To Be Seen or Not To Be Seen

Oblivion takes as many forms as terror, probably because they’re almost cousins. If there were something, anything more difficult than staring down a gaping hole and seeing her own future, Hyun would’ve been over her phobia of waking to an orchestrated chaos so vast and much larger than herself. She hasn't found that something worse, though. Yet.

In the meantime, she shivers in the dark as her head lolls back against the corner of her window nook, the bitter taste of knowing what’s next but possibly not still lingering in the recesses of her conscious. Moonlight paints her bedroom a sketchy shade of overbearing shadows and sinister angles that all merge into a blotch of indecipherable grey beyond the tip of her nose. She contemplates actually getting in bed, but fears stepping on something important or slipping on her mess of a floor in the dark; so she snuggles right where she is. Her eyes close; though, she has trouble finding sleep.

Hyun can’t dread the coming morning more than she already does. Her morning entails a visit from her tutor who will poorly veil her evident disapproval at Hyun's failing to attend Real High School™. Especially considering the fact that she's "so normal". (Yes, these were her exact words.) The tutors her dad hires are always middle-aged women with pinched faces and more commentary on how she should live her life than her academics. It isn’t too bad when they dissolve into the kitchen to clank glasses and chat her dad’s ear off, which the old man probably doesn’t mind too terribly. Her dad was understanding enough after giving up his dream of having a superstar midfielder for a daughter, but he gets frustrated sometimes, seeing Hyun locked up in her bedroom. 

Having a cello major as a son probably wasn’t on his agenda either, seeing as he’s shoved a bat in Kyungsoo's hands ever since he was old enough to toddle. 

As much as Hyun empathizes with his mourning of the ideal offspring she wishes her dad would sometimes hide his disappointment a little better.

After a night of fitful sleep, Hyun rises at around six. The comforts of her nook are all too inviting. She could sink back into the pillows and nod off. Nights are a restless period for Hyun. But, the morning is when she actually can sleep a little, off and on, when she doesn’t have tutoring scheduled. Although, despite the enticement, she drags herself off the mattress and into the hallway. The winter draft is freezing all of her extremities, and the heater is off. The toasty of warmth she usually looks forward to is absent. She’s cold, tired, and almost as if it was planned, she feels the pang of hunger twist her stomach into a knot and a growl follows immediately after. 

“Lala,” her dad’s voice echoes from somewhere below her. The kitchen, probably, judging from the sound of silverware on a cutting board. Hyun is barely awake, exhausted from not sleeping, but her feet instinctively carry her down the hall. She cracks an eye open so she doesn’t break her neck on the stairs and by the time she reaches the bottom both of her eyes are open and she’s shivering.

“Hungry?” Her dad emerges from the kitchen wearing a blue apron that has ‘#1 pops’ written on the chest in green lettering. He's smiling with lines crinkled around his lips and beside his eyes.

“Yeah,” Hyun says, scratching her shoulder mindlessly.

“How do eggs and pancakes sound?” He waves a serrated spoon.

“Sounds cool, dad. I can make it, though.” Hyun approaches, only to be stopped when her dad raises his empty hand.

“Shower.”

“You have work soon,” Hyun combats.

“And you have school.” The tone of her dad’s voice causes something hot to leap inside of Hyun's chest, and quiver. His bright eyes and coy smile that are begging ‘please cooperate’ shatters every defiant bone in Hyun's body. 

“Okay.” With that one word, her dad visibly relaxes, even spares Hyun's insufferably messy, definitely tangled, raven curls a gentle ruffle, and then he’s off into the kitchen. 

“You have a new tutor,” her dad shouts, bodiless, once Hyun is in the bathroom.

She showers quickly. When she's just about done and turning the shower off, her dad’s knock comes at the door.

"I left your plate in the oven. Love you, peanut. I'm off."

"Okay. Love you, too. Have a good day at work."

She hears her dad fumbling with his boots, and then the door opens and closes. She's alone. Hyun wraps herself ina fluffy towel. After taking a second to warm up, she goes back to her room, disregarding the droplets soaking the hardwood. Applying lotion with slow, lazy hands, she watches as the numbers on her digital clock tick away. Eight a.m. rolls around soon enough; and Hyun, realizing this with a heavy sigh, finishes dressing and goes back downstairs to lounge on the couch until the doorbell rings. 

It finally does. 

