loves all kinds of other people), who else would his parent call if he go back home and said, “guess what omma and appa, let me introduce to you a magical idea that biological doesn’t determine someone’s gender and uality. For example, omma, just because you have a doesn’t mean you have to be a woman, or to love appa. You didn’t have to give birth to me either; it’s totally your choice. By the way the boy I screwed really is a woman so you’re good.” Imagine that. In all honesty, perhaps he didn’t want to put all the jokes down and deal with his family’s homophobic and transphobic tendency just yet. One of these days, when he gets old enough to stop pretending that having your families rejecting the person you are and calling you names because of who you are attracted to is not a big deal, he will have to come and talk to them. But not then, when he was barely twenty eight and all he had was a bunch of unstable relationships and a vague idea of who he wants to be. He could not go to his family to ask for them to believe in him if he doesn’t figure out just yet who he intrinsically is – then he thought to himself – straight people really have it easy. They don’t have to make excuses nor convince anybody to let them be. He could bring Clesias, or any other girl he dated, to a family dinner, and his parents would think that he’d become ‘normal’ – and he will fail them again because heteronormativity is such a lie.

That was the reason why after breaking things up with Clesias, for reasons he honestly couldn’t remember, he went straight to the army to serve despite having a couple more years, without even telling his family. Which is also why Minho finds himself temporarily homeless at this moment when the military lets him go – he doesn’t have a partner, a family, nor a friend to come back to. Seoul night welcomes him back with all the streetlights and crowded stores, with all the traffic noises without the human voices - all the gloriousness and solitude of the city life that he can never afford to leave behind. He sits on the bench by the street and starts going through the contacts in his phone. He passed through Clesias just like the boy that he was – he didn’t talk to her again after leaving two years ago. It makes no sense to call her up now. What’s more, he doesn’t have any excuses to pull. He still had the five Lilies on his phone, but God knows who is the one that chased him down the street accusing him of cheating and who is the one that keyed his car in an attempt to make him pay more attention to her. In the end, Minho decided to call Lily – she will literally kill him if she knows he named her as LeeHee on his phone. It is basically the same name, except that it might have belonged to a dog of someone he used to date.

“Good evening. Who’s this?” Minho can’t quite realize the voice answering the phone. Hormone replacement therapy must have worked wonder. The last time he talked to her she still has to shave every morning and her feminine voice sounds, at best, like a really, really gay dialect. “Is this phone number still owned by Lily?” He hears a gasp from the other line. “Oh you have gotta be kidding me. This motherer..,” the other says under their breath before yelling, “Song boy Minho???”

“I take it as you have deleted my phone number.” He brings his professional smile on even though nobody is there to see. Also, it might have been Lily who called him a boy and simultaneously kicked him out of her studio and not Clesias.

“I kicked you out of my studio too while we’re at it. What’s up?” Minho clicks his tongue to show his approval for all the changes in her voice. “Damn, your voice sounds smexy now, Lily.”

“Thanks, er. Get to the business.”

“I just got out of service.” Minho knows there is no other way to deal with Lily other than keeping it real. “I don’t have anywhere to stay or anyone to call, and I want to hear a familiar voice.”

“Oh.” From the other line, Lily’s voice softens. “So you served? That’s why for the last two years Clesias and I couldn’t find you. You don’t just disappear on us like that, boy.”

“How do you know Clesias?” Minho raises his eyebrows in awe. He imagines the scenario in which all his exes build an organization. They would totally name it “Anti-boy Organization” or something of the sort, with Clesias being the president and Lily the head of the board committee, with at least twenty members. He almost laughs out loud at the thought.

“After you went MIA on her, she contacted the whole world to find you. She found me to ask if I knew where you went. And I told her we were done six years before she was even in the picture. Long story short – she is my roommate now.”

Dang. Minho curses inside his head. There goes his option of staying over Lily’s.

“Do you need a place to stay? We moved to a two bedrooms, you can have the living room.” Lily asks. “Not the best scenario though.” Minho doesn’t want to imagine living together with his two exes, one in which he pulled an MIA, the other being the reason why he got kicked out of college and disowned by his family. Also, she personally threw his stuff out the door. “But I think you should hit Seunghoon up to see if he got a spare room.”

“Who?” Minho asks again.

“Seunghoon. Lee Seunghoon. You don’t remember him?” Lily’s voice sounds surprised. “Seunghoon hyung, I mean, oppa, our sunbae from the Theatre department?” Minho tilted his head, trying to remember. “Dude, you hooked up with him, like, a few times.”

“I must have been on some strong ,” Minho sighs. “I can’t remember a damn thing.”

“I’m not surprised. Anyway, hit him up. Text me if you can’t find his number.”

“Thanks so much, Lily.” He genuinely says.

“Which I doubt, because I’m pretty sure you still have the other five Lilies’ number. You never even cared to delete anything.”Lily continues, and Minho regrets his emotions really quickly.

“No prob, boy.” She keeps things short and sweet. “And welcome back, Minho.”

Minho must admit, after all, it is actually nice to hear a familiar person calling your name. He feels bad for not swinging by to visit Clesias and Lily, but remains certain in his decision. He is curious as to how Lily looks like now – when she was still male-presenting, she wasn’t the most flamboyant gay dude. She wouldn’t pass as straight because she didn’t want to, but she was also not easy to clock. May the androgyny follow her through, Mino thinks. It would be strange to ever meet Lily again and see her all princessy and .

“But why do I need to call the Seunghoon person though?” Minho asks without ever getting the answer. Lily hangs up right after having the last words like she always did – how could he ever forget that’s the kind of ing she is. “That was weird,” Minho mumbles as he starts walking while continuing to search for a Lee Seunghoon on his phone. He doesn’t find anything, but decides not to bother Lily again. Minho will just get a drink somewhere before spending the night at a sauna room.