Because I finished two parts of the prologue, I'm uploading them both tonight. Don't call it a comeback!

-AK.

Se Hun was hot. Every day he woke up, he was hot. Whenever the sun came up, he got hot. His skin developed a disgusting film of sweat to cool down, but it never helped. With the apartment Se Joong and Se Hun lived in, they could not afford to cool down lest they let the wasps in to refurnish one of the old nests in the kitchen Se Joong never knocked down.

(“There are still bodies in there, Se Hun! The bodies of buzzing demons sent from hell to slaughter us,” Se Joong would say during the winter when it would be the opportune time to knock the nest down. Se Hun never understood his father’s fear of wasps or where it came from, but it was hilarious to see him bundled from head to toe in bargain bin sweaters and scarfs, his dark brown hair messily ruffled atop his head, his catlike eyes narrowed and scrutinizing as he eyed the husk of a nest over the rim of his white coffee mug with a bunny face on it.)

Did the hot water work? When was the last time a load of laundry had been washed? Did Se Joong go to the grocery store at the crack of dawn, holding an umbrella over his head to shield his lily white skin from the rising summer sun, in order to buy some eggs, milk, bread, and butter for their breakfast? Se Hun asked himself the aforementioned questions almost every day since he had come to terms with the fact that both he and his father were useless when it came to keeping a home together. Se Joong was good at making toast, sunny-side up eggs, cold cucumber soup, and cereal. Se Hun knew how to separate clothing according to color and whether they were delicates or not, but he never got the amount of washing detergent right. Because of that, he either used too much and reduced the old clunker of a washing machine to a groaning, sud-spewing mess or used too little and ended up having to use Febreeze on the pits of his shirts to masquerade as a clean, well-to-do boy of soon-to-be eighteen.

Luckily for Se Hun, the hot water did work and he enjoyed a nice ten minute shower: five minutes with hot water and soap and five minutes with ice cold water. He used his dad’s athletic strength deodorant so that he wouldn’t saturate the pits of his shirt with sweat that smelled like the crack of a trucker. His diet wasn’t the best and his body made sure to let him know that by utterly reeking in the summer. At least everyone else he hung around—with the exception of a certain bug-eyed brunet—smelled absolutely rank, too. Se Hun brushed his teeth, knowing full well he was just going to get them dirty again at breakfast, and trudged back to his bedroom with his towel slung over his shoulder. He had nobody to impress or embarrass by exposing his schlong, so he shamelessly did so. It was his apartment as much as it was Se Joong’s, so he had an express right to walk and longue around in his natural state. It was too hot to get dressed right away regardless.

Upon returning to his room, Se Hun ran his fingers through his platinum blonde hair. He had taken his last paycheck and splurged on a shampoo and deep conditioning set that was formulated specifically for bleached hair. Some hotshot from Canada sponsored and modeled for the brand Se Hun used; his name was Kris or something. He had to give it to the marketing team; the shampoo rid his scalp of dirt and dandruff build up and the conditioner left it soft like a baby’s . From the neck up, he looked just like that ritzy blonde he saw on billboards plastered all over Sangjil, the poor city he had lived in since he was a young child. From his collarbones to the edge of his toenails, he belonged to the dirt, to the squalor, to the wrong side of the tracks. Se Hun threw on a pair of clean jean shorts and a fitted white tee and yawned; he didn’t have to work until two, so he really couldn’t fathom why he was even awake. Well, his friend Jong In had invited him out for a bottle of Cola and some ddeokbokki and he didn’t want to stay in the house and eat toast and cereal and sunny-side up eggs again. After a while, Se Joong’s “Western-Inspired Breakfast Bonanzas” lost their flair. Se Hun fished in the top drawer of his run down dresser and pulled a pair of custom embroidered black wrist bands from underneath a pile of boxers. His employer’s wife had gotten them made specifically for him for his sixteenth birthday; they had his name on them, after all. They had apparently cost a pretty penny, too, because he remembered working overtime for months after receiving them. He slid the bands on his wrists, mussed his hair so that it fell in that, ‘No-I-woke-up-like-this-I-swear,’ way, and grabbed Se Joong’s hand-me-down leather wallet that was tearing at the spine before leaving the apartment.