“Here we go.” Hyun groans into the crook of her elbow, rubbing her face afterward and stretching with a loud yawn. She drops the remote on her way up and answers the door. 

The first sensation that blasts her directly in her unprotected face is the biting winter gust. And the second is the young man standing on the other side of the door. To say he's handsome would be an overstatement seeing as most of his face, besides his eyes and nose, is hidden beneath the shadow of his coat’s hood and suffocating in the brown scarf wrapped around his head. Though, there’s something about the way he's...existing that has Hyun stumbling over her words. He isn't the tutor she was expecting. The feeling is an overwhelming one that causes her brain cells to freeze over. They finally thaw out when the man clears his throat and Hyun steps back, coming to her senses a bit.

“You're my new tutor?” she asks.

“Yep,” the young man answers. "It's nice to meet you. Lahyun, right?"

“Uh, yeah." Hyun nods. "Just Hyun, though."

“Park Chanyeol,” the young man says, voice slightly muffled by the scarf. 

Hyun steps back once more, genuinely baffled. She does a once over of the young man. Albeit incredibly rude, Hyun can’t help herself. There seemed to be an agenda her father followed when it came to choosing tutors. They were usually female, in their early to mid-forties, and obviously had a pungent distaste for teenagers despite their chosen field of work. 

“Can I come in?” Chanyeol's voice is the catalyst for Hyun to step aside for him to come in and close the door. The young man toes out of his boots and lingers by the door while stripping out of his coat.

“The closet is the door beside the stairs.” Hyun moves further out of the way as the man nods and walks over. As he removes his outerwear, layer by layer, Hyun becomes increasingly transfixed by the handsome and built man that appears. His broad back, slight yet sturdy biceps and wide chest noticeably stretch the black, textured turtleneck he’s wearing; indigo jeans hug his firm thighs and a silver chain jingles from his left pocket, linked into a belt loop. He turns, and Hyun loses her breath. Not only from the dark brown, almond-shaped eyes that find hers in the snow-lit room, but from the familiar tightening of that makes her legs wobble, chucking her into the sea without so much as a spare tire to cling onto.

“Did you want to start with anything in particular?” Chanyeol takes a seat at the glass dining room table and slings a shoulder bag Hyun had been too distracted to notice before on top of it. She spends a few seconds processing the words and even more time conjuring an answer. 

“Not really. Let me grab my backpack.” Hyun looks back every now and then as she’s fleeing up the stairs and discerns with an appropriate amount of dread that Chanyeol is gorgeous. As soon as Hyun reaches her bedroom she shuts the door and dives onto the bed, groping frantically for her phone in a flurry of excitement and terror. She quickly shoots a text to Mina before gathering herself and going back downstairs with her backpack gripped in one hand, phone swathed in the pocket of her grey sweats. 

When Hyun sits across from Chanyeol, the nerves come slithering around Hyun's ankles, twisting and winding up to clutch her knees. The underside of her thighs are sweating. It’s hard to concentrate on much of what he is saying when her mind is overcome with the heat crackling in her ears. She presses one hand to the lump of her pants and hopes that Mina isn’t paying attention in class. When is she ever?

“Do you think you can do this?” Chanyeol passes her the open booklet. Hyun nods and accepts the pen. Hyun has no clue what aspect of the problem he was explaining, but she already knows how to do it. Her fingers pinch the ridges of the pen harder than necessary and by the time she’s finished, dark blue splotches bleed over the i’s far too often for Hyun to pass it off as a slip of the wrist. She just hopes Chanyeol isn’t nearly as perceptive as he looks with his keen gaze, inquiring and deceptively gentle. 

“Good job.” Chanyeol leans further into Hyun's space, minty breath and musky cologne purging her nervous system and lighting her veins on fire. “Keep going if you can.”

Hyun's hands clam up under the pressure. The pen threatens to slip from her grasp every time she loosens it slightly. Chanyeol isn’t helping when he's pointing out Hyun's miscalculations and giving her tips on how to cut her work in half. What she could really use is a stress ball. Hyun suddenly misses the old, flirtatious women as Chanyeol is oblivious to the tremors rumbling throughout Hyun's entire body, resulting in the tension rendering her limbs useless as they tremble and Hyun is actually panicking now because she’s sure that her discomfort is visible by this point, what if-

“I have to use the bathroom.” Hyun stands without warning, grunts at the sound of her kneecap scraping the edge of the table before the pain even hits, and then apologizes needlessly as she stumbles upstairs to the bathroom. She shuts the door and releases the breath that’s been caught in her ribs for the past few minutes, mind finally clearing. Hyun's thigh vibrates two seconds too late. She nearly rips her phone out to check the message.

