I stood alone in a small, bleak room that was supposed to become mine. It smelled alien. There was nothing in it, only the sun created a square stain of light from the window to the floor.

“Taemin,” I heard my mother calling me from outside.

I turned around but didn’t go where the voice came from. Instead I slid open the door next to mine and peeked in. The room was even smaller and darker than mine. There was a wooden chest in one corner and small bedside table in the other. I walked in and looked out of the small window in the back of the room. I could see our backyard from there like from my own window. The grass was nicely cut and in the middle of everything was a bird sculpture. I didn’t know what kind of birds they were supposed to be. My mother would have liked it for sure, I didn’t.

I turned around and took a look at the chest. It had a layer of dust on top of it and I drew my name on it with my forefinger. I smiled at my creation.  My eyes wandered around it until they got stuck on an item between the chest and the wall. It looked like a book. I tried to reach for it but it was too far away. I decided to move the whole chest. I heard a silent thud when the item hit the floor. I picked it up. It looked like some short of notebook.

 “Lee Taemin!”

I turned my head to the direction of the voice and sighed. I placed the notebook on top of the chest and walked outside.

I saw my father unloading stuff from our van. My mother called me again. I walked to the other side of the car and saw her talking with some other older lady and a young boy. I walked to them when my mother waved for me to come.

“This is Mrs. Choi and her son Choi Minho, he’s a year older than you,” my mother said.

The boy was tall and had big round eyes. He was surely good looking but my gaze got stuck on his mouth. His upper lip curved slightly upwards making his Cupid’s bow almost invisible. It could have looked nice or not, I couldn’t decide.

“You two will be in the same school,” his mother told me.

I smiled at her politely. I knew they both wanted us to be friends, and I should have taken my chance, but I was too cynical and stuck with my memories of my old friends to do that yet. I was thankful when my father called us to help him to carry our furniture inside.

“Are you from Seoul?” the boy asked  me as he walked behind me on the stairs to my room, a big book box on his arms.

“Yes,” I stopped and turned to face him. “How did you know?”

“From your dialect,” he said, smiling. I found myself smiling at his friendly face even though I didn’t really want to.

His voice was as graceful as his appearance, deep and low. I couldn’t decide if his interest in me annoyed me or not. It was nice, but it also irritated me for unknown reasons. Maybe I wished he would be mean to me, so I could hate him, and so I wouldn’t have to admit that people here weren’t so bad.

Maybe it was my own stubbornness to be silent or that he sensed my unwillingness to have a conversation, but we didn’t talk much. He asked if I was happy to move and whether I enjoyed the town so far. I answered him shortly, but taking care not to sound too repulsive, but nevertheless keeping my inhibition on. My mother wanted them to stay for dinner but they said they had things to do, so we ate a small dinner by ourselves.  I was secretly happy about that.

Next day I went to school. The way there was short enough to walk and easy enough that I wasn’t afraid of getting lost, even though the streets were unfamiliar to me. I just walked past a bridge and turned left, and after that there was only a long road uphill.

 It was my second year of high school. The school building was as ascetic as everything else in the town, and some parts of the walls were starting to crumble, creating a sorrowful hue to it. The school was much smaller than the one I went to in Seoul. It easily made me feel like an outsider, feeding my bitterness caused by moving.

We had moved to a small town in the south when the company my father worked for transferred him. Needless to say I didn’t like the idea. I had to leave my friend, and my school, and just everything I considered my life. It wasn’t just that I wasn’t good at getting close to people, or that I had some trust issues, I just didn’t like most of them. People were boring.

They seemed to know each other like they had grown together their whole life, which they probably had, and even though some of them seemed to have a small interest on me, a person from the outside scared most of them. I tried to stay complaisant to them, but not too friendly. I naturally didn’t want to please anyone who so clearly didn’t like me.

In my mind I really called them “they”. They were this big mass of people who talked differently, had shared opinions with each other, were more conservative, less open about everything. Even their hair was cut in the same way, short and neat. I could instantly feel this line between me and them. Not only in our appearance, as I had let my hair grow a little longer, although the teachers had hinted to me I should cut it. Even when I sat down, I sat more relaxed, when they kept their posture perfectly rigid.

I was able to spot Minho every now and then since he was so tall, but didn’t have a chance approach him. Not that I wanted it. Sometimes our way home coincided, but I always just walked behind him, keeping the distance so long, he couldn’t hear my steppes. He hadn’t shown any friendly signs to me after the first day, and even if we made an eye contact on the hallways in school he mostly turned his gaze away.

I wasn’t completely friendless. There was one boy in our class, Kim Jongin, who somehow felt connected to me. He had moved to town a year before me from somewhere south. I think he naturally thought we would have something in common, since neither of us had been born in here, but it wasn’t like that. He was accepted much more easily than me.  He already had that southern dialect, and even his hair was short. Maybe it was because he had spent the whole year there already. The idea of me turning into one of them scared me.

