Harmony
Special “It is the mind which creates the world about us, and even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours, my heart will never stir to the emotions by which yours is touched.”
George Gissing, essayist
On the twelfth night, the ball of light danced around the dark and quiet room, painting abstract pictures of light trails across the dark space. Two eyes stared at the light appear and disappear, move and bend and turn from red to blue to green.
Abruptly, the light went out and the boy lay down, his head touching the back of the room and his feet pushing against the locked door.
“Goodnight,” he whispered, to no one in particular, for there was no one there to hear him.
He his side, and faced the wall next to him. He closed his eyes, and dreamed of a place beyond that wall.
The two hooded boys shuffled into the lecture theatre quietly, hoping not to be noticed. Staring straight into the taller boy’s eyes, the red head held up a finger to his lips, quite needlessly.
“Sit down, sit down, sit down,” Jinyoung whispered harshly, gesturing to a seat at the last corner of the lecture theatre. “We can’t get caught.”
The two of them sat stiffly, waiting for the lecture to begin.
This is a terrible idea.
“I know, I know,” said Jinyoung, rubbing the pencilled words off Dongwoo’s notepad. “But it’ll be good for you. Trust me.”
Dongwoo looked doubtful.
Aish, this troublesome… “Just pay attention. The lecture’s starting.”
As if on cue, the man at the front picked up the mic. “Welcome to the very first lecture for Basic Korean this semester. I trust you’ve had a good summer break. Let us begin.”
“This is the first lecture, so he’d never notice that there’re two extra students,” Jinyoung whispered in Dongwoo’s ear.
Dongwoo nodded, still mildly disapproving of the fact they snuck into a lecture. This was trespassing.
“Yah, stop giving me that pouty face,” Jinyoung whined. “I really can’t afford to pay for Korean lessons.”
Dongwoo stiffly turned his attention to the screen.
Interpreting that gesture as a sign of disapproval, Jinyoung insisted, “I’m really sorry, okay? Later we’ll have sangyupsal. Your favourite, okay? Promise.”
“Ahem. The young man in the back.”
Jinyoung’s body stiffened.
“You’ve been talking in fluent Korean to your neighbour this entire lecture. It seems… you’re in the wrong class, aren’t you?”
Jinyoung smiled sheepishly. In that instant, he had been completely exposed.
“Leave.”
Dongwoo lowered his eyes. His grip on the table tightened and his palms began to get moist.
“Hey, it’ll be okay,” Jinyoung reassured. “You have to stay here, alright? I’ll be waiting right by the door when the class ends.”
Jinyoung patted Dongwoo’s shoulder reassuringly, before leaving the theatre and his roommate in it.
Dongwoo watched as his friend walked out the door, feeling happy and yet sad at the same time.
“Now, we will sing the goodbye song to our friend Junghwan together to wish him a safe trip.”
On cue, the children sang goodbye to the chubby boy who stood awkwardly in the doorway next to his new mummy. Dongwoo, too, opened his mouth to sing but couldn’t, as he felt the tears welling in his eyes. So instead, he bent down and stared at his toes, biting his lips as he willed the tears to stay put. He definitely wasn’t a crybaby.
When the song ended, he looked up, wiping his tears on his oversized sleeve. Junghwan instantly met Dongwoo’s gaze. He smiled gently at Dongwoo, knowing it was far too soon for Dongwoo to say goodbye. Feeling tears well up in his own eyes, he tugged at his new mother’s skirt, wordlessly asking her to hear his request. After his mother nodded in consent, Junghwan waddled over to Dongwoo and gave him a final hug.
“I’ll be happy in Busan, so you must be happy too, okay?”
Dongwoo nodded, causing his tears to drip onto Junghwan’s new yellow shirt. “We’ll be happy, wherever we are.”
“Wherever we are,” Junghwan affirmed decisively, hugging Dongwoo tighter, for it might be the last time they ever would hug.
When they finally pulled apart, Dongwoo smiled widely at Junghwan, wanting Junghwan to see him as a happy boy before he left. And in return, Junghwan grinned tearily as well, giving Dongwoo a final wave goodbye. And so, the two boys parted ways with forced smiles on their faces, knowing they would make it however they could, even a million miles apart.
Jinyoung looked up from his laptop, which was currently balanced precariously on Jinyoung’s right arm, while the fingers on his left hand glided across the track-pad.
“Ah, it’s ended. How was it? Did you like it?” Jinyoung asked, as he flipped the screen of his laptop down and tucked it under his arm in an unusually coordinated manoeuvre.
