Chapter 6 : Spaces of Yesterday

words: 6k+

Kyungsoo

            I used to live in simplicity. Once when I was three, my father lost his job, and we had to roam around the town the next day to look for cheaper apartment rent, me resting on his back as he held Junmyeon’s hand, letting his sweat lingered there. We were walking past tall buildings; people were straggeling in places. It was a blue autumn in Ilsandong-gu, a tad sad afternoon, maple leaves swirling up and down. We walked, and continued to walk—my grip grew stronger on the thick fabric cloth that was covering his back. I remembered my father looking so lanky and pale at the moment, but I had no idea why I didn’t ask him anything about the matter. Whenever his breathing turned shorter and his head went dizzy, he stopped to in the closest air, lifting his nose high, or pulling me down for seconds before giving me hint to clamber up his back one more time, as my knees were hurting from tripping on a stone earlier.

            Dad got a new job two days afterwards. At a homely-looking restaurant just across Madu Subway Station that was looking for a new chef because their old one had gone ‘to pursue his dream’. Dad worked there serving a bowl of hot ramyun and a cup of organic coffee to people passing by; mostly train passengers who were waiting for their trip to come. They would stop in front of the restaurant for a long moment, counting their leftover money or checking the menus before going inside.

            We ended up living in a run-down apartment near his new office. It was far from a pleasant building. The wall was so thin we could overhear what our neighbors were doing. There was a family of cokroach in the kitchen. Junmyeon spent his morning time chasing some so that they couldn’t get any way near our breakfast. At times in rainy days, we had to move our shoe racks inside, for the aisle in front of our apartment door was flooded with water and somewhat clear sludge. Dad always told me and Junmyeon that one day we would finally find a better home than this residence. Of which the porch is high and made of wooden floor, and we don’t have to pay the rent because the house is ours. His face was soft when he pronounced the promise, and due to the cold night wind, his shoulders were also shivering. But Dad—Dad in my memories had always been smiling, though he never let his smile swelling all the way free.

            Even when he was fighting with his disease. Even when he was close to death. Even when I dreamt about him last night. The deep dimples on both of his cheeks. It wasn’t everyday that I had the chance to meet him in my dream. But it’s just a dre—but I had always lived between my slumbers, between the boundaries of my phantsm, jitters, and reality; and I saw him there, my father, on the night Jongin and I not sleeping together.

            The space beside me felt cold. It almost hurt to turn around and look at the spot next to me, knowing that Jongin used to be there, hiding under thick blanket that fell above his nostrils. He would lean closer when I asked him to shut up, kissing my nape, one hand resting on my stomach, like no matter how tired he was, he’d still find ways to lock me inside his embrace. We had our sentimental nights together. And this time he wasn’t around. He was sleeping in the room next door but it showed as though he could not be reached. It showed as though I was all alone, in an upper middle class apartment sized three times bigger than my past residence; and the wall was made of finest materials so I couldn’t overhear what our neighbours were doing far there. It’s the type of house Dad always promised to me and Junmyeon before going to work, though this place doesn’t have any porch and we still have to pay the rent because the apartment isn’t yet ours. But I felt lost.

            I felt empty.

            I needed him, and he also needed me. I needs Jongin. But he didn’t just need me. He doesn’t just need me. He loves me. Love with a keen ‘lo’ in the beginning. Lo-ve.

            —Lo-ve; we hadn’t been exactly there. Given time enough, I should’ve fallen for him and stopped myself from wasting further time on the man of my dream. But love—lo-ve—, as complicated as it turns to be, isn’t something you can easily determine. It’s not as simple as choosing the ingredients for dinner, not as fast as going after late sale at your local grocery store.

            Love is what makes Luhan and Sehun together; what makes Dad so faithful even after years Mom left us on that chilly winter. And I, living under my own obsession over my sleep intruder—Park Chanyeol; his lean, tall built; his fairy ears, light tingling beneath his long eyelashes—, I couldn’t escape from any of its trap.

