Chapter 27: REWIND 8 <<<<<<<< [--:--am]

Byunghee stared at the corpse that swayed, affixed to the cross in the center square. He felt cold, numb. Perhaps this was all a dream and the sight in front of him just a figment of his overactive imagination; just the product of one of Changsun’s horror stories that he so loved to tell.

There was no way that the pale body swaying softly in the wind was real. It was unfeasible, impossible, unimaginable. It was a dream, a nightmare, a mirage in the desert dune. Something, anything.

Just not this. Not the possibility that...

That body there...

It couldn’t be his father…

…

                                                                                                                                      Right?

***

Byunghee had to be dragged away from the corpse that was once his father.

It was Changsun’s mother who did it. Byunghee’s own mother was inconsolable - a ragged mess of tears and running mucus that heaved sobs and cried unintelligible words to the concrete floor. His own two sisters were the opposite: shell-shocked and stunned. They stared blankly at the cross as if hoping they could see through it and beyond to a living, breathing, blood-running-through-his-veins human being.

So it had been up to Changsun’s mother to gather and patch back the broken family. Like a rip in a photo, the divide would never be completely repaired. Sellotape and glue and paper clips could try their best to stick the two halves together, but that rip would always be visible. The Jung family carried it around like a weight dragging down their shoulders.

Changsun's mother did her best to gather the inconsolable woman, the shell-shocked sisters and the son who didn’t know whether to cry, to freeze or to run far, far away. She took them back to their tiny home that suddenly seemed a thousand times bigger with the absence of a man who had not been there half the time, and then she set them about returning to the normalacy of life. 

Changsun watched his mother all the while. He was present as the quiet shadow, peeping out from behind his mother's back despite his gangly fourteen year old stature. Quiet for he had no words for this situation. Sure this was a world where people died every day, but it was also a world in which they were granted the gift of 24 days to say goodbye. Grief could be overcome. People could carry on with their lives.

But Byunghee had been deprived of that privilege. 

Sure Changsun himself had never experienced a loss. He was fourteen. He couldn’t truly comprehend the meaning of life and death and the otherworld of ghosts and lingering spirits. He couldn’t understand the meaning of what it meant to know someone for practically your entire life and then see them extinguished like a candle flame, so easily with pinched fingers. 

So Changsun did not know how to console his best friend. He didn't know what words to say or what skinship comfort to offer. But he couldn’t stay away from Byunghee. If he did, Byunghee’s crying face, pulled taut with stress and white as the ghosts with which Changsun once weaved his tales from, would come back to haunt him. So Changsun hung around his mother, and his sister who came to help her, doing as they bid. Go fetch some water Changsun, go collect this Changsun, watch them for me Changsun.

It frightened Changsun, to see his best friend so quiet. It was like he had lost his soul and all that was left sitting in front of him was an empty shell. It scared him so much that one day when they were alone in Byunghee's house, his mother convinced to work and his two sisters encouraged to go out, Changsun opened his mouth and let the words spill out. 

“Byunghee,” he said in a haltering voice. Byunghee was huddled against the wall, his legs drawn up and his head tucked into the recesses of the shadows.  “Byunghee…”

Changsun just couldn’t leave things as they were. “Please Byunghee, talk to me.”

There was no movement.

“Okay fine,” Changsun exhaled heavily. “I’ll talk to you then.”

He scooted closer so that they were sitting but a few centimeters apart. Changsun’s every breath tickled the overgrown fringe of Byunghee, the hairs waving from one side to another as Changsun tried to find words to say to his broken friend.

“Byunghee, I’m-“

“Don’t say you’re sorry.” Byunghee spat, uncharacteristically fierce. 

Changsun was at loss for words. “Byunghee-“ he tried. 

Byunghee’s head shot up, revealing bloodshot eyes rimmed red from tears. “Changsun, you’re the last person I want to hear that from. Father’s dead and people are whispering down the street ‘sorry for your loss’ or ‘how pitiful those children are’ or just plain staying away from us. People are speaking behind our backs, gossiping about why my father was executed or how. They think I don’t know or can’t hear but I have a perfectly functioning pair of ears and a working brain. Umma and my noonas don’t want to accept it, but father’s dead.”

Changsun’s mouth dropped open.

“And I know you were too scared to talk to me. I know you feel you have to say something, but let me make this clear: you don’t need to.” Byunghee’s eyes flashed and Changsun flinched involuntarily.

“And if you want to clear off after this, I understand. You may have saved me eight years ago from getting electrocuted and we may have been the best of friends, but I understand if friendship doesn’t extend towards life and death situations. I-“ he paused, a sob catching in his throat. “If you’re going to leave me, do it now. Whilst it all still hurts. Don’t rip the band-aid long after the wound’s starting healing. It hurts more then.” Byunghee finished and closed his eyes. He looked like he too was awaiting the executioner’s block and the falling axe.

Changsun couldn’t help but smile.

“Pabo,” he chuckled and flicked Byunghee’s forehead. Byunghee’s eyes snapped out, a look of pure stunned shock there. “Pabo, pabo, pabo. What I was going to say was ‘Byunghee, I’m here for you’.”

It was Byunghee’s turn for his mouth to open.

“You…” his eyes turned glassy. “You mean it?”

“When have I ever lied to you?” Changsun grinned.

Byunghee wanted to tell him of a thousand situations: of the time when he told Byunghee there were ghosts in the seventh street down from the Eighth quarter or that if he walked by the alleyway alongside the harbor at nine o’clock exactly on a Tuesday then the shadows would reach out and grab him or that if he didn’t get to their hideout on time then he would leave him behind. Oh Changsun lied. He lied a lot.

But when it came to the important stuff – the buzzing wire and young black, haired boy about to touch it – when it came to the life and death and the fragile things hanging in between, then Changsun was the most honest, truthful person Byunghee had ever seen.

Byunghee cracked a smile. The first in days.

“See?” Changsun held out a hand. Byunghee grasped it and Changsun pulled him in for a hug. “I missed you pabo. I promise you, I’ll never leave you behind. Never. It’s you and me against the world. Got it?”

Byunghee couldn’t speak. Tears spilled down his cheeks, but they were warm and fuelled by a very different sensation. He simply nodded.

“Good,” Changsun whispered into his black hair and closed his eyes. “It's you and me brother. You and me.”