But I didn’t concentrate on people that much. I focused on school and studies. I didn’t particularly enjoy it, but I wanted to get somewhere with my life, and I knew that good grades gave me the best options. Maybe it was the week with people I didn’t really feel connected to or that my room still didn’t feel like my own, but I couldn’t concentrate on my homework that night.

I sighed and let the pen drop on the paper before I rested my forehead next to it. Studying just didn’t interest me a one bit. The television in the living room bothered me, the chirping of the birds from our backyards was annoying, and I still wasn’t comfortable with the new, foreign smell of my room.

I sighed and stood up. I wasn’t really sure what I was doing -I just wanted to get away with my boring homework, and literally walked away from it.

I found myself in the empty room next to mine. I knew that my father was planning to use it as some sort of office, but was too lazy to ever finish that.

It was much more comfortable there. The television couldn’t be heard so clearly, and the smell was dustier. The bedside table and the chest were still there, my name written on the dust as well. I was planning to sit down on the chest when I saw the notebook that I had left there. I took it in my hand, and wiped away the layer of the dust on the chest, destroying my name on it, before sitting down.

It was a very normal notebook with a black cover. I ran my finger through the edge of it before opening it to see what was inside. A few folded papers fell to the floor as I cracked open the book.  I bended down to grab them for further examination. I unfolded the papers. They were all drawings, three drawings to be more accurate. One had more draft looking pictures of a man’s body, one was a very well drawn picture of the sleeping face of a boy, and the last one was a picture of a shirtless boy lying on a bed. They were all black and white pictures drawn with pencils. I had a feeling it was the same person in every picture.

I carefully folded the pictures back and held them in my hand as I took closer look at the book itself. Immediately I was able to see it was a journal. The dates were written in small handwriting on every page, in the upper left corners. Without thinking much I started reading from the first page.

10.9.

Something has changed between us.

I’m not really sure when it started. I think the first time was when he took my hand when we were sitting on the bridge. We were talking about holding hands, and what to do in relationships. I told him that friends can hold hands as well, and that was when he took my hand and asked whether I meant it like this. His palm felt much more coarse than mine, but the hold was very gentle. He kept holding my hand even when we walked home.

Or then it was when he gave his jacket to me when it was one of the colder nights. I couldn’t look at him in the eyes and I could feel myself blushing, but it didn’t stop me from letting him place the jacket on my shoulders. I remember how his palms stayed on my shoulders for a while.

I can’t remember other things so clearly, but incidents like these have happened lately. I’m not sure if “lately” means few months ago, or during this year, or if this has happened all the time but I’m only noticing it now.

But yesterday he took my hand again when we saw each other on our way to school. Or was it me who took his? I don’t know. Our hands were brushing against each other and it just kind of happened, like we had an untangible agreement to do that. It just felt nice. Really comfortably, I couldn’t help but to think that this is how I was supposed to feel.

We talked about gayness in the evening too. He said: “I don’t care about labels, they can call me whatever they like.”

But it didn’t feel like “gay” as we walked hand in hand. It just felt nice. How something that feels so natural be “gay”? Or is it gay because it feels so nice?

I’m writing this because I want to remember, that whatever will happen or will not happen, I want to remember it.

• Key

Key.

It was written in Latin script and not in Hangul as everything else. I wondered who this person he was so dedicatedly talking about was.  The handwriting was very neat and small, everything was written in a black thin pen.

This was when my mom called me for dinner. I left the notebook there and didn’t think about it for a few days.

It was early Tuesday eve, when my father had some of his coworkers visiting us, that I looked for the journal again. I was bored and knew my company wasn’t really needed, so I was silently planning to escape to my room - except I ended up opening the door next to my own. It was partly intentional, the thought just popped up to my head, and I quickly acted on it without thinking much of it.

The room was still the same, my father still hadn’t touched it, and nobody had even wiped the dust. This time I sat on the floor, leaning my back against the chest as I grabbed the journal and placed it on my knees. I opened it glancing at the first page before continuing to the next.

15.9.

It’s like a wordless agreement. We meet each other every morning in the same crossroad.  And every morning he takes my hand. It makes me smile, even now I’m smiling when I think about it. I never thought that I could get up so early, but here I am, always waking up for him a little earlier so we can walk a little slower and spend more time together.

But we have to be really careful. We always let our hands go before we reach the schoolyard. Just in case. We don’t want them to be any more suspicious than they already are.

He told me his parents have been fighting again a lot. I never know what to say to him when he talks about them. I just let him talk and hope it’s enough. And he talks about them a lot, but without ever revealing what it is that they are fighting about. I never dare to ask about it.