            Love has trapped me, putting me in between Chanyeol, Jongin, and this not-worth reading-story.

            And so, last night, I cried hard.

            I didn’t remember his face properly. When I met him in my dream, Dad was sitting on a bench; he said he couldn’t remember mine too. I ran up to him and grabbed his collar, as he patted my head just like those old times I was being scared of thunders in our past rainy days. Dad brushed his fingers over the tip of my nose, murmuring soothing sentence—all those alphabets, all those spilled letters, so many inherent words. His touch was warm. Nothing different than the last time he was still alive. “What happens?” he asked. “Nothing,” I answered.

            “Nothing?”

            “Nothing.”

            “You shouldn’t lie to your deceased father. Not when we can finally meet—albeit only in dream—after a long while.”

            And then I landed on his tight embrace, drying tears out of my doe eyes. Dad went silent. So did I. But in truth I knew he was holding his emotion. Those long, pretty fingers of his were my hair strands. It had seemed like a fading scene of my childhood. Every piece of puzzle within my memories seemed to mingle into a complete picture. Suddenly my heart started pounding, because we couldn’t stay like that forever. Morning will come, for sure, and I had to wake up, finding the bed beside me still empty without any trace of Jongin or his laughter.

            I cried like a kid. Realizing our time was limited. In that premature turn-out, I wanted to bring him to life once again, to wrap our fingers together as he walks me to school; Dad, and I, and Junmyeon, living in our run-down home. Everything was left in the hazy memory. When I felt two strong hands shaking my shoulder, I knew right away that it was the time to say goodbye. Life kept on moving; I had to wake up. There was no escaping for this routine. Work, eat, take deep breath, sleep, wake up; what a monotonic life.

            But those strong hands were familiar. They went up, from my shoulders, to my cheeks, cupping them, and propped there a bit longer. I was on my heel, ready to let go of Dad in my dream. My vision froze. Half asleep, I placed fingers on my forehead, scrolling down and down until those strong, rocklike hands intertwined mine. Then I opened my eyes.

            —And found him there.

            “Hyung, wake up. You were crying.”

            Morning was as bright as sun beam. I blinked back tears, pulling Jongin’s palm closer so he couldn’t run away. “I know.”

            I know.

****

            Coming out of the blue from our bathroom, Jongin, already in Cathedral gray camp shirt and navy long jeans, pulled up a chair across me where I could clearly stare at his face, an intense coldness adjoined the outward of a wrinkled newspaper in his hand. I was in my green apron, Jongin’s Christmas gift from last year event, placing the last piece of our breakfast on a ceramic, square plate. Apple pancake, I hummed as seating myself, Jongin’s favorite. Extra butter on both sides.

            “Morning.”

            “Morning.”

            “How’s sleep?”

            “Nice,” he murmured, drinking from a carton milk—white drips leaking down his strong jaw—then after two long gulps, which seemed like hours, he put the empty box on the table next to us and said flatly, “no, it was horrible actually. My head hurts.”

            I flashed him a sad smile. “Could it be a nightmare?”

            “Yeah. Perhaps. And stuffs.”

            And stuffs.

            I nodded, not for any reason; not for Jongin, not for myself; I just did. We sat across from each other, fork in my grip, newspaper between his left fingers, apple pancakes on ceramic plates, tastes were sour and a bit overwhelming. Our radio hissing in the background, now playing a cosmetic advertisement, blending with the clacking noise from the ceramic plate whenever its surface met with the fork’s tip in my grip.

            Suddenly our dining room was too big for two. Each moment was as stifling as seasons inside of a black hole. Seasons, that won’t ever go anywhere, because deep there time was trapped and long forgotten.

            It’s wrong that our morning wasn’t filled with love stories. The old days, the memories that had only died out in one night, where nothing could come between me and Jongin because back then Chanyeol was just nothing but a phantom from a mere dream.

