Yunho's Side Story: The Boy and the Silver Sun
Seducing Mr.
Yunho's Side Story:
The Boy and the Silver Sun
(A Yunho POV)
Yunho. Age 6. Mother brought me to a hospital. I don’t like being in
hospitals. They have a weird smell. Mother’s talking to a doctor. They’re talking
about me. She hates me because something’s wrong with me. She doesn’t want
to come near me. She’s afraid of me.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Jung. I’ve run several tests on Yunho, and I can’t be
completely sure, but right now it seems as if he might be showing a mild case
of alexithymia.”
“Alexithymia? What’s that?”
“It’s technically an unproven mental disorder, but it has to do with the
difficulty to experience and express emotions. Especially those having to do
with affection.”
“Are you saying he can’t feel love?”
“Mrs. Jung, alexithymia is something that can be treated. With proper
training and exercises he could—”
“Thank you, doctor. That’ll be all. I think we’re going to leave now.”
She pushes the doctor away and comes towards me. She looks down at
me. Her face is blank. Her lips are thin. She doesn’t want to touch me. She
thinks I’m a monster.
“Come on, Yunho. Let’s go.”
* * *
Mother is making me learn the piano. I don’t like music. It hurts my ears,
and it sounds all confusing. The black and white on the keyboards look
unnatural, and I don’t like the feeling of pressing down on the keys. I come to
my piano class alone every day. Mother used to come pick me up, but she
doesn’t anymore. She thinks I’m old enough to go home by myself.
The teacher’s making me learn a piece by Beethoven. It’s called Moonlight
Sonata. I’m not good at it. Teacher tells me that I need to put more feeling into
playing the piece, but everything comes out chalky and disconnected. I would
rather not play.
* * *
When I come home from piano lessons, mother tells me to eat dinner.
She’s made omelet for dinner again. It’s the only thing she knows how to cook.
We eat in silence. She turns on the TV.
An hour later, we clean up the table, and she goes to the sofa. It’s a
Korean soap opera she’s watching. Something’s happened, the main girl is
crying. My mom’s crying too. I wish she’d look at me. But she just looks at the
TV and cries along with the girl.
* * *
The next day, my piano teacher is sick. Another teacher tells me that she’ll
be my teacher for the day. She says that I have to play with another girl, since
it’s usually her time slot. The girl is late. The teacher asks me to play what I’ve
learned. I sit on the piano and begin to play Moonlight Sonata.
I’ve been playing for 5 minutes, and the door opens. A little girl walks in.
She has black hair tied into pigtails. She’s on an ice-cream stick, and
has spit rolling down her chin. When she sees me, she smiles.
“Say hi to Yunho,” she tells the girl.
“Hi!” She comes and gives me a hug. I push her away. I don’t like being
touched.
“Yunho, why don’t you say hi?”
I look at the girl. She’s got dirt all over her face. She’s still smiling at me. I
don’t like the way she’s looking at me.
“My name’s Eunhye,” she says. “Eun-hye. Like silver sun!”
“Eunhye, that’s not what your name stands for,” the teacher says, patting
her back.
“I know. But my daddy calls me that. Silver sun. Hehe.”
I play the piano. I’d rather listen to music than her voice. While I’m playing
the piano, she stares at me. She looks like she’s examining me. I don’t like it.
After I’m done playing the piano, she claps. Ice-cream has melted down her
arm. I don’t like it.
“You’re so good!” she shouts. “How can you be so good?”
I look at the time. It’s four o’clock. Without saying goodbye, I leave the
room and head home.
“Bye! See you tomorrow!” she shouts behind my back.
* * *
The teacher sends me to the nurse’s room. It is because, she says, I was
acting weird. I just don’t like it when girls are giggling around me. The teacher’s
upset because I pushed a girl, and she fell. The nurse calls my mother, and my
mother comes to pick me up from school. We walk home in silence. She tells me
I don’t have to go to piano classes today.
