L. Joe suppressed a groan as he rolled about on his bed. He lay on his back, but then rolled onto his stomach. Back and forth he went time and time again. He was tired, and very grumpy. He tended to do this whenever he got frustrated, and he couldn't think of anything he could do to fix the situation.

Right now it was school work that was bothering him, although there were always another half a dozen things lurking in the back of his mind.

He was the amazingly brainy L. Joe. Everyone took one look at him and assumed he did bad at school work. Everyone assumed that he was stupid, spent his weekends drinking and had never so much as picked up a book. He looked like a rebel. He liked American music. Therefore he must be the sort of person that doesn't care about school and gets into trouble all the time.

In actual fact, he was at the top of all his classes.

You name the subject, and L. Joe could do it. He could do it well. No matter what the work consisted of, L. Joe could do it; could handle it, and beat almost every other student in the class at the same time. He was pretty smart. He had to be.

He had dreams to fulfil. He may not have had them for very long, and they may have been pretty short term goals, but he was going to accomplish them. But to accomplish his wish, he was going to have to get good grades. University was a very competitive environment after all. He'd need good grades to be able to compete with everyone else.

Despite the fact that his teachers continued to dump so much work on him, this had never been a problem before. He'd never lost sight of what he was aiming for. It had always felt as though it was going to be within his reach. He'd always felt so sure that he was going to succeed, no matter how hard the workload got. He never felt particularly challenged by the content itself. Being able to remember or apply it, was hard, yes, but the work itself, for the most part made sense in every subject.

Except for now.

He was now officially screwed.

He was taking an English class, although that makes it sound like he has a choice in the matter. It was actually a mandatory unit, which was half his trouble. He had to do well in that unit no matter what, if he wanted to achieve his goal. It hadn't worked out the way he'd expected though.

It was all essay writing so L. Joe had thought that he was set. He could write essays. He was even pretty good at writing essays, if he were honest. They only had to write 4 essays and do two exams, so it was pretty light in terms of weekly workload. The first one had gone okay, marks working out to be equivalent to the sorts of results that L. Joe was getting in every other subject.

But now it was time for him to be working on his second essay, and he was completely stuck! He was only human; he too found Shakespeare difficult to process, even if he did make more of an effort than his classmates. But that was the problem. Now it was time to write this essay on Hamlet, and he had no one he could talk about it with. His mother had never read the book, and he had no friends at school he could ask about it. He vaguely considered the prospect of asking his classmates or his teacher but even that idea was worthless. None of them would understand what he wanted to talk about; what he wanted help sorting out.

They only ever wanted to talk about religion or loyalty in Shakespeare. And anyone else, just plain hadn't read it. L. Joe had his own ideas, but no one to bounce them off of, and so he couldn't make any progress with the essay.

No one could understand him.

Thus he found himself in his current predicament.

He'd tried complaining to his mother about it. The woman was always pestering him to tell her how school was going. She always wanted to know about his classes and the work that he was covering. She seemed so desperate for her son to talk to her; like it was so imperative to form a connection between the two of them, that he felt kind of bad for her.

Maybe she knew what he was planning?

That pity was the reason why he responded to her questions. He never tried to go out of his way to be mean to her. But they both knew that he didn't want to be there. They both knew that she had dragged him back to Korea in figurative chains. They both knew that he saw everything that had happened as being her fault.

He just didn't see any reason to make the situation uncomfortable by antagonising her for the next year. The time would be bad enough without adding that sort of aggravation to his plans. So he answered her, in as few words as possible.

The fact that she always seemed so happy when he answered her made him feel a little guilty. As far as he was concerned, no real headway was being made between them; their relationship was still fractured, waiting for the final blow to sever it all together.

She had wriggled her eyebrows at him slightly, trying to sound as though she didn't mean as much by the statement as she really did. “Well, you know, Chanhee was a really good student. Maybe you could talk to him about it? I'm sure he'd be happy to help.”

L. Joe had rolled his eyes at the comment, shrugging her words off and retreating to his room. Trust her to make a comment like that right now. He wasn't sure why she seemed so adamant that he should try reaching out to that Chunji kid.

He was still irritated that his mother had tried to get him a date for his formal. It made him feel embarrassed and more than a little pathetic having her do it the way that she had. She hadn't left him with any choice in the matter once she heard that Chunji had accepted her request. L. Joe felt like a little resistance was in order. So he'd decided that he would try and resist their attempts at making the two of them friends as much as possible.

But he did need help with this essay, or else he was going to get no where. No one else in his life would be able to help him out at this point. She seemed so certain that Chunji would be different; that he'd be able to help him out, so maybe he should give it a go?

It couldn't hurt right?

He had long since lost the scrap of paper that Chunji had given him that day after school. But, in a moment of unusual forethought, he'd added the boy's number into his phone. With both of their parents forcing them to interact with one another, he'd figured that he'd probably need it sooner or later. He might not have needed to worry about it, but because he'd decided to be such a smart arse regarding giving Chunji his own number, he didn't really have a lot of options, regarding how they could get in contact with one another at short notice.

