Lost Generation

I was dumb, but never stupid.

After I get my second laguage, my last one, a big Louis Vitton bag, I walk out of the airport with my sunglasses on, even though is already getting dark outside and I don’t care the gazes people give me and whisper something while looking at me. I just smile and walk on. Then I stop and look around to discover my friend, Joon, who should come and pick me up. I have a feeling that maybe he forgot me or something; I mean its Joon after all and he is that kind of person who can’t even remember his own birthday. I have to laugh by the thought how he usually reacts when he reminds something he should have done, his “OMG!”- face and then I think that I am probably not better than him.

A silver Mercedes Benz SLR 722 with black windows parks right next to me with a painfull sound. I put away my sunglasses and look at it and try to see through the dark windows, and then the window rolls down. Joon is happily grinning at me and leans out of the window and lets me see his huge white theets and he also puts his big black sunglasses away.

“HEY DUDE!”

Then he hurries out of the car next to me and hugs me. I smile.

“Oh dude!” he says and sweeps through my long black hair “You look amazing!” and then puts his arm around my neck. His hands are cold.

“You too” I say.

“Look at this baby!” he proudly leans himself against the car and sweeps on its roof with his hands. “How is it?”

“It’s dope!” I say. It is probably a gift of his father I think but I don’t tell it. I don’t even know how many cars he has already.

“Yes man, it is!”

We sit in his car and he turns the music player on. The faded smell of which still faintly permeats Joon’s car comes to my nose. I think of Siwan who I couldn’t reach the past few months and I don’t even know why I think of him. Joon tells me some more details about his new “baby” car and some other useless stuff. I just nod and smile.

“Oh man, I missed you!” he says then with his one hand on the handlebars and the other one holding the cigarette and I try to find my cigarettes too then I find one and also light it on. Joon keeps turning his face to me instead concider himself to drive correctly with his big typical grin.

“I missed you too man” I touch his lap and smile “but you better drive well so we can see each other a little bit longer”

“Oh right, right dude”

Joon tells me everybit of everything what happened since I had left to Europe to study in Department of Performing Arts and Film at a private artschool in England, lighting one cigarette after another. About who is dating or sleeping with whom; where he went for shopping, where I can get cheap but good coke... he even tells me about his cat how it got fater.

“This thing eats everything around him, man. Can you believe that!” he laughs and shakes his head.

“No, I can’t”

“Well I can’t either” and we laugh.

I only listen to him halfway and nod. I lean my head against the half open window and watch the sky turning darker and let the fresh air strike through my hair and hit me in the face.

Joon puts another CD in and I can hear him sing along with the singer wrongly. I raise my head for a moment to look at him, Joon, still rocking his hair blondish and long that it covers almost his whole right eye, both ears pierced. He even got thinner since the last time I saw him, I think, he is pale, but he’s still damn good looking. He wears a black leather jacket and a Rolling Stones shirt and the sunglasses on the top of his head.

Then he turns his head to me I lean myself back to my seat.

“Gosh! THE SEED! Do you hear that dude! This song man, can you remember the gig we went to last summer, can you?”

“Mhm...” I mumble with my eyes closed. To be honest; I can’t remember that well how the gig was since everyone was drunk. I can’t even remember if it was last summer, or the summer before? I reall don’t know. Or maybe even the summer before the summer before last summer... Maybe I wasn’t even there. Or I was. I don’t know.

“I wonder if they still play together, I mean I know that Jonghyuk do some other music too, but The Seed man, they’re tuff...-Man, are you sleeping?”

“No” I mumble.

“Do you listen to me?”

“Yes”

“Don’t lie” he grip my shoulder and turn me to him so I can face him. I open my eyes widely and put my head near against his that our noses almost touch.

“See, dude, I am awake!”

He relieved leans himself back in his seat and laughs “Gosh Jukan, you look scary! Anyway, I can’t believe you really came man!” he shakes his head “I thought it was a joke or something!”

“Why?” I ask him.