            Our old days were fringed with bliss, and not once, not even once I ever thought of having a speechless breakfast with him. The thing Jongin do when I cook apple pancake in the morning was kissing the skin above my nostrils, his favorit flips flops caught in between my toenails. I had forgotten how it looked like, the yellow flips flops Jongin wore inside our apartment. As I savored the sour taste of my apple pancake, I stared at Jongin, through a pot of statice—color was purple, the shade of aubergine—, searching the last speck of warmth in his pale brown eyes.

             “Where are you going today?” I pretended not to notice Jongin’s untouched breakfast and tossed my gaze at our patio, slightly slanting my eyes so that I could still take a little glance at my boyfriend. Statice, I chewed, lost in the form of its color, the flower of remembrance. “I mean, yesterday, you said you’re not coming to our restaurant before lunch.”

            “Ah, I’ve got a ton of duties to handle,” he said, taking a bite of his pancake. The radio was chanting The Beatles’ song, not anymore airing everyday commercial. Dear Prudence, I smiled at the harmony, humming less than I could actually remember. “This apple tastes sour,” Jongin startled me, his voice melt with a mouthful of water. “You’re going to be okay dealing with our customers alone, right?” he said again, increasing the twang in the end of his tone. “Just call Yixing or Ryeowook-hyung for help. I’ll make sure to hang it up as soon as I can.”

            “Is it going to be another Art Festival?”

            “More like Art Exhibition. The director seems to be interested in my works or something. All that talk about using my painting as the icon this year.”

            “He was that eager?”

            “He said he was an old fan.”

            “Wow,” I poured more maple syrup on my pancake, “that’s cool.”

            “Or pretty agressive.”

            “Yeah,” and as I munched on its frail texture, I noticed the sourness was there no longer.

            The clock struck seven. Deep within his chaw, Jongin  nodded once, swallowing the food down his stomach, and after that he didn’t say anything at all. Never in our years together had I seen him being this cold before, but I somewhat knew how it would turn out because I’d been told about numerously before. Jongin is really scary when he’s angry, Luhan was the one to spill the story. His cousin from Daejeon who was the tallest and the loudest between them all didn’t even slip off from the grasp. And when he’s mad, Luhan and Sehun and that cousin of Jongin’s would avoid him in every touch, but it was like ten years ago.

            We spent the heel of our breakfast time listening to the sound of hissing radio. He kept his head facing down—it was a simple, harmless gesture. But still it hurt when I looked for the fire in his eyes. The winter stratosphere draining through the airing circulated around his back. I found him grey and blue this morning. And blank, too, at some parts inside his eyes and on another faraway points. “I’ll go in first,” he walked to the sink, pausing a moment to dump his leftover into the trash bin, “I’ll just—prepare things for the meeting.”

            “Ah,” replied me, taking more seconds than I supposed, “okay.”

            I wanted to laugh at our thorny morning. Harder, and almost in sarcastic tear when Jongin didn’t even try to prolong the stiff conversation.

            He left the scent lingering from his clothes hung high in the air. It smelled like Guerlain Homme, no doubt about that; Jongin once rubbed the spray on the back of my hand. The spice flew gently across our dining room with masculine instinct. Keen and agile. Wild and demanding. The words of lust and longing. So much reminding me of an untamed animal in Jongin’s darkest time.

            I washed the dishes, decided to wear thick coat and cranky ombre jeans, and checked out my appearance in the mirror. It was a major turn off. My face kept getting thinner and gloomier day by day. But it’s safe to say that I wasn’t complaining anymore. Lips pressed, I put on a double monk slip-on, let my coat remained ed, then walked out of the room. When I reached near our front door, I spotted Jongin had already stood there, waiting for me while playing with his three puppies.

