The two boys from the crowd

Children of the Calm Morning

This morning, the weather was pretty hot. In the rickshaw driving me to the University, I have felt as if this blue sky had something tragical. Usually, blue skies are inspiring happiness and bliss but this one looked too good to be true.

In the University playground, Yeon Hee told me one boy was descretly giving handouts to others. She has tried to get one but it seemed like girls didn't interest them. I wonder what it was... To distribute handouts which are not those of the Gathering for the Nation Future, the only political group able to recruit since it's directely linked to the Regime, it's strictly forbidden.

We are in class in the middle of a Juche doctrine lesson when suddenly, the sound of a banger is heard from afar. We all are rising our heads, surprised, trying to look outside. Our teacher is severely asking us not to pay any attention. But there are other sounds of bangers arising and suddenly there is horrified screams as well, then gunshots. Someone is yelling in the playground.

"Someone has set fire in the Dean office! Fire!!"

Soon after, the fire alarm has been launched. Everyone is getting up and panic is taking over us. Our teacher may try to ask us to exit with calm, the fifty pupils of the class are jostling to open up a way to the door. I can grab Yeon Hee in the chaos, and somehow, we are reaching the corridors. Here, it's even worse! Anarchy is the master reigning. Everyone is running everywhere, screams, push and pull each other. From afar, there are other screams resounding, other gunshots. Someone is singing a forbidden song. I've got chills down my spine. That's a students' revolt!

The Official Newspaper of Korea already have talked about this. There have been a students' revolt nine months ago, in Busan. The Streets Army, that is crueler than The Peace Guardians, has came to help since some members were secretly enlisted in the insurrection, has backfired against them. The initiators have been found back, tortured and then shot down on the public place. A lot of innocent students have found death... The Official Newspaper of Korea has been elevate them as martyrs, dead for the freedom of our country. I hated that sentence. They were innocent and they died. For which freedom? I can't get to understand that... I have thought that story was highly painful and vile. But I would never have thought one students' revolt would start at the National University of the Korean Patriots.

 

Yeon Hee and I are hurried among the panicking crowd. We don't know where to run and soon, it's impossible to distinguish who is running, scared by the general madness and who is ready to attack, running to get guns and jump into the battle. The human tide is leading us outside the University despite ourselves, to get to the streets.

I am scared... I think about Jong Woon, about Father, Mother, about Seong Ah my favorite nanny... I wonder where is Kyung Jae. He is vulnerable and impressionnable, he might be as terrified as I am. I can't stop looking for him with my eyes but I never find him. Suddenly, Yeon Hee's hand slipping off mine. I'm looking back. The mental crowd is parting us. On the pavement, corpses are starting to lie down. I can guess what is happening... The Streets Army has arrived. Just like in Busan, the Peace Guardians surely had some "traitors" among them whi have firebacked, stopping them from reacting.

I'm screaming Yeon Hee's name... She's screaming mine back. In the crowd blowing us away, her back hair gradually become another point among others. Soon, caught in the middle of those raven-haired and those uniforms, I am going to lose her sight.

I can hear new gunshots. That's so loud, so close my ears are blocked by the detonation. I have lost sight of Yeon Hee for good. Parted from my friend, I don't know what to do nor where to go anymore. Here I am around those persons screaming because they are scared their lives out, running everywhere. Someone is grabbing my arm. I am turning around and see a blood-drenched student, gripping at me, trying to hold on. Tears are running along his face... This is the first time of my life that I can see people who are dying. This one is so close... In the end, he's slipping off me, crumbling on the pavement, his eyes upwards. Now I am paralyzed by my terror, unable to move. And where is Kyung Jae? How is he? And Yeon Hee? I really am scared like never.

I let myself being drag around by the crush again. An hysterical girl, who must have completely lost her mind, is yelling while tearing off tufts of hair from her head. There is blood all over her shirt, her skirt and her uniform jacket, but it does not look like hers. I guess friends of hers are dead and my skin gets frozen. Please someone save me from hell!

Strengthlessly, I'm crumbling on the floor. Ones are walking on my hands, bumping my shoulders and kicking my head with their knees but I cannot move. I am going to die here...

Suddenly, a student wearing the uniform of my University is grabbing my arm and help me to get up. He doesn't look paniced at all. Wrapping my arm around his shoulders, he's whistling someone else through the crowd. Completely flabby and defeated, I don't dare rising up my head to look at his face. The other person, a student who is wearing the same uniform too is stepping to us and takes my other arm to wrap it around his neck. He does not seem paniced at all, neither. We are going through the crowd and I let those two unknown dragging me around with them, not even fighting, though I know I probably should.

