Archive of Our Own ^beta

as soon as the new semester began, students started wiping down all the floors in the school with wax as though they were washing its face, forcefully awakening it from its winter break slumber. the start of the new semester during the last week of february was always a noisy, troublesome, woozy affair.

a pair of white indoor shoes landed on the carefully cleaned floor of the hallway. morning sunlight escaped through the wooden window frame and shone the dust that was fluttering afloat in the air. jinki slipped into the white shoes and placed the sneakers he’d been carrying inside shoe cabinet 32. after dropping off the sneakers, his hand skipped along the shabby wooden partitions and went left, left, stopped momentarily; then moved left, left, up, up. its final destination was number 7. shoe cabinet 7, rather than holding the traditional contents of a shoe cabinet, was full to the brim solely with letters.

jinki’s index finger traced the worn, ragged brim of shoe cabinet 7. he looked over his shoulder carefully, scanning his surroundings to ensure no one was watching. it was still a little early for the other students to show up. morning sunlight pooled in the empty hallway, gradually growing as big as jinki’s hesitation. the hand that had been shyly tracing the outline of the shoe cabinet took a letter, just barely holding onto its very edge. jinki lowered his eyes meekly as if to prove that he wasn’t up to anything. his heart was thumping loudly in his chest.

after hurriedly entering the stall at the farthest end of the bathroom, jinki leaned against the cold tiles and let out a deep breath. the letter he was holding tightly with both hands was written on pale pink stationery patterned with lace. jinki looked around to make sure no one was watching him, even within the safety of the bathroom stall. only after confirming that no one was there did he swallow thickly, rip the envelope open, and take out the letter inside. the dry sound of the paper unfolding reverberated on the tiled wall of the bathroom. at the very top of the letter was written, 'to jonghyun.'

to jonghyun
annyeong, jonghyunah....... i’m not sure what to say now that i imagine you reading this letter. first, let me introduce myself. i’m in the 12th grade at jeil high school for girls-

jinki’s face was calm and earnest as he read a love letter that was addressed to someone else. every so often, his deep, dark eyes blinked within the long line of his lids.

at lunch time, students came and huddled all around jonghyun. seeing him surrounded by a crowd was nothing new -- but since he was holding a famous radio dj's autograph today, it went without saying that the class was worked up to even more of a frenzy than usual.

“kim jonghyun was seriously the best yesterday.”

the boys all stared at jonghyun in envy, yet their eyes contained no hint of jealousy.

there was a radio program that was popular among high school students which aired from 8 o’clock to 10 o’clock -- or at times 10 o’clock to 12 o’clock -- and held quarterly singing competitions with listeners as its contestants. be king of songs for the day! find the hidden master! a promising singing champion! at any rate, all kinds of titles for good singers were ready made and many people rose to the challenge. jonghyun had begun participating in these singing competitions when he'd entered high school last year, and had soon found himself a bona fide radio star.

jonghyun had yet to win the title of “king of songs” or “singing champion,” but he won the popularity award each time without fail. the listeners were a given, but the dj, who was a famous singer himself, had also taken a liking to jonghyun. every now and then the dj would bring up jonghyun’s name during radio broadcasts, even when it was completely unrelated to the topic at hand. it was as if jonghyun had become a distant nephew of the radio program.

jinki, too, squeezed in next to his classmates and stared up at jonghyun, who was sitting on the edge of his desk. even though he was wearing the same uniform as everyone else, there was something different about the way it fit jonghyun’s frame.

“the building is really nice. broadcasting stations are pretty flashy for the most part. the security is super intimidating, too, but that’s what makes it cool, you know? celebrities are celebrities, but they don’t allow just anyone to go in since they do news and stuff, too. honestly, i thought the hallways would be lined with celebrities once i got inside but it wasn’t like that, either. ahh, but i saw those guys! noise. noise!”¹

“what about female celebrities?”