            We exchanged a curt look. He wasn’t wearing his favorit suit today, but it calmed me in some way to see him in simple, panneled shirt. The car windows were half ajar, flaring beneath sunlight, wide enough to allow wind to step in. After that, came a long silent ride. “Call me if you need anything, okay?” Jongin had stated the moment I was about to plop down the car. He parked just in front of Silenced Ennui, his hands trembling on the steering wheel as I tipped forward to plant kisses on his lips. I counted it as a hesitation, moving to Jongin’s neck, then burried my face there.

            “I love you,” I wanted to believe my own words too, “don’t forget to get here before lunch.”

            The sound of car engine drove us apart. Minute and far away, my left arm was stretched out toward the sky, fingers extended in full five until I could no longer see the spit of sunray.

****

            About a minute walk from Silenced Ennui was a small Viennese coffee shop. I didn’t go straight to work after Jongin left, for I wouldn’t want anyone to catch sight at my sleepy face. Taking small steps, I stop by the coffee shop—even from this place, I could hear Yixing’s piano playing pounding the thin air. Yesterday, The Beatles. The sweet taste of Wiener Melange burned on my tongue everytime I sipped on its brown liquid.

            Finishing the cup in fiveten minutes, I paid for my drink and told the cashier to keep the change. The street around Silenced Ennui is flat and wide, that typical main area in urban towns and cities which go long and straight. If you were standing across the building, you would see my collection of orchids lining up like a honey bee colony, but instead the color is not always black and yellow strips. Actually, many orchids come in white. I had arranged the flowers in such setting that people could still notice them from distant. Since the street is wide, people usually walk hand in hand, sometimes even three person at once. Especially in weekdays where couples are going on dates, they oftentimes happened to stop at the storefront of my shop, looking at the marching florets and Jongin’s painting on the see-through glass door.

            Tao was busy watering a pot of Dendobrium orchid as I strolled towards my restaurant entrance. He smiled excitedly when I called out his name, pulling me in a tight embrace, but not after I punched him twice in the stomach. “So,” he freed me, “are you getting married, or are you getting married.”

            That was how I ended up punching him for the third time. “Shut up, Zitao.”

            “And I thought, Hyung, you’ll get less y—and less violent at that—after a long week honeymoon.”

            “First off, it wasn’t a honeymoon,” I snorted, then glared at Zitao and went inside. He followed behind me, grinning ear to ear.

            “Well, yes, it was. It is. Technically.”

            “You’re one persistent guy,” I placed my coat on a nearby rack, thinking of a way to get rid of him. Tao reached for a jar of free cookies at his side, offering me some, to which I refused by shaking my head. “I’m not getting married, Zitao—not now.”

            “And why not?”

            —I adored the way it sounded. And why not?

            Alas, his question remained unanswered. Somewhere in the bright corner of my restaurant, I had my fist punching him for the fourth, fifth time.

****

            The place I like best in this world is—no, it’s not the kitchen, as I’m not a character in Banana Yoshimoto’s book. And no, it’s not even that simple.

            I once loved eating fried fish-cake near Junmyeon’s school. I was six then, hair cut short, Ivy League, and wavy. I thought I’d live there eating all the delicious fried fish-cake for the rest of my life. Now, seventeen years have gone by, and still I can remember its chewy taste. That, in the end, I conclude what I loved most about the place wasn’t originally the food, but the atmosphere they served. On September rain poured down everyday, as we waited for the sun to emerge, Junmyeon would take me to the small shop, sipping a bowl of thick fish broth while we sat there listening to the sound of patters knocking the bamboo roof.

            It’s not wrong to say that I love being in between certain scents. I love the smell of wooden chairs the small, fried fish-cake shop, had. I love the tropic citrus spice whenever  I drink lemon juice. That explains why the air inside my restaurant was oregano-crisp, for it reeked warmth and peace, piercing to lure my orbs open. It was the smell of homemade pasta, was the smell of warm pizza box when the delivery guy first dropped it to your house—mild and with a tiny pinch of tomato-sweet. It wasn’t the kind of aroma you would just ignore; you, going home after wasting time outside, not finding any date.