He stared down at the contact he'd dubbed 'Chunji' eyes tracing his phone number thoughtfully. Should he call him? Did he really want to speak to him? It only took a moment of considering that idea for L. Joe to decide that he certainly didn't want that. Sure Chunji seemed nice enough, but they didn't know one another. They'd only been introduced. It'd just be awkward to call him up out of nowhere to quiz him about Shakespeare. Besides, who knew where he was or what he was doing; he might not be able to have a long phone conversation right now.

He considered texting him, but again he disliked the idea. Analysis of an English text wouldn't exactly be easy by text. If Chunji were able to be of any use to him at all, it'd require them to talk a lot. That'd take so much time and money if he were to do it via text.

A little light bulb went off in L. Joe's mind and his fingers danced across the keypad, typing in a short message to the other boy that he sent off a few seconds later. He dropped his phone, but he found himself awaiting the reply anxiously.

- -

Chunji looked up from his reading, startled to hear his phone going off. He didn't get a lot of messages these days. He looked at the screen, the unfamiliar number filling him with confusion. He opened the message, wondering whether or not their message would give him any insight into who was contacting him.

'Do you know Hamlet?'

He paused, observing the question for a moment, intrigued. It was such an odd question to get out of no where. He racked his brain for a moment, trying to recall the names of all the texts he'd studied back in school. Was this one that he'd actually studied, or was it only one that he'd heard about?

Moving away from his now forgotten reading, he opened his laptop, searching through his documents to find his old school work. He'd saved a copy of all of his essays and assignments to his computer, back when he was in school. He could find some work on Hamlet. He gave it a quick once over, trying to refresh his memory before he gave an answer to the question.

Feeling moderately confident, he sent back a hesitant response. He found himself staring at his phone distrustfully, as though he expected it to light up with an immediate response. He shook his head at himself, moving back to his reading again for a few minutes.

Sure enough, the phone went off again a moment later. He picked it up, giving it a cursory glance, before finishing off the page. It was only then that he really gave the message any attention. He frowned confused, but abandoned his reading once again, somehow suspecting that he wouldn't be returning to it again that evening.

'Good. Add me on MSN. My email address is [email protected]*' (made up)

He was fairly certain that he now knew who had been messaging him, but the response didn't fill him with relief. Now that he knew it was L. Joe that wanted to talk with him, he found himself getting more nervous. It had felt as though the two of them had gotten off to a bad start. He'd just assumed that they would continue to live their separate lives and that would be the end of it, until the formal came around.

L. Joe was the one that had acted like he couldn't care less about Chunji, and now he wanted to talk with him all of a sudden.

He was the one doing L. Joe a favour, so why did it feel like he'd been given a gift in the form of a second encounter?

Sighing to himself he signed into MSN, adding the other boy as a friend. He observed the window with curiosity. Despite being the one to tell Chunji to add him, it didn't appear as though L. Joe was even logged on.

He wondered if the other boy was just trying to mess with him or something, when a flashing new window popped up.

Apparently L. Joe was on after all.

- -

L. Joe: Took you long enough.

Chunji: These things take time.

Chunji: Why did you want to know whether or not I knew Hamlet?

L. Joe: School. I need help.

Chunji: What do you want me to do?

L. Joe: Just talk about it with me. I'm trying to develop my essay.

Chunji: Talk? Why couldn't you do that with your mother? Or your classmates? Teacher? Friends?

L. Joe: Doesn't know the book. Don't understand what I want to say. Doesn't have the time. Don't have any that have read the book or would understand what I want to say.

Chunji: What makes you think I'll be of any help, if you're full of such complex thoughts?

L. Joe: >shrugs< I dunno. Just hopeful?

Chunji: How are you interpreting it? Why is it different from your classmates?

L. Joe: I'm not too sure about that yet. I just know I don't think of it the same way my classmates do... they're all writing about the play as a religious metaphor.

Chunji: ALL?

L. Joe: Fine... 26 out of of 30 people. Near enough to all.

Chunji: O.O..... Seriously?

L. Joe: Seriously. I want to do something different.

Chunji: No wonder. What did you want to ask me?

L. Joe: Why do you think Hamlet kills his uncle?

Chunji:..... That seems too easy...... I'm suspicious....

L. Joe: Just answer the question.

Chunji: Because his uncle killed his dad?

L. Joe:... Yes, but why did that meant that he had to kill him?

Chunji: Because that's what a loyal son 'should' do? Take revenge on his father's murderer?

L. Joe: That's how my classmates are looking at it.... but I'm not so sure....

Chunji: What do you mean?

L. Joe: Well... they all keep saying how it's only right that a murderer deserves to die. So they think Hamlet is in the right, even though Hamlet himself acknowledges that killing others is wrong.

Chunji:... Hamlet is also the one telling us that dutifully, he should be the one to kill his uncle...

L. Joe:.... That's why my teacher says that basically, the whole play is about Hamlet deliberating on the morality of a particular course of action, he both wants to do and knows is wrong.

Chunji:... Do you disagree?

