Chapter 1: The Beginning

Words: 3976.

            His first dream came so sudden, sans agreement.

           Night silently scattered into various unforgottable scenes, white and black clashed upon one of dotted lines. He woke up right away, however—Kyungsoo woke up, heart beat immensely fast—to the touch of agitating morning, the sound of his own noisy snoring, and the very strong beam of over-cloudless Phoebus, harshly penetrating the still early dew and maybe even emitting some of his life seeds on the ground, creating a newborn baby Sunday in process.

            A newborn baby Sunday, birds flew in a dazzling array.

            “Kris, I feel funny.”

            “Weird, don’t you always?”

            “No, silly giant, I mean,” he paused for a while, eyes rolling fully to the left when Kris started to make a ruckus of how he ought to call him ‘Hyung’; or else Kris would burn him alive because he, the self-claimed Mighty Kris, was a dragon in his previous life (to which Kyungsoo responded by rolling his eyes back to its native place) and he was just awesome like that, “I mean, a different kind of ‘funny’. Umm—umm, no—it’s not, nay, funny to begin with.”

            Next thing he knew, there was a fresh memory of an unfamiliar laddie.

            A foreign boy, a foreign had yet grown up boy—unknown to him, definitely unknown to him—, appeared out of nowhere (lips spreading a wide mad grin) to his precious eight-hours night sleep, offering his also strange alien name without minding a . There were two kinds of visual memory, wrote a subbed fiction author he ever caught a glimpse of, the one you could briskly rearrange with eyes open, and the one that granted you an intimate thrill simply by closing your eyelids. In Kyungsoo’s case, what had happened was the unbalanced union of both, hence, for a man that had never been very good in remembering formulas, let alone other illusive things, it somewhat left him dumbfounded with confusing agonies. He would like to stop his vision from replaying all the scenes, the slightly magical slumber, and he couldn’t. For the moment he tried to, he would only end up listening to his own pleading heart. “Why must kill a man that has nothing to do with your real life,” Kyungsoo wanted to snort, “why must kill a probably artificial man that merely stopped by your dreams?”

            And so forth, he waited for another week.

            “Kris, he won’t go away.”

            “He—who?”

            “The man from my dream.”

            “Oh, that—what was his name again?”

            He murmured an hesitate answer.

            “Oh, Soo—oh, my owl boy, Soo—I think you should see a psychiatrist.”

            “Why should I?” he took a sloppy steps back, small thud ranged through his living room wall when Kyungsoo’s bony spine made a contact with its cold surface. “I’m not crazy! The stranger from my dream may be, bu-but I’m nowhere near lunatic, okay?”

            “Then be my patient,” was Kris confident reply the following second. “I’ll graduate from university next year. After that, I’m going to apply for psychiatry school in Seoul. You know, by then, you—”

            “Alright,” he exhaled a heavy breath, “alright.”

            He lied.

            Actually, yes—yes, Kyungsoo did lie to his 4 years older (genius) buddy about him being alright with the previous idea—and no—no, nope, by any chance, Kyungsoo wasn’t actually happy upon hearing it—trapped in the corner of a hospital chamber, sniffing the intoxicating smell of drugs, all the more, having Kris as the doctor; as if, he could already imagine how Kris infamous -face forming a permanent scowl while his right hand deadly engaged to a piece of medicine scented paper, scribbling down whatever that could be ranged from prescription, confidential curse, shabby diary, to a long journal containing his art dream and whatnot. Yet, it—being the dragon’s dearest patient—still, somehow, sounded much better than telling his secret to Junmyeon. The hysterical brother of his might get extremely worried (or worse, blame himself for not taking extra care of his little brother), and that was the last thing Kyungsoo desired to witness.

            He had no option but to agreed right away.

            “Why didn’t you tell me soon?”

            “I—”

            “Soo, you trust Kris more than your own brother?”

            But it didn’t take too long for five months to pass, for him to turn sixteen, for the weather to change, for birds to go after different skyline, for Kris to leave the town, and for Kyungsoo to hold back his secret from Junmyeon.

            “It has been a packed month, but he won’t disappear,” their fingers brushed, trembling nerve splitting on both ends. “I,” Kyungsoo choked, sensing a palm of hot liquid ran along his fallen eyelashes, “I’m s-scared.”