Not even the tacky red and white striped awning shielding the third floor of Se Se Sanctuary (the tacky name of the apartment complex Se Joong found in the classified ads) from the merciless summer sun could fully deflect the golden rays of ire. The sun baked the mud, which had been waterlogged just an evening ago by torrential seasonal downpours, into hard packed dirt (that Se Hun is sure that, if he picked up a clod and hurled it, would fatally wound some poor passerby). From his place on the third floor balcony, Se Hun could see the air bending and rippling over the chimney of the neighborhood café owned by old man Park. His two granddaughters, local sweethearts Sandara and Durami, always snuck out free samples of matang, sweet potato fries, hwajeon, hoddeok, and international treats like macarons out to Se Hun and his crew whenever they ambled in front of the shop for too long or circled it not unlike sharks drawn to the scent of blood in the water. They didn’t make ddeokbokki, though; that required taking the metro into downtown Musun, a richer neighborhood, but still poor as dirt compared to the neighborhoods south of the Han.

Se Hun had lived on the northern side of the Han all his life and still he had never seen a truly rich district or neighborhood. The closest thing to ‘rich’ was Itaewon and that was only because expats and groups of foreigners who wanted to “drink in the Korean culture” without really going anywhere ethnically salient poured their money into overpriced shops that sold double-dipped deep fried corn dogs alongside green tea poured into lacquered jade cups. Se Hun hated that; hated seeing the West everywhere he turned. He wouldn’t hate the West half as much if it were being gradually folded in, like wet ingredients into a dry mixture for a cake, instead of being rammed into South Korea and bruising it as it put on its skin in some half-hearted, bull show of solidarity and acceptance. If expats and tourists rode through Sangjil, they would refuse to believe that it was the true South Korea. They would ask for directions to Incheon or Songbuk while denying the economic difficulties and class stigmas attached to those in the poorer neighborhoods. They would peek beyond the glimmering, glossy façade perpetuated by the media and the music, find struggle and squalor, and throw the veneer back over it. Se Hun frowned up just thinking about it. The rich were pretentious and pompous and conniving yet always came out on top. Hard workers like his father and old man Park scraped at the apple mash at the bottom of the barrel but had to chop off their limbs to get even that. Se Hun didn’t want to live that way. Even though he loved Sangjil and loved his father and loved old man Park and loved Sandara and Durami and loved his crew, he didn’t want to live that way. He never wanted to live that way.

Jong In and Se Hun had agreed to meet at the Triad statue near the metro station before taking the tram to Supsil Station. The Triad was a group of three nameless common soldiers who were the symbols of Sangjil. They usually stood in a triangle formation, two flanking the largest soldier with a thin mustache that stood in the middle. The two flanking soldiers represented dignity and determination while the center soldier was always equated with valor. The legend behind them was a simple one; the three of them came from different allied villages and bonded over a large jug of soju in a ditch half-filled with corpses and rain water. They grabbed spears from the corpses and charged into battle, being slain almost instantaneously. Se Hun loved the Triad because they showed that even moronic losers could become legends with enough guts. Se Hun reached the metro in twenty-five minutes on foot and saw a tan boy with dark hair leaning against the bronze foot of the center soldier of the Triad. He gnawed at his lower lip and kept scratching at his flat stomach, revealing the smooth tan skin underneath his loose fitting blue and white striped shirt. Se Hun managed to sneak up on him, circling around the back of a cheap fried chicken stand and coming up on the opposite side of the Triad statue. He elbowed the distracted young man in the middle of his back, making him jump and stumble forward in shock.

“Son o’a ; you scared the in’ outta’ me!” The boy pouted, merely emphasizing his already plump lips. Se Hun grinned and followed his companion into the metro station, waiting behind him at the ticket machines. “When d’you have work today? You’re usually go’n in right about now.”

“Old man Jeong told me to come in late at two.” Se Hun purchased his ticket and frowned, causing his nose to scrunch up and his brows to furrow. “Did they up the price on these?”

“Wouldn’t fool me. They’re try’n t’ milk us fer everything we’ve got.”

“That for you; you don’t have a job.”

“You do, but you still come with me to strip copper, so shaddup.”

Se Hun grinned at Jong In’s country drawl and compared it to his own manner of speech. Even though Se Joong was a poor man, he didn’t speak like one. He was very articulate and could write the hell out of a resume or proposal. If he was willing to travel two hours every day in and out of Itaewon by tram, he could eventually make enough money to move out of Sangjil for good. However, because Se Joong didn’t want to sacrifice spending quality time with Se Hun, he didn’t extend himself to take a job in the city with the expats. So Se Joong stayed at home and spoke his writer’s jargon and wrote wordy documents that Se Hun eventually began to edit and emulate in all of his major high school papers, getting the highest marks in his composition courses. When people saw Se Hun and Jong In together—saw the contrasting skin tones, hair colors, manner of speech, even their posture; one straight and the other slightly slouched—their gazes ranged from reprimanding (towards Se Hun) to puzzled (towards the both of them). But Se Hun had known Jong In since their first year in high school; he had gotten used to the stares and almost welcomed them in some sick way.

