Crestfallen Petrichor

Prologue: Of Guava Juice and Canned Caviar

Words: 3k+

            Summer holiday went by the board as it should be, just like the past twelve days and counting: hot, critical, and lethargic.

            Or so Kyungsoo thought.

            “Oh my God—oh my God—H-Honey, l-look at this!”

        The still unchanging high temperature ever since last week football-play on a remarkably burning school’s backyard, sticky dust that keen on kissing his collections of army patterned shirt; small, pinky promise to play League of Legends (and a bit of fun girly games) together with Jongin just after his afternoon snacks, his self-rated high quality movie marathon before going to bed—to say that everything passed the way they ought to be was no complete lie. Indeed, it wasn’t even considered any kind of mendacity at all, though his small, pinky promise with Jongin had turned into nightly sleepover (Monday, Wednesday, Friday at Kim’s, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday at Do’s, and Sunday was there to watch them fainted in slow motion), but it wasn’t really something out of proportion.

            Still, life is, if you don’t mind to look at its load deeply, that one rare object worth a laugh. Neither did he ever guess to be suddenly awakened from his dewfall nap—to the sound of his father’s gawky outcry—, first day of July’s third weeks, since he wasn’t the sort of person to suspect excessively because, one: his life had always been pretty normal so far, and, two: he simply didn’t fancy the idea of giving too much attention, nor did he know that his life would dramatically change any soon. But his father’s comical shriek had yet to stop for the upcoming five minutes, cracked and wavy with a tint of humorous vibrato, and thus Kyungsoo sleepily tossed his also army-printed blanket aside before making slow baby steps to Do family’s living room.

            There was a box of scattered leftover guava juice.

            And apparently, the sight of his crying dad—he wasn’t actually sure.

            “Ten billion won,” said his dad a moment later, almost whispering.

            Kyungsoo could only blink.

            Now, his dad, who just recently warned by his personal editor to send his latest works within 24 hours, was the type of man you would happily refer as ‘cold, mysterious flower boy’. He was a writer (he is a writer, a lately frustrated one to be verbally honest), had written five young adult books since the very first day of his marriage with Kyungsoo’s mother—four of which being not really successful. His only honorable work published not long ago, one month before Kyungsoo’s middle school entrance exam if he’s not mistaken; a painfully beautiful story about two broken orphan, met by the pounding tide of ocean, and Kyungsoo posing as the model of its back and front cover, nearly as topless as possible if not for that pink feminine curtain wrapped loosely around his upper body. After that, both parties started receiving many offers. Kyungsoo, from various child modeling agencies, while his dad, from several popular publisher houses. He ended up rejecting every single scout coming to their apartment door, and his dad ended up taking two or three that paid the most (it might or might not be true, because as stated earlier, Kyungsoo wasn’t the sort of person to suspect excessively, mind you) but turned out complying with none. So, between his father minor vexation and his own confusion, Kyungsoo wondered whether those previous events kind of affecting his father’s mental issue or (surprisingly) not. Seemed that the answer was no, not yet, because just when he planned on asking his dad about the very questionable screams echoed merely ten minutes ago, he was welcomed by his parents synchronous laugh that not even the defective air conditioner in the said place could suppress.

            “We’re rich, Kyungsoo! We’re rich!” his Mom made a strange voice that sounded much like high pitched yelp, ere hugging her husband tightly, probably from too much happiness and too much shock.

            Kyungsoo tried so hard not to snort.

****

            Never, never in his life, not in fact once, did he imagine there’d be day where a box of spoiled leftover guava juice, practically on the same level of smelliness with his homeroom teacher’s cabbage kimchi he always sniffed at lunch, could turn his ordinary twilight into fairy tale burlesque.

            “Caviar.”

            There were many, he supposed, other words he could actually utter, the moment his dad childishly jumped—right here and there and everywhere—while both hand flicking a sheet of square paper not even bigger than half of his palm; and his mother, the pretty former trot singer, still in her baby blue ahjumma apron that slightly wrinkled after the long hug with his father, abruptly caught his short fingers to join their somewhat lame festivity.

            So he decided to state it once more to his personal dismay.

            “Caviar.”

