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Telephone poles rise from trees in a decaying suburb. A bird perched on one of the lines flutters its wings in a coo. Behind, there is a backdrop of a dewy sunset. The muted yellow makes it almost seem as if their town is situated on the edges of an angel’s halo, bathed in golden dust.
On the third pole in Donghyuck’s street stands a childish carving four feet from the ground. It reads M + D underlined with a funny-looking lightning zag; the carving had been worn out through the years but it’s still there.
Donghyuck had been seven and silly when he wrote it, and Minhyung had laughed good-naturedly when Donghyuck had shown it to him.
I heard eomma say that things etched in stone are forever, Donghyuck had said, sharp rock digging in his palm. Now we can be friends forever.
I think that’s just an idiom but sure, Hyuck. Minhyung had chuckled, nimble fingers tracing on their initials. Forever.
Apparently, Minhyung had been right. It had only been an idiom, he realizes, during one of his walks home one night and he imagines the moonlight kissing the glass on Minhyung’s closed windows. Out here, the space for two in the sidewalk feels bigger. Donghyuck walks alone.
wish me luck on my history exam tomorrow
Donghyuck receives this—a text message from Minhyung—when he promptly wakes up at 11AM on a Sunday morning but doesn’t get to reply until afternoon. He’s in town when he finally reads the message and thinks of what to reply. Ahead, the local pool winks aquamarine under the auspices of a bright, unassuming sky.
He erases the stupid reply he somehow conjured up with and unconsciously typed and thumbs in another simple one instead.
did you even study for it? is Donghyuck’s reply a few hours late. He smells chlorine when he passes by the pool, its vinyl liners glinting like an invite, but he continues walking straight. When he finally reaches home, he finds that his mother had prepared sliced watermelons as snack. Spitting seeds in the air a few minutes later, Donghyuck idly thinks that these are Minhyung’s favorite. He debates then snaps a photo of a fresh batch and sends it to Minhyung, coupled with a few teasing hehehehes for good measure.
send me some :(( im dying over here trying to remember dates and years, comes Minhyung’s reply a few minutes later.
Hands sticky from the dew, Donghyuck wipes them on his jeans before typing a ‘sure see u’. He helps his mother clean the dishes and water the plants after that.
Minhyung doesn’t reply anymore that afternoon but later in the night he sends Donghyuck a brief good night with a sleepy emoji and a picture of notes sprawled on the bed. Donghyuck only gets to read it in the morning though, small spoon sinking in a bowl full of rice, and his mother scolds him because phones aren’t allowed on the table. He rolls his eyes at his snickering little brother.
When he opens the fridge to return the half-empty carton of milk, he sees two more sliced watermelons sitting at the bottom. He never went to send some to Minhyung’s house yesterday, just like Minhyung never went to visit his house for kimchi like he promised during Chuseok, or several other occasions similar to that. Words are exchanged, but nothing is a promise.
Later, on the way to school, Donghyuck thinks about it and blames it on the distance and conflicting schedules. They can’t really hang out in school that much anymore especially since they’re in different grades and therefore have different things to do. Also, Minhyung’s house is in the other side of town, a good ten minutes away even if he bikes. Donghyuck’s bike has been long discarded in their garage too, so there’s that. He convinces himself until he forgets about it when first period comes, the school bell letting out a shrill and signaling the start of another school day.
The thing is, really, the short distance has never been a problem when they were kids. At age 6, Donghyuck had taken a liking to the cute kid his mother’s friend brought along sometimes during their meet-ups. Ever since then, they’d been friends.
Their childhood was highlighted with bike trips to town and frequent visits to the pool. Everything seems like a pale, summery haze though because in the end of middle school, they stopped hanging out. The summer before Donghyuck’s ninth grade was marked with a stillness in the air that seemed to prickle and buzz in the humid July air as Donghyuck watched Minhyung hang out with the older kids from school instead.
He can’t blame Minhyung, though. It was bound to happen: them having their own different group of friends. Childhood friendships are held in a different regard after all.
Still, he sometimes wishes he and Minhyung had completely stopped keeping in contact and don’t have full on online conversations every now and again because then, Donghyuck won’t wake up one morning wanting to hang out, and then suddenly realising there’s a long stretch of road ahead them neither are willing to brave.
Donghyuck and Minhyung cross paths during lunch on a Wednesday, two days after Minhyung’s supposed history exam. He forgets to ask the elder about it as the daylight tickles a soft glow on Minhyung’s skin in the courtyard between their buildings. Donghyuck wonders how he could forget that Minhyung had the brightest smile ever. Jeno casts a curious glance his way when Donghyuck pauses walking for a while, and then he looks at Minhyung.