Today I was really early, so I walked to his house. I could heard them yelling all the way outside. Even hyung was yelling something. It felt weird. I’ve never heard him yelling before. It sounded scary, his voice was so loud and rough, like an angry animal. It felt like I was invading on their privacy. I suddenly regretted coming there. I should have waited him at the crossroad. I even thought about going back there but then he came out.

It was just a second before he noticed me when I got to see his face. He looked so desperate and tired, like he had borne all the despair of the world. But his face changed in a second when he saw me. The sorrowful lines faded away and he took a few longer steps to reach me faster. His hand caressed my back as he walked to my other side and told me it was nice to see me. I don’t think he knew that I had heard the argument, and I didn’t say anything about it. But it left me wondering if I should have done that after all. What if he would he have wanted to talk about it?

But my mind quickly got troubled by the fact that he didn’t take my hand like he always did. Maybe he was too lost in his thoughts or didn’t want to do it. The latter reason scared me a little. I dried my hand on my pants since they had been sweating, and kept staring forward when I gently took his hand in my own. I didn’t want to feel too shy, but did it gently enough to let him know he was free not to take it if he wanted to. But his fingers closed tightly around mine, and I saw him looking at me from the corner of my eyes, and I couldn’t resist looking back at him.

When our eyes met I saw something lingering in his gaze I couldn’t recognize right before he brushed his head against my shoulder. I pressed my lips tightly together to hide how much I liked it, and quickly fixed my eyes on the road again.

We talked about our math problems for the whole way to school. He’s a year older than me, and he has helped me a lot. But it his final year, and he should study a lot, so nowadays I feel guilty about his help. One day he skipped his self-study just to spend the whole night studying with me. It makes me feel guilty, but at the same time I’m liking it, so I won’t say anything to him.

His face kept haunting me thought. Both faces – the happy one and the… other one. I still can’t really describe it, but I know I don’t want him to look like that. But the smile he got when he saw me kept floating in my head for the whole day. I can’t say why, but somehow he looked  really happy.

• Key

I stopped reading. As I have assumed this Key-person was a boy. It wasn’t just the quick mention of gayness, it was something in his writing that made me think that the writer was a boy. They both were. My mind was quickly drawing faces for these unnamed characters whose lives I was obscenely penetrating.

Was this really someone’s personal journal? Someone’s, who was living and breathing somewhere, who maybe didn’t want to share his private thoughts with me. For a second I considered not reading it. If it really was someone’s journal, I probably shouldn’t have read it, but then again, it was left behind, unintentionally or not, its owner wasn’t present, and I wasn’t going to harm anyone or anything. I just wanted to escape my own life for a second. I decided to stop thinking and kept reading.

24.9.

It was my birthday yesterday, and Jong gave me this necklace. It has a small key on it. It’s not like a big tasteless one, delicate and beautiful.

I smiled as a read “Jong”. It sounded cute. Was it his nickname the writer usually called him with, or was it something he had created just then. I stared the name like wishing that the rest of it would magically appear next to it as well. Jong and Key. They both definitely were nicknames. Not knowing their real names made the characters feel more magical-like, not real. It made my bad conscience fade a little. I almost noticed it was the only day he didn’t sign the entry. I assumed something had come up, that he had been busy or excited about something. Maybe “Jong” was still there as he wrote. I smiled at the thought.

28.10.

Hyung didn’t want to go home yesterday so I asked him to stay at our place. It wasn’t even a school night so I suggested we would go out. But even though he agreed, I quickly got the feeling he wasn’t feeling like going anywhere, so we stayed home and watched a movie in my room. It was some short of stupid action movie that aired on tv that night. I wasn’t sure either of us liked it much.

 I wrapped an arm around his waist and let him lean on my shoulder. After a while he fell on my lap, resting his head on my thighs. My hand was still on his waist. Half of the movie was totally lost from me because I couldn’t concentrate on it. I just stared at his ear and hair. His hair looked so soft and I wanted to touch it, but I didn’t dare to do that.

After that he wanted to go to sleep. I think we were kids the last time we slept in the  same bed. I didn’t think about it much until he took his shirt off and I caught myself staring at his bare upper body. It was just for those few seconds when he couldn’t see me, as he was occupied with the shirt, but it was enough for my sight to be glued to his skin and to memorize the shapes of his abs. I could feel my cheeks burning and I quickly turned around before taking my jeans off. I couldn’t see if was he looking at me like that too, but I doubted it. I left my t-shirt on because I was too embarrassed to take it off.

And as we lied under my blanket next to each other, I quickly regretted leaving the shirt on. His body was glowing warmth and I was already nervous. It was painfully hot for me. We lied there in silence in the darkness, and I could tell he wasn’t sleeping either.

