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Jongin sat stiffly on the quiet coach. A small duffel bag containing all his worldly possessions lay on the seat next to him. His long-sleeved checkered shirt was buttoned snugly up to his neck, with a small notebook and pen in the top pocket.

He was nervous, with even his roughly-carved hair standing to attention in a dry fuzz, but he was content.

The mountains, fields and small villages flashed by on the other side of the glass, and they seemed to be willing him to not be so tense. He couldn't help but feel trapped inside the juttering hunk of a metal container but even that was not so foreign by now; if it hadn’t have, he probably would have long since lost his mind.

He was going “home”.

At least it was what he had grown used to calling it. A man can grow used to a lot of things, but as they puttered ever closer towards his destination, he couldn’t help but be swarmed by thoughts.

Home was a place he grew up - no...
Home was a place where he used to live.
A place where he lived as an ignorant child.

Maybe it was different now.

He reached for the little notebook from his pocket. The notebook was a cheap mass-produced paperback that fit snugly in his hand that was now old, creased and stained with the years of companionship. He opened it to the first page and looked at the three neat, hand-written lines standing out boldly against the work of time:

I will never drink again.
I will never fight again.
I will never cry again.

Jongin whispered these words, words that were given to him as a gift, words that he wanted to make his, and carefully turned to the next page where the handwriting was decidedly more like a child’s scrawl.

It was a list.
And it reminded him.

Quickly, he reached out to the cup-holder on the back of the seat in front; he’d almost forgotten about the "Iced Americano" that he’d purchased at the previous rest-stop.

He took the straw between his lips, he took a deep drink from the cold and bitter liquid to fill his whole mouth. His eyes widened and he looked around him desperately waving his hands. Tears welling up in his eyes as he gulped it down loudly, he desperately reached for the Chupa Chups lollipop and on the sweet candy to rid the bitter coffee from his tongue.

Taking the pen and re-opening the notebook, Jongin crossed out two items from the list:

Drink an Iced Americano
Have an imported candy

When he arrived at his stop in the early afternoon, Jongin walked the short distance towards a small diner and rest-stop. Each step brought him more familiar memories and unfamiliar sights; the dirt paths were now wide asphalt roads, the old log that acted as a bridge across the small stream that he played nearby as a child had been elevated from the stream banks at least five feet to meet “ground level”... and the giant oak tree opposite the diner... where was it?

He paused and considered the landscape for a moment.

There used to be a huge oak tree right there in the middle of the field, he could have sworn it, but now it was gone. The surrounding plots of land where the local farmers used to grow crops looked like they hadn't been plowed this year, maybe not even the year before but he couldn't tell. There should have been new shoots of plants coming up from the farmland but nothing seemed to be growing.

"I told you," a teenage girl sighed with exasperation and wiped her hands on her bright red apron. "She's not going to be here until like five o'clock. It's just me running the lunch-time shift on Saturdays."

"Okay," Jongin said sheepishly, scratching his head and shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "I can wait. I don't mind waiting."
"Listen!" the girl slammed her hands down and gripped the table, making Jongin jump as high as the cutlery did. She lowered her scowling face down to his eye level.

The two were alone in the Oak Tree Diner, a quaint little restaurant with a half-dozen or so small tables. Dirty dishes were piled up in the kitchen and the girl had only just finished clearing the tables. Jongin had arrived at the busiest part of the lunch rush and had been asking to see her mother for the whole time.

As she glared at him, Jongin kept fidgeting with his fingers below the table and kept avoiding her gaze. His head bobbed nervously almost below where his own shoulders began.
"Hey," she said.
"Yeah?" he muttered.

"You're..." she began. "You're retarded aren't you?"
"What?" he looked up.

"Is that why..." she finally sighed and shook her head. "God..."
"I'm not retarded," he said.

"Yeah, okay," she turned back to the kitchen and switched off the air conditioning in the dining hall. "Whatever."
"I said that I'm not retarded," he said louder.

"Sure, cool," the girl called over her shoulder. "Listen, I've got work to do before the honored lady comes back so why don't you go somewhere and come back later?"
"Can't I wait here?" he asked.

"No, dummy," she snapped. "That's why I've been telling you to go."
"I don't have anywhere else to go..." he started.

"She said you lived around here before," she shouted from the kitchen. "Go meet your friends or something."
"Friends..?" he scratched his head, as familiar names and faces did come to mind. "But I don't think I should..."

"Just... just go to a jjimjilbang or something and sleep if you have nothing to do," she reappeared at the doorway, her face growing more and more frustrated.
"Jjimjilbang?" he frowned. "Do you mean like a public bath house?"

"Public bat... what era do you even..." she stopped herself from yelling. "Yes, you old-timer. They have public bath houses with little eateries, computers, napping rooms and everything else you could ever want. Get moving, grandpa."
"Hey," he protested. "I'm only thirty!"

"Like I said," she crossed her arms. "Get moving, grandpa."

Things really had changed since he'd last visited the town center. Everything was more... well, more more. There were more people, more businesses, more cars, more signs, more everything. Even the the roads were “more”... there were more roads with asphalt now. It hadn't grown much in size, but the stuff inside had become bigger and newer.

It cost five bucks t... it now cost twenty bucks to go to a jjimjilbang. Then again this key that they had for the lockers was amazing. It didn't look like a normal key, it looked more like a button on the end of an elastic bracelet but when you pushed it into the litte socket where a keyhole should be, then the button would stick gently like a magnet and

beep-beep whirrrr click boop-beep-beep

the thing would unlock, and then when you took it back out of the socket

boop-boop whirrrr click beep-beep-boop

the thing would lock itself.