“...i saw the ones that were on the news.......”

typically, wherever a large number of people gathered, a group dynamic would naturally occur. a commander would emerge who either ruled or lead, and the remaining majority would become the good-natured masses that followed behind. sometimes, a few among them would get neglected for trivial reasons, becoming relegated to one rank below the masses to serve as the stepping stones for this dynamic. still others would be able to shake off this group dynamic altogether, and rise to the top to become brightly shining stars. kim jonghyun was one such star.

none of the students had what you could call a close friendship or tight bond with jonghyun, but they still liked to raise him on a pedestal as someone special. as jonghyun became more and more successful and well-known across the nation, they all seemed to think that being classmates with someone as famous as him would make the rest of them special, too. every school had its star, but it was rare for that star to become acknowledged by the masses; and for this reason, jonghyun was a star that filled them with pride.

as jonghyun got up from his seat, a few students including jinki very naturally followed his lead. they were the boys who were considered jonghyun’s closest circle of friends. it was when they'd been going into the 11th grade that jinki had become part of this group. jinki had been best friends with haeyeon since middle school, and haeyeon had become extremely close with jonghyun once they’d entered high school. when they went into the 11th grade, the three of them had finally been brought together in the same class.

jonghyun didn’t purposely draw attention to his fatigue, but he didn't make any effort to conceal it, either. haeyeon, who had taken over a nook in the snack bar, seemed to understand his weariness and lightly -- but maturely -- began a conversation about something ordinary. in this group of friends, there was an unspoken rule about not mentioning jonghyun’s radio appearances.

“what are you doing when exams are over?”

final exams for the first semester of 11th grade were fast approaching. at haeyeon’s question, jinki quietly pictured the summer weather that would grow hotter and hotter until it plunged the whole world into a sauna. but even the sizzling asphalt roads would be difficult to see this year since they would be locked up at school for supplementary classes during summer break.

“wanna go to incheon?”

“it’s too far. can’t be bothered. isn’t there anything else we could do?”

“let’s go to the valley. the valley! we can bring watermelon and samgyeopsal.”

wait, are we going with jonghyun? the realization suddenly hit jinki, who had been contemplating other fun things they could do, and his eyes widened in shock. he always tried to come across as cool and indifferent as haeyeon, but getting to do things with jonghyun still felt like special occasions to him. jinki drew his face into a serious expression in a deliberate attempt to conceal his swelling heart.

at that moment, tinny, low-quality music started flowing from the school’s loudspeaker. it wasn’t long before jinki realized it was the song that jonghyun had sung the night before on the radio. it seemed someone had recorded his appearance. the endless days i spent lost and wandering, i love you. your every gesture means the world to me. jonghyun raised his eyebrow. i love you, deep within my heart, forever-.

“hey, it’s a recording. someone’s passionate?” teased haeyeon.

jonghyun scowled in disgust at haeyeon. i love you, your every gesture means the world to me, i love you, deep within my heart, forever. jinki sang along silently in his head. the tears that flow all night as i lean against the window alone. even though the song was originally performed by a woman, it didn’t sound awkward at all when jonghyun sang it.

jonghyun studied jinki, who was staring off into space all alone in silence. jinki, wistful about the song finally coming to an end after its many refrains, turned his head -- only to hurriedly lower his gaze when he made eye contact with jonghyun. feeling like he’d been caught sitting in front of a small cassette with his ears perked, rushing to hit the red record button like he’d done the night before, he blushed.

jonghyun liked being the school celebrity; but on the other hand, it annoyed him. at times, he enjoyed it, but at other times, he shunned it. such reactions were possible because jonghyun always wore his heart on his sleeve. when he was in a good mood, he got excited by the other students’ responses and exaggerated stories to draw out reactions from them. when he was in a bad mood, however, he found their interest tiresome and got visibly irritated.