“Do you always sleep with a shirt on?” he asked me like he had known what I was thinking.

“No,” I answered him, feeling even more stupid.

I think he sensed how shy I was so he didn’t say anything. I pulled the shirt off and threw it on the floor lying back down. I became terribly aware how our bare skin touched from time to time when we moved to find a better position in my narrow bed. Finally we faced each other lying on our sides. Our hands were touching between us. Automatically I thought of taking his hand, but I didn’t do that.

“Why are you always fighting?” I asked him suddenly.

I didn’t mean to do it so bluntly. I just rarely fought with my parents, so I was curious and frustrated because I didn’t know how to make him feel better.

He just shrugged.

“I think we have too different values about life,” he said like he hadn’t minded me asking about it.

I looked at him for a while, thinkin  of what to say.

“I don’t know what to do,” I told him.

“You don’t have to do anything, just being here helps,” his fingers lightly my arm as he said that.

I felt my pulse quickening and I didn’t know how to answer him, so I stayed silent. After that he quickly fell asleep.

I wanted to keep staring at him. My eyes got more and more used to darkness as the minutes went by, but I got more tired as well. But I was too nervous to fell asleep yet. We weren’t even really touching and it still felt more intimate than anything I have done so far. I suddenly had an urge to press myself against him but I didn’t dare to do that.

• Key

1.11.

I think his parents don’t like me much. My mom said that I’m too artistic for them. They once saw my drawings and after that they have been really cold to me. Or is it the topics I draw? I don’t know. But I was at the crossroad before hyung again, so I walked to his house. His father saw me. He was polite and all, greeted me like usual,  but something in his appearance and gestures was so cold it made me feel like I shouldn’t be there. It really made me feel unwanted. I didn’t like that.

But I didn’t say anything to hyung. I don’t know if he knows anyway. Maybe they have fought about me. Is that too selfish to think? But he doesn’t say anything so I won’t either.

He skipped his self-study today and decided to study with me. We stayed outside since the weather was nice. We usually spend time in the forest on the other side of the bridge. There is this old building there that we have taken to spend time in. I don’t understand why nobody else uses it. It shelters us from the sun, and the rain, and peoples’ eyes.

I lied there head lying on his stomach. His school book was resting against my temple. I didn’t know if he was really reading, but I wasn’t. This stupid lingering happiness prevented me from doing that. I could only concentrate on how his body was moving underneath me as he breathed calmly. At some point I gave up and put my book down on my stomach, and closing my eyes, I just existed inside the happiness. I don’t know how much time had passed when he asked me if I had fallen asleep. I said yes, but it hadn’t really been sleep. I was conscious of my surroundings, even though everything felt faraway.

He put his book away and placed his hand on my stomach. I didn’t know how to cope with my feelings. My fingers started to his chest on their own. I just watched them moving on his shirt, hoping to feel his skin underneath it. He didn’t say or do anything, his eyes just followed my fingers with slight curiosity. My eyes were falling shut, maybe I was falling asleep. I just remember it was one of the most comfortable moments in my life so far. It was a little too cold to stay outside like that, but the warmth of his body was enough to keep the cold away, and even though the floor was hard, his chest was soft. I felt his hand my hair, I think I was smiling.

•  Key

I stopped there and rested my head against the chest when I went through what I had just read. My was hurting for sitting on the hard floor for too long. I sighed. I wasn’t really into reading some sort of gay fantasies of some teenager boy. I also knew I was hooked despite I had said I wasn’t interested. I was still reading it, wasn’t I? I was curious. Was Key a person who lived here before we moved in? I saw how he didn’t write every day, even though his writings were really detailed. He kind of just wrote the special things that happen between them. There was almost nothing else to his life than Jong. This journal was clearly intended just for him and Key's thoughts about him. And most of all, what had happened to them?

I stared at the wall in front of me. Was this Key’s old room? I imagined a small bed next to the bedside table, a lamp on it, some books and clothes lying here and there. I couldn’t imagine Key, though. The person whose thoughts I unscrupulously read stayed in the dark, only a gray mist in a place of his face. Did he really live in this room? Was I breathing the same air as he had? Had he felt the same emptiness in this house as i felt?

I couldn’t quite fall asleep a couple of hours later when I lay in my bed, so I grabbed the journal again and with the light on my phone I read the parts I had read before again. I didn’t want to read on because I was too tired, but I wanted to fall back to their world that seemed so unrealistic and real at the same time. I haven’t ever really thought about holding hands, I have never met someone I would have wanted to hold hands with, but Key made it sound magical. I wondered what it would be like to hold Key’s hand. Did he have small hands? I somehow thought his fingers would be long. Long and slim. I fell asleep while thinking of Keys hands.