From: Mini, 8.40am

Don’t do that thing where you pinch your face like you’re going to cry from holding your breath and relax. 

Hyun swipes her finger over the call button and sits on the toilet lid. The phone rings three or four times before going to voicemail and Hyun buries it back in her sweats, pressing her fingers into her knees through the fabric. Her heart is knocking against her skull, blood hot and fast between her ears as she thinks about going back out there, sitting really close to Chanyeol and suffocating herself with thick cologne.

Hyun loses herself in thought for some time. Schemes on how to get out of tutoring today run through her mind. She could fake a stomach ache, but that would only warrant her dad to make an industrial size pot of his watery porridge and scalding ginseng tea. 

...relax.

Hyun nods, takes a deep breath, and walks back downstairs. The room is compressed with tension when she sits down. She is deeply uncomfortable with the stare Chanyeol is fixing her, dark brown eyes analytical with a slight squint and plush lips gone thin.

“Are you alright?” Chanyeol asks.

“Fine,” Hyun answers unnecessarily fast, embarrassment heating her face. “I’m perfectly fine.”

Chanyeol's smooth chuckle doesn’t help the abashment Hyun feels at her inability to function normally at the moment. 

“I have a habit of being a little uptight when I tutor.” Chanyeol grins nervously. “It’s easier that way. Sorry if I’m making you feel weird or something.” 

“You aren’t,” Hyun replies softly, and clears , speaking louder then. “I’m usually, uhm...-” 

“A little nervous?” Chanyeol offers.

“You could say.” Hyun nods, lips curving upward slightly and head bowing as another round of heat irritates her cheeks.

“So am I,” Chanyeol confesses, a little noise slipping from his lips that sounds like a sigh and a laugh mixed together, fraught. “Even my friends think I’m a little weird. I used to be super confident as a kid. But, then happened and it changed me. Sometimes, I think my brain tunes into a different frequency than everyone else. Geez, I must sound like an idiot.”

"No, you don't." Hyun shakes her head. "That actually makes a lot of sense. I get it, you know? I feel like an alien from outer space sometimes. We must both be getting 30 GHz." 

"30 GHz?"

"It's the frequency of satellites," Hyun says with a nervous chuckle.

"Oh." Chanyeol forms a handsome, mysterious smile. "Cheers to the 30 GHz club."

Hyun smiles back. "Cheers."

She pounds away at assignment after assignment. Her fingers are cramping by the time one in the afternoon hits and she’s only half an exam away from sweet freedom. Hyun tends to completely zero in when she's working. Her concentration has returned, and she can proudly say that she probably won’t fail any classes this term. Hyun vaguely ponders the reason for her dad switching tutors in between questions. Her quota for the year is nearly met. She can take a break in a few weeks. Hyun has never complained about her tutors, rebuked their sour demeanors in her head, sure, but never aloud for fear of sounding like a brat and bringing her dad more trouble than he needs. There is no plausible reason she can come up with, so she gives up.

“We’re done for today.”

Hyun nods and closes her laptop. She sits quietly while Chanyeol collects his belongings. She becomes distracted by the man’s long, thin fingers and blunt nails that clasp around whatever he’s grabbing. Pale blue veins strain against his honey complexion, creating a dangerous contrast within itself. His adam's apple bobs right above the collar of his turtleneck. Hyun squirms, not entirely pleased with how she’s staring, hard. Yet, she can’t really help herself. 

“You’re really smart,” Chanyeol praises casually as he’s still organizing his things, hands busy and eyes inside of his bag. “Have you started thinking about college, yet? Like, what route you want to take?"

The word ‘college’ combusts in the pit of Hyun's gut. 

She is a junior. It’s not a preposterous thing to be saying. It’s just terrifying, is all. Her future has always been an abstract project in the making. Whenever Hyun feels like she needs to fill the blank space with something she starts to second guess herself. College is scary. The future is scary. Growing up is scary. What if she doesn’t get to fulfill her dream?

What is her dream?

“Never too early to start thinking about it. Unexpected things happen.”