The tram to Supsil Station came in ten minute intervals. If you missed one tram, just wait for the next overcrowded train and you’d be at Supsil Station in less than fifteen minutes. Se Hun and Jong In memorized the tram schedule from way back; their parents both had the means to send them to the better schools in Musun, so they had to be savvy with the train schedules. Se Hun had been taking the trams and light rails since he was in elementary school, Jong In following slightly behind him, his small blue shirt and navy trousers spackled with jam that he had for breakfast that morning. Se Hun didn’t personally know Jong In until their first year in high school, but he had always seen the drowsy brunet on the metro, holding onto the protruding metal bars that connected the ceiling and dusty floor of the light rail, trying not to fall asleep and miss his stop.

Se Hun and Jong In operated on the tram’s schedule; before it came to a complete stop, they had started to inch towards the thick yellow line that nobody was supposed to cross. They toed the very edge of the line and endured the pushing and shoving from the impatient businessmen and high school students out for summer recess. When the tram stopped, Se Hun and Jong In were the first ones in the already crowded car. They secured a metal bar for themselves and dug in their heels as the tram lurched and gradually sped up.

The duo got off at Supsil Station and crossed the street clogged with small jalopies to get to the light rail station. It was good marketing, having the tram station and the light rail station right across the street from one another. It was easy to commute and it was even easier to set their schedules side by side and see how late you could be on the tram without missing a light rail train that ran every twenty-five minutes. Se Hun and Jong In purchased light rail tickets (for 2,600 Won) and hopped the train heading to Itaewon. It would pass through downtown Musun as one of its stops which was where the two boys wanted to be.

The light rail got to downtown Musun Station 3 in ten minutes. As soon as Se Hun and Jong In stepped out of the train and onto the boarding platform, the latter let out a loud holler and stretched. The air in downtown Musun smelled like street food, smog, and (oddly enough) castor oil and old bargain bin coats, and Se Hun loved it. It was a city with big buildings, but it was still poor in spirit and in people who gave a damn about anything. It was so poor, but it looked rich, and it was like a veneer within a veneer, and Se Hun felt sneaky when he walked around like a hotshot but could barely even afford a bowl of bibimbap served at one of the shops with golden dragons out front but rats in their kitchen.

It was still fairly early, only ten, so most of the street vendors weren’t open. Only a few convenience stores and restaurants were open at the time, but none of them would be serving spicy food such as ddeokbokki and the like. That would come at lunchtime, when Se Hun would be hopping back on the light rail to get to his job with old man Jeong and his chill son that was his boss in title only. Jong In nudged Se Hun in the direction of a duck meat restaurant just down the block from the metro station, complaining that he didn’t want to walk all the way to Vendor Valley to meet with ddeokbokki-ah. Se Hun staunchly told Jong In to get the lead out and get walking, turning down a narrow alleyway to cut around the foot traffic that always crowded the roadway towards Vendor Valley.

Vendor Valley was one of the best places on Earth, in Se Hun’s opinion. It was only ten minutes away from the metro station by foot, was always filled with people, and smelled like what Se Hun imagined heaven would smell like: spicy, decadent, like milk and honey being slathered over twisted rolls of baked bread, like dried hot peppers put in a steamer with dumplings filled with pork and vegetables, like strips of marinated meat being tossed on grills over coals as red as hell. Se Hun loved the people more than the food sometimes. College girls with short skirts like those the idols wore flirted with douchebags with sagging pants and hair gelled up to obnoxious spikes, portly business men in “expensive” (read: they got it bootleg from a corner vendor claiming “Givenchy” when it read “Givea”) suits congregated around stalls that offered fried chicken and beer and talked their cheap business jargon, and a kind ahjumma gave some poor looking kids some cooked meat scraps she had saved for the stray dogs on the street. They slathered their meat in oyster sauce and chopped green onions and went to town on it. Se Hun loved Vendor Valley; he really did.

