"I'm afraid, to sleep because of what haunts me
Such as, living with the uncertainty...
That I'll never find the words to say which would completely explain
Just how I'm breaking down..."
Sleeping Sickness by City and Colour
 

At first, I thought that it was finally over. That time had taken its bitter turn on my marriage and MinJun had finally snapped, fed up with how I was; with who I was. He always had a fickle mind. He regretted his purchases the second he made them, called the waiter back to order something different, left the movie theater in the middle of the film. In so many ways, it scared the hell out of me constantly to never have that security that came with a solid decision. But MinJun made even my fears, beautiful.

   His lack of commitment to life was what made him free. And there was nothing more beautiful than MinJun in his freedom, it was enough to blind a person. Like I was blinded from the very first moment I met him.

   And then came Chansung . . . for the first time, I questioned whether it really is MinJun who was the fickle one.



“Taec!” My name being yelled made me lift my head up from the flat surface it was laying on. My eyes slowly adjusted to the dimly lit kitchen but that did nothing against the blurriness of my vision and I looked around the table for my glasses. A soft chuckle came from beside me, accompanied by the warmth of a hand under my chin, pulling my gaze towards its owner. “Pabo.” I could hear the smile in his voice as he reached up to my forehead and pushed my glasses down to the bridge of my nose, giving me a clear vision of the slightly swollen bags under his eyes that gave his current state away, even though he smiled as if he was successful at hiding from me.

   Did he still think he could hide from me?

   Did he not realize that would be like the sun hiding from the sky? He was my sun, always burning, like his eyes.

   My arms slung loosely around MinJun’s waist and pulled him closer to me while his hands played with my hair as I buried my face in his stomach and took soft breaths, allowing myself to wake up. Part of me questioned whether I should have been concerned after getting home at nearly nine o’clock at night to find an empty house. Actually, no, it wasn’t a question, I should have been concerned. What if he was in danger? What if he was out cheating on me? But like many things in my life, my relationship with MinJun wasn’t quite normal and for me, his smile was the assurance I looked forward to in those moments that I needed it.

   I lifted my head to look at him. “Where were you?” I let myself ask, telling myself that it was a reasonable and legitimate question for a husband to ask.

   “I was just out for a walk . . . clearing my head.” He lied back. I knew he was lying because he never answered questions so quickly, so he was obviously expecting me to ask this question and had pre-rehearsed what he would say ahead of time. I looked down again, rather than confronting him about it. He wouldn’t lie unless it was important . . . or so I convinced myself.

   “Why are you sleeping on the table, baby?” MinJun asked after our silent moment together.

   “I was waiting for you to get home.”

   “Pabo.” He was trying to look upset, but it turned out as a weak pout that looked way too cute for a grown man. “I brought dinner.” With a kiss to my cheek he was stepping away from me and I was watching him sway around the kitchen to unpack the take out containers and serve the dishes for our dinner.

   He set a few dishes on the table and handed me a set of chopsticks. “Chansung’s coming over tonight, he gets done with his shift at midnight.” MinJun had already started eating before he even sat down.

   Chansung.

   I nodded and looked down at the table as I slowly began to eat, suddenly too anxious to really have an appetite. How was it that the mere thought of him could momentarily change my whole existence? As bad as I tried to deny it, there was just something about our newly found ‘other’ that I was drawn to. Maybe it was guilt that kept me from speaking to him when MinJun wasn’t around, maybe it was fear that the opening of one door inevitably meant the closing of another, whatever it was, I had successfully managed to go an entire day without thinking of the youngest member of our little entourage for an entire day . . . until now.

   “I swear he works too much.” MinJun said between mouthfuls of food. “He’s gonna turn grey before you do.”

   Why did that sound so off?

   I stared at the face of the person sitting across from me, realizing that even though we were holding a conversation, there was a sense of emptiness ebbing away at me, like he wasn’t really there. It was the same feeling I’d felt for months now, and just as always, I swallowed the tension in my throat and spoke in a stoic tone.

   “You mean . . . before we do . . .?” Our eyes met and he quickly looked away first, shoving a bunch of vegetables in his mouth.

   “Yeah, I meant that . . .” He got up from the table and dumped his bowl in the sink in a fleeing way, like he always did with everything in his life. But he couldn’t run from something that was as much a part of him as I was.

