Angel

            “That makes what? The sixth failed audition?” Yongguk groaned out loudly. He ran a hand through his bleached and damaged locks. It was absolutely infuriating. All he wanted to do was make music and not live on the streets, which apparently, was too large a dream to dream.

            A million things ran through his mind, scenarios of the future. What little change he had in his pocket, shook violently in the pockets of his sweat pants, as if taunting his conscience. “Just how long can I live on like this?” he mumbled beneath his breath.

            “Maybe I’m too damn picky” Yongguk uttered out.

            So maybe his dream was more than just to make a living from making music, but to also make music that he actually likes. He never wanted to be that cliché k-pop puppet, the product of mass production. He wanted to be Bang Yongguk. He wanted his message to be heard, and finally he wanted to, well, not live in poverty.

            So maybe that was too big a dream.

            And the self-pity thus commenced.

            “Why is the world so damn cruel?” he mumbled, crossing his arms behind the nape of his neck and tilted his head back slightly, so that he stared directly into the endless sky. “Why can’t I have the one thing I really want?”

            “Everything ” he mumbled once again, flailing his arms like a child.

            Maybe it was jealousy. His eyes lingered across billboards of countless idol groups. Maybe deep down on the inside, he wished he could be a member of those puppet groups. After all, not having to worry about anything besides appearance seemed pleasant. But he knew that he couldn’t, he wasn’t tall enough, wasn’t good looking enough, not built enough, voice too deep, too scary looking. Hell, he’s been told it all. One agency even rejected him on the absurd argument that he wasn’t manly enough. If there was one thing he was certain of, Bang Yongguk was anything but feminine.

            But that’s just the industry, superficial, artificial, controlled and most importantly, insanely captivating.  “If there’s any other way to make a living making music on this island, please enlighten me,” he mumbled to the sky, hand outstretched. “Give me a sign?” Yongguk shrugged, half-heartedly expecting something, anything. But of course, nothing happens. Everything remains the same.

            Dead, obsolete, pointless.

            Three adjectives described his life perfectly.

            He sighed, shoulders slumping, gazing mindlessly into the new scenery. His feet shuffle towards a set of swings. He smiled bitterly as childhood memories flooded his senses. Yongguk envied those days. He envied naivety, the carefree mind set that, is unfortunately, always fleeting, eroded away by harshness of society, the criticism of man kind. For Yongguk though, that reality check came earlier than most, almost prematurely, he was stripped of his innocence in the beginnings of his teen years.

            He was fifteen when he hit the underground.

            He commanded the stage with his voice.

            He was sixteen when he realized the underground battles led no where, brought in little to zero money, and was not the way to go if he wanted to be heard.

            Since then he’s been dropped, picked up, rejected by every notable company. How do you not get discouraged? He was almost 20, and hasn’t even held down a trainee position for more than a few months. 

“I don’t believe in hope anymore…” he grumbles under his breath as he sits down on the swing set, kicking at the sand beneath.

Each time, he’s told himself that the next audition would be the last, but hell, that promise has been in act for the past two years. But Yongguk never found it in his heart to give up on his dream. He chased and chased after the fleeting, the seemingly unattainable. He chased because he had never given up on hope that maybe perhaps God would take pity on him and allow him to succeed just this once, just on this pursuit. On the nights when he was drunk on sorrows, he would propose deals with God. One occasion, he offered a life in solitude; on another occasion he offered an eternity of heartbreak. But of course, God agreed to none of these proposals.

“Maybe I’m not offering you enough? What do you want? I’ll give you anything…” he stares at the moving clouds in the sky, idly swinging back and forth on the childish apparatus. “Don’t doom me to an eternity of obscurity… please” he feels his voice shaking, his lips quivering and his eyes watering. It was absurd, he was crying.

“Mister… are you alright?”

A voice snaps Yongguk back to the unwelcomed reality. Turning his head away in embarrassment from the source of the voice, he coughs in an attempt to choke back down on his sobs.

“I’m sorry if you feel that I’m intruding your privacy by listening to your conservation with yourself but…”

            Yongguk’s face reddens with further embarrassment; he refuses to let out even a sound to acknowledge the other’s presence.

            “But…an eternity of obscurity is a real long time isn’t it?”

