Chapter Text
[What’s the difference between a dream, a hope, and a wish? I kind of see them all as different ways of saying the same thing.]
I’ve actually never thought about it before, but I feel like there might be a bit of a difference.
[How?]
Hope is used more for smaller, more everyday things. ‘I hope you have a nice day’ or ‘I hope you ace your exams’ or something like that. Things that are more likely to happen.
[Okay…]
Wishes are usually used for bigger things, I think. Like impossible things we want to happen.
[Like catching a foul ball at a Giants game?]
Right. But when it comes to dreams, it’s more of something you want to accomplish and not just something that happens to you by chance.
[So like becoming successful and making lots of money?]
Exactly.
[Well, I think you’re wrong.]
Gee, that’s a first.
[Annoying. All I meant was that I think dreams can be small, and so can wishes. Hopes can be big, too. It all depends on how big or small the person can hope, dream, or wish.]
I can respect that. I don’t agree, but I can respect it.
“What’d you put for number thirty?”
Jihoon looked at him like he had just asked him for his bank account PIN instead of his answer to a high school-level career aptitude test. He wiped his brow, dripping furiously with sweat as he scowled. “This isn’t a test you can cheat on, Wonwoo.”
“I wasn’t cheating. I was just curious.” Wonwoo shrugged. He wiped the back of his hand on his temples, feeling the sweat drip down his neck and onto the front of his shirt.
Their homeroom teachers had collectively given out papers for the career aptitude test as “preparation for their final year of high school,” which will “set the tone for the rest of their adult lives.” Jihoon had thought it was a load of bull, but Wonwoo was really looking forward to finding out what he was supposed to be when he grew up.
It was starting to get hotter with each passing day, edging ever closer to summer. Jihoon, who was wearing only his undershirt, had already shed his dripping uniform, hanging it on top of the fan that was whirring and swinging between the both of them. Wonwoo was still clinging onto his uniform, if only to use it as a pathetic rag to wipe at his dripping sweat.
“Okay, done,” Jihoon said, setting the pen loudly against the register counter. He started to use his test to fan himself as he looked over at Wonwoo on the other side of the counter, still hunched over his test paper. “How much longer are you going to take?”
“Uh,” Wonwoo voiced out, letting it fade into a slight vocal fry as he checked how many pages remained. “Not long, just like fifteen more questions.”
“Wonwoo, you’re not trying to get into KAIST. You’re just taking an aptitude test, which is about as accurate as a tarot reading,” Jihoon groaned.
“Do you get a kick out of being such a snarky guy, Jihoon?” Wonwoo asked casually, nose buried deep in question number thirty-three.
“Only if it annoys you,” Jihoon replied. Wonwoo could hear the grin in his voice, making the insult null and void.
“It doesn’t,” Wonwoo said, a smile of his own tugging at the edges of his mouth. “And to answer your non-question, not everyone knows what they want to be. This test, however stupid it may be, might give me the answer I’m looking for.”
He could hear the sound of Jihoon moving his seat closer to the fan. “You’re so good at everything, though,” Jihoon’s voice sounded robotic when his face was so close to the fan, causing Wonwoo to chuckle.
“Hardly,” Wonwoo scoffed. The sound of flipping pages was louder without the fan blowing in his direction.
There were maybe two pages left before the end of the test, but Wonwoo found that as the test went on, the questions got harder. He couldn’t determine how much something interested him as much as relying on his perception of how lucrative whatever career was associated with that act. His mind was trying to imagine how passionate he would be if he were offered the opportunity of being a bank teller when the sound of an out-of-tune guitar being played broke his concentration.
“Could you please wait to do that until I’m done with this?” Wonwoo raised his head from the paper to stare at Jihoon.
“The end of the test said to—” Jihoon let go of the guitar briefly for it to rest on his knee, using his free hands to do air quotes. “Follow my dreams, so.”
Wonwoo lifted the paper and started waving it in his hand, shaking it at Jihoon. “Wait, that’s what the back of the test says?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged to punctuate his sentence. “Thank you for finishing this test. Whatever the results say, we encourage you to follow your dreams wherever they may take you. Or something like that.”