“What’s for lunch?” Minhyung asks Donghyuck as they meet halfway.
“There’s kimchi pancakes, doenjang soup, and fried chicken I think.” Donghyuck sees that Minhyung’s eyes are a golden brown under the sun. “I only came for the banana milk though. Eomma made me packed lunch.”
“Ah, have you finished eating?”
“Yeah. We promised Jisung we’d help him practice his speech so we had to hurry.”
“Alright then, I’ll get going now.”
“See you around.”
The grass bows under their shoes as they walk, and Donghyuck ignores Jeno’s curious glance down Minhyung’s way. They both hasten their steps until they reach the end of the couryard. There’s a new patch of flowers growing beside a bench. Clouds have now blocked the sun but still it continues casting sliver rays of light on the ground. Donghyuck’s shoulder itches and his fingers reach over to scratch it, right where Minhyung had touched earlier on.
the doenjang soup earlier was terrible and tasted like dog food
HAHAHA really?
yeah idk it reminded me of that somehow?
not surprised. food in the cafeteria sometimes tastes terrible. i bet my dog’s food tasted better
your sister owns the dog, not you
we are family, what’s hers is mine in this house
whatever, tell the dog i said hi
tell it to the dog yourself
Minhyung sent a photo.
Donghyuck snorts at it, edges of his lips curling up just slightly at the funny meme. Today is a Saturday, his phone tells him. He noisily sips all the pearls in his drink as Jeno and Jaemin chat up a storm about the latest episode of a TV show. Outside, the power lines across the street are entangled like black cobwebs. He sees the rotting edges of a telephone pole he’s sure is reeking of acrid piss. Looking, he idly thinks of radio waves and electricity. Online communication. Frequencies. He types in a reply.
out collecting memes again?
i have a paper due on monday so
so?
i needed a laugh. wasn’t it funny?
i snorted. is that enough?
i thought it was funny though :((
aw
They end up sending each other more memes, and then eventually end up talking about Donghyuck’s day and Minhyung’s recommended songs. He’s still texting even when he walks home and the scruff of his shoes creates a soft tap-tap-tap noise in the sidewalk. It echoes in the quiet night.
do you think i’d look ok with dyed hair?
our school doesn’t allow dyed hair hyung
i mean there’s the summer, we’re not always in school
well then it’s your choice i guess? i think red hair would suit you
yeah?
yeah, just my opinion. you’d look good in any hair color you choose anyway
Donghyuck looks at his sent message and sees his eyes reflected on the screen of his phone. There is no realization here, just a connotation Donghyuck somehow refuses to acknowledge. Not yet.
Down his street, he passes by the old telephone pole with their carved initials. Ahead, the pale moon smiles crescent. Somebody had hung the edges of his thoughts on it for the night to see, and now Donghyuck can’t get it back. Luckily, Minhyung had sent a couple photos of red hair and they don’t talk about Donghyuck’s comment. He exhales, feeling relief and moon dust heave from his lungs, his heart beating in between.
See, realizing old feelings is one thing, acknowledging them is another. This isn’t the first time this happened and if Donghyuck had managed to ignore it in the past years, then he is certain he can still do it again.
Donghyuck sent a photo.
stop. stop making me laugh. i’m in class
and i’m not :))
yeah yeah just because you’re absent for today doesn’t mean you can go around sending me memes while i’m being a good student
Donghyuck sent a photo.
DONGHYUCK!
can feel you smiling all the way over here hahahaha fine i’ll stop texting. go be a good student and keep your hands off your phone
i’ll talk to you later
The traffic light is blinking when they both lock eyes.
Donghyuck can see it in the distance: the flicker in Minhyung’s eyes mirroring his own when they lock gazes. There’s acknowledgement and hesitance. An inner debate. Minhyung is with his own group of friends, Donghyuck is alone running errands for his mother. A couple of cars speed past them.
In the curb, the traffic light turns orange, then red. The vehicles in the intersection stop.
Minhyung says something to his tall friend. Then, Donghyuck realizes belatedly and with slow-spreading dread, that Minhyung is walking over with quick steps on the pedestrian crossing, right to Donghyuck’s side of the road. Donghyuck doesn’t get to run away in the last few seconds.
“Hey,” Minhyung says when Donghyuck is close enough to hear.
“Hey.”
There’s silence. The traffic light turns green.
“What are you doing here alone?” Minhyung’s biting his lip, looking at Donghyuck, then the traffic light.