            He can’t help but scoff, his ears perking up at the naivety in the intruder’s voice, assuming it’s quite a younger being, Yongguk sulks in envy.

            “If you don’t mind me asking, what is it that you desire so badly… that you’re willing to give up anything for?”

            The boy’s voice drops an octave as he mumbled the last part beneath his breath. Yongguk suppresses a premature urge to turn around as he picks up on the sudden change of mood. “Nothing…” he mumbles after giving it much thought.

            “It’s okay… I’ll be here a while…” the boy mumbles once again. Yongguk hears the rattling of metal chains and assumes the boy had taken the swing besides him.

            They sit there in absolute silence until the sun begins to set.
            Maybe it was the silence, maybe they were just simply compatible by nature, without even looking each other in the eye, they enjoyed each other’s company.

            Yongguk was relieved at the presence of being that left him alone when told, that remained quiet when his mind raced ahead.

            The boy on the other hand… simply enjoyed feeling the presence of another. He was even gladder to have beside him someone that he didn’t bore to death, someone who sat with him not out of pity, but out of free will.

            “I want to be heard…” Yongguk finally mumbles, head leaning on the rusty chains, he gazed into the sky dyed pink.

            The boy is legitimately surprised, taken back by the fact that his companion actually spoke. He tilts his head curiously towards the sound. Sensing the slightest pitch differences in the other’s voice, the boy chooses to remain silent, kicking at the sand to provide his presence.

            “I want to be heard by people… I want my message to come across…” Yongguk chuckles bitterly before continuing. “And I don’t want to live on the streets.” “I-”He pauses, before finally turning around to meet the blank stare of a teenage boy. It doesn’t take him long to realize that something’s wrong. Despite the bleach blonde locks, the seemingly angelic features, the boy had orbs glazed over with a grey haze, and a gaze that seemed to stare into ones soul. 

            “Then be heard? I’m sorry if I seem insensitive… but I don’t see the issue…” the boy mumbles, unaware of the fact that his companion had turned around.

            “Che.” Yongguk spits out, snapping completely from his fazed state.

            “I didn’t mean to offend you”

            The elder’s harsh gaze immediately softens. The orbs, painted with a grey haze, stare at him. Yongguk can’t help but to be pulled in, the boy’s gaze seizing hold of all his rationale. It was captivating, how even in a blank stare, grey orbs display so much. “It… it’s okay” He manages to stutter out, eyes never leaving the seemingly mesmerizing visage. “It’s just hard you know? The industry and all…” it comes out far gentler than Yongguk thought he was capable of.

            “Ah… I see… I understand… actually I can relate”

            Yongguk casts a curious glance towards the mysterious boy.

            “I know I don’t look it now… but… I think I use to be just like you” the boy smiles bitterly, eyes wondering past the visage of the male before him. “I assume you write music and sing right?”
            “I do”

            “I do the same” the boy beams, feeling genuine happiness in what seemed to be an eternity. “Well... I did at least…before” he makes a silent gesture towards his eyes.

            Yongguk feels his heart shattering into pieces upon understanding what was off about the boy.

            “You don’t have to feel pity for me,” the boy adds on before Yongguk had even a chance to process the information. Chuckling lightly, the blonde continues: “I’m use to it… “
            “But…” Yongguk mumbles, unable to imagine what it would be like to lose the precious ability of sight.

            “It’s been two years…I’ve had time to adjust” the boy manages to crack another smile.

            “But… isn’t it worse because you’ve experienced sight before? To have it ripped away from you… it… it’s…” this was one of the few instances where Yongguk’s gift of words failed him. He stuttered, unable to form coherent questions and thoughts.

            “I adjusted, of course it was difficult… and of course I didn’t handle it well… but… the fact of the matter is, this is hand of cards God dealt me… I just have to work with them”

            Yongguk only manages to nod in response. What was he even suppose to say? Here he was complaining about his life… and there the boy was, lacking even the essentials to life, accepting his faith. Just what kind of a person did his dream make him?

            “Please don’t compare us!” the boy interrupts and Yongguk is utterly baffled, it was as if the boy was capable of reading minds. “We might dream different things, but that doesn’t make my aspirations simpler or more important than yours! All I have to say is that if being heard is what you want then go for it.”