            They cried together, these pitiful tiny siblings cried together. Rain fell swiftly outside his window when Junmyeon dragged him to a loving embrace, soft digits cupping his then puffy cheeks. As their skin touched, Junmyeon would cry more, muttering stammered ‘I’m sorry’ repeatedly. I’m sorry, I was so busy dealing with my world to notice your problem. I’m sorry, you should hit me, I’m a bad, bad brother. I’m sorry, it must be frustrating for you, it must be hurt—

            “It doesn’t hurt. I-I’m scared, but—but it doesn’t hurt (at all). If anything,” the younger whispered, causing Junmyeon’s series of apologies to stop in a split second, “seeing you cry like this,” prior to bursting into endured tears, “seeing you cry like this hurts me more.”

            They once again met with a quiet hug. It was firm, it was so firm that Kyungsoo felt his world cohered with Junmyeon’s. All the sweet and bitter feelings afloat, leaving a white blank page behind. Somewhile, they would get lost in their unaccompanied thought, arms still enfolding each other. Kyungsoo by his memoirs of a foreign laddie, Junmyeon by his everything that shouldn’t be apprised. Somewhile, too, Kyungsoo’s gaze halted, wholly fixed towards the swaying calendar; somewhile, Junmyeon did the same, his pupil dilated and his brain silently marking the date.

            March 19, two teenage brothers caught in a mutual agony, each soul pitying one another’s.

            —Soon, the night rose, the moon bloomed, the rain died down.

            It was the first time he dreamt about something else since his peculiar vision started. Not a clear, bright image he always been in a trance lately, but Kyungsoo was very much sure it was indeed beautiful. He could’ve dreamt about anything that night—Junmyeon snoring on his left side—, he could’ve dreamt of his Dad, or ahjumma next door, or Kris studying inside his new goshiwon, or whatsoever, for as long as he didn’t find any trace of his usual sleep intruder, every option was beyond perfect.

            But that small relief only lasted for three days.

            On the point of unstoppable hatred towards a certain creepy stranger (a stranger, mind you, a complete unknown stranger), however, Kyungsoo even loathed the fact that his melancholic brain, albeit in its conscious state, was able to reckon the sleep intruder’s Wonderland-like body more than anything. It was, ah, it was indeed amazing yet hideous on so many levels, to recall aforementioned things as clearly as the original. So vivid that Kyungsoo managed to potray every little detailed parts, like his tall, lean body (not as tall as Kris, though), his big cheerful eyes, his maniac giggle, his shining shipshape teeth, his perhaps hairy armpits, his seemingly nice aroma, and a strange alien name that revealed between playful sheepish grimace; P-a-r-k, Kyungsoo spelled, partly trying to erase his stubborn sleepiness, P-a-r-k C-h-a-n-y-e—

            “Park Chanye...”

            Ah.

            —The rest were gone, forgotten, flushed along his finished ‘good morning’ chamomile.

****

            Jongin was, perhaps, the best person he ever met.

            Kyungsoo had never conceived how love affair between two mature men would taste, however, it was even harder to appear as a straight male or pretended to like opposite . Grew with his single handsome Dad and his meek older brother, Kyungsoo was brave enought to say he’s perfectly fine with his motherlessness and his womenlessness state. Regardless, not that he even knew what his mother real name was, as his Dad  had only said that he, once, ever loved a woman—a nice bubbly woman, to be specific—but life was too lazy to be a good kid forever; it sometimes wanted to mess with your existence, like leaving you cry in the midst of premature morning while both hand holding onto steel grating fence, frustratedly begging for your dearest to stay, to remain. Moreover, he wasn’t entirely sure whether he and Junmyeon shared the same womb. In other words, yes, they may had the same father, yet for the mother thingy, he doubted so. There were too many different aspects between him and his older brother—that needed no intellect to put two and two together—which Kyungsoo amoured to ignore because Junmyeon loved him, as in overloaded brotherly love, and he, too, felt the identical (minus the ‘overloaded’ part), thus it didn’t really matter if they eventually turned out having different moms or not.

            Besides, along with their father, Junmyeon was the first one to accept the fact that Kyungsoo could never love a woman.