Flipping to the very back of the paper, Wonwoo quickly scanned the page for the text Jihoon was referring to, finding it at the very bottom of the page in font twice the size that was used for the questions. Nearly word-for-word exactly the same as what Jihoon said. He had half a mind to rip it up into the tiniest pieces possible with his bare hands, but he didn’t feel like filling up another copy tomorrow and decided to set it back down on the counter. Unharmed aside from a few wrinkles in the middle.
“Well that was a waste of time.” Wonwoo took his glasses off to rub at the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes. “I shouldn’t have wasted so much effort on this if that ’s what they want us to take away from it.”
“I told you so.” Jihoon went back to tuning his guitar.
He was tired and felt like an idiot. His time bamboozled by a ten-page test that meant absolutely nothing. The weight of his head felt heavier as he laid it on his hand, elbow propped up on the counter as he watched Jihoon’s fingers alternate between fiddling with the tuning pegs and strumming the strings. “Is that your dream, then? The guitar?” Wonwoo asked, voice muffled by the sound of his cheek squishing into his hand.
Jihoon just hummed, a flat noise that stood out against the chaotic tune coming from the guitar. It took a few more tries before he got the sound just right. He whispered a little “yeah,” soft and utterly childlike that caught Wonwoo off guard.
“Was that ‘yeah’ an answer to my question or were you just celebrating?”
“Both.” Jihoon plucked the G-string. It resonated in the empty store. “Neither,” he answered again, somehow sounding unsure both times.
The sounds of the guitar settled between them, echoing within the walls of Grand Dreams . Wonwoo could only watch and listen as Jihoon held it in his hands and played. His nails were on the longer side, still neat and clean despite their length, plucking as the strings wobbled to create sound. Wonwoo’s guitar knowledge was limited. He only knew what sounded good and right; something between his heart and his gut telling him that whatever Jihoon played was .
He understood how Jihoon could call this his dream. He concentrated on the way Jihoon’s mouth tightened with concentration, a slight crease in his brow as he stared at his fingers hard at work. He strained to hear the soft humming that accompanied the guitar, steady. It was the feeling, most of all—of losing himself in the melody like time was just a construct and it didn’t matter more than whatever Jihoon and guitar had to offer him.
That made the sudden stop more jarring.
Jihoon looked bashful like he had done something wrong, peeling his attention away from the guitar and back to Wonwoo. “You.”
“Me,” Wonwoo repeated mindlessly at the sudden attention. “What about me?”
“Your dream. Do you have one?” Jihoon rested his hands on the swell of the guitar and his chin on top of it. “Or, at least something you think about enough to call a dream, even if it’s temporary.”
He cleared his throat. “Uh, no. No, I don’t. Never have.”
“Nothing at all? Not even when you were a kid?” Jihoon tilted his head slightly, his face skewed as he applied more pressure on one side of his face than the other, still on his hands and guitar. It wasn’t judgment. Maybe more of a look a dog would give something they didn’t understand.
Wonwoo felt embarrassed, still. And with it came the flood of a memory he tried his best to repress. Though, through stupidity or the curious look in Jihoon’s eyes, he felt safe enough to reveal it out loud.
He nodded. “It was maybe fifth grade and we were all sitting on the ground sharing all our dream careers. I think I lived in a bigger city then. I can’t remember where, though. Everyone else had wanted to be astronauts, chefs, race car drivers… I didn’t really understand how anyone could be that relaxed about their future. The impracticality of it all and the uncertainty made me anxious.” Jihoon’s eyebrows raised at that, which he did his best to ignore. “When it was my turn, I just said my dream career was ‘money’.” He shook his head as if the movement was enough to dislodge it from his mind forever. “Everyone laughed and I had to even beg the teacher not to call my dad to ask if everything was alright at home. After that I told myself that maybe not everyone needs to have a dream because where would we be if everyone turned into astronauts, chefs, and race car drivers.”
It felt good to let it out, even if he did feel like a bit of a dick spilling all of it in front of Jihoon who still said nothing. “Well?” Wonwoo half expected him to laugh just like all those other kids did.