   “Jun,” I had only spoken the single syllable and he stopped in his tracks, looking back at me with those emotional eyes. What was I going to ask again? I was sure my eyes were wandering while I thought over my words carefully, finally sighing and putting my chopsticks down. “What are we doing with this kid, MinJun?”

   He smiled understandingly and shook his head, as if that would answer my question, giving it a few moments before answering fully. “We’re just having some fun, Taec . . . We’ve messed around before, remember?”

   “But what are we really doing?”

   “What am I doing, you mean?” MinJun shot back at me and I tried not to seem frustrated, simply shaking my head and looking down to avoid staring at him while I spoke.

   “It just feels like . . . I don’t know what it feels like and that’s what bothers me the most.” I looked at him, hoping he would see how much I meant my words.  “I don’t know what I’m allowed to do and what I’m not supposed to do.”

   “Taec, I trust you.” He came over and held my cheek in his hand, assuring me with his tender love that radiated into his touch. “I trust you not to do something that you couldn’t look me in the eyes afterwards. That’s it.”



I stood in front of the mirror, staring at the steamy reflection of myself that hovered over the bathroom sink, panic all but filling my veins as I quickly took my glasses off in an attempt to be more pleasant on the eyes. After staring at my now blurry image I decided to put them back on and then started messing with my hair, pushing my bangs in my face, flipping them back, running my fingers though my hair and pushing it all away from my face completely.

   This was ridiculous. I was ridiculous.

   I stepped out of the bathroom with an irrevocable feeling of ridiculousness.



I knew they were lying to me, when they told me that this was only temporary. That I was going away for the next few semesters and I would return after the school year, with a fresh new diploma and a world of possibilities open for my picking. I felt their false affection and forced sympathy as they looked at me with a pathetic attempt of a ruse to convince me that they honestly cared about my own personal desires. I knew it all yet I still got on that plane, and in those fourteen hours I stayed awake, suspended in air, I just couldn’t come up with a solid reason as to why they would ever love me.

   I was to stay with my uncle, my father’s brother, in Busan, for my last year in high school. It wasn’t that I particularly hated it, far from it. The city was lively, yet slowed down and more relaxed, and my relatives were kind, even though they had only seen me once since I was born, but they welcomed me into their home nonetheless. An action which only burned my frozen heart, like dry ice, inflamed and itching inside of me because of the bitter truth that I knew my own home would never be as welcoming.

   Little did I know, I would never return to that place that was not a home.

   Now it was Christmas, right before my eighteenth birthday. I stood in the empty street in front of the house, watching the dull grayish orange winter sky, illuminated by the city lights reflecting off the snow on the ground and hiding the stars that I wished more than anything to see. Tiny clusters of snow fell on my head while I clenched the letter in my hand. I had received it earlier that day.

   It was a speeding truck that killed them.

   A simple mistake that buried them six feet in the ground and acted as the final tragedy that deprived me of the one thing that I knew I would never get, yet I never stopped striving to obtain; like a flower trying to grow in the winter. I felt a subtle guilt that I grieved more for the forever lost opportunity to gain their acceptance then I did for their actual passing. But I cried all the same, for the first time in years, I cried.

When I woke up from my dream, I found myself sitting on the couch, the only light coming from the TV that had been left on while an over abundance of warmth sandwiched me in place. On my left, MinJun was curled up with his back leaning against me and his head falling onto the back of the couch in a way that just looked painfully uncomfortable. I reached my arm up to move his head to my shoulder but a weight held it down and I looked over to my right, finally seeing where the added warmth came from.

   Chansung looked up at me as he kept his cheek smushed against my shoulder, giving one of his innocent smiles and then turning back to whatever movie he was watching, completely ignorant of the fact that the one little glance had stopped my heart momentarily. I wished to be so blissfully stupid. I wished that I didn’t know some of the things I knew, that I could erase bits of my memory away and go back to being as free as Chansung was, as optimistic and ready to look forward. I wished I could untie myself from the chains I felt I was in, every day.

   I had barely noticed when Chansung slipped his fingers through mine and held onto my hand gently and I was again reminded that I could never be him.

   All I could do was hold onto him, hold on and wish.