            “What’s the special menu today?” I had my fingers latched on door knob.

            Lucky for me, Minseok-hyung was the one who stood close to kitchen entrance, gaping quietly with some bewilderment through his slightly-open mouth.

            “Kyungsoo, you’re back!” we hugged, which last longer than three seconds. He was very keen on linking his arms around me. His touch and aggressive move always reminded me of Junmyeon, and I sort of forgot that tonight I had to call him before nine.

            By the fifth second of our bear hug, he finally pulled back. Minseok-hyuk glanced down at me once it was over. I’d never been a kind person, but I respected him a lot, and I nodded, returning the smile. All around us, I could hear my other worker’s cohesive greeting.

            “It’s good to get back to work.”

            “How’s holiday?”

            “Enough to keep me pleased for weeks,” I said, sounding excited. “You all should come over. We bought many souvenirs.”

            “Oh you shouldn’t worry. Soon when we get ‘em free time, we’ll surely stop by.”

            Minseok-hyung looked exactly like a chipmunk at times when he speak, his cheeks round and pudgy like a complete human adaptation of rodents as he pointed towards the empty air behind me and gave me a hint to turn back. I did, and I immediately met with Ryeowook-hyung there. He trapped me like that for a moment until his skin turned blue; during his first week working with me I never stopped questioning how it happpened, his skin that shifted to darker color whenever he ran out of oxygen.

            Now I had quited the deed, he believed there were things better left unanswered and so did I, and the same case with Jongin apparently because he never asked me a thing about his rejected proposal, not even a single why.

            “You’ve gained weight,” Ryeowook-hyung shot me a smug look, never missing any switch I created.

            “Do I?”

            He remained silent

            It was at this point, I imagined, that people suspected me as a sinner.

            In general, people were so austere and stupid. You had a pretty face and they loved you. Only, pretty folks were supposed to be dumb. If not, then you got hated. If you were gay, then it was the worst of all. And people—people seeked flaws, held it high, and we drove thousand miles away, mask enclosing our eyes, in favor of tucking aside each other’s weakness.

            But it was true in the end; that Do Kyungsoo was a sinner. Is. A big one. And not everyone seemed to understand.

            No one says life is not unfair.

            I was a long time going to leave the kitchen. Somehow Yixing had played another Beatles’ song and hearing that, I felt a customary frustration.

            I needed to tell him to end his action. Sometimes he’s stuck with sad thought, after a while he began sending depressive songs into your earholes. That’s the kind a young man Zhang Yixing was. I ended up not treading anywhere, though, stunned with the scent of baked garlic bread from the oven. A quarter second later, Ryeowook-hyung started preparing main dishes, with no omen whatsoever in answering my previous question. Then I stopped off the sink, flakes of grounded beef were spread all over the faucet.

            “It’s dirty,” I didn’t shout. One of my young worker quickly run the water until it was nothing but pristine. Scared, definitely, why else would she shiver like that. Right, cold. Howbeit I doubted the idea.

            “Who’s she?”

            “Seriously?”

            “I just—couldn’t...  I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before...”

            “Irene. New intern, joined two weeks ago along with—who? Seulgi? Yeah. People talk mess about her,” but she’s pretty, Minseok-hyung shrugged as he offered me to taste the food he made. The room began to smell of burnt fluor. “How come you not know? She’s your own employee.”

            Salty. I asked for drink to sweep the flavor away.

            “I’m not good with name.”

            “True,” and when he said that, the girl from before came into the picture.

            No one left her shadow as she timidly walked past empty slots, the door shut before her shoulders, skinny and breakable with her small ankle hatching muted quiver whenever she set on another tiny step.

            I made way for her to bow, and she left. She disappeared in thirty seconds, I was counting; if only her buns were a little bigger, half of my employee wouldn’t just take their eyes off her that easily. They might think it was odd enough to have such pretty girl working as a trainee in this restaurant. She could’ve made money signing up with fashion-oriented companies. But she possessed a sad face, and I’d just noticed. It matched well with the cold morning, by hook or by crook. Winter in Seoul was considerably sublime if you have the appetence of walking around snow-covered town, but you better not do it alone. With that girl Irene I could however care less.

