Donghae

I often think back about the time I met him. He is probably the strangest person I have ever met. I was around four years old when I started seeing them. Spirits. Some of the younger spirits became my friends. He was part of my imaginary friends. There was a girl who was called Victoria and had blood oozing out of her eyes all the time. I should have been scared of them, but at the tender age of four, who thinks and knows much?

I remember my mother's dumbstruck face the day she noticed that I was talking to someone in the kitchen when the truth was, she saw no one there other than me. She brought me to a psychologist that same afternoon. He followed when the rest just disappeared magically. The doctor reassured my mother that there was nothing wrong with me and it was normal, albeit I kept staring at the empty chair in the clinic that day. They didn't know that he was sitting there staring back at me that same day.

He was strange because he looked just like every other kid in my neighbourhood, just so normal. Too normal, compared to my other imaginary friends, as the rest of them actually had blood leaking out of one of their body parts profusely. I'm glad that no one ever asked me to describe how my friends looked—other than him, since I was always mentioning him only—because they were the definition of spirits or well, ghosts. 

He was strange because he never talked. I never got to know his name. No one did. He shook his head when we asked for his name and none of us ever heard him speak. I knew that Victoria was not Korean since the time she introduced herself as Song Qian and also the many times I heard her call me ben dan. I thought it was a praise and even asked her to repeat it a few more times. I never knew the meaning of ben dan (which is idiot in Chinese) until I reached the age of fifteen when I got a physical education teacher from China. Rude, was what I thought then when the truth was revealed to me.

He was strange because he always followed me. Unlike the rest of my friends, he went everywhere I went, even when I went to the toilet. There was nothing wrong with that; we are both boys. The thing was that he never peed and was always staring at me. All he knew was stare. 

*

I was seven when my friends slowly disappeared for good. They didn't just vanish before me. They just stopped appearing and soon, all of them left. It was like they never existed and were all just part of my imagination, despite knowing that they felt too real to be my own imagination. The strange one stayed longer. He was still the same, never speaking no matter what. Just staring. I did not like him that much. When they all left, I started talking to him but never got any response. I called him Monkey during that period of time because he had a strange face too. He was my source of entertainment as I failed to make real friends at that age. I didn't see the need to when I already had 'friends' to play with. After the rest of them disappeared, I started feeling lonely and he was not helping at all.

On the day of my birthday, he finally spoke. 

“H-ha...happy birthday.” Just that one short sentence was enough to almost cause me a heart attack. It was more like a whisper and his voice didn’t turn out to be the way I had imagined. It was much softer and gentle. 

I hurriedly went back to my room after I finished my cake, making sure that he was following behind. We sat on the bed and I was the one staring at him this time. His face turned red (I had no idea that’s called blushing) so the first thing I said after he spoke was, “Are you sick?” 

I placed my hand on his forehead but withdrew it when he turned redder—as though he was going to explode—and because I realised I could touch him. That was my first skin contact with him and he was warm, just like a human. I was never able to touch Victoria and any other 'friends' of mine. He seemed as shocked as I was as we instinctively moved away from each other. I stuck out my hand in less than five seconds later to give him an experimental poke on the cheek and I felt it. His chubby cheek against my finger tip. He gasped loudly and cupped his continuously reddening face with his puny hands while looking at me with his eyes opened widely. 

I grabbed his hand immediately and dragged him with me to the living room in hope of letting my mother know that he is real. All my efforts went down to the drain when I ran back with him to my room to cry. My parents didn’t see him and mother brought up the topic of bringing me to the eccentric psychologist for a second check-up. The seven-year-old me did not understand why my parents thought that I was having imaginary friends when I was hundred percent sure that I could touch him. 

I remember locking the door before dumping myself on the bed with my face stuffed in my nemo plushie (the birthday present given to me that day). I was rubbing my tears and snort into my plushie when he pat my hair just like the way my mother would do when I was four. The next thing I remember doing was pushing nemo away and hugging him instead. We kind of stayed in the uncomfortable hugging position all the way until I fell asleep.