“Just running errands.” Donghyuck holds up bags of groceries. “Got to keep the fridge stocked with kimchi and all that stuff.”
“Ah yeah.” Minhyung smiles, hesitant. “Because what kind of Korean household runs out of kimchi, right?”
“Right.” Donghyuck chuckles, then he clears his throat. “What about you then? What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be with your friends?”
“Oh, well…” Minhyung says, rubbing the back of his neck. “We were already on our way home, anyway, so.”
Donghyuck raises an eyebrow. “What were you guys doing?”
“Just this project,” Minhyung says. “It’s already finished though.”
“Ah.” Donghyuck nods. His fingers and wrist already hurt from carrying two plastic bags but he can’t help but grip on them tighter. His phone suddenly feels heavy in his back pocket. He and Minhyung had not talked today and yesterday.
Minhyung scratches his neck. “Actually, I was wondering if you could help me with something?”
Donghyuck’s phone vibrates but he ignores it. “What is it about?”
“Well…” Minhyung’s gaze zeroes in on the way Donghyuck transfers both plastic bags to his left hand as he flexes his right. “Wait, do you need help with that?”
“What?” Donghyuck follows Minhyung’s gaze. “Oh, this? No, no, I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, hyung.” Donghyuck can’t help but chuckle. “They’re just plastic bags. Go on. What do you need help with?”
Minhyung continues talking but he does not look convinced. “Anyway, a friend’s birthday is coming up soon. I was planning on giving him a video game as gift but I haven’t really decided which one. So…”
“You should give him a bible.”
There is a pause. It’s Minhyung who breaks first and he snorts and laughs out loud. Donghyuck grins too, unable to stop the giggles that come out of his mouth. They are reminded of Donghyuck’s birthday a couple of summers past. The town buzzes around them but Donghyuck can only hear Minhyung’s laughter ring in his ears, clear as day.
Later on, Donghyuck realizes there’s not only an ache in his wrists due to the plastic bags but a familiar ache in his chest as well as he looks at Minhyung. The shop they’re in in the middle of town is too big for two teenagers to stand too close to each other like this. Minhyung still slaps Donghyuck’s arm when he laughs—out of habit, Donghyuck remembers—but he really can’t complain when he sees the crinkle in Minhyung’s eyes and the way his cheekbones raise to a smile.
And because Minhyung insists, he helps Donghyuck carry one of the two plastic bags to lessen the ache in his arms. It does, but Donghyuck realizes—Minhyung’s eyelashes suspended in the light—that no amount of proximity and smiles can relieve the ache in his chest as well.
hey
hi
thanks for earlier
i’m glad i tagged along because i got free food hehe :D
my poor wallet
you’re the best hyung~
brat
This is what happens: a storm hits their town during the last two weeks of school.
It’s probably one of the strongest their town has encountered. He hears from his mother that the lower side of the town has been swamped by flood and some of the houses have already let in mud water ankle deep. Classes have been cancelled then and again for the past three days and Donghyuck stays in the comfort of his home as he listens to the raindrops knock morse codes into his window.
If he had looked out his window and gazed down his street, he’d see two old telephone poles collapse, one of them being their telephone pole. The rain had washed away the soil it stood on and their initials—M + D—are lost in the mess of it all. Almost immediately, the power is cut off and hours later, Donghyuck can only stare at his phone blink blearily in 2% battery and then black out.
It’s very ironic that in the pitch black of Donghyuck’s room, he stumbles upon a realization in the darkness. Even now, days later, Donghyuck can still feel Minhyung’s phantom hand holding the back of his own back in that café they had stayed at after picking out video games.
The touch was gentle and comforting and only in the darkness of his room did he clearly see that entrancing light in Minhyung’s eyes and how he wanted it to be directed at him for a long, long time. He is scared but he realizes he’d never felt this sure in his entire life.
When he comes out, the power turns back on, the skies are clear outside, and soft light filters in the room and into his heart.
this is one crazy storm i’m so glad i didn’t live in the lower side of town
it’s so dark outside?
i can hear the wind blowing like crazy
hope you are safe right now
i mean it’s not like you’re stupid enough to walk outside during a storm or anything
but like i hope it doesn’t flood or whatever in your place
donghyuck?
why aren’t you replying
yo donghyuck
are you dead
“I’m sorry, uh—hello? Is this the Lee residence?”
Donghyuck’s heart jumps to his throat at the familiar voice, and he grips the receiver tight. The rest of his family are busy inspecting damages in the front yard so he’s alone inside the house. He knows that voice. Still, he makes sure. “Who’s speaking?”