* * *
After piano class, I see the girl. She’s finished her class too, and she’s
running towards me. She waves her hand in the air. I turn around and walk away
as if I hadn’t seen her.
“Hey…why weren’t you in class yesterday?” She shouts. “Hey…wait!
Yunho!”
I walk faster.
“Ow!”
I hear a cry behind me. The girl’s crying. I turn around and look at her.
She’s scraped her knee. She’s crouching on the ground, holding on to her
knees. Tears are running down her cheeks, and her nose is all runny. I don’t
want to go near her, but I do so anyway. I don’t know why.
I grab her knee and blow on it. She keeps crying.
“Stop crying. It’s fine.”
She stops crying. She sniffles a couple of times and then hugs me.
Instinctively, I push her away. But she smiles anyway, and leans over. Then she
gives me a kiss on the cheek. And then she runs away.
* * *
She follows me every day after piano class. At first, I left her behind. Now, I
just let her follow me. Sometimes, I slow down so that she can catch up. Today,
she’s talking about her friend at school. She met a girl called Yura, she says.
“Do you have any friends?” she asks.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because the kids in my class are noisy.”
She smiles. “If you don’t like noise, how come you play the piano?”
“Because my mother makes me.”
She skips down the road then turns around. “Don’t you like music, Yunho?”
“No.”
“I like music,” she says. “I like the beat. I like it when you play the piano.”
I don’t respond. My house is closer to the piano studio than hers. She give
me a kiss on the cheek, then runs off.
* * *
“Yunho!!!”
The girl calls me from behind. I slow down so she can catch up to me. She
runs towards me and grabs my arm. I push her away.
“Yunho, I was thinking of some types of music you might like…”
“I don’t like music.”
“Hehe.”
She grabs my arm and stops in front of me. I look at her. She pulls my arm
towards her chest and puts it there. I pull away, but she grabs my hand tight.
“Close your eyes,” she says.
I close my eyes because if I don’t, I’m sure she won’t let go.
“Can you feel it?” she asks.
“Feel what?”
“Come on. Try harder.”
I close my eyes. I can’t feel anything.
“Dum dum. Dum dum. Dum dum. Do you hear it?” she asks.
“No…”
She puts her other hand on my chest.
“Now try,” she says.
I can’t feel anything. I can’t hear anything.
Dum dum. Dum dum.
Suddenly, I can hear something tiny.
“See? You can hear it, right?”
Dum dum. Dum dum.
“That’s music, too,” she says. “That’s my music. And this is your music,”
she says, pointing to my chest.
Dum dum. Dum dum.
I can hear the music coming from her body. It is chalky and disconnected.
Like the way I play the Moonlight Sonata. Like a broken metronome. It’s music.
But I don’t think I hate it.
* * *
“Where’s the girl?” I ask teacher.
She looks at me with an odd expression. I’ve been waiting for her in front
of the piano studio for almost ten minutes, and she’s not coming out.
“Yunho…Eunhye’s not coming here anymore,” she says.
“Why?”
“Eunhye and her family are mourning right now.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Eunhye’s father passed away.”
That day I walk home alone. The sound of my broken metronome echoes
through the empty street.
* * *
Twelve Years Later
Lunch time. It’s the monthly RC & R (Rose Club & Romeos) meeting. Eun
Che wants to plan out a party for the weekend. She’s deciding on whether we
should go to a club or have a house party instead.
“I can’t wait to torture the newbies,” Chang Soo says.
“Yunho, you’re coming to the party, right?” Eun Che asks, slipping a hand
into my arm. I nudge her away.
“Hey, how are the newbies this year?” one of the Romeos ask.
“They’re alright,” Eun Che says. “Nothing special.”