            Yongguk stays silent, gnawing at his inner lip and soaking in the words of the younger boy. It touched his heart, to see someone as pure as the boy before him, staying optimistic when even life seemed so unfairly against him.

            “I’ll tell you a story if you don’t mind listening…” the boy says shyly.

            “Of course I don’t mind…” Yongguk tries his best to sound supportive. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to listen, but at the moment, he seemed to be more mesmerized by the boy than his words. 

            “Before… you know everything, I use to rap. You know… like most teenage boys I had the dream of making it big… as some rapper in an idol group, you know classic dreams like that. But when I was thirteen…”

            Yongguk gulps, thirteen was the same year he lost his naivety.

            “I was told that I had some degenerative eye disease, which to this day, I still cannot pronounce the name of. My doctor told me that if I was lucky, I’ll completely lose my ability to see by the time I hit my twenties. Evidently, I wasn’t so lucky. My eyesight started to deteriorate in the next year, and before I knew it, everything was a blur. I couldn’t distinguish letter from letter, music note from music note. I threw a fit, made my parent’s lives absolutely miserable. But who could blame me? I was young, I thought I deserved none of the punishments that God was bestowing on me”
            Yongguk feels his heart twisting in pain, watching the younger boy narration had a strangely religious feeling, it was as if he were listening to a rather moving sermon. He suppressed the urge to pull the boy into his arms and wrap the little angel in all the affection he could muster up.

“But then I realized something, I realized that, the voices, the melodies, the lyrics never stops, they are like cancer in remission, for the lack of a better comparison. I realized that you can take away an artist’s tools but you can’t take away the creativity that burgeons through an artist’s veins.” The boy sighs, gaze dropping downward. “It never stops… it hurts… the piling up of all the ideas and frustrations, I try my best to write channel them onto paper, but sometimes… like…” the boy pauses, searching for the right word to complete his final thought.

Yongguk takes this opportunity to truly soak in the moving message of the younger. He felt a genuine connection with the boy, despite the fact that his own struggles are more like plateaus compared to the momentous struggles facing the boy.

            “It’s times like these I really want to cry…” the younger finally completes his thought before his lips nervously. He is unsure of why he opened up to a stranger, but what he did realize was that he trusted this man, whoever he was, the boy knew he placed his so story in the hands of a man who understood him.

“Why don’t you cry?” Yongguk asks suddenly.

“It hurts too much to cry” the soul besides him states. Yongguk observes the boy with curiosity, he watches as a controlled, shaky breath escapes the younger’s lips. “It’s just too much effort…” Yongguk blinks, shaking off his fixation on the other’s moving lips. “It too much energy out of living. So I don’t cry” the boy turns, and Yongguk suddenly thinks he’s dying, because he thinks he’s looking at an angel in the eyes. “I’ve done enough of that you know?” he continues, completely unfazed by the elder’s memorized stare. “I’ve had enough pity to last me ten lifetimes… what I need now… is…” He cracks a smile and Yongguk swears he’s in heaven. “Actually, I’m not even sure what I need” He lets out a low chuckle and Yongguk tries his best not to choke on his own spit. “You’re awfully quite, but I think I prefer it that way”

            “No you don’t” Just when Yongguk thought his mind short-circuited, he spews out a few syllables.

            “Excuse me?”

            He coughs, catching onto the obviously offended tone of the boy.

            “I’m sorry but I don’t think you’re in the position to tell me what I want, you don’t even know what it’s like…”

            Yongguk mentally punches himself in the face.

            “You and I are on two different levels. Your aspirations aren’t mine. My dream is to be normal, you dream for stardom. I know I said not to pity me, but can’t you at least show some sympathy?” the boy huffs.

Suddenly Yongguk’s mouth runs dry.

“I think it’s best if you leave stranger…” the boy mumbles bitterly. And Yongguk is sure that he’ll go to hell for this, for offending an angel. But nonetheless he moves, making sure to take one last glance at the angelic visage of the younger boy, making sure that he mentally engraves the boy’s visage for an eternity. He internalizes all the boy’s hardships; he attempts to soak up the sorrow in the other’s gaze. And finally, he takes a deep, prolonged glance at the orbs that have been robbed of their gift, the orbs that can no longer see.

He pulls out a pen and a pad, scribbling some barely legible Korean as he walks away.

Angel, I know what to look for in Heaven, now that I’ve meet you