“This is Lee Minhyung? I”—a pause—“Wait, is this Donghyuck?”
“You got me.” He lets out a soft exhale. “Hi.”
“Dude, what the fuck? I thought you were dead.”
Donghyuck didn’t expect that statement and he lets a laugh escape his lips. “Yeah, I saw your texts.”
“Not a single reply at all? What happened?”
“Telephone poles went down. Power got cut off. My power bank was missing. I’ve only just started to charge my phone since the power came on last night so sorry about that.”
In his peripheral vision, he can see his sister gesturing to him and mouthing something. His mom wants him to help outside. He holds his palm up and mouths a ‘wait, after this’ and turns his attention to Minhyung again.
“It’s been three days. I thought your house got wrecked or something,” Minhyung is saying. “Everything’s okay though, right?”
“Yeah, we’re fine.” Donghyuck realizes this is the first time they’ve talked on the phone, and that first time is because Minhyung wanted to check up on him. “You?”
“Yeah, thank god,” Minhyung says, then he pauses. Donghyuck swears he can almost hear a pin drop. “Do you—are you free this afternoon?”
Something in Donghyuck’s chest constricts. “I don’t think so. Eomma wants us to clean up the house after everything.”
“Oh, okay”—Minhyung clears his throat—“tomorrow then? I’ve got something you own I need to return.”
“Tomorrow,” Donghyuck croaks out, and he doesn’t even think what that something is. “Yeah. Okay. Just text me.”
“Yeah, you better reply this time.”
At that, Donghyuck lets out a soft laugh despite the manic beating of his heart. “Don’t worry, I will.”
That something turns out to be an old shirt Donghyuck had let Minhyung borrow once. See, the public showers in the local pool smelled like a terrible mixture of piss and strong cleaning formulas that didn’t sit well under their noses, so often times in the past they had walked to Donghyuck’s house (which was nearer) wet and smelling like chlorine. They’d lie on their backs in the front lawn and wait for the timed sprinkles to go off and run around the grass in glee. Then, Donghyuck would let Minhyung borrow clothes.
Now, when Minhyung hands over the shirt, their fingers brush together. What Minhyung doesn’t realize is he’s also returning a missing piece of Donghyuck’s childhood back and stupidly, in return, what Donghyuck doesn’t realize is Minhyung is also—finally—giving him a piece of his heart back. Apparently, it had taken him one power outage and three whole years of online conversations and stolen glances in the lunch room to realize.
“Wow, is this our new medium? Phone calls? You’ve taken a liking to it, hyung?”
“Sometimes it’s too tiring to type, you know…”
“Why do you keep messaging then?”
“Why do you keep replying then?”
“Fair point.”
The school year ends with this: Donghyuck sending Minhyung a link to a youtube video he shouldn’t have sent in the first place. Donghyuck almost falls off his own bed when he realizes the extent of his actions.
'send this to your crush without context?' wow donghyuck
shUT UP
you basically just confessed?
shut up you don’t even know if it’s really for you
if it weren’t you’d probably said that already lol
….
hahahahahahaha
……..
hey, it’s alright. i’ll… meet you in 10?
what
Donghyuck almost trips when Minhyung shows up in his front lawn not ten but fifteen minutes later. The pavement is cold, and Donghyuck belatedly realizes he’s in his bare feet. Minhyung laughs. “That excited?”
“I panicked,” Donghyuck grumbles, his toes curling. Minhyung takes a step on the pavement. He easily reaches Donghyuck’s forehead at this level.
“So…”
“What?”
“Wanna let me in?”
Donghyuck sighs, trying to sound exasperated, trying to make it louder than the hammering in his heart. Minhyung is still smiling and looking at him with that same light in his eyes. Beautiful in a way that makes his chest ache. “Yeah, sure. Come in,” Donghyuck says, heart in his throat. “You’re always welcome to.”
Two days later, one of the power lines blasts again because some of the workers are still trying to fix the lines and check on the other telephone poles a week and a half after the storm. The one with their initials is long gone, discarded as a debris from the storm and replaced with a new, stronger one. He’d heard a worker tell his mother that it was pretty old and needed changing anyway, its life already spanning 50 years.
Minhyung is right: things etched on rough, concrete surfaces and stones aren’t forever. So he softly traces their initials on Minhyung’s skin instead, using his fingertips first, then his lips.
The power is cut off but they both aren’t affected and don’t realize it, phones left to sit on the desk, basking only in natural light and each other’s, in the darkness of the room.