objectively speaking, it was obvious that being a school celebrity was a bothersome role. the students’ demands for anecdotes from the broadcasting station were neverending. for jonghyun, just visiting the broadcasting station a couple of times didn’t mean he automatically had new stories to tell. it wasn’t like a monster lived at the broadcasting station, or like they had plants and animals you couldn’t see anywhere else. even teachers asked him for autograph favours when he requested permission for absences to go to radio competitions. some people were already asking him for ten, even a hundred signed autographs.

out of the countless annoying things about being 'famous,' yet another one was the love letters that filled his shoe cabinet each day.

since last year, a trend had spread throughout the all girls’ schools in the area: to write a love letter to jonghyun. initially, jonghyun had swelled with pride over his classmates’ envious looks and would sometimes ostentatiously recite his love letters on the spot.

'ohh, fuck. this is giving me goosebumps!!!'

for boys that age, the feeling that girls expressed of liking someone -- or rather, the idea of liking someone and coming to terms with such a feeling -- was simply unfathomable. sentences that illustrated such emotions were unwelcome and repulsive; although of course, receiving such a letter and experiencing those feelings were still something to be desired. for jonghyun, complaining about getting goosebumps and putting on a show of suffering had been his way of enjoying the whole experience, and he'd even thought it was a display of humility. such recitals hadn't continued for long, however.

the letters didn’t show any signs of slowing down, and their numbers increased with each passing day despite jonghyun not having sent a single reply. when the number of letters had surpassed the amount he could read, throwing the pile of letters that were stuffed into his shoe cabinet straight into the garbage became part of jonghyun’s daily morning routine.

“girls are so gross,” said jonghyun to jinki, who was waiting for the same bus as him. it was just after haeyeon had taken a different bus and disappeared from sight.

“they write down every single little thought that they’d never even say out loud in their letters. in letters, every girl becomes a literature student. where and when have they ever seen me to supposedly like me so much?”

the bus arrived, and jonghyun climbed on first.

“do they sell love letter textbooks at the stationery store or something? i swear all of them sound exactly the same, from start to finish.”

regardless of whether or not the writer revealed her name, to jonghyun, the letters were all one-sided confessions from the same sea of anonymity. there were simply too many letters delivered each day for any one of them to carry any kind of significance. the single letters that jinki stole each morning were the only ones that ever got read.

“well, apparently it’s become a trend to write you a letter,” said jinki.

jonghyun frowned in irritation. he thought about how he never got to leave his shoes in his shoe cabinet anymore. ever since last year, they would always get stolen within a few days whenever he put them there.

“why do they have to steal my shoes though? it’s nasty.”

“it makes sense. people can’t go very far without their shoes. i guess it’s their way of telling you to stay by their side?”

sitting side by side with jinki at the very back of the bus, jonghyun’s face twisted into an expression of horror.

“lee jinki. you’re a sly one. how do you come up with such things?”

a look of bewilderment spread across jinki’s face. flustered by jonghyun’s accusation, he stammered,

“no, i’m not saying i would be like that..”

“who said that? i just mean it’s surprising that your mind could actually go there. watch out for lee jinki, everyone!”

jinki clamped his mouth shut as his face flushed a deep crimson red. his heart swooped to the bottom of his stomach and he broke out in a cold sweat.

oblivious to jinki’s nerves, jonghyun changed the subject to the sneakers he’d bought a few days earlier. 'i’m never letting these ones get stolen,' he said. jinki followed jonghyun’s gaze and looked down at his shoes. his lips quivered in an effort to say something about them. he wanted to keep the conversation going, but his head was clouded over by a thick, white fog.

whenever the bus shook, jonghyun’s weight shifted momentarily and lightly fell on jinki’s body before lifting away again. each time, jinki parted his lips to try to say something. while running through topics such as the weather that day and little things that had happened during class, it suddenly occurred to him that he wanted to ask jonghyun if he wanted to become a singer. but he wasn’t sure how to go about asking him such a thing, and in the end the question died on his tongue before it ever escaped his lips.