Since I have always been a light sleeper, I was easily awakened by my mother knocking on my bedroom door but he was not. We were both hugging each other’s waist then, while he continued staying in dreamland, letting out a few snores once in a while. I rubbed my sore eyes and shook him awake, pulling away from the hug. It was a close call as my mother opened the door with the key after that. My mother told me that it was time for dinner with an uncomfortable smile on her face. I was mature enough then to tell that she was worried about my earlier reaction so I gave her the biggest smile I could muster then and secretly glanced at him to make sure that he was following me. The rest of the night went well and I didn’t mention him again despite being well aware that he was just sitting beside me watching the television.

Over the next few days, I tried to get him to talk as much as I could. I got to know that his name is Lee Hyukjae but nothing else. When I asked him why he did not speak earlier, he said that he didn’t know either. 

*

“Hyukjae? Hyukjae, Hyukjae, Hyukjae!” I remember repeating his name over and over again just in case I got it wrong. 

I made sure that we would always be holding hands when no one is looking because knowing that he was so close by my side was my only source of comfort that it was fine to have no friends. Of course, I had also tried to make him talk more. We started sleeping together at night, doing my homework together (because he had gotten smart when going to school with me) and basically grow up together. I would secretly celebrate his birthday, which falls on the 4th of April, each year after i turned eight by treating him to a cupcake at the cafe near my school with the pocket money I saved. Although I always ended up eating the cake as he can’t eat (but he did drool over strawberries). He became so important to me.

 
*

"Hyukkie, I really really like you!" 

"I l-like you too." He gave me a bashful smile, one that showed his gums. 

My first confession of love is to Hyukjae. It was on his ninth birthday when the confession took place. That day was also the day I shared my first kiss.

*

Childhood days soon passed and I entered the teenage phrase at the age of thirteen. Thirteen is the age in which children mature and yet, I never stopped believing that Hyukjae was anything but my imagination. He even grew taller with me (in which I suspect is all because of physical education lessons).

I got scared during this period of time because Hyukjae no longer stick with me all the time anymore. He was not in my room one day and although I searched everywhere, he was not there. I cried so hard that morning my eyes were swollen, so I could only tell my mother I had not slept well the previous day. I could not possibly tell her I could not find Hyukjae because my parents thought I grew out of childhood imagination. Hyukjae really isn't my imagination. School felt like that day.

Hyukjae returned at night, just when I was about to sleep, looking tired and restless. He climbed on to bed and initiated a hug, something he seldom did. The last time I remember him hugging me was when we were ten and I cried after the school bully tore my drawing. In each other's embrace, we slept. And this disappearing act and hugging to sleep continued. When I asked him where he disappeared to, he refused to tell me and I refused to hug him anymore after that. It was really childish of me but I was really afriad then, because it was as though he would disappear soon. 

"Sorry..sorry..." Hyukjae cried and mumbled his apologies over and over again. It was my first time seeing him in such state and it would be a lie to say that it didn't hurt me. He was keeping a secret from me. I wanted to resent him so much for leaving me lonely all day and only coming back at night but he was crying so badly, there was no way for me to just ignore him. Especially when we didn't see each other as often anymore. I could not help but wonder if he actually found a new friend, had a girlfriend or boyfriend already. I didn't hesitate to hug him, trying to stop him for crying. 

"Hyukkie, you know I really really like you right?" I hadn't said anything like this since eleven, neither did he. Maybe his feelings changed...

...Or maybe not, I thought at the moment his sobs became softer and he looked up from my embrace with a beet red face.

"You know I really really like you too, right?" Hyukjae said softly before adding, "I will tell you next time, but not now. Sorry..."

I might have gave him a peck then and hugged him even tighter before we fell asleep again. It was really relieving to know that he still felt the same.

*

Hyukjae disappeared eventually. And it is a few days before my thirteenth birthday.

I never stop searching for him. It has been four years. Every year, without fail, I will go back to that cafe we used to celebrate his birthday at. But never once did he appear again. It hurt and still hurts. Is he really my imagination all along? If he is, it is really pathetic to fall for your own imagination. It is funny that he chose to just leave when I start to realise that I like him a little too much.

sorry for the mistakes. working on part two now :)