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THE BURROWS
The Burrows was where she'd wound up. A neat little under the staircase espresso bar with warm hanging lights and the earthy tones of something forbidden. Hair tucked neatly inside her slouched beanie, the vapors exuded by the frothing and hissing machines weren't of worry as she made her way closer to the stage and deeper into herself. She'd cut school, rebellious and young, like a million others her age but without the broad worldview to associate herself as part of a crowd. Hyun Choi, born Choi SeungHyun she'd made some changes already this far in life but still ached to explore more. Tantalizing facets like the drip of java into a pinkie cup, the slow beat of bongos as a tired sounding soul with long black hair across their eyes made commentary on the mundane in rhythmic time. She was used to being greeted as she walked in a café door, known for her father simply because her father had approved the places she would go. Well no more, and neither would he dictate the company she would keep. She wanted to get laid. The final malcontented act of a suffocating teen.
MEETING
There was an untouched plate in front of him, congealed pork sausage and wilted greens left to go cold and stagnant as he stared at the wall and twisted a curled lock of hair around his fingers, eyebrows furrowed. Underneath them was darkened, as if thought lurked just beneath the surface of the deep brown irises and pupils dilated from long exposure to dim lighting.
“Hi.” He stopped his repetitive movement all but at once, turning those eyes first before tilting his head and squinting up where she stood nearer to the light, “...what's your name?” She was trying to sound cool about it as she interrupted his flow, really her heart thumping miles a minute and her plan paring apart in front of her eyes. His thin forearms peeked out of the dragging sleeves of his shirt, a mossy off green with coffee stains from reaching for his cigarette pack in the middle of the table. After a moment's longer drag on that pluming stick he'd held off between two motionless fingers, he pursed his lips to let out the steam, smoke rising to the roof as he tapped the tobacco embers in against the saucer of his cup.
“John.” She didn't like John. Choi SeungHyun had been christened with the name of John and Hyun Choi didn't like it.
“...Okay, Johnny.” To the addition his eyebrow raised up from behind his thick-framed glasses, up like that neatly blue-grey smoke, up to the ceiling her eyes wanted to dart to but instead she stared off against oval rounded plexiglass.
“...have a seat.”
BRIDGING THE GAP/BREAKING DOWN WALLS
He rolled his own cigarettes with pale blue paper. The individuality of such an act, the near rebellious attitude toward normal convention. At the end he'd flick his thumb and little flecks of tobacco that had caught in the nail would go spread across the sanded grey chipboard like stars in the night sky. Fresh from the tobacconist with a pack of Pink Elephants tucked into the waistband of her elasticated shorts, she envisioned how she would look with her lips around one of these. In emulation of his unintentional mentoring, long fingers tapping it against her empty cup. Ash would build up in small pyramids among the drying black grounds.
“...Can I borrow your lighter, Johnny?” He mumbled, hand to his forehead and blue butt nearly at his lips, his hand swiping at the flat metal box to nudge it partway up the table without a further glance, “...When I die, I know I'm going to Heaven, because I've spent my time in Hell...” To speaking out the engraved quotation, she risked a glance for recognition, noting nothing on his face before flicking the lid back in silent disappointment. JaeHan seemed always in a rush but never in a hurry to leave. When Hyun wanted his looks he could be further down the week, mind on tasks he never verbalized but body as still and inactive as ever. Smoking wasn't as hard as it was made to seem, and she lit her first cigarette with steady unease in her nervous heart.
DATING?
There was a drawn look to his face, if Hyun didn't know any better she would have sworn he was strung out.
“Johnny?”
“...my real name's JaeHan.”
“You don't like Johnny?” Though her tone was light her heart was racing. It could have been all this time she was working his nerves, brooding less distant and more designed with the intention of scaring her off. He seemed edgy now, possibly at the end of it since she'd been like gum stuck fast to his shoe for the past three weeks.
“I don't like you hanging around with those beatniks.” It was the most incensed she'd heard come from his usually so tightened lips, as though the bastardization of the beat philosophy put into word was as distasteful to him as the people he spoke of themselves.
“...okay, Johnny.” She hadn't figured he was one to notice. He'd been busy over his plate of cold, unconsumed eggs when she'd gotten closer to the stage, enjoyed the leering of the instrument players and the bop of the beat they created. It had been nearly a fortnight since she had but it had been bothering him enough to rewind? She felt proud. Accomplished even in her goal of seducing the older man, or being seduced by. If yesterday he could have seemed so indifferent, what then did that hold for tomorrow in light of this change?
LESSON IN AMATEUR VIDEO PHOTOGRAPHY
The cold of the bed sent a shiver up her back, his watchful eye no less frigid through that lens.
“...Johnny-”
“Don't move.” She froze in place as though through his sheer command. It was funny, Lee JaeHan hadn't seemed so imposing at first meeting, he'd almost melted into the atmosphere of The Burrows if it weren't for that blue-grey smoke having caught her eye. Maybe, indeed, she had caught his in turn, “...you don't need the sheet.” He seemed uncaringly frustrated but that wasn't beyond normal for him, her skin breaking out in gooseflesh to the idea. She would be exposed to him, fully and completely for him to see every inch. She hoped the recording he intended to make would be forgiving, if nothing else.
SEX ME UP, MISTER
His lips were to hers in a kiss, a rush of excitement to the fact that it was her first only being further pushed down by the terrified feeling his touch had caused. She hadn't been prepared for this.
“...Hyun...” His hands were on her legs, massaging her thighs in careful motions before he touched it over the outside of her open high rise jean shorts, “...I like you.” Panicked tears stopped coming and now caught only in her eyelashes, short breaths evening out in gasps the more he brought her into womanhood like she'd sought to do, “...you're good for me.”
“J-Johnny...” He was on top of her now, their lips meeting again underneath the watchful eye of the no longer recording camera. Her eyes closed, willing to allow his effervescent sight to guide them and taking his direction as she had before without his knowledge.
COME DOWN
Curled up she rested her head on his thin chest, the metallic sound of his lighter as he lit that pale blue stick. She could feel herself crying, softly as though in mourning for her wayward virginity, for the childhood she'd left behind. For SeungHyun even.
COMING OF AGE
But she craved it again not two days later, just like she had her first pink cigarette.