“Don’t know man, I thought you will stay over there and party hard with all those white people you know.”

“Yeah, I could have...but it’s not as great as everyone thinks” I say and look down to my hands on my laps. My nails are blackly vanished. Then I look up again to Joon and smile.

“Come on dude, I bet its dope. I mean I was there, let me think...right... in France and London for some time and it was pretty dope, I mean REALLY dope, you know!”

I put my chin on my arm and look out of the window; I look at the burning lights of the apartemens, into the filled restaurants, lively bars, colorful malls. I look at the cars, taxes, busses...to every detail of the places we drive by. How could any place of Europe ever be better than THIS place? Nowhere, I think for myself.

Joon drives off the freeway and stops at a red light and throws the filter out of the window and I close my eyes for a moment as a heavy gust of wind rocks the car. He tells me that as soon as I unpack my stuff I should come over to YoungMin’s house because there is a party since her parents went abroad and I nod then he tells me not to be late and I nod again. YoungMin is a really good friend of ours, 18 and beautiful and is doing pretty well as a Model. I even saw her picture in a Britain Fashion Magazine. I wonder if she still has black hair...Joon turns the engine off as we reach my house and the gate’s open and then I walk out and also Joon walks out to help me get the suitcases out of the trunk. “You can pay later for that” he jokes around and then he hits himself on the fronthead “OMG, I almost forgot” then he hurries back to his car and comes back and hands me over an envelope “Like I promised dude” and he grins bright.

I take it and smile “Thank you” then I put it in the front pocket of one of my bag. Then Joon leaves.

The new maid my father mentioned on phone opens the door and greets me friendly and wants to take my suitcases but I tell her that it’s okay and that I can carry them by myself. She is smaller than the maid we had before and has glasses and has tied her long hair in a ponytail.

“What’s your name?” I ask her and look at her sideways.

“Sunny Mister, Sunny” she is probably very young and shy, she keeps looking at her fingers and her voice is weak. I smile and she blushes, I think it’s kinda cute.

Nobody is at home and somehow I am relieved that they aren’t around. I walk to the kitchen and can feel Sunny’s eyes still on me and to make her blush even more I turn myself halway to her and wink and see her cheeks get purpler. It’s amusing.

“I am upstairs then” I say after I take a cold beer out of the fridge and her hair as I walk her by and she just bow and nod and get embarrassed.

I walk upstairs, past by the other rooms and then enter mine on the very end of the corriodor with Beatles poster on the door and then close it behind me so that I make eye contact with Mr. James Dean on the other side of the door. He looks handsome and I wish I had his charisma. He grins at me and I grin back. My room just looks the same. My wall is still covered with some posters of my favorite bands, with photos of me and my mates, postcards and stuff; my music and film collections are still in order; my bed is there, huge, next to the window; the television hangs above it on the wall; some paper are on my desk and I put the beer next to it, but the room is clean. Maybe the maid had cleaned my room I think. By the imagination her fighting against the huge vacuum cleaner, I can’t help but laugh and shake my head. It feels fresh in the room compared to the heat outside and I almost feel cold and tense a little bit.  I make a circle around my bed and close the window. Then I lie down on my bed and leave my stuff packed on the ground. I look around my room, then out of the window and see the trees dancing to the rhythm of the wind and the red of the tennis court behind it then I look back to the James Dean poster on my door, he is still grinning like before and then I look back up.

After it I pick my phone and try to call my father. He doesn’t answer and I give up calling him. He is probably at an event for his new movie or something with his young model girlfriend, Park Min Ah, now Choi Min Ah, who is only around 3 or 4 years older than me, whom he married some months ago in Venice. Even though we were both in Europe that time I didn’t know anything about his marriage and find it out through the daily newspaper I aboned. He told me that everything was decided fast and that only a few guests were invited and that he is sorry that he didn’t call me earlier, but I didn’t mind, I really didn’t since it was nothing new that he was in a relationship with this woman and marriage wouldn’t make any difference anyway. My mother also wasn’t shaked at all by the news since she also has a new man and lives with him in the States. We all don’t mind. We really don’t.