            Kyungsoo blinked, one, two, three consecutive times, not happy that his thick mouth had just pronounced yet the same letters he wanted to get ride of. With that, he pretended that he was startled, mind wandering towards a brilliant picture of Kris, 3rd grade Chinese descendant student who came from Canada last August or thereabout. He was, well, everything related to such noble terms, for example, rich, smart, handsome, tall (especially, tall), but a little bit older to be a final-year junior high schoolboy. Rumors told him that, for several sensitive reason, Kris had to repeate a grade right after his move to Seoul, which indirectly spelt out the true explanation behind his trivial scandal, but alas, Kyungsoo didn’t exactly care. He didn’t exactly give a sole caution to begin with, for there might have been no Kris at all inside his mind had he not overheard the aforementioned man’s loud chit-chat from two tables next to his, once upon a busy lunch time at school’s only one cafeteria.

            “My dad bought me Italian caviar yesterday.”

            “Another business trip, eh?” asked Yixing, another Chinese descendant student, slightly unsure.

            Kris shook his head no.

            “Probably seeing his lover,” at this point, Kyungsoo silently, or, breathlessly, thanked God for blessing him with a plain father. “Well, but I can’t leave it like that. The caviar, I mean.”

            “Still allergic?”

            This time, he nodded, slurping his ramyun with too much force. “And I wonder why he bought me so many fish-based food lately. My guess,” Kris was the type of man to use this expression a lot, “is that his lover live around seashore.”

            And it stopped precisely there.

            —The wiretap thingy.

****

            Because the only word he deeply highlited from both Chinese teenagers’s noisy dialogue was ‘caviar’.

            C-a-v-i-a-r.

            Yes, Kyungsoo grew, a sweet, healthy kid, from eating Korean dishes; rice, meat, soup, vegetables, and more vegetables; but his strong friendship with a 12 months and 2 days younger Kim Jongin had given him a new perspective of life, a gleaming world stranded far beyond his family’s apartment at Seongbuk-dong. Between him, his father, and his mother, sadly, Kyungsoo was considered mediocre in building friendly relationship—if not ‘the worst’, since, sure enough, who on earth wants to befriend a fragile looking boy anyway, oh, besides those hysterical girls themselves. Therefore, having Jongin as his chummy mate was, admittedly, one in a million luck. Under the dim light of his bedroom, the aforesaid tan boy reeked of sweat, laziness, and indolence, that he made a mental note not to judge a book by its cover when Jongin first brought Kyungsoo to his home, a big luxurious one on the side of Han River, Gangnam, and showed him his trove of dance trophies.

            Not to mention that he was ultra rich.

            —And his mother was rarely home.

            —And Kyungsoo could care less about Jongin’s father, as the child himself said that he, too, didn’t know much.

****

            Poor, poor, lovely kid, anyhow.

            —Poor, poor, lovely Ggamjong.

****

            So within his naive calculation, the following seconds, Kyungsoo thought, “Now that I’m rich, I can definitely buy a can of Italian caviar and share it with Jongin, like the time he and his mother take me to Table 34—of course, his father remained hidden, and albeit the food wasn’t really my jam, and I’d tell that my mother’s Naengmyeon tastes one hundred light years better, I still want to return their kindness nonetheless. Afterwards, with this plentiful amount of money, my family can definitely move to Gangnam, more precisely, next to Jongin’s, err, next to Kim’s. He’ll begin to attend middle school this approaching autumn, right? Woah, that makes it even better. Considering how serious he was throughout our small talk, back to the very first day of summer holiday about him applying for my school, I bet we can also take morning train together from—no, who needs public transport when you’re rich? Hell, we’ll take my soon-to-be-real private car together, then. Yea, Dad and Mom love me, right—it’s not even a question—plus my smart, prominent hunch kind of telling me that all these fleeting bouyancy shall increase the already existing patency (dang, my vocab sounds really cool). I won’t be alone anymore at school because Jongin is there, and we’ll talk about small things with loud voice, loud click, loud claps, take a peevish sit just next to Kris and his gang, sipping banana milk, chewing on Belgian chocolate, wearing latest fashion trends, pulling pranks on feral delinquets, having half of the school’s population bending their knees for us—”

            Eh, eh, eh.

            What a great sequences of innocent speculation.

****

            “I don’t want to!”

            “Darling, listen—”

            “Send me back to Seoul! I don’t want to be here—send me back to Seoul! I want to live with Jongin!”

            For a split moment his parents looked unamused.

