Missed

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment. All the immense
images in me-- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected
turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods-
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.
 

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house--, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled,
gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows?
Perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...

-Rainer Maria Rilke

In a convenience store

Shin looked at the rows of ramyun in front of him. What did Seyoung hyung say he wanted again? Was it jinramyun or shinramyun? Yongseok clearly liked spicy noodles so it was surely shinramyun for him. Craning his neck for his companion, he spotted Casper before the big freezer with the different ice creams and popsicles. Smiling, Shin approached his friend and stood beside him.

“Are you going to buy only ice cream for dinner? What noodle flavour do you want?”  

Casper barely looked at him and kept his gaze on the various kinds of cold treats in front of him.

“This is hard. I want all of them. “ He said in all sincerity. Shin laughed.

“Better keep them well. Yongseok will find them in no time.”

Casper made a face, “That kid can eat a whole house.” He picked up two sundae cones, “I’ll just get these for us. We can eat them on the way home.”

Shin just shook his head. “Okay, but what will you tell them when they ask where the ice cream was?”

Casper looked torn. He looked around the store as if he could find the answer to his question somewhere. He moved away from Shin to check for something.

Shin was about to turn around when he felt a presence beside him.

In his peripheral, he knew it was a guy. Other than that he didn’t see much. Shin only knew the guy was wearing a black jacket tall and he liked his ice cream; he was actually getting quite a number of popsicles. Casper would have a competition.  Shin glanced at his wristwatch and saw that it was almost 10 PM. The dorms would close at exactly 10 so they had to hurry.

“Casper, yah! We need to go.” He motioned for his friend to hurry. Casper went to him, he looked excited.

“Shin! There’s a sale for popsicles. We can get them for the guys. Come on.”  His friend then went over to the freezer and started to search for the popsicles. “That’s weird, they were just right here. Shin did you see the yellow popsicles? I swear there were a lot of them earlier.”

Shin heard the door of the convenience store close and from the mirrors he saw the tall guy walking away. He was holding a plastic bag full of the yellow popsicles Casper was looking for.

In a bus going to the university

Shin was running late for his first class. It was Yongseok’s fault. The little brat forgot to set their alarm and now all of them were running late. He quickly got in the bus when the first one on the schedule came. Choosing the seat by the window, Shin immediately opened his bag and rummaged for his notebook. He even forgot that he had a history quiz today so he didn’t even bother studying last night. He opened his notes all the while thinking if it was still wise being roommates with three other guys or if he should just move out.

The bus jolted to a stop and Shin’s eyes popped open. He fell asleep! He didn’t even know when he had fallen asleep. When he looked around, he saw that it was his stop already.

“! I have to go.” He muttered fiercely. He quickly slipped his notebook inside his bag again. He didn’t bother closing his bag anymore as he stood up and went to the exit door.

When the bus stopped, Shin immediately went down and collided with a group of high school students. His bag which was opened spilled its contents on the pavement.

“Omo, sorry oppa.” One of the girls said as she picked some of his stuff and handed them to Shin.

Shin took his notebooks from her, “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” He then proceeded to shove each one in his bag again.

“Oppa, you have a note here.” The girl said and gave him a blue sticky note.

Shin absentmindedly took the note and the girls went on the bus. He would have started walking away but when he looked at the crumpled blue sticky note, he realized that he didn’t own any sticky notes. This was not his.

He turned the paper and read; “Did you have a good dream?” it was written in Japanese.

Shin’s eyes strayed to the inside of the bus and tried to locate where he sat earlier. As the bus moved, he only saw a glimpse of a man in a black jacket sitting beside his seat.

At a pedestrian crossing

“So I was there in the cafe, right? And then this cute guy comes up to me and says, ‘Are you sure you’re not an angel? Because I think I died and just gone to heaven.’ Can you believe it?”

Shin managed not to snort derisively. He didn’t want Seyoung hyung to hear that through the phone. Half his attention was on the stoplight to his right. The light was still green. Shin took to walking on his lunch break. He thought that he needed exercise so this was a good way as any.

Trying hard to sound sincere, he asked, “So what did you say?”

“Well of course I said he’s full of it. I’m not gonna fall for those corny pick up lines.” Seyoung hyung sounded a bit miffed. Shin took it as a good sign.

His hyung and sunbae in the university was a very well known man in the campus. He had this small following of men and women alike who were all in awe of the great Lee Seyoung. Though for the life him Shin didn’t know why. He just reasoned that these people didn’t live with his hyung, so...there.

“So that means, you rejected the guy?” Shin asked as he kept his eyes on the stoplight.

Seyoung hyung laughed, “Of course not! I did say he’s cute, right? And he’s a dancer. It’d be a waste not to entertain that kind of guy. And besides, Sangmin said he has a friend and if you want he could set him up a date with you.”

That was the moment the light turned green.  Shin tuned out most of what Seyoung hyung was saying as he started crossing the street. He half heard what the other man was saying to him, his attention was on trying not to come in contact with anyone.

Out of nowhere, a tall man appeared and bumped into him. As Shin was about to murmur a ‘sorry’ he noticed that the guy was wearing a seemingly familiar black jacket. He didn’t need to say an apology because the guy looked like he was meeting someone on the other side of the road and he was hurrying toward him.