Every year, the Rose Club recruits new members by giving out a stupid
mission. The girls have to seduce whoever is in their file. To honor the newbies,
the Rose Club and the Romeos host a party in the following month, and that’s
when the Romeos go about looking for their prey. I don’t enjoy going to the
parties. The first time I was asked to become a Romeo, I refused. And then I
realized that refusing was more of a pain than accepting. So I decided to be a
Romeo in the end.
“That . I was looking forwards to some cute freshies.”
“There is this one girl, “ Eun Che says, “but she’s more like our prey. We
gave her an impossible target. Kim Jaejoong.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. She’ll never get him. But it’ll be funny as hell watching her trying to
seduce him, don’t you think?”
“Who is she? Do I know her?”
I stand up. Lunch time is almost over, and I have no interest listening to
them gossip.
“No…you probably don’t. She’s a nobody,” Eun Che says. “Her name is
Eunhye or something.”
I stop halfway out the door. “What did you say?” I ask.
“Huh?”
“What was her name?”
“Her name? It’s Yoon Eunhye. Why?”
Yoon Eunhye…
Dum dum. Dum dum.
“She goes to this school? What class is she in?”
“She’s in class 3-02. What’s wrong with you, Yunho? Yunho! Where are you
going?”
* * *
Classroom 3-02. A couple of Romeos have followed me, although I don’t
know why. I bust the door open and step into the class.
Yoon Eunhye…
And then I see her. She meets my gaze. It’s been twelve years, but she
looks almost just like the first time I saw her. I’m almost certain it’s her.
“What class is this?” I ask, taking another step in.
Silence. And then, from the corner of the room, a girl says: “it’s class 3-
02, Yunho…”
I nod. I look at Eunhye one more time. It has to be her. “Let’s go,” I say.
As I’m walking away, a junior boy rushes into the classroom.
“Is there someone called Eunhye…?” I hear him say. “Jae…Jaejoong is
looking for you.”
I hide behind one of the corridors and watch as a boy in another school
uniform storms into the classroom. A few minutes later, he comes out carrying
Eunhye over his shoulders.
Yoon Eunhye.
It’s her.
* * *
“What the hell happened yesterday, Yunho?” Chang Soo asks.
I have to see her. I have to ask her if she’s the girl. My heart races, and I
can hear the sound of the broken metronome again. Chang Soo is talking over
my shoulder, but I’m headed towards class 3-02.
“Where are you going!”
“To class 3-02.”
“For what?”
“To see someone.”
“You mean that Eunhye girl?”
I nod.
“Eun Che told me that she’s meeting them outside the school gates,”
Chang Soo says. “She said something about Jaejoong being her boyfriend.
They’re going to go beat her up.” He chuckles.
Jaejoong? Boyfriend? I rush to the window and look out. They’re not there.
They must be outside the gates already. I rush down the stairs.
“Wait!! Yunho!! Don’t go out yet, we’re supposed to fight those DongKo High
guys today, remember?!” Chang Soo shouts behind me.
I use the back entrance to find my way outside the school gates. I look around,
but they’re not there.
I walk towards the front entrance.
“Come here, ! Come down here right now!”
Suddenly, something smacks me on the head.
“Ow!”
I look down and see a phone. Where did the phone come from…?
I look up, and I see a girl sitting on top of the gate walls.
It is her.
All the noises fade into the background. I can hear nothing but the sound
of two broken metronomes. I can feel her small hands on my chest. I close my
eyes. I have waited twelve years.
It is her.
“Jump.”
Girls are shouting on the opposite side of the wall. Chang Soo calls my
name. A group of boys come running at us from the side. But I have found her.
“Yunho! They’re coming!” Chang Soo shouts.
“Oh, .” I grab her hand. “We have to run.”
It is raining. All the sounds of the world have collided. The world is
exploding with music. But I can hear none of it, except for the sound of her tiny
heartbeats.
Dum dum. Dum dum.
Raindrops fall on my face. My face spreads out into a smile.
She is here. I am finally free…
I have found her.
My Silver Sun.
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