jinki could always remember how jonghyun was afraid of bees. most people were afraid of bees, but it seemed jonghyun was a little bit more afraid of them than most people.

it had been during fifth period one day at the start of the semester, before the first saturday had even come around. a new homeroom teacher, a new classroom, new classmates, new textbooks. at a time when everything had still felt slightly out of place, a guest everyone was already well acquainted with -- namely, spring fatigue -- had come and enveloped the class with open arms. like moles escaping into their tunnels, students’ heads had started falling to their desks one by one and jonghyun’s also nodded off in sync to their rhythm.

meanwhile, a bee that had been meandering in the flower garden on the first floor took flight in chase of idyllic dreams, and soon glided through the window into the third-floor classroom. the bee whirled in beautiful shapes around jonghyun’s ear; it seemed to have mistaken it for a flower. buzz, buzz. buzz, buzz. buzz, buzz. jonghyun woke with a start and ran to the other side of the classroom, shaking off his whole body while the history teacher and his classmates -- who hadn’t yet escaped the birth of the four great ancient civilizations -- stared at him in bemusement. a moment later, the classroom erupted with laughter.

jonghyun claimed he wasn’t afraid of bees -- it was just that he didn’t like them. they dared to fly when he couldn’t and had the ability to harm humans, and on top of all that, they were noisy. jonghyun insisted that he hadn’t run all the way to the hallway from his seat by the window just because he’d been scared. his classmates hooted and jeered in response; jonghyun's shoulders deflated in defeat and he let out a hollow laugh.

jinki, who had been twisted around in his seat, observed jonghyun for a long time. jonghyun had an innate ability to make the people around him tense up or relax. at the sound of the history teacher smacking his desk, the rest of the students turned around to face the front, but jinki stayed in his position and continued looking at jonghyun. when the students’ focus had finally turned away from him, jonghyun raised his hand to his chest and sighed in relief. he then looked over at his seat by the window and sighed once more -- this time, in dismay.

jinki could remember the way he’d looked back then.

the firmly folded letters always made a crisp sound as they opened up. the sound was particularly clearer when the letter was unfolded in an empty bathroom, and jinki thought to himself that this must be the same sound you heard when you opened someone’s heart. a bright yellow envelope, and a lighter, ivory-coloured sheet of paper -- this was the stolen letter jinki would be reading today.

most of the girls in our class write you letters. none of us ever really used to write them, but these days we’re all pouring our heart and souls into it. i don’t even know how many years it’s been since i last wrote a letter. i just wanted to tell you, thank you. jonghyunah, for giving us these butterflies, thank you so much.

it was a short letter; but jinki couldn’t bring himself to fold it back up and kept reading and rereading the single paragraph. he suddenly felt overwhelmed with how pathetic it was of him to sneak into the bathroom to secretly read someone else’s letter every morning. no,-- within that very same feeling, something else he couldn’t put a name to was swelling and swelling and filling him up to the point where it was hard to breathe.

for the first time since he’d started reading the letters, jinki was filled with the desire to reply. he wanted to write a reply. he wanted to send a reply. not as jinki, but as the object of this girl’s fluttering heart. but this was something that would only be possible as kim jonghyun.

jonghyun was once again surrounded by his classmates. he was clapping his hands, and his shoulders were shaking with laughter. standing in the empty hallway, jinki gazed motionlessly at the shoe cabinet. number 7. because the numbers were assigned alphabetically, jonghyun was always within the top 10, while jinki was always in the high 20s or low 30s.² the distance between number 7 and number 32. jinki traced along this distance with his index finger, and went into the classroom to quietly take his place in the seat that was the equivalent distance apart from jonghyun’s.

from the simple fact that jonghyun sat beside, beside, beside, behind, behind, behind him, jinki’s heart pounded uncontrollably.

the next day, jonghyun stood alarmed by the unfamiliar sight before him: his shoe cabinet was completely empty. the letters that had searched for him so tirelessly had all but vanished into thin air.

thanks to the hole that had been punctured to the start of his daily routine, jonghyun felt strange and unfamiliar to his own self. he put his bag on top of his desk with a surly look on his face. when he turned around to search for his group of friends, he suddenly found jinki standing there, staring back at him. jinki’s hands were full of letters.

jonghyun unconsciously let out a sigh of relief.