            “Kyungsoo, please behave, you’re—” you’re 12 for crying out loud, way too old to act like a mushy toddler!

            That was what the taller man actually wanted to say, Kyungsoo could tell beneath his stubborn stillness; he just didn’t voice it out loud, because he didn’t want his father to know that he actually knew. Though his dad was never genuinely angry to everybody, when he’s pissed, he won’t easily desist. “If you want to go back to Seoul, fine. If you want to live with Jongin, that’s okay with me. But please, behave, I don’t raise you to throw tantrum and such.”

            And then the door shuted, and at last Kyungsoo kicked the air with his shoeless feet, hoping it could at least ease his resentment. Out the car’s window, he watched his parents began to unpack, while his two tabby kittens, Sook and Min, elvishly trailing from behind. Ah, those felines, they sure are gonna love their new house, he sulked; green grass, big yard, pretty plateau, more places to play, more places to wander, more places to poop at; such a traitor. He should have kept puppies instead, they are more faithful and certainly more lovable, but unfortunately, 1. He didn’t, and still he doesn’t, like how they have this ‘keep calm and adore owner be blithesome and everyone you meet!’ because, 2. He plainly hate the idea of thick, sticky liquid being plestered on his cheeks. Jongin’s dog—the cutest spawn of satan, Monggu—alone was effective enough to make him tremble as well as avoiding its master for more than a week, and to be honest, he’s slightly traumatized. And so he sulked one more time, finding no enlightment for his angry heart. The big eyed boy was just in the middle of turning his iPod, in hoping to overcome the overflowing discomfort, when his dad, on pins and needles, said something that was actually loud enough for him to be able to catch every single uttered syllable.

            “Is it really bad to move here?”

            His mother’s melodic voice followed the ensuing seconds.

            “Well, there’s a thing called adaptation, honey.”

            “But aren’t we being a bit too selfish?”

            “We do. Of course, we do. But it has been our long lasting dreams to move here, and I believe Kyungsoo could understand. He just still in shock over our rushing decision, which is understandable, love, because if I were in his position, I’d be shocked too.”

            “All... right. I guess we should give him some... time to think.”

            “Believe me, love, he’ll get over it soon. Dinner’s about to come, and knowing my son, I’m sure he won’t hold it too long.”

            —Yes, maternal instinct is never wrong.

****

            He did buy the canned caviar.

            He did share it with Jongin, and boy, the taste was so awful he had to clean his tongue using his father’s mouthwash afterwards. Jongin loved it, however, and seeing the younger’s wide smile, Kyungsoo couldn’t help but feel happy himself.

            Still, things never really happened the way he imagined them.

            His family unexpected fortune sounded like something normally found in children’s books, from poor to ‘Darling, there’s a lottery inside our rotten guava juice’s cardboard box!’ to rich. Kyungsoo knew he wouldn’t pass it so easily, since, that’s what happened with every protagonist of those piled up brownish papers, right? Hence, he wasn’t really surprised when his parents didn’t choose Gangnam as their new area to live. He just—he just didn’t assume it to be a secluded district on the far right side of South Korea, where you can’t smell the sweeping scent of technology and birds and clouds concurrently come through the azure color of sky lodged atop of the oriental looking ridge and narrow sized rive.

            He just didn’t assume it to be Goseong-gun, the small, lonely country in Gangwon Province, four hours away by car from Sokcho, seven to eight hours away by car from Gangnam. Night after the silent dinner, in the wake of decision to come out of his family new car by an annoying feeling of untamed hunger, Kyungsoo sat beside his bedroom window, staring at Taebaek mountain peeking shyly from the lush green of pinewoods. The moon was bright, and so did the flaming ray coming from the regions’s one and only lighthouse; eradiating some of its flash onto his old school uniform. Black, white, two strips of greenish blue—he sighed, realizing that it would soon be replaced by a new one.

            It wasn’t exactly due to his concern for Jongin that Kyungsoo against his parent’s ideas. The little boy sure cried hard during their parting moment, but knowing Jongin, he would immediately come across Kyungsoo’s substitute without any trouble. Unlike him, Jongin was pretty good in making friends—if not for his sheepish attitude. He was rich, and kind, sweet, and good in dancing; people would surely love him. On the contrary, Kyungsoo was nothing like that. He was grumpy, and cold, and had these somewhat girly features. For an ordinary teenager who longed for friends to talk and play shooting games with, the details kind of making it rather difficult, thus, when Jongin called two weeks hereafter—whilst Kyungsoo still hadn’t recovered from his embarrasing introduction to his recent classmates—telling him about his new ‘best-friend-forever’ he had just met hours ago at new-school-year opening ceremony, he felt like cutting the line and locking himself inside the basement.