            “I’ll try to come over this Saturday,” Ryeowook-hyung declared, exhaling. The main dish wasn’t fully cooked yet. “I’m bringing people with me.”

            “You ought to set a big table,” Minseok-hyung clanged the ballon whisk he was holding into an empty bowl, another hand lingering on a box of chicken eggs.

            “Yes. A very big table.”

            “Because I say there will be plenty of us. You’ll do count.”

            “Okay,” I pulled a chair and sat up straight, watching them do wonders. Seeing people work in kitchen was a kind of amusement to me, fingers moving from vegetable peeler, to grabbing knife, to swaying their spatula. I did it often since a was a mere kid. Dad was an amazing cook, and Suho has always been horrible. Me, I used to fit in between.

            Propping my chin with one palm, I converted my words into a short thanks as another new intern placed a cup of hot tea on the table. Seulgi, I scanned her name-tag, then chuckled because she reminded me of Chanyeol in a girly form. And even then, the image of Irene flashed once more in my head. It wasn’t something I expected to happen, that she creeped into my mind, perfectly adorned with shy laugh and her sad face, and the thought that she could be the type of girl Chanyeol would chase after.

            Girls.

            —Girls like her, I’m not really fond of them.

            They know they’re loved by men.

            “How’s Jongdae?” I sipped the tea, glad finding it was chamomile. Someone had to voice the question. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw him around.

            “He was miserable the last time I visited. But I heard he’s okay now. Even flu is scary lately, Soo.”

            “Thank God. What about the band?”

            “All under control,” Minseok-hyung continued, “Chanyeol’s friend hold covers for his part everyday. It just.. happened that way. Our customers love him, you could—consider getting him in.”

            Minseok-hyung was smiling, that was not new. Upon thinking about that “Chanyeol’s friend” part, I’d been in dead air for a moment. The sting appeared at the end of the last drop of my chamomile, bitter as I gulped it down, bit by bit. “The name is Baekhyun, right?”

            He stopped short and studied my then empty eyes. “You know?”

            “Chanyeol told me stories about him.”

            “Hm-mm. He is a nice person.”

            His voice echoed against the elastic barrier of my heart.

            “I can figure,” I saw myself reflected in the glass table, then I got up, hands in pocket, searching for a little grip of comfort. On the instant, Minseok-hyung glanced at his watch. When the number and needles met his sight, he seemed to think about telling me some outlawed secret I couldn’t spell out; across the floor he stood on, my cheeks flamed into ugly red color.

             “Half before nine. They should be heading here by now. Don’t you want to meet him in person, Soo?”

            Don’t you want to meet him in person, Soo?

             “Ah?” I buttoned my coat tight. “I guess so.”

            No.

****

            One day I would wonder why are my eyes big and my lips so thick.

            All that afternoon I locked my self in my office, and a potrait of a young man in his 20-s that had been spinning in brain, haltingly, hair that pattered like oak leaves, the husky voice he had, the triangular shape of his mouth on the sloppy morning beyond the snapping jingle of visitors’ entryway—that, as I’d like to describe it, the way he crouched with his feet rested close, the sun shone on his left—somehow beneath them all within my black mittens, I felt my hands shaking for some reasons I didn’t want to know.

            Baekhyun.

            He was a short guy, a bit taller than me in a way, and he appeared a little womanish, I saw him sometimes placing his index finger on his chin when he talked to somebody. Anyway, he talked way too much. Not contrasted to Chanyeol, but at least that gentleman of my slumber didn’t retain a husky, high-pitched voice as his. His face might have been an image of a pretty elf—how he did his eyes was another thing, deep black eyeliner along his eyelid, which exposed his orbs more, and this was just one of many things that I had tried not to reckon as he discovered me from his seat, watching obscurely halfway through The Beatles’ song Yixing’s band was playing.

