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Kevin has always been one of the best students in school, he can't deny it. His tiny fingers are always keeping a pen, a sheet of paper, a book; he can't stop, he can't shut his thirst for knowledge.
It's because of my ambition, he often thinks, but actually most of the time he studies because he has nothing else to do. He takes some books, sniffs them, then leaves a piece of him inside of them and closes it between pages.
Kevin is fine with it, he left his friends in Canada and he never felt the urge to find new ones.
Time ago there was a guy, called Changmin, that smiled at each phrase he said, and loved dancing. Kevin thought that Changmin appeared like he came out of a greeting card, courtesy ones, without feelings inside, all appearance and no content.
But after all, Kevin thought, and thinks, this about everyone else.
When Changmin, months later, won the first place in a dance contest, Kevin sent him one of those greeting card. "Congratulations", he wrote with his pretty handwriting, small and thin. Maybe, deep inside, Changmin really had some talent, maybe he was really fire, and not just smoke. Maybe his smiles were sincere.
Who knows.
Kevin actually doesn't care, he sees everyone as spirits wandering in search of something, something from life, something falling from the sky, something that most of the time doesn't even exist. And that’s why Kevin doesn't search anything.
"Don't you want a girlfriend? Someone?" he is often asked by Jaehyun, his roommate for too many years, an acquaintance of too many secrets, a lover of too many disciplines. Jaehyun is an art student, art history, and is the only one hoping his school years could never end: there is magic, he says, in learning new things. "Our brain assimilates so many things, do you ever think about that?" he asked one night, Jaehyun to Kevin, without getting any answer. He kept on talking. "And I think that this is a form of art. Our mind works like a white canvas, nothing on it, empty- and you can choose how to fill it, which colors to choose, how to paint yourself. And that's what art is, Kevin.”
Kevin didn't answer. Jaehyun, actually, wasn't expecting an answer. He never does, but he keeps on talking. Kevin sometimes asks himself if his batteries will ever be discharged. If that radio he has instead of his vocal cords will ever stop on spitting information.
Jaehyun says no, that he will talk until he can. "It's the only way I can express myself", he explains.
Kevin doesn't agree, since he doesn’t know how to communicate with words, saying how he feels. And, to be honest, he doesn’t even try. He doesn’t care, doesn’t care, doesn’t care.
The guy from the room next door, Haknyeon, psychology student, always argue with Kevin about this path that he’s following. Haknyeon, Ju Haknyeon, wants everyone to call him “tangerine” because he wants to be the kind of psychologist that feels like vitamins. That can make you feel better. Like this, just with a smile.
Kevin never stops from spitting out what he thinks, but he can’t say to Haknyeon that it’s not that easy to make people happy. He could have believed it, seeing how everyone smiles when Haknyeon walks in the hallway, but then he uses himself as an example: Kevin, empty since too many months ( How long has it been since he moved out of Canada? He can’t and doesn’t want to remember ), hasn’t been “magically filled” by Haknyeon’s smile, so he doesn’t know how the plan on “making everyone happy” will turn out. Each time Kevin promises to himself that he will talk about it, just to find himself leaning his head down, avoiding to speak.
As he does with anyone else.
Kevin doesn’t know why he’s studying literature. He doesn’t even like it. Not that other courses are better, but he doesn’t have any bond with literature: it’s poetic, almost fake, telling fantasy stories, full of people who wrote and then became famous. Kevin can’t find a sense with it.
“There’s a lot of people who write”, he always thinks, “-how come just a part of them becomes famous?”
Then he takes the pen. And write himself.
He doesn’t know what he writes, short poems, sometimes poetry, other times diary pages ( but he refuses to call them like this ), haikus, songs, lyrics.
When he’s bored, almost always, he finds himself wandering into words, into ink stains, into the feeling that he never shows: anger, envy, even joy, tiredness, boredom, emptiness.
He’s human too, even if Sunwoo often says that he doesn’t look like one. He is.
Kevin sits at his desk, his stare on the window, on the outer word. Everything seems so far away. He’s studying to hold it in his hands, that entire world, to shape it as he wants, to narrate about it as the poets he studies, to narrate like Changmin did with his dance, to narrate like he does in his secret notes.
Still, when he gazes out of the window, everything seems huge. He wonders how he’ll approach life, if even just a room can be so overwhelming. Sometimes he forgets that the world isn’t just something you can write about, it’s something real, with all the unknown places and people.
When he thinks about it, he’s scared. Kevin, always so silent, when he realizes that he’s just human, is scared. He tries not to think about it, breathes, closes the literary book and stares and the sunflowers out of his window. Such professionals, they stay there, each day to stare at the sun. They’re not scared.
Kevin holds his pen.