I look sideways to the clock on my desk that points 10:27pm. I look at it for 3 minutes till it shows 10:30pm then I sit up and put my hand on my forhead then I stand up, kneel down next to my bag and take out the envelope Joon gave me one hour ago, or maybe two or three or maybe more or less. There are some yellow pils with a hole in the middle, in it and I have to grin as I read the small note he added on a paper

“ you! Happy Holiday Gift :)”

I stand up and try to decide if I should use one right now and then I decide to use it after I take my shower. I take a fast shower and dry myself with the green towel and walk back to my room. I walk to my desk and take the beer which isn’t that cold anymore and swallow the pill and then take a sip of the beer and put it back again because it tastes weird. I change my clothes, put a white shirt with the logo “Free Mind” on, a black Used Skinny Jeans then I take my jacket out of my bag, the leather one with zips on its arms. I make sure that I have my stuff and walk to my door, whising Mr. Dean good evening, while still drying my hair with the towel and walk downstairs and with my free hand I make sure that my Jeans are zipped. I put on my black Dr. Martins shoes and close the door behind me and leave.

As soon as I enter the house after I passed some really weird people by at the pool YoungMin jumps up out off her seat and hurries to me with a glass of whisky in her hand. I feel a little dizzy but try to stand on my feet as she hugs me. Then she steps a little back to face me and I can clearly see that her eyes are red and she is shaky and I have a feeling that she’s probably drunk.

“Jukan I am so happy you came” she mumbles and laughs and tries to stand still and then laughs again and takes a sip of her drink “Come in” she graps my arm and lead me through the room. Many people from the movie and fashion industry are at her party and I try to catch some familiar faces but she makes sure that I listen to her as she tells me that she dyed her hair to red to look more edge and that her model career is getting better and that she will be soon be on the cover of Vogue and asks me if that isn’t great and I say it’s great and she smiles and I smile too. She puts some whiskey for me and I drink it and then I pour another one and drink and she drinks too. She keeps speaking but I can’t understand well just something like she must check something out and that I should amuse myself and then she leaves and walk to a tall, tan boy with black glasses and a vest and she whispers something to him and then they leave laughing. I pour me another glass.

“Look at that European!”  Someone puts an arm on my shoulder and I turn myself and face Inho, a friend of mine who I went to Highschool with. He has short, spiky, dark hair and is dressed in a D&G suit and a scarf wrapped around his neck and is wearing an expensive looking fedora.

“Hey”

“You look good boy!” he says and then hugs me.

“Thank you, you too” I say and pour him a glass of whiskey and he says thank you.

“I don’t know man”

“What you don’t know?” I ask

“If I really look good”

“What’s wrong?” I take a sip of my drink.

“Well okay I know but... YoungMin keeps avoiding me and hangs on that model dude, Kangil or whatever.” He rolls his eyes “Really, I don’t know how she can...” and he keeps talking. I don’t even know since when Inho is interested in YoungMin in view of the fact that he was together with that other model girl as I left. But it doesn’t surprise me because Inho loves popular things and everything that can make him even more popular and YoungMin is on the way to get quiet famous these days so that must be the point of his interest. And anyway nobody really cares who sleeps with whom as long as we don’t break our unofficial rules like; if one has a longtime relationship with someone this girl or boy is tabu for others.I just nod and shake my head and nod again and shake and then nod...

“What now, yes or no? Jukan really...”

“What?” I look at him.

“Come on Jukan, I mean the scarf, should I put it on or not?” he raise the white scarf with red D&G design up and point to it with his eyes. I can’t even remember him talk about it or show it to me. I look at him, then at the scarf and then back to him.

“And?” he looks at me and rolls his eyey annoyingly.

“Yes... leave it on”

I look around the room to see Siwan but I can’t see him than I look again to Inho. And then look back again to maybe see Joon, or even Soojin.