Shin managed to glance and he saw a cheerful looking kind of guy waving. He was smiling really happily. The guy was shouting something Shin couldn’t hear but he thought he heard him shout “Takuya!” And Shin thought he heard the man whisper, “Sangmin, really.”

But he wasn’t sure because he was walking.

And his hyung certainly didn’t want to be forgotten too.

“Wonho! Yah! Are you listening to me?”

Shin’s full attention switched back to crossing the road and talking to his hyung on the phone.

At the university fair

Shin didn’t really want to join in the university fair but Yongseok said he had to because he had to help out. Yongseok and his classmates had a booth in the fair and he said Shin was there to lure in the female population.

“You know it’s not fair for them to use me right?” he asked his friend as they set up the things they needed for their booth. There were red and pink papers cut into heart shape, some ribbons, a pail with real flowers and if his eyes weren’t deceiving him, some pairs of handcuffs.

Yongseok wagged his finger at him, “That’s where you’re wrong hyung. The girls know about you being gay and all and they’d still be happy just to be near you. That way they can share the experience with their friends and fangirl together. Once they see you, you’ll be a hit. You’ll see.”

‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ Shin murmured to himself. Yongseok didn’t hear him, or pretended not to hear him.

“So what’s your booth called?” Shin asked after some minutes.

His young friend smiled, “You’re under arrest.” He said then held up a pair of handcuffs. “You know when you like someone it’s really hard to propose to them or just hang out with them. So with this booth, we’re actually helping out the couples. Or threesomes, or...you know the drill.” He motioned to the brightly colored heart-shaped papers. “The person who likes someone will write the names of their one and only on the paper and our marshals will arrest them. Then they have to wait for someone to bail them out. But of course that will never happen so the person who wrote their name on the paper will volunteer to suffer through their jail time by being handcuffed with them. After maybe thirty minutes, it depends on how much time they paid for, we set them free. Pretty neat confession, huh?”

Yongseok looked so pleased with himself that Shin was sure his friend was the one who came up with this booth idea. He just chose to keep quiet about his thoughts.

As the day progressed, Yongseok’s prediction pretty much summed up what happened. Shin didn’t really know what transpired with the whole female population in their university but they all seemed to flock around their booth. He didn’t do anything though, he just assisted Yongseok in handing out the things needed but the girls looked like they were having good fun. Yongseok had urged him to smile often and the girls seemed to like that more, so he did.

Then Casper came too and the day just got crazier. He didn’t just hand out the handcuffs, Casper actually volunteered at some point to be arrested with the girls too. And they loved it. Shin wasn’t surprised, Casper was actually good with girls.

It was getting dark and Yongseok’s friends had suggested that they all start packing up their booth. Shin was more than ready to quit actually.

“Can we wait for just a bit? Seyoung hyung said he’ll be stopping by with his new soon-to-be-potential boyfriend. And I want to see him.” Yongseok said while munching on some popcorn.

Casper paused in mid-chew and looked at Yongseok, “Ah, the one he met at the cafe? Already saw him. He’s okay I guess.”

“Oh? Is he cute?”

“How should I know?” Casper laughed, “I like girls, moron.”

Yongseok humphed,  “You have eyes in your head, you should know how to use it. Instead of your muscles.”

Shin just listened to them as they bartered insult after insult. They were actually pros at this kind of thing so he wasn’t surprised. Then everything stopped because the one they were waiting for came. He saw the guy everyone was curious about and found that Sangmin was actually a pretty cool guy. Seyoung hyung would likely crush his heart but Shin thought it wasn’t his business. So he just smiled at Sangmin when he was introduced.

“So what are we doing here? Should we play this game of yours Yongseokkie?” Seyoung hyung asked, pointedly looking at Sangmin at his side.

Their youngest, thank goodness was very adept with these things. “Yes, of course!  Let’s arrest people. You and Sangmin hyung could go and have this,” He reached for a pair of handcuffs and put it on their wrists. “Casper hyung and I will stay here and wait for you.”

“But what about Shin?” Sangmin asked before they left.

Shin started to shake his head when Seyoung hyung said, “He could go with your friend, Sangminnie. Where is he anyway?”

Sangmin looked like he just remembered he had another friend with him, “Oh, I thought he was just following us. Wait, isn’t that him?” He pointed to a tall man standing with his back to them a few feet away from them.

He was at a booth that sold different handmade accessories. Shin saw that he was wearing a black jacket. His mind’s eye supplied him with a memory of seeing this guy before but somehow, he just couldn’t place him.

“Let’s call him.” Suggested Casper.

But at that moment, a girl approached him and they walked away. Shin almost sighed in relief. He didn’t want to be stuck with a guy in handcuffs today. He was just plain tired.

“I guess he has a date.” Seyoung sounded a bit disappointed.

Sangmin smiled, “No, that’s impossible. My friend’s gay. I’ll just introduce you to him another time, Shin hyung. You’re perfect for him.”

Shin just politely nodded. No use to tell him that he would never date this time. Or ever.  He kept his smile in place even as the pair disappeared into the crowd.

End.