L. Joe: Well no... but... I don't think that it's fair to say that Hamlet kills either because the ghost asks him to, nor because he should as the son of a murder victim.

Chunji: Why do you think Hamlet killed his uncle?

L. Joe: Because he bowed to the pressure placed upon him by society; by the ghost, and decided that they matter more than acting like a decent human being.

Chunji: I suppose that's true... Do you think the fact that both Hamlet and Laertes die, because of that, has some significance? Like a parable or something?

L. Joe: I'm not sure... I think it's a bit of a stretch to try saying that Hamlet is a big metaphor for the teenage idea of 'don't follow the crowd'... I mean, Claudius did that, and it didn't exactly turn out well for him in the end now did it?

Chunji: Yeah I know... It didn't seem to matter whether you tried to do your own thing or not... In Hamlet, it seems as though you were doomed just by being part of that whole scene in the first place.

Chunji: But you know, I'm not so sure that you can say Hamlet bowed to the desires of society in the form of the ghost...

L. Joe:... How do you figure, I mean he DID kill Claudius, in the end.

Chunji: Yeah but he didn't trust him. He kept thinking to himself about how he should trust him, and that he's a bad person for not just believing the ghost, but he can't help himself, he needs to be convinced that Claudius is guilty before he agrees to go along with it. He didn't really want to kill anyone, even when he felt like he had to.

L. Joe:.... For someone that didn't want to kill, there sure were a lot of collateral deaths thanks to his plans...

Chunji: I know... just shows that your actions have a ripple effect.. It's never going to be one on one in something like this.... Do you think the ghost knew what would happen because of his actions? Did he know his son would die? His wife?

L. Joe: I don't think he cared... he wanted revenge, and as far as he was concerned, everyone would deserve what they got, for their role in what happened..

Chunji: How do you figure? I mean it's not their fault that his brother decided to kill him.

L. Joe: Maybe so, but his brother killed him because he wanted to get the throne. The queen let him achieve that end. If she'd just stayed a widow, it would have been for nothing. If Hamlet had voiced his objections, instead of venting his anger with his mother to himself at the start of the play, maybe he could have convinced her not to go through with it all. So while they may not have done anything to murder the king, they helped the uncle profit from his murder.

Chunji:.... Hadn't considered that before...

L. Joe:... I know, but it's not really any help, I can't support it with the text. Ergo, can't go in my essay... Still don't know what I should write that Hamlet is all about.

Chunji: What do they actually want you to write about Hamlet in this essay?

L. Joe: They want me to have a theory of what the whole thing's deeper meaning is (argument) with reference to 2 themes and at least 2 literary techniques... sigh... essays are so involved in English...

Chunji:... Hmm... well you were talking earlier about how you thought that Hamlet is all about the consequences of the actions of people. About chain reactions and unexpected outcomes... that really everyone was looking for revenge, and having the right intentions behind it is irrelevant, because the act itself is wrong, even if it feels like it's justified. That doing bad things will have bad things as it's end outcome.

L. Joe:... I'm not sure I said all of that...

Chunji: I may have embellished it a little... But it's a fair argument....

L. Joe: But I need more than just that... What themes could I use to support that argument?

Chunji: Well, you could really use whatever themes you want in that argument...

L. Joe:... Hmm...you might be on to something... I'm going to have to think about this a little more... But I feel kinda bad for using your ideas...

Chunji: O.O...My ideas? You said it, I didn't... I argued something completely different in my essay on Hamlet...

L. Joe: What did you argue?

Chunji: Nope, not telling you... maybe AFTER you hand in your essay!

L. Joe: Fine... This argument still feels a little...obvious though...it feels too...simple..

Chunji: Trust me, you don't have to have the most complicated argument to do well in English. If you are looking at something just slightly differently than everyone else, that's good enough to get the marks for originality... Besides, complicated ideas have a habit of disappearing mid-way through an essay...

L. Joe: Hmm...I suppose so...

Chunji: You know, I was surprised that you wanted to speak to me...

L. Joe: That doesn't surprise me... I was just messing with you, Chunji.

Chunji... Did you know who I was? When I spoke to you the other day I mean?

L. Joe: Yeah, I know about this whole thing...I know why you're speaking to me...

L. Joe: So what are you? A high school student? University student? Working? Deadbeat?

Chunji: University student. 1^st Year.

L. Joe: I thought that you might be older than me.... What university?

Chunji: Hanyang University.

L. Joe: Eh? You are a smart boy aren't you?

L. Joe: What do you study?

Chunji: History. What's with all the questions?

L. Joe: Nothing.

L. Joe: Look, it's getting pretty late. Thanks for the help. Bye.

L. Joe has signed out.

- -

Chunji sat back from his keyboard just staring at the screen trying to work out what was going on. One second they are having a perfectly pleasant conversation, the next L. Joe is leaving. He slumped onto his desk with a groan. He hadn't really meant anything by the comment, and he'd ended up driving the younger boy away!

He'd ruined things again. Right when L. Joe was just starting to take an interest in him.