“I think that’s pretty cool, Wonwoo” were definitely not the words Wonwoo had expected to hear, and he had to ask to make sure he had heard correctly the first time. “Yeah, I mean. It just means that life won’t kick you in the nuts when that dream doesn’t come true,” Jihoon explained. “It’s not like it’s coming from a place or fear or anything, right? Just that you don’t love anything that much to want to dedicate your whole life to it, which I think is pretty normal. You just experienced it at an earlier age than most people. That’s cool.”
No one had ever called Wonwoo cool before. Not in the context of getting straight A’s despite moving from town to town every other semester or knowing tons of useless random facts about the places he used to live despite not remembering their names. He could recall the streets and buildings, the faces of the people and their waves and their hello’s, but never their names. And so, this being the first time someone (let alone Jihoon) had said he was cool, especially about something he had felt so self-conscious about growing up felt like being wrapped in a warm hug. It felt comfortable despite the sweltering heat. It made him want Jihoon to feel the same after giving him this much.
“What about you?”
“Me,” Jihoon mockingly imitated Wonwoo. He laughed when Wonwoo rolled his eyes. “What do you want to know?
“What does it feel like to have a dream?” Wonwoo asked. He shook his head hearing his own voice. His thoughts sounded much more stupid said out loud.
Unexpectedly, Jihoon's eyes brightened visibly at the question, mouth kept in a straight line like he was contemplating on whether or not to keep the answer a secret. It didn’t take long for him to give in to the urge, his sharp canines peeking from below his top lip as he said, “It feels like keeping something alive.”
“Do you mean your mom?” Wonwoo’s voice softened.
Jihoon pursed his lips in thought, eventually answering. “Yeah, but also no.” He continued when Wonwoo scrunched his nose in confusion. “She used to love playing music and dancing around the store, and maybe that’s where my love of it came from. Playing guitar is a way of keeping her alive, still a part of the store. But it’s also about keeping other things alive, sort of like stoking a fire before it dims.”
Jihoon started playing again , strumming the tune he always did whenever Chan was around and the store had its occasional lull in business. “Music keeps me and Chan connected because it’s his dream, too. It makes me feel good when he’s happy because it makes me happy, too. Ultimately, I think a dream is just something that makes life worthwhile, whether or not you actually achieve it.”
It was simply put and yet Wonwoo still didn’t really understand. He really wanted to, though.
“And what about your dad? Does he know about your dream?”
Fingers stilled on the guitar, pushing them into a pocket of silence Wonwoo hadn’t expected when he asked the question. “He doesn’t think that it’s something that’s worth pursuing. He even tried to sell this guitar once, after mom died because I had spent too much time on it when I could’ve been doing other things.” Jihoon’s voice was drawn tight like the strings he had tuned just a few minutes ago, but done all wrong.
“For what it’s worth, which is probably nothing, I think you play beautifully,” Wonwoo said. “And if music really is your dream, it might not be something you should give up so easily on. You should talk to your dad about it.”
“Wonwoo…” Jihoon started, voice looser now, the start of a melody at his tongue.
Realizing he might have overstepped his boundaries, Wonwoo interjected. “Or not. This is just coming from someone who knows nothing about dreams or aspirations. Just a casual observer of the Lee family, so don’t let me dictate what you do.”
“Wonwoo,” Jihoon repeated, his name lilting. “I was just going to say ‘thank you,’ you dork.”
“Oh. Sure, anytime, Jihoon.”
Wonwoo didn’t even really understand what Jihoon was thanking him for: the fact that Jihoon’s playing was lovely was something Jihoon already knew, and telling him to talk to his dad was just basic advice. But he’d be stupid not to give in to the blooming in his chest at the way Jihoon said his name, thanking him with an insult in a way only he could make feel like something different.
He listened contentedly, nodding away as Jihoon continued playing a song he didn’t really understand either. But with the final notes of the song, Jihoon looked up at Wonwoo briefly to flash him an honest smile, and he realized that was something he was starting to understand.