Chapter Text
Hamin finds the blond man after school. He’s holding a big thing with a handle, and walking down from across the school’s road. He's probably going home too.
By now he was already walking behind the man and it’s only been a few minutes. He must be a very slow walker.. The man was wearing a thin cardigan and had black headphones on, unlike Hamin’s suspicious neighbour who lives in room 1407 (those were not headphones)..
Hamin and the man stop at a traffic light and stand side by side. The big object he was carrying towered over them, the boy thinking he might be squished if it were to fall on him. He hopes the man was holding on tight.
Hamin goes unnoticed until the man looks to the side and spots him staring, taking off his headphones thinking the boy wanted to say something. Nothing comes out of his mouth, the blond man sets his headphones down resting on his shoulders and nods to himself from the awkward silence.
They walk across the road when the light is green just like everyone else. They both figured they were going to the same place so they decided to not talk. Very awkward..
“..What’s that?” Hamin points slowly at the thing the blond man was holding, scared provoking him would get the man would irritate him.
Instead the man glances at the object then at Hamin, “A guitar. It’s in a case if you’re wondering.”
Ah.. So that’s what it is..
“Why can’t you put a strap on the guitar?”
“..You’re right.” The man loosely holds his hand up and shakes it around?? Why does everyone have weird gestures when they’re talking?? “But if i did, it would get scratched or someone could break it.. Could be good to show off, but I think the case gives it the extra protection, yeah?”
“Ah.. That makes sense.” Hamin watches the blond man nod in agreement, there's a slight smile tugging at his lips but it looks more like a smirk now. “Is it hard to play it?”
“Not really once you get used to it. Usually I play the keyboard though, so sometimes I have to get used to playing it every once in a while.” The man explains nonchalantly. Hamin thinks before asking, “Is that your job?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Well you seem to play a lot of instruments. And I saw your face on a book when I went to buy bread—“ Hamin shut his mouth after that. He felt like he exposed some big secret or something, the man will probably think it’s weird.
“...That’s nice. It’s only a little something I do though, I like playing music way more.”
“You can have two jobs?”
“Yeah..?” Maybe that was a bad question.. “I mean a lot of people do.”
“Huh.. I didn’t know that.. How come they only let us pick one then?”
“Uhh.. I’m not sure, maybe because having one set goal is easier than juggling two or more.”
“Ah.. that makes sense..” Hamin looks at the ground. It’s awkward again.. It’s different from the other grown ups because Noah doesn’t start talking by himself.
“You wanna see the guitar?”
..Nevermind..
It was an acoostick.. acus—.. wooden guitar. Not sure, Noah said something like that. Hamin gazes upon the shiny wooden object. It looked so delicate so the black case made sense, it looks like it could break on impact.
Noah comes back after grabbing a drink from the vending machine outside the apartment building. Settling beside the guitar on the bench, he tosses the guitar case onto the other bench and shuffles closer to Hamin.
“You know how to hold a guitar right?”
Hamin attempts to hold the guitar by himself before Noah reaches out to fully fix his position. The man stands up to see how Hamin looks with the guitar, he’s got his hand grasping his chin like he was observing the child.
“..You gonna try it or what?”
“I thought you were gonna teach me?” He never said that.
“Okay. Use the guitar how you think it’s used.”
“…” Hamin plays with one of the strings before swiping his hand across the whole thing. It makes this smooth sound you’d expect to hear from the instrument.
“Okay. What you did there is called strumming. It can sound different if you change the way you strum.”
..Noah realises Hamin is lost, “Nevermind.. you can learn that later.”
“Then why’d you teach me that?”
“I don’t know how to teach. And it seemed like you didn’t get it.”
“Then explain it until I understand!” The boy leans head towards the blond man sternly.
“..Aishh, fine.” Noah scoffs to himself before sitting back down. Sighing as he shuffles closer to explain everything again. “You see the strings?” Noah points at the guitar’s metallic threads
“It’s probably the thing everyone sees before everything else..”
“Well yeah, it’s the main part of how it makes noise. Each string has a different sound.” The man plays each string one by one so Hamin can hear the difference. The boy watches Noah’s hand gently play different notes.
“Ahh.. Is that what the things at the back are for?”
“Yeah—“
“Also some of the strings are thick. Is that also a reason?” Hamin closely inspects the strings as if he found something small like a leaf bug hidden on his jumper sleeve.
“..You ask too many questions, but yeah.”
“I understand when my questions get answered.”
“..Yeah, that makes sense.” Noah gently takes the guitar, “Look. You see these bumps. You hold the strings down in between them.” He points everywhere and demonstrates what he should be doing, “The sound will be different again.” He holds down and plays a note and it becomes higher than before. Hamin gasps in surprise, he wants to try now.
Noah’s teaching was surprisingly easy to understand as he only described what they looked like and demonstrated a lot and fixed Hamin’s stance when he accidentally moves out of position. He also answered every question, but it took him a few tries to come up with a statement.. Hamin’s not sure if the man is normal..
“Ah.. the sun is tired now.” Hamin looks at the sunset.
“We can try another day. I’m tired. Yejun-ah’s probably gonna come back soon so I’m gonna head back and take a shower.”
“Huh?”
“Today’s Thursday. Yejun comes back with groceries.”
“Oh. That’s good to know..?” Hamin watches as Noah zips up the guitar case and swings it around his shoulder.
After that Noah walks off and up the stairs, leaving Hamin on his own. He also trips on a rock and nearly drops the guitar but that’s not important because he even glanced back to see if Hamin saw him. And then he disappeared into his home.
…
I forgot to do my homework…
Mao!
Hamin’s thoughts disappear when he hears a strange sound. He looks around to see an orange, fluffy cat. He watches the cat walk beside the pole that supports the roof of the little resting shelter. It steps cautiously like it was walking on a balance beam. This is the first time Hamin has seen it, but it seems like the cat knows its way around. He wonders if anyone in the apartment owned a cat, it didn’t seem like a stray. Maybe it has a collar..
Hamin tries to peer at its neck but the cat is way too furry to see, he would need to touch the cat to find it. The boy sighs and gives up, picking up his bag to go back to the apartment.
Mao!
The cat follows Hamin up the stairs and climbs onto the balustrade. Is it hungry or something? The boy stares at the cat before going inside and checking his fridge. He doesn’t have cat food and the only thing he knows is that cats can eat fish.
Hamin comes back outside and the cat is still hanging outside his floor, this time it was stretching out its front legs.
“Hello.. I don’t know what you eat. But I heated up chicken.” Hamin talks to the cat with a hushed voice, placing a fragile plate of boiled chicken breast, still slightly cold because apparently one minute is not enough in the microwave. The cat turns its head and sniffs the plate before ripping a piece off with its mouth.
The boy crouches down and watches the orange cat in awe as it eats the chicken. It was a large portion so he was surprised it ate most of it (though, Hamin was sure Eunho could eat way more).
The cat licks Hamin’s hand that rested on his knee before tucking its head on his palm.
Its fur was soft and warm. Most importantly fluffy. Hamin would like to feel it more but the cat slowly trots off. Hamin gently waves to it as it climbs up to somewhere else. He hopes it comes back.
…
I forgot to do my homework again..
Hamin sighs as he picks up the plate with two hands and heads back inside.
Chapter end.