            Yes, his family understood, but the rest of the world, most certainly not. That outside sphere over his own was big, bad, evil, full of long, black, narrow alleys, likely hid a bunch of varied ugly monsters that might peep out any second to hunt your soul down. As for him, they, perhaps, would carry a piece of paper or two, attached to a scraps of cardboard box, while chasing Kyungsoo’s small body all around suburban dark street. “Gay,” they snickered; the same word written on the very lifted plank, “gay, homo, , queer, go die.”

            Go die.

            “Would Appa and Hyung hate me?”

            “Dear, we have nothing to be angry about—”

            “But I bring shame upon our family,” summer cicada singing at the background, indirectly calming his solemn wounded heart, “I should’ve just died like the Elders said.”

            Why is it considered a sin to be who you are? Kyungsoo couldn’t stop wondering even after his family moved to Seoul over his Dad’s favour.

            Seoul was good, the atmosphere was a bit hectic and monochromatic, but it smelled good—it smelled nice. He was able to make new friends, to pay Kris a visit at his psychiatry school, to continue his once wrecked life, to get a well-payed part time job, to pass Seoul National University entrance exam (Human Resource Management as the major), and to be more (little by little) open about his ual orientation. Although he still received the judging stare by some unnamed people, Kyungsoo was perfectly okay with that. That is to say, if he were straight, he probably would do the same, so it was okay after all. What’s more, life had never been this good since his arrival. The judging stare and hushed gossip were just extra bonuses—he used to get far worse ones, anyway.

            Still, he couldn’t help but to feel hollow.

            “Say, God, why is it considered a sin to be who I am?”

            Park Chanyeol—your mouth expanded at the first syllabel, slightly sealed at the second, and turned into uneven rotundity at the third, tip of tounge momentary took a trip to wet ceiling. Once in a while, he brought guitar (always with the same messy hair), then the two of them would sing some of Kyungsoo’s beloved ‘RnB songs despite all the unrealness. Another time, he slept the night away by laughing, pouting, rocking back and forth inside his dream, delightedly swallowing the taste of Chanyeol’s grin that he could never find under realm. Why he finally came to welcoming Chanyeol into his nightly life was still a big question, for Kyungsoo himself didn’t know the right reason. The encounter took place on and on, restless for the flowing three years; maybe he simply had no choice but to accept him, hiring the always smiling man as his part of psyche.

            The past rejection slowly developed into habit.

            Habit started to grow into contrained affection.

            And finally, affection bore four pink alphabets with a heart ornament declaimed as ‘love’.

            “Is it crazy to fall for a person who’s probably having no true existence?”

            “Yes, Kyungsoo, yes—you’re completely crazy, I’ve known this for so long, but, damn, don’t you have anything to congratulate me on my graduation ceremo—”

            “And here I am, Kris, trying to fulfill my promise by becoming your first pa—”

            “—I mean, wow—what’s with this sassy Soo I’ve never heard of? Has Seoul done something to your old cute—”

            “What? I’m not cute—”

            “Yeah, and I’m not tall—”

            “Why do you have to mention height all of sud—”

            “Why can’t I? Jealous because you got that mini bo—”

            “Seriously, could we stop cutting each other and go back to my question?”

            The sound of cicada was barely audible around the fast movement of Seoul. Instead, music and endorsement spread up to the tiniest pathway. Kyungsoo was the first one to notice the oddness, when summer elapsed without the rackety noise of  singing insects. It felt incomplete, it felt vacant. He kind of habituated to the smell of watermelon, a bowl of homemade cold noodles, and blossoming orchids he loved to collect back at hometown. Somehow, Seoul had given him a different vibe of hot weather that leaded Kyungsoo to crave for the chirping song of male cicada, like the time they escorted him before leaving Ilsandong-gu. Nonetheless, apparently, cicadas and Seoul weren’t actually meant to be.

            A year gone by, and a silent summer call to play.

            I have this feeling that I may have fallen for him, Kyungsoo wrote on a folded Starbuck paper bag, before handing it to Kris with a small sincere smile. He waited, and continued to wait for what it seemed like forever. The now rumpled brown paper finally returned back to him after several more minutes, bringing Kris typical scrawls to meet his round eyes. Kyungsoo, he is just a fiction, it said, he is just a phantom, please don’t get yourself drown by your own illusion.

            He happened not giving Kris any graduation present that day, as the dragon’s words already made a spinning rotation in his head, telling him the harsh reality of his first illusive love within Kris’s scribble: Kyungsoo, he is just a fiction.