When
In the morning I stare outside
And I see sunflowers
I think about how
What watches the sun
Shines brighter than it
And I wonder
If I’m one of them
When
In the morning I stare outside
Kevin puts the pen down. Closes the book. Closes himself in it. Walks out of the room.
He leaves his feelings in the things he writes, so he doesn’t have to take them along: he leaves them on paper, so they don’t run away, so he doesn’t feel them crawling on his back. Because they hurt. Fear hurts, so he closes it in his room.
No one will know. No one has to know.
Especially now, eight in the morning, still without coffee, still without the realization of being awake.
Haknyeon, Hak, always says that not even the best psychologist could work nicely without a coffee and a good sleep: everything depends on how you wake up. Kevin thinks that he’s right about this, because he keeps, during the day, the same expression of when he woke up; even If he actually has that expression every day.
At least he’s right about coffee.
He slowly walks to the cafeteria, full of people as always, so he shrugs and almost decides to go back. A voice stops him.
“Listen – “a soft voice, velvety, calls him from a table on the right “-you need a coffee? I was so nervous this morning that I bought two, but I won’t drink both. Would you like one?”
Kevin turns to the voice and sees a bizarre guy, soft blonde hair all over his face, paper shattered all over the table. He’s still in time to refuse, but then decides to accept the offer. He sits, puts his backpack next to him, slowly reaches for one of the cups.
The other guy smiles, handles the cup to him, then goes for a handshake while his left hand adjusts his glasses.
“I’m Jacob! A desperate tech student with an exam tomorrow and zero cerebral-activity alive.” He speaks softly, too much, his speech is as confused as his notes. Kevin doesn’t have any reaction; he just shakes his hand.
“I’m Kevin. I study literature.”
Then he puts his lips on the border of the cup, letting the silence kindly surround him alongside with coffee’s smell. Or at least that’s what he dreamt of.
The other, introduced as Jacob, leans forward and looks at Kevin while he drinks. Then another confused speech begins.
“Y’know, I’ve never seen you here. Actually, this thing that I just said doesn’t have any sense, because I barely quit my room, so you could come here everyday and it could just be me that doesn’t know, but just because I don’t know it doesn’t mean you couldn’t come here often. Well, actually I said that I never saw you, not that you don’t come here, no? So I wasn’t wrong with the syntax.”
And then he bops his head, proud of his speech. Kevin damns the coffee that made him sit at that table. He opens his mouth to speak, but the other interrupts him once again.
“By the way- you study literature? Cool, that means we’re opposite poles! Rationality and imagination! Well, unless you are a secret sci-fi lover, in that case we’re both rationality. And I’m actually a dreamer, so maybe we’re both imagination. What do you think?”
Kevin, remained still, hangs for a couple of second to be sure the other ended his discourse. After damning, again, that coffee, he decides to pronounce an answer.
“I don’t like literature. Actually, not even science. Maybe you’re both and I’m nothing.”
Jacob slightly pouts, adjusts his glasses, stares deeply at Kevin. This makes him shiver, because no one really stares at him, no one apart from Eric – for others he’s just a ghost in literary classes, and he doesn’t want anyone to associate him with an "imaginative” young boy. That’s not it.
“I think you actually like literature.” Jacob says after a few seconds.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“You like it. You have the face of a writer.”
Kevin stops and thinks about it. The face of a writer? He can’t decode if it’s an offense or not, but the tone the other is using it’s so convincing that almost makes Kevin believe this phrase is correct.
Kevin, what have you gotten into? Who is this guy? How does he know that you write?
He never thought about “what kind of face do I have”, he always associated that empty expression with something that represents him, a geometric figure in the mirror that he recognizes as himself. That’s what Kevin is, an opaque reflex, a mirror that’s actually empty, something that doesn’t fit into any category. That’s how he defines himself, he’s just Kevin. A point.
But in that mirror Jacob saw something. Maybe it’s because of the glasses, Kevin thinks jokingly, trying not to fall into the fear of being exposed as what he is.
“Uhm - “Jacob’s voice turns an octave lower, after that long silence, he’s more cautious and slower “- I just meant that you seem smart. Nothing creepy, I don’t spy on you!”
If he could do it, Kevin would sincerely laugh. He doesn’t even deny that he’s slightly smiling.
“It’s just that no one ever told me about what my face looks like. I’m just Kevin, I’m just someone.”
“Oh, I have received so many names.” Jacob shoves three sugar sachets in his coffee, extremely slowly, as everything he does. Kevin can’t stop staring at his hands, for some reasons.
“Like what?”
“Like- “here Jacob stops, lowers his head and almost laugh, embarrassed at the memories of how he’s been called. His laugh sounds like spring. “Maybe it’s better to not repeat them.”