 

Little by little, I am getting back together. Screams of panic seem to be far now. The two strangers and I are snaking in and out through the city, to fire and the sword, but they are avoided the most visited places and we are bypassing the troubles effusions. I am sure the rebellion has spread to the whole city little by little.

"How are you?" One of them is asking me, the one who saved me in the crowd.

I'm finally turning my face to him to nod. He's stealthily smiling at me and a dimple is digging in the corner of his cheek. His face is very thin and his slanting eyes are looking like two willow leaves delicately drawn. Above his pretty lips, there is a beauty spot and under his right eye, there is a tear-shaped scar which is piquing my curiosity more than reasonably. I was not expecting such a face... He is very handsome.

So, intrigued, I am making up my mind to see what my other savior is looking like. Eyes straight ahead, he is paying no attention to me. What is striking me first are his sulky lips. It looks like some fruit in which you would like to bite. His dark hair is curling on his forehead and something inside his eyes is giving me some kind of odd vertigo. In his own different way he is very handsome too.

They are bringing me to the gate of a huge house of the traditional style, with a wide garden. The second boy is opening and here we are diving into the badly kept path. Yet, this estate does not not look like the one of someone poor. The dignitaries or the people linked to the Regime good way to work are the only ones able to have that kind of houses, taken to the past aristocracy and the past bourgeoisie, the Decadent Class, how they call it now. I am really surprised.

Seeing stupefaction drawing itself on my face, the first student is smiling again. The other one remains stony. Letting me go now that I am able to walk on my own again, as we are coming to the main door, the first is talking to me.

"This is Yoochun's aunty house. You are in a safety zone here and so are you with us, don't worry. My name is Yunho. What about you?"

"I am Go Ara"

The door of the house gets opened. While Yoochun is rushing to shut the shutters, Yunho is explaining me his aunt has moved on to Pyongyang. She is working for the Official Newpaper of Korea but that is a cover since in reality, she is an activist waiting for the good moment to fireback the Regime.

While realizing I am befriending with "the enemy", I am watching every details of the house gradually getting darker. The main room is huge and mixed up with the entrance. Oddly, this is a traditional house with nowhere to take off your shoes and the two boys are keeping it to walk inside. On the wide bookcase, lay against a wall, there are books in a line with an almost neurotic meticulosity, but on the floor, other manuscripts are likz thrown down, opened in a messy pile. Old couches are covered with dusty white sheets, but it seems like people has been sitting there lately. On the low table sits an ashtray full of butts and glasses are piled up, some are still half filled with soju. I am feeling as if a few persons have been reunited there last night.

"They didn't wait that long before sending us the Streets Army." Yoochun suddenly says, breaking the silence as he is nervously sitting in front of one of the windows.

This is the first time he is saying anything since I have met him. His voice is low and warm, it's contrasting with the way he acts always distant. The rude light of an oil lamp is suddenly illuminated the room and I can see his figure better cutting out in front of me. The shadow of his broad shoulders is stretching on the red varnish of the floor. He has an imposing composure and there is a lot of sensuality coming out of him.

The light is moving again. Yunho is opening a door on the side, crossing the room and then opens another door.

"It was only a warm up." He is saying while putting his oil lamp on the table. "Next time, we will strike harder!"

This time, I am instantly guessing Yunho and Yoochun are the ones who have distribute handouts this morning inside the University and, surely as well, that one of them has been launching the fire in the Dean's office. I am doing more than befriending with "the enemy", I am turning into the accomplice of the initiators! But oddly, I am feeling safe with them. They don't have that scary and splenetic image depicted by the Official Newspaper of Korea or like Father was portraying. They make me feel like they are smart, kindly, helpful, even if Yoochun is a little colder in his attitude.

Sitting on a stool, Yoochun is listening carefully to the noises from outside. From time to time gunshots can be heard but the panic screams are gradually letting room for joyful screams instead, and a distant music is resounding. I wonder what the Seoul streets are going to look like once the danger wil be evicted.

Serene, Yunho is pointing out the opened door on the side, next to the bookcase is a bedroom and I can have a rest if I am feeling tired. But I am too worried to sleep... I wonder where is Yeon Hee and what could have happened to her in the crowd. I wonder where could Kyung Jae be, too and I think about how Jong Woon would react if he learns about it. Unable to stay steady and calm, I am moving all the time. Yunho has disappeared in the other room, which the sweet light of this sunny hot day is cutting a white square on the dark of the room, slightly illuminated by the oil lamp. Unable to calm down, I am slipping myself in the room to discover this is a kitchen. It's very clean and seem to be working thanks to electricity... that's a luxury a few only can allow. Yoochun's aunty is surely someone where influential in the press circle.

"Are you hungry?" He is asking me turning his face to me. "I am cooking bibimbap..."