Dongwoo nodded, smiling happily.
“I learnt a lot,” Jinyoung read aloud. “Wow, someone’s becoming a real scholar, isn’t he?”
Dongwoo beamed, letting Jinyoung ruffle his hair.
“Let’s go get some sangyupsal.” Jinyoung took Dongwoo’s hand and strolled down the hallway proudly, chatting excitedly about new sangyupsal places he had just found over the net.
“And are you adjusting okay to life with Jinyoung-ssi?”
Dongwoo nodded. Dr. Shin made some notes on his clipboard.
“Jinyoung-ssi informed me that you managed to speak yesterday. How did it feel? Good?”
Dongwoo blushed and nodded slightly.
“Can you tell me why it felt so good?”
Hesitantly, Dongwoo pointed to himself and then hugged the air with his arms.
“Ah, you liked when Jinyoung-ssi hugged you, is that right?”
Dongwoo nodded furiously, feeling his face getting warmer. Dr. Shin made some more notes.
“OK, very good,” Dr. Shin congratulated Dongwoo. “You did very well that day.”
Dongwoo beamed, wordlessly asking, “Really?”
“Really,” Dr. Shin answered, feeling proud that they were making progress.
“Now, since you’re doing so well today, I was wondering if we could find out more about the causes of your mutism problem,” Dr. Shin spoke slowly and carefully, watching Dongwoo’s facial expression for any changes. “Can we?”
Dongwoo paled a little, but nodded.
“Thank you for agreeing to take the first step,” Dr. Shin praised. “Now first, I want to find out a little about your childhood. Could you tell me where you lived, before Jinyoung-ssi found you in the alley?”
Dongwoo shook his head.
Dr. Shin felt a pang in his heart, but knew he had to continue.
“Do you not know, or do you not want to tell me?”
Dongwoo continued to shake his head.
The older man reached for Dongwoo’s whiteboard and held it out for Dongwoo to take, but Dongwoo refused, cupping his ears with his palms and shaking his head violently.
Seeing that Dongwoo was getting more and more agitated, Dr. Shin got up and tried to calm Dongwoo down. “It’s okay, Dongwoo-ah. We can do this another time. Dongwoo- ah, please, calm down!”
But as Dr. Shin raised his voice, Dongwoo got more and more agitated. Finally, he pushed himself off his chair and ran to a corner of Dr. Shin’s office. He sat between the wall and the potted plant there and brought his knees to his chest, shaking and crying silently.
Suddenly, the door slammed open as Jinyoung rushed in, a distressed nurse on his heels. Ignoring the nurse’s cries of “Please, Sir, you can’t just run in like that!”, he raced to Dongwoo’s corner as quickly as he could.
“Dongwoo-hyung, what’s wrong? Dongwoo-hyung, it’s me!” He knelt down in front of Dongwoo and grabbed Dongwoo’s shoulders, bringing the older boy into his arms.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Jinyoung soothed, rubbing Dongwoo’s back gently. “It’s okay, we’re going to go home now, okay? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to anymore. Sound good?”
They stayed like this until Jinyoung felt Dongwoo’s body sag onto his. Knowing Dongwoo had finally fallen asleep, he carefully propped Dongwoo’s body against the wall, collected all of his things and put the doctor’s office back in order. When he was satisfied that the office was back to its original condition, he picked Dongwoo up and left, wishing he could put Dongwoo back together as easily.
At 2:15AM the next morning, Jinyoung straightened his back, removing his eye from the microscope.
He clicked his pen.
“No change”, he wrote down on his observation chart before letting out a harsh sigh.
Roughly, he ran fingers through his reddish hair before stalking through the messy lab to the exit, where he plopped down onto a stool.
“Why can’t I get this right?” he screamed, hearing his own voice bounce off the walls.
With heavy steps and a heavier heart, Jinyoung made his way back to his lab station. He picked up the clipboard labelled “Antidote” and looked at it briefly, before bringing it out to his locker and chucking it to the very back, where all the things he wanted to forget lay.
He slammed the locker shut and felt his body collapse onto the ground at the foot of his locker.
Tears of exhaustion sprang to Jinyoung’s eyes and fell, leaving rivers on his cheeks.
“AM I USELESS?” he screamed, punctuating the question with a slam on his locker.
Fresh streams of tears flowed from Jinyoung’s eyes as the echoes of “useless, useless” reached his ears. Finding his throat too choked up to protest, he let himself succumb to the all-consuming darkness.
I’m not useless.
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