            “His name is Taemin,” said Jongin, adding a small laugh at the end, “and, wow, you won’t believe how similar we are!”

            “Oh, he dances too?” Kyungsoo could only burry his tinted sadness.

            “Uh-uh, and actually, his skill is better than mine, but I’ll try harder, Hyung!”

            Yeah, ‘I’ll try harder, Hyung!’ my —off course he kept the words within his brain.

            “Ah, Hyung, how about you?”

            “How about... me?”

            “Yeah, Hyung, how about you? How’s life there? How’s your new school?”

            Horrible. “It’s great,” no, it’s the worst, “it’s surprisingly great. The kids here love my dad’s latest work,” well, but he didn’t lie for this part, “I mean, y-yes, that mournful book I’m posing the cover for.”

            “Really, Hyung? I bet girls adore you as well!”

            “They always adore me anyway,” he didn’t intend to also keep this previous phrase within his brain, but Jongin stole his chance by asking, “So I guess you’ve made new friends already.”

            “Huh?”

            “I said; So I guess, Hyung, you’ve made new friends already.”

            What friends he was talking about, this innocent Ggamjong.

            “I guess,” gotcha, no one, “I guess so, too. I-I mean—I mean, I’ve made friends, but if you refer to, urn, ‘good friends’ like how you address Taemin, well,” oh, what was wrong with our protagonist, telling lies and such, “not that many, I—I only made one.”

            “Wow, that’s actually pretty good! Tell me, tell me, is he kind? Is he smart?”

            Kyungsoo paused for a second.

            “He is... good.”

            “Ah, that’s not the kind of answer I want to hear, Hyung!”

            “Well, he seems smart, if this can help me answer your curiosity.”

            “Not bad, not bad!” again, Jongin laughed. “So, what’s his name?”

            And Kyungsoo frowned.

            What’s his name?

            —He wasn’t prepared for this question.

            The cool and crisp weather of approaching autumn sent dispersed early leaves to his balcony. From his window, he saw Min and Sook clashing their paws together, rolling and tumbling along the lonesome street; enjoying their little invisible diadem while the owner glaring continuously from second floor. Kyungsoo’s frown deepened, as his head slowly repainting the vague image of his new classmates. In a serenity to the dampness of afternoon, he managed to stop his traveling mind, however, to a certain figure of a certain not-too-tall-just-like-him person.

            A boy. A pretty one.

            Small eyes.

           Broad shoulders.

            Captivating smile.

            —It appeared to him, all at once, in such passionate manner. Deep inside his memory, that boy seemed to hold an affectionate smell of cinnamon, and on that unforgettable spot, where he stood still before his classmates and homeroom teacher, Kyungsoo could perfectly catch the overwhelming aura, as it would be no Goseong-gun at all without his precense ten feet apart from Kyungsoo’s shaking legs, shaking arms, shaking fingers because—

            Because he somehow fitted each one atomic element in this foreign territory. The clear horizon, the cold water, the blooming flower; the look he gave to him at break time when he was about to pass through small crowd around Kyungsoo’s table, where people came to ask for his very autograph, because, “Hey, he’s that pretty boy from our favorite book’s cover and, woah, he is so, so cute!”

            The look was cold, and arrogant, but after all, Kyungsoo found his soul lost in its almost amber colour. Taupe, to half chamoisee, to dark mahogany, and eventually back to taupe.

            To the astonishing beauty of shade.

            : And thus the words tied.

            “His name is,” Kyungsoo said, choosing his phrases carefully, “His name is Byun Baekhyun.”

            Right.

           .

           .

           .

            Byun ‘haughty’ Baekhyun.

****

To be continued.

****

Author's note:

How was thaaaat? Omg, I'm leaving it to you all! *crying*

Well, this is my birthday gift for you, dear readers. Yes, I'm old, I'm turning 20 already T__T so please, please, leave your thought so I can improve my writing! Thanks! :)

2013, Ainihaya

P. S: sorry for my English, biiig sorry :"