Ddeokbokki-ah was the nickname of Kim Ryeo Wook, a kid from the south of the Han who wanted to give back to the community. But instead of fluffing the already big wigs of those on the top rung of society, he took his father’s grilled meat stand and redesigned it so that it functioned as a kick- ddeokbokki stand. Considering that Ryeo Wook was nice and…oddly cute, like some strange little gerbil, people wrapped around the block for his ddeokbokki. Luckily enough, because Jong In and Se Hun were friends with Do Kyung Soo, Ryeo Wook’s favorite junior, they automatically got free passes to the front of the line. It was an unspoken rule, and besides, Ryeo Wook prepared and served his dishes so fast that nobody really noticed the two boys who skipped three dozen others to get their food first. Se Hun and Jong In received their small bowls of ddeokbokki and lingered near the side of the stall, preferring to talk to the older brunet for a little while.

“Ddeokbokki-ah, how’re you doin’?”

Ryeo Wook smiled fondly at Jong In and replied, “I’m fine, but tired. How about you? Congratulations to both you and Se Hun for graduating!”

“Barely,” Se Hun murmured while nudging Jong In’s side with his elbow. Jong In had passed only through getting an A in composition; he practically flunked everything else. Jong In glanced cursorily in Se Hun’s direction before returning his attention to Ryeo Wook. “Ddeokbokki-ah, can I have a bit of extra? I’m so hungry.”

“Now you’re just taking advantage of me—have a good day, sir; next!—Jong In, and I don’t appreciate—I’ll keep the peppers out of this batch just for you, sweetie—you using me!” The way Ryeo Wook both interacted with his customers and a pair of backstreet kids always amazed Se Hun; one moment, he would be scolding Jong In, and the next, he’d be giving a little girl some plain garaeddeok to chew on with his gerbil’s smile on his face. Se Hun hoped Sung Min—the pesky health inspector that always snooped around Vendor Valley trying to close down stalls—didn’t notice that Ryeo Wook cooked with open-toed sandals and give him a bad grade next inspection period. Ryeo Wook was simply too nice to put out of work.

“Didn’t you take advantage of th’ rice growers? You’re usin’ their rice an’ you didn’t grow ah bit of it. Didn’t you take advantage of th’ pepper harvesters, the stock makers, the pot makers, the stall builder, your dad…”

“I get your point, already! Here; take this batch. I made it too spicy! Now get out of here you two; you’re driving away business!”

“If anything, we’re makin’ your business, ddeokbokki-ah. Lookit how young and handsome we’re, and lookit how many girls’re startin’ t’come around!” Jong In was lazy, and didn’t have any motivation outside of just living his life by the minute, but he was smart. He had a mind for business, as he so aptly demonstrated by slowly pulling his chopsticks from his mouth, making sure to maintain eye contact with a trio of high school first years who suppressed squeals at the sight. “See?”

“They’re supposed to be here for the food, idiot! Go on; get! Before I call the cops on you!”

“And if you do, I’m telling Sung Min you’re cookin’ with your dirty toenails hangin’ out.” Grinning at Ryeo Wook’s startled expression, Jong In stalked away with Se Hun following behind.

The duo returned to the metro station and sat at the base of the station’s statue that looked like a family of deer made out of the stained glass usually found in churches. Downtown Musun wasn’t a very interesting place aside from Vendor Valley and the college campuses, but without proper ID, those campus buildings were closed tight. One time, Se Hun and Baek Hyun, during a rare day where Se Hun could tolerate him for more than ten minutes, sat on the quad of one of the campuses and watched the beautiful co-eds walk by in their denim shorts and white tank tops under light cardigans in playful pastel colors. It had been the best day of Se Hun’s young high school first year life, and Baek Hyun had been so agreeable and the two were laughing and making erted comments under their breaths. They ended up getting personally escorted off the campus by a surly police officer, but it didn’t matter to Se Hun back then. All he knew was that the co-ed women of Musun’s college campuses were collectively the eighth great wonder of the world.

Se Hun and Jong In sat side by side, talking about absolutely nothing, just wasting the breath they felt like they didn’t need. The ddeokbokki really was too spicy, but talking cooled down the inside of Se Hun’s mouth, so he could bare it. Whenever he sat with Jong In like this, just the two of them doing lazy things and talking lazy talk and making lazy noise, he wanted to be live in Sangjil for a long time, perhaps for the rest of his life.

But then he remembered, that he never wanted to live like this, not if he could help it, and so he left Jong In and hopped on the metro to make it back to Sangjil in time for work.