Hyun nods hollowly at the words. She is aware that unexpected things happen. Her life is a series of ‘unexpected things’. 

“Tomorrow then.” Chanyeol smiles pleasantly, walking over to the closet.

Hyun nods in farewell, a little awkward. “Tomorrow.”

Hyun watches as Chanyeol walks from the closet to the door. He pauses to offer her a small smile and a salute that doesn’t fail to make her heart stutter uncomfortably. Hyun doesn’t bar the laugh that bubbles out of her and even raises her hand to wave. She probably looks like a three-year-old. The warmth that sprouts in the base of and spirals upward to reach her quirking lips is welcome despite her earlier apprehensions. 

Chanyeol leaves just as quickly as he’d come. 

Hyun notes the wiggle of one of the man’s legs; it’s not nearly prominent enough to compare to a lumber. But, it’s there, and it makes Hyun more curious than she expects to be. Both of the man’s arms and one leg, the left one, work in smooth unison. Though his right leg is oddly stagnant in movement like the other limbs are trying to move it with them but it doesn’t want to go. Of course, all of this is so minor that Hyun wonders if her eyes are tricking her.

ᴅ ᴇ ғ ᴇ ᴄ ᴛ   ʀ ᴇ ᴊ ᴇ ᴄ ᴛ s

“He was handsome,” Hyun says mindlessly as she dips some brushes into the water jar with a possessed meticulousness. The once soapy water looks filthy now. A tingling sensation rattles her cold skin. She forgets to burrow beneath the covers of her window nook, obvlious to the chill seeping in through the splinters in the wood.

“Damn, he really is your kind, huh?” Mina puts on a devious grin that reaches her hazel eyes. “Talking all nerdy about satellites and .”

“Oh, well it takes a nerd to know one,” Hyun says, the cloud lifting from around her ears and reality dawning on her, piece by piece. "You have a T.A.R.D.I.S. shrine in your basement."

“Ok, one, it's not a shrine. It's a collection of Doctor Who memorabilia," Mina says defensively. "And, two, if I didn’t practice pacifism I’d whoop you for that.”

“Pacifism my .” Hyun scoffs. “You punched me a few days ago for making fun of your dumb hat.”

“There are certain exceptions for disrespect of holy attire.”

“Are there also exceptions for being fake spiritual?” 

“You,” Mina sighs with her forefinger and thumb pinching the bridge of her nose, “are spoiling my mantra energy.”

“I’ve never once seen you actually meditate because, no, napping doesn’t count.” Hyun rolls her eyes.

“Whatever.” Mina props her chin in one palm, rolling on her stomach on Hyun's bed, blonde curls bouncing around her. “Tell me more about this Casanova.”

“I don't know. He's cool, I guess,” Hyun says, straight-faced at first, then her nose scrunches at the acidic fumes wafting from the bit of cleaning solution spilled on her thumb. She wipes it off on her sweats even though the bottle says it’s toxic. 

“Wrong.” Mina breathes dramatically. “He’s your savior. You turn into a potato around everyone else. You actually talked to this guy for more than thirty seconds about something besides the weather or, or...your pizza total.”

“That’s normal, though,” Hyun says, frustrated. She isn’t doing anything special. It’s just that Hyun's normal is abnormal in a real-world context. Praising her for not having an anxiety-induced panic attack in a low-stress social situation is like praising a fish for swimming, something they do by nature, or at least by imitation. 

“You’re not normal,” Mina says.

“Wow, thanks, dude.” Hyun deadpans.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do,” Hyun says bitterly. 

After a minute of silent consideration, Hyun opens .

“He’s just different,” Hyun begins pensively, hands wiggling in her pockets. “I…can’t really place him. When he talked it was like he was reading my mind. I don't... I guess I forgot to be nervous. He made it difficult to.”

“Or....” Mina prods. "Maybe, just, maybe, you didn't forget to be nervous. Could it possibly be that you actually weren't nervous?"

“I mean, maybe..." It felt like a secret. The little smiles they shared. How unbelievably visible he made her feel. And in any other setting, she would literally be sprinting away from any sort of visibility. But, in those few, small moments, Chanyeol actually made her want to run towards it. 

"He made your little weird self feel seen," Mina says with a knowing grin. "And you liked it."

Hyun rolls her eyes, but she can't help feeling warm and fuzzy inside.

Yeah, he did make her feel seen. And maybe she did like it.