            Baekhyun. Baekhyun.

            He smoked too, just like Chanyeol. Marlboro red. They could be twins from different wombs. But Baekhyun was small, short, meager, a small-eyed guy with high-pitched voice, the opposite of my dream-man. Pretty. He was pretty. Deep within his own womanish behaviour. He did look akin to what I pictured him to be, a fact that caused me hate myself later on (and asking why are my eyes big and my lips so thick), and envy was too modest of word to contrue my mind when we first met.

            Baekhyun, he was awfully beautiful.

            “Hi, I’m here to fill in for Jongdae,” and his voice melodic, it bloomed like flowers in blazing summer. There was something strange about him when he stomped from behind Chanyeol’s back. Perhaps it was the jealousy that brushed me for a second of that moment when Chanyeol grabbed his hand, engaging their fingers in a tight grapple, and told him to introduce himself properly. I probably would have wanted the same gesture to happen to me.

****

            —I probably would have wanted the same strong hold Chanyeol gave him latching onto me, but I had stopped hoping. I had stopped trying to recall my dreams; for the better. For me.

            For Jongin.

            For the better. For everything.

            —For the better.

****

            For Baekhyun was awfully beautiful.

            He was awfully beautiful.

****

            But his mouth was outrageous.

****

            Nobody was around when I bumped into Chanyeol that afternoon.

            “Hi, Boss.”

            “Hi.”

            “How’s life?”

            “You think?”

            There must be some simpler way to answer it. 

            If I was going into the bathroom, Chanyeol was back from smoking outside. I failed to remember who said sorry first between us. We showed up from opposite directions and he was not in the least staring straight while he walked per usual. Apart from the nicotine smell, which he had on his mouth, he was looking fine as ever, the one thing that bothered me was the way he bowed me a perfect ninety degree bow with a profusion of honor that was ready to steal all my emotion. Today, since it was too cold, his fingers were terrifically frosted. He had not covered them with gloves, he told Yixing earlier that he's quite sensitive and besides gloves caused his palms sweaty, which he didn't fancy. I wondered why he didn't eat lunch with the rest of the band, and instead searching for place to light some cigarettes alone. Naturally, I felt the urge to find the explanation, but I remained unsure of what to do and decided to store all that things in my mind at the very long last. It weren't too long before I sensed something in him had changed.

            He reeked of the carbon-copy fragrance of Irene.

            “You look great,” he praised.

            That Irene.

            “Thanks,” I smiled. Mourning inside. “Chanyeol?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Your friend is nice.”

            He stopped abruptly and stood against the door, in front of an aisle leading into the staff’s room where Tao’s whine sounded louder than before, listening. “Yeah.”

            Chanyeol.

            What did I love about him again? I don’t know.

            I forgot about that.

            Oh, I never know.

            It’s in the fact, that he breezed in my dreams everyday. Everynight. You see the same people at school for years, and you fall for one of them. You do because there leaves no other choice. Several times, you tried to put your heart to someone else. And you found it strange, you found it weird, everything in yourself is dragging you back to that person. You’re starting to imagine his face quite easily. You hate his haircut though, it’s stupid and annoying. Sometimes, he is there, separated by inch, and he is not there, going miles out of the way. Next thing, you’re going to hate yourself, you haven’t yet, you surely will.

            When I think of Chanyeol, I tended to lengthen my thought more of his eyes. His height was a common topic, one would notice at first sight. But his eyes, I like to think what’s inside, what he saw before he’s going to bed. Did he watch . Does he. Did he scant notes with the same vermin orbs before he strummed the strings of his guitar, rhythm by rhythm mingled with a room full of deceptive air.

            He created music. In my sleep. My very photogenic Chanyeol whom I kissed  dearly nearing the completion of my dream.