I am not hungry but not knowing why, I am nodding. Very at ease, Yunho does not look any scared of what could be happening outside. His composure and his laid-back attitude is contrasting with the coldness and the bad hidden nervosity of his best friend and this is attracting me like a bee to a flower in full spring.

 

Around lunch time, Yunho has put a big cooking pot of rice on the low table, with a delicious smell. Fresh eggs, beef cut in cubes, sesam seeds and kimchi has been mixed with the white grains and the whole has melted into my mouth like an ice cube under the sun. I don't know where that insatiable appetite was born in me but I have devored this meal as if it was the first I have been offered for ages. Slowly, by being with Yoochun and Yunho, my anxiety has declined.

While Yoochun is out to get some news, Yunho has opened up the big backdoor, giving on the garden. As badly kept as the one in the frontyard, there is a well and a little stream with clear and fresh water and an enormous peach tree is majestuously sitting in the middle, throwing on the yellow grass a very pleasantful shadow, finely cut. With passion, Yunho is explaining me that their actions may look violent but their goal is not to terrify the people but to give the people a chance to express. According to him, Our Revered President does not care about people, he only cares about glory and power. He says he wants to get the Korean people its real freedom and that he would be able to give his life for that.

His revolutionnary fervor is completely fascinating me. I can't lose a single word of his speech. Oppositely to me, he is not someone who is scared to go agaisnt the destiny that was made up for him. He is saying he was born poor and is a foster kid like I was. Yoochun's aunty who have brought him up since his parents are dead by trying to overthrow the Regime, has welcome him under her roof and has allowed him to pursue school. She has made understand to the two boys that the Regime was a constrait to the fundamental freedom of the individuals and she has trained both of them for the revolution since they were kids.

Yoochun finally comes back. He has taken off his uniform jacket and has rolled up his sleeves on his forearms. The white of his skin and the visible softness of it are making my heart race and I am not able to do anything against that.

As I was suspected, the patriotic fever suddenly has took over the whole city. Even a few soldiers from the Patriots Army has firebacked against their superiors. The Streets Army can't face the thousands of rebelious students and gradually, all the areas has throw themselves in the fight. I am a bit scared for Father. I know he is ready to do anything for the Regime, like Yunho is ready to do anything for freedom and it would not be a surprise to learn he would have died. It would make me so sad... But I know there is nothing I can do about it.

"As soon as the danger will be evicted," Yunho reassures me. "I will walk you home. But for now on it's better to wait here."

Meanwhile, he's climbing on the house's roof thanks to a ladder leant against the wall, permanently. Curious, I am following him. Yoochun, who just came back from outside, is staying downstairs and sits under the peach tree, to keep on listening to the sounds from the city.

Under my eyes, a fire-and-brimstone Seoul is spreading. Black smole is escaping from some places. Afar, dark spots are moving. There is cheerful music but still panic screams. I cannot see where it is coming from. Around the City Hall, the hustle is seemingly still shaking the pavement. I hope that Kyung Jae has not gone to take a refuge in there! And Yeon Hee, I still don't know where she is... Sensing my sudden fear, Yunho is proposing me to rest with Yoochun, under the peach tree. A little weak, I am accepting the offer.

Leaning against the tree trunk, Yoochun is acting as if he did not see me. When a light breeze is blowing, his curly hair is slightly lifting up. I am chilling. Suddenly he is turning to look at me. His black eyes are piercing my soul like never. But it only lasts for an half-second. I am watching his thoughtful profile, on which the sun through the peach tree leaves are cutting vague golden shapes.

Yunho comes back from the roof and dusts his hands full of soil between them. He is thin and graceful but his shoulders are broad. He has taken off his uniforme jacket too and only have kept his shirt, sleeves rolled up on his arms and the first buttons loosen. I can guess the begin of his golden skin chest and turn my eyes away immediately. What is happening to me? Why am I watching any details of them both that way? It is nothing like me.

Yunho is sitting by my side before lying on the grass. He is crossing his arms behind his nape and closes his eyes. He is going to have a nap, when afar, gunshots are still resounding as well as sounds of a hustle. For a few minutes, I am remaining prostrated, silent, to listen to those sounds, then Yoochun lies on his back too, his head on the side. After a few moments of hesitation, I am finally falling asleep too. My head is lying on the fresh grass, almost brushing Yoochun's shoulders, while my left arm his opened right above Yunho's head.

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Well, I've got nothing special to say except now the story really has begun. Hope you, my little silent readers, will manifest anyday soon. If you don't, well.. Thanks for reading, anyway! ♥ It's already a good thing!^^

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HopesAiren
#1
Chapter 3: wooow, find this story yesterday, and reading it today, I'm loving it. Everything, the way u write, the plot, Go Ara (ok, I like her hihihihi) I'll continue the read tomorrow.