Kevin nods, without moving his glance, still fixed on the other’s hand, he watches them moving so slowly, in total contrast with the chaos of the cafeteria. They’re pretty.
“Oh, I can imagine.” He murmurs, distract. In his head words are combining, bonding, he wants to write.
Jacob notices how the other is distracted and smiles again, this time not embarrassed, he smiles like a teen ready to pull out a prank. He adjusts his glasses, once again, and then reaches for Kevin’s cheek.
When the contact happens, Jacob’s soft and warm hand on Kevin’s cold cheek, it’s like a chemical reaction – electricity. A temperature shift.
Kevin pulls away.
“Why did you touch me?” His voice is a bit higher, almost scared; he didn’t remember what was it like to be touched, skin on skin, human warmth. Someone that he doesn’t even know. He dared to enter in his glacial and silent aurea, soft skin, as white as milk. He feels like he’s been dirtied.
Jacob quickly takes his hand back, not expecting this kind of reaction, as if he knifed him, as if he deeply hurt him by making contact.
“You were dozing off – and I just slightly touched you!” he explains. He doesn’t understand the reason for that kind of reaction, as if it’s something brutal, as if no one has ever touched Kevin’s face. Should he apologize or not? And even if he did, he wouldn’t know for what.
Kevin can’t stop thinking about it, doesn’t know why, he often bumps into other guys in the hallway, and Eric touches his hands or shoulders. But something like this, something voluntary, someone that really wanted to touch him… this never happened. Still, he doesn’t know why he reacted like that. It wasn’t bad, it’s just that it’s something too new and how to react is unknow to Kevin, how to react to someone who came near so abruptly.
Someone came near. Near Kevin, the empty mirror.
“I’m sorry,” Jacob murmurs, after having understood that Kevin’s reaction was involuntary, that he can’t understand his reaction, he can’t enter other’s lives like this. Walls that have been built for years, tall and invincible, fell apart with a hand on a cheek.
Kevin lowers his head, as always, calms himself, touches his cheek in the point where Jacob’s hand was. It wasn’t bad, but he still has that feeling on the skin, on him, as if his hand was still there.
All this for a damned coffee.
“… can you tell me beforehand? If you touch me again, can you tell me?” Kevin finally speaks, and when he does, he wants to shove himself under something, because he sounds so small and shy. He’s not like this, but words didn’t follow his thoughts and made him feel like a scared kitten that has to prepare himself at the contact with others.
If Haknyeon knew these thoughts, he would have said they’re true.
Jacob nods without speaking, behind his glasses his eyes are still worried, but they slowly relax and they come back at being the eyes of a tech-student that speak softly. How Kevin envies him, for this capability of showing his feelings, for how his smiles and stares change. They have known each other for not even an hour and Kevin already recognize some of his expressions, they’re so predictable, like the ones of a baby that sees the world for the first time. A world that he loves. The same world of which Kevin is scared.
“Can you lend me a piece of paper?” Kevin changes the subject and takes a paper and a pen without waiting for a response, doodles something that seems random but that has been well thought: something that Kevin was thinking for a while.
Glass doesn’t lie
About who you are
It stares and stares and shows
And you can just nod
And like this i saw
Who you are
Behind the glasses you wear
Even if in them
I also saw myself
( thanks for the coffee )
Kevin puts the pen down. Folds the sheet. Handles it to Jacob without speaking, also because now he’s not capable of it, all the words he had in mind are now on paper.
Kevin, in his head, has like a limit of words he can say in a day: the majority of them are written, so he’s not obliged to speak, he writes them because paper hears him better than anyone else. He writes them and he’s fine, he closes the books and never watches them again.
This time, for the first time, he gave them to someone else. Jacob. They stay silent.
Then he stands up, takes his backpack, doesn’t finish his coffee and starts to walk out of the cafeteria. He’s almost out, when a voice stops him.
“Kevin! I’m about to throw a paper at you!” and here it is, a paper ball softly hits Kevin’s head. He lowers to take it, almost laughing at Jacob’s warning, shoves it into his pocket and keeps on walking.
When, in his room, he opens that paper, he finds a bunch of numbers. After a sigh, without even noticing, he takes his phone: it’s perfectly undamaged, he barely uses it, there’s only some events in the calendar. He doesn’t really have someone to chat with, or something like that.
He takes a glance at that paper.
Maybe now he does.
09:34
Thank you for the coffee.
-Kevin
Then he stops. He can’t believe he did it. Why did he do that? There’s no reason to write a text to that weird guy, probably they don’t even have something in common, and Kevin doesn’t have the will to discover the - oh, he answered.
09:35
No worries! :)
-Cobie
What a quick answer. With an emoticon. Boring. And he even called himself “Cobie”, how cheeky. It’s like he had it ready for when Kevin would have texted him, as if he knew he would have done it.