“Well, I am going to the washroom” I take another glass of whiskey and leave Inho alone at the bar and I am glad that he doesn’t follow me. I really don’t feel like talking to him.

I walk down the stairs to where the washrooms are and before I even can put my hand on the knob Joon hurries out of the door and grap my hand. He is totally shaken up.

“You better don’t go in” he says half laughing half serious and makes huge eyes and hold his stomach with his hand.

“Why?”

“Because YoungMin and that guy, Kangil are doing it in here! Dude we better get off” and this time he laughs louder and I also have to grin at the face he makes.

We walk out to the garden and sit on the bench beside the pool.

“I heard your doing well, really, that’s good. You’re not stupid after all”

“Yeah I guess so”

“But you know, we miss you, you know that right?”

“Yeah” Maybe I know. Maybe not. Maybe I care or maybe I don’t...

We both light a cigarette and take a deep drag off it and talk while watching over to the pool.

“How long will you stay?”

“Where?”

“Here man”

“At the party?”

Joon rolles his eyes and hits me on the backhead “ no. I mean here, in Seoul? When will you fly back?”

“I don’t know” I take another drag off my cigarette. “Maybe 3 weeks... maybe longer. Or maybe less than one week... I don’t know” I keep staring at the water and wonder how it might feel to jump in and hold on my breath or maybe don’t hold it and try to breathe under water. I really wonder how long I could stay without air there all by myself... and if I would survive. Maybe I would die.

“What were you up to?” I ask him and throw my cigarette away in the pool and watch it swim on the top and then slowly sink in and then regret my move but it’s already too late.

“Well you know... hanging around... shopping... doing coke and stuff. It’s still the same man, nothing changed...” he keeps staring at the pool, to my cigarette and then up to the sky “still the same...”

“I see...”

We talk a little bit about how the scene in Europe is and how much easier it is to get good and cheap coke there and that people are more open to it. We talk about my studium, about life, about music, movies, fashion... but I guess we only understand the half of that what we’re speaking. But nobody mentions Soojin, somehow.

“Well...” I take a deep breathe...

“Hmm?”

“I can’t reach Siwan...”

As I bring up Siwan’s name Joon gets nervous and takes deep drags off his cigarette and drinks his glass whiskey before he says something. Then he turns to me, opens his mouth and closes it again then he stands up... walks back and forth and then he looks at me.

“Forget that !” he then sits back to my side and suddenly he gets angry “really man, he is low and false and a ing bastard! I would love to throw him in that pool and make sure that he never comes out back again!”

“What’s wrong” I ask.

“He just is!”

“Tell me”

“Man, he just is!”

“Does he owe you money or something?”

“No I wish it would be that but man...”

“What then?” I really get nervous and just want to know what he means. This time I get up. “Tell me Jon. Whats wrong-”

Before he needs to answer my question I spot Siwan walking out to the garden with Soojin, my ex girlfriend, or my still girlfriend, or my nothing, or whatever... I keep following them with my eyes and I hear Joon sighing, I look straight to the two who just came out and are now arm in arm having fun and then kissing each other and then again going back inside, maybe to the washroom, I think. I still stare at the point where they stood.

“See” Joon sighs and speak all the sweat words he knows.

I don’t say anything and just smile. Why should I care? I mean, why should this hurt or mean anything to me? How in the world do I have the reason to be mad or sad or depressed or anything like that? I just smile and look at Joon.

“Dude...I couldn’t tell you that-“

“It’s alright man...”

“It’s not. I know you dude”

“It is”

“I know it’s not”

“Forget it...”

Joon looks up to the sky and rises up his arms trying to catch the stars from above “Maybe we should go to a club” I think he could catch one.

“Sure”

I stand up, make my hands into fists, I feel dizzy and shaky and my head hurts and I don’t know why I am here or what I am doing here and I try to walk but I can’t and then I sit back.

note: i hope you liked the first chapter. its quiet weird right now i know but it will get more interesting in the other chapters ^^