            Chanyeol is just a fiction.

            “H-hey, he might be real, who knows—”

            “Kyungsoo—”

            “—right? Because I’ve read somewhere that strangers in your dream are actually people you’ve seen in real life, so—”

            “Kyung—”

            “So there’s a chance, Kris! I promptly believe that there’s a—”

            “God damn it, Kyungsoo, stop!” Kris snapped, his eyes glowing the similar judging stare. “Stop, stop it, that’s enough.”

            That’s enough, Do Kyungsoo, that’s enough.

            That’s ing enough.

            That—

            “That was so beautiful—your singing voice was so beautiful.”

            —One year later, he met Jongin.

            Now, let him be a little lugubrious, heart sank under bottomless canyon, in visualizing the attractive tan man. Kim Jongin, the ever appealing Kim Jongin, with a pair of heavy eyelids that cause him to look sleepy almost every time, almost everywhere; y jaw, strong athletic God-like figure, and some more perfectness that couldn’t even be calculated by Kyungsoo’s short fingers. He was Jongin at college, Fine Arts student majoring in Oriental Paintings, precisely known for his beauty and scary dancing. He was Kai on stage, body squirmed following loud music—shaping a pretty circle synchronously—, right foot tiptoed and peckish smirk pulled upwards, driving audiences to scream their lungs out; filling the stadium with a chained cries. He was Ggamjong at lunch table, laughing so bright between his two best friends—the consimilar Luhan and Sehun—as if his life wasn’t stuffed with the last train ticket that had to be chased, late dinner menus, big sale at Shop A, cheap peppy eggplant at shop B down the hallway, or constant dreams about a foreign imaginary young man whom (you recently thought) you’ve pathetically fallen for.

            Among all small regret he ever perceived, being too forgetful was his most burdening one. Mr. Kangin, from faculty’s counseling department, had once asked him to run some errand, but he was too unguarded to remember Junmyeon’s birthday. So the day washed up with him catching a yellow cab after spending hours sitting on Mr. Kangin’s office couch—talking about his future goal while the requested errand placed orderly on the floor—and Junmyeon giving him a stern cold shoulder.

            He, too, totally failed to reminisce his early times with Jongin.

            “That was so beautiful—your singing voice was so beautiful,” but this first greeting coming from Jongin’s kissable lips had yet to take a turn to leave his memory. “I’m Kim Jongin, may I know your name?”

            “Funny, there’s no need for introductions, I know your name already—hey, who doesn’t?” it wanted to slip out of his mouth badly, but that would be rude and Jongin deserved the whole lot besides every single immoral thing. I’m Kyungsoo, Do Kyungsoo, Human Resource Management major, instead, flowing heartfeltly from his vestal estuary; the only disturber was Hyunsik’s scream behind the closed curtain, persistently calling for his name. He shrugged, not from suddenly feeling indifference, rather, from knowing that nothing could stop his singing partner from keep on shouting. Ergo, after bidding a shivering goodbye, he took a quick leave out of the said spot, melting-sweat dropped half racingly, sending him a big warning not to speak with popular kids anymore—especially at the front door of University’s Annual Autumn Festival rest room.

            He forgot how on earth could they became so close—forgive him and his forgetful self—as close as two college student who took the same train home together every Monday to Friday. Perhaps, talking to a handsome stranger wasn’t the most brilliant idea after all. He could had been a stalker, a serial killer, or a frugally reckless fellow who love to do something unpredictable, for example, showing up at your faculty building all of sudden for the entire month, naively providing “I want to know you better” as the lame excuse. Furthermore, Hyunsik’s “Does he, at any point, uhm, know the circumtances of your, uhm, ual preference?” just drastically worsen his prejudice. Ah, it all made sense, eventually, because due to Junmyeon’s favourite soap opera, popular kingkas were likely to bully miserable cubs, and in this context, Kyungsoo perfectly fitted the latter phrase, thus he hurriedly pushed Jongin’s words away when the scariest day ultimately arrived.

            “Weird, it looks like you’ve trapped me through your voice.”