            He always said he’d come again tomorrow, I always answered, Chanyeol, I know. And I touched his lips one more time, because I partly wanted to make him, in the haziness of night, a long lasting image, that lived, all by my side; I pictured opening the door and him waiting for me at home. Like a child, the stars in his eyes never dies.

****

            “Take a look at all that flowers,” later, Baekhyun had whispered this to Chanyeol.

            And the taller began following his gaze and asked, “Yeah?”

            “Somehow they look prettier than ever.”

            “And?” Chanyeol wondered out of the big bite of garlic bread that crumbled with the rest of food buzzing inside his mouth; moving apace with patty in hands passed him was Tao, his face in shadow, perhaps, inside, praying he wouldn’t sound like a banshee when he ate.

            “It’s weird. Chanyeol,” his friend went on, “because just yesterday, they were withered. I swear some were ready to die.”

            “They’re probably just happy because their owner is finally back in town, no?”

            At Baekhyun’s wrinkling forehead, he added, “Those flowers,” he explained before the shorter raised another question, “our boss Kyungsoo owns them after all.”

            I stopped listening after this part, and locked the door of my office and let the songs from my phone hit the entire room full on.

            Jongin arrived at the last quarter before four, three hours behind his promised time. It wasn’t everyday that he showed up late. Three hours, when you think about it, wasn’t that much of a number. In three hours, people sleep. Or nap, to put a better term on it. In three hours people takes train from Seoul to Busan, 2 hours and 58 minutes, it leaves you one hundred and twenty second to drop your map under the flocking benches and pick it up again whilst saying sorry to the closest passenger.

            But in three hours, Jongin argued, people also die. People leaving and people bid goodbye. The way he apologized and tilted his head, at which point Yixing told him to stop that, broke my heart a little. Which did not, however, blocking Byun Baekhyun from stepping forward and bringing up himself, and extending his long fingers to my boyfriend, his name flew high above there.

            “So he’s the one who’s in charge of Jongdae’s role for the time being?”

            “Hm-mm.”

            “I do like him, Hyung. He’s funny.”

            The TV was still on behind my back. “Jongin,” I called him, finally my patience crept to an end, “kiss me,” and that was my following order.

            Kiss me, I walked toward where he was at, next to a tall bookshelf in our office—full of his own collections, Emily Bronte, to Gillian Flynn, between names I couldn’t remember—the clock above us said five and sixteen.

            He didn’t react when I knotted our hands together. The standing lamp beside him was just about his height, its beam landed on his right profile. He was half-golden. I had to squint my eyes, for two times, like he was a sparkling sun.

            Under closer distance I could see his eyes were actually red and swollen.

            “Here, do it,” I eventually led him to my lips, “kiss me, Jongin,” and make me better.

            Jongin got me in a helpless form, beneath his robust chest, and he had one, no, both of my arms circuited around his neck. I supposed he wanted this as much as I did. He was, on the whole, pushing himself onto me, but he didn’t scare me, not a bit. Perhaps he did, but I wouldn’t admit it, because our feelings were good back then.

            Kyungsoo, I caught him howling my name. He was biting and my neck, he was wasted and brightness and hesitation in his gaze were missing.

            I had spent the night silently wishing he would touch me again, and just yet I was reminded of how smart Jongin was at using his tongue. The fiery air we’d created soared on the sidelines of my hair, in which it gathered Jongin’s scent, the same essence as this morning, to window sills; and for a long moment it just stayed unmoving like that. Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo. We moaned and pulled at every last one finger. The rest of the afternoon went pretty much torrid and glutinous. And then my eyes fluttered open at five and thirty, feeling empty.

****

            “Jongin.”

            “Hmm?”

            “Jongin,” a recurrence, “Jongin, marry me.”

            The dusk outside was starting to disappear.

            I attempted to count the sum Jongin’s lips had thumped on mine, but was lost somewhere.

****

To be continued

A/N:

Hi, hello, how are you?