Kevin almost laugh and says “in his dreams”, then he realizes he actually texted him. But now it ended. He thanked him and there’s no other reason to answer. Then the phone rings again, with that cringy ringtone that Kevin hates, or at least he thinks so, trying not to think about the fact that he received… a cat pic? Two cats in a field?
09:36
Here’s two kittens to celebrate my mew friend!
-Cobie
Oh no. He can’t stop himself from answering this. It’s the last text, he swears.
09:36
Jacob, I can’t believe you really wrote that...
-Kevin
09:36
You know that only my mom calls me Jacob? Can’t you call me Cob or Jake?
09:37
But I’m your mother, Jacob.
09:37
Oh my god, mom! You look so young!
Kevin, Kevin, what are you doing?
It’s just this time, he says to himself, just today and then he’ll keep on having his phone and mouth shut, as himself, as his world.
It’s just today. Then he’ll come back on being Kevin.
Maybe the happy one, the one he left in Canada. Who knows.
Actually, five months later, a lot of texts later, a lot of of Kevin saying “stop” in the middle of classes, a lot of times in which he wanted to end it and then kept on chatting, a lot of coffee later, a lot of “Kevin, may I touch you?” later, everything keeps on going.
Kevin sometimes still damns that coffee, that morning. And sometimes he doesn’t.
The mirror in which he reflects is almost fully colored now, and he’s scared about it, and he’s happy about it, then he’s scared again.
Accepting his feeling would mean accepting the fear that sometimes invades him, would mean accepting the emptiness, accepting the things he writes, accepting himself. Kevin doesn’t know if he’s ready. Haknyeon has no idea on what to say, he’s already surprised on seeing him smile.
Everything for that damn coffee.
Kevin looks at the sunflowers out of his window, then his stare shifts to the diary in which he closed himself for month, in which his feelings and emotions are hidden, everything. The diary in which, now, there are drawings and bees in every corner, because Jacob said they will bring him luck.
Their handwritings melting together in each page.
He smiles, stares at his watch, black leather, it almost shines on Kevin’s white wrist. His skin, so soft and delicate, is now full of Jacob’s touch, his fingerprints everywhere, but he keeps on asking permission.
The answer is always “Yes you may.”
Another smile, thinking about it, then a worried stare at the watch.
11:25, 31 seconds. 32. 33. 34. 35.
“Kevin!” something stops that slow passing of the time, thhose tickling seconds. And here’s Jacob at the door, now without his glasses, his shirt full of wrinkles. “I overslept, I know, don’t be mad at me, I brought coffee!”
His breath is short and the two cups in his hands are trembling, thank God nothing spilled, Kevin forgives him for this and because he’s not able to be angry at him.
“You have an exam tomorrow and I was waiting for you to study together. If you don’t pass, I’ll never help you again!” Kevin takes one of the cups and takes a sip, it’s overly sweet, as Jacob likes it, but he keeps on drinking.
“I know, I know…” Jacob slides a hand between his blonde hair, making them messier than before, then he sits on the floor crossing legs and takes a sip of his coffee, it’s bitter, as Kevin likes it, but it’s fine. “I have studied a lot. Ask me question, I’ll answer!”
“How can I ask you questions if I don’t know what you’re studying?” Kevin, drinking his 3-parts-of-sugar-and-1-of-coffee, watches Jacob from his chair and almost laugh at his face. He admits his being smart and modestly acculturate, but tech really isn’t for him. He could almost say he likes literature, compared to it.
“Okay, can I ask you a question, then?” Jacob’s eyes shine while he speaks, his voice lower than ever, he never used that tone before. In his stare there’s a touch of nervousness, on his lips and on his hands, slightly trembling. There’s something wrong.
“About what?”
“Do I have to ask permission for everything?”
Kevin doesn’t understand that question, so he just nods. Is it about another exam? He’s convinced there’s something like that, his mind is empty, and absolutely doesn’t expect the question that comes out of Jacob’s lips.
“Can I kiss you?”
Silence. Total silence.
Something changed. Something in Kevin. He writes different stuff.
He doesn’t know what he writes, short poems, sometimes poetry, other times diary pages, haikus, songs, lyrics.
When he’s bored, almost always, he finds himself wandering into words, into ink stains, into the feeling that he never showed: anger, envy, even joy, tiredness, boredom, emptiness.
But he just discovered something else.
There’s a last thing written on his agenda.
When two opposite poles
Meet
There’s electricity
Like the sun
And the moon
That everyday try
Not to be near each other
To avoid
That their love
Could turn everything into flames
There’s something new.
It’s electricity. Two opposite poles meet.