            Sure, lol—he deadpanned inside his heart, owing to the fact that it was so unavoidably cheesy: Jongin was so cheesy, his leaning-head-on-locomotive’s-window pose was so cheesy, the moving-on-slow-motion scenery outside the back of the tan man’s fluffy hair was so cheesy, Yiruma’s River Flows in You chiming softly from his own earphone was so cheesy, his not intended-to-flutter heart was so cheesy, and each, he hummed, each single thing, each single one, including the scary looking ahjussi sat on his opposite seat and the lost wallet announcement reported by railway station’s operator as soon as their train ceased, was so cheesy, so tacky, so corny, so unpleasantly cheap, and there he was madly blushing, eyes trying to escape from Jongin’s adsorbing gaze which, kissed by the afternoon sun, emerged to him like an addictive toxic; extremely harmful, yet in silence, you found it adorable.

            For a brave moment, Chanyeol was nowhere around his mind.

            —Too much words fighting to be released from his dry lips. “You know, I’m a man,” were the surviving ones, followed by, “I’m a man, you’re a man. Both of us possess the same gender, Jongin, think about it again.”

            “So?” his interlocutor blinked innocently.  Their train began to knit its interluded journey. “My Mom and sisters said, love can be sent from and to anyone, no matter what your are.”

            Oh, he was such a nice kid, wasn’t he.

            “Your fans won’t be happy to hear this—”

            “Hyung, I don’t care. I like you,” he was pretty much sure Jongin didn’t say love, “and that’s all that matter right now.”

            “Still, it may be your method to destroy my life. You don’t have to lie—come on, spit it out, the secret bet of you and other popular kids regarding my orientation, I won’t be angry (maybe a tad sad, but definitely not angry)—”

            “Hyung, you can always reject me directly if you want, just—just don’t talk about my friends like that, they are not that bad—and I wasn’t, I, I’m not lying about my feeling.”

              There was a momentary calmness, before Kyungsoo broke it with a, “I’m not a great person, you know. Whoever the conception of me staying at your head, the real me is nothing like that.”

            “It’s fine, I’m not a great person either,” he expected Jongin to pronounce the answer this way, so vague that the scary looking ahjussi would only catch his blown air, but he was crossed with none, not even a single letter. It wasn’t until five more minutes that Jongin turned his orbs away from Kyungsoo, cheeks puffed, and a low “you’re perfect to me” floated upon moist climate, provoking Kyungsoo to chuckle over all the twardiness.

            “I love to nag.”

            “I know, you’ve done it too many times before my eyes.”

            “I’m too forgetful.”

            “Please, it’s obvious, Hyung.”

            “I’m a—I’m a f-.”

           “You aren’t, you’re nothing near the locution—not now, not yesterday, not in a next million years—you just happen to have a different preference, that’s all.”

            That’s all.

            .

            .

            .

            “But I, but I’ve been steadily dreaming of a nonexistent man, and apparently, sorry, despite all the unrealness, I love him.”

            —Of course, he didn’t let the last sentence to come out, “Let’s go on a date,” and, alternatively, mouthed this response instead, “tomorrow, let’s go on a date.”

            Jongin knew nothing, Kyungsoo had done nothing that allowed him to do so. Because time always stopped for him whenever he attempted to tell the truth, and he had no heart to smash the sound of rattling seconds; because their first official date was so stirring he couldn’t stop plastering happy smile on his fragile visage, that when he woke up the other day, not boasting any mirage of a certain chimerical boy, the hollowness of his heart subsided as though it was no longer there; because having Jongin as the first name he recalled in the morning, while his hands were busy playing with toothpaste and roots of the hair, was, in fact, not bad at every chance—

            But grey October came around three months thereafter.

            Deep inside his rainy vision, Chanyeol broke down, and Kyungsoo underwent a major self-condemnation.

To be continued.

****

Author’s blabber:

Beforehand, have you guys seen EXO on face-off Chuseok special? Omg, I swear Kyungsoo and Lay were so cute >///< Chen and Chanyeol rocked the ‘The Beatles’ concept, but Kyungsoo and Lay, omo, they sure were so awkward and adorable I want to squish them so bad >///<

Lol, sorry for fangirling. To say the truth, I’m seriously in need of beta reader, my English is horrible, and college life has been so hectic lately. I would really appreciate it if one of you dear readers is willing to help me, so this ordinary fiction of mine could live a healthy and prosper life :’) That’s all I wanted to say (lol whut), and I hope all of you could enjoy my small effort ^^

Thank you!

Ainihaya, 2013.