“what the.. were you the one that took them out?”

“yeah, jonghyunah.”

jonghyun kept his eyes on jinki as he called his name and sat down in his chair. i knew it. there’s no way the letters wouldn’t come. he reached out to take the bundle of letters away from jinki, but jinki flinched and took a step back; he was on his guard, protecting the letters. his hand still awkwardly hovering in the air, jonghyun looked up at jinki with wide, questioning eyes. jinki and jonghyun, who had only started hanging out in the 11th grade thanks to haeyeon, didn’t yet have what you could call a remarkable friendship. they were friendly, sure. but were they close? jinki had a tense look on his face.

“what is it?” asked jonghyun.

“i. i,”

“what?”

“this letter..”

“uh huh.”

“could i write a reply for it?”

“huh?”

“you don’t even read them anyway. couldn’t i just write them back pretending to be you? 'i appreciate it, but i can’t go out with you. i’m sorry.' just stuff like that, nothing that would cause you harm.”

“forget it. what would you bother doing that for? it’ll only make things worse.”

“it’s ok. i’ll make sure they won’t be a bother to you.”

“how're you gonna reply to them all when they come by the armful every single day?”

“if i slowly write them back one at a time, won’t i someday be able to reply to all of them?”

jonghyun’s expression turned sour as he looked at jinki.

“why would you do that. ‘someday’? you mean you want to keep doing this for a long time?”

jinki nodded.

soon, students started flocking around jonghyun as usual and jonghyun suddenly felt a strong repulsion toward this pattern he'd become so accustomed to. he didn’t want to deal with jinki any longer. but this was really because he didn’t want to deal with the letters any longer.

“do whatever you want.”

“ok.”

jinki nodded enthusiastically and started turning around, only to turn back again and look at jonghyun. 'thanks,' he said. jonghyun, who had already started talking and laughing with his classmates, belatedly recalled jinki’s last words and craned his neck to search for him. near the middle of the classroom, jinki was sitting alone in his seat and carefully reading each of the letters that had been sent to jonghyun.

that kid.. was his seat always so far away?

jonghyun shivered at a sudden sense of alienation.

“that guy, he’s so weird,” he said.

jonghyun’s deskmate haeyeon turned his head to follow his stare. seeing jinki, he blinked slowly.

jonghyun stared at his empty shoe cabinet. everything felt so unfamiliar. he stooped down and continued staring deep inside the cabinet for quite some time. after jinki had stepped forward saying he’d write the replies, a new scene had become part of his daily routine. instead of going straight inside, jonghyun peered into the classroom from the windows in the hallway. jinki, who always came to school early in the morning, was stooped over his desk in the middle of the classroom, pressing words into a pretty piece of coloured paper with his pen.

no matter how much i try, i just don’t get it.
why is he going through all this trouble?

jonghyun puffed out his cheeks and glared sullenly at jinki. he remained this way for a long time, silent and still.

it didn’t take long for the other boys to gather round when jonghyun sat at the very back of the classroom. usually, jinki also joined his classmates and sat near jonghyun, ears perked and eyes twinkling at all the stories he was telling. now, however, he paid no attention to jonghyun and instead focused his energy on writing letters on his behalf. jonghyun purposely exaggerated his laughter by clapping his hands and stomping his feet, but jinki took no heed of his efforts. it was only after a few days had passed that jonghyun finally realized jinki had been wearing earphones the entire time.

jinki, who had been calmly writing a letter of gentle rejection while absorbed in his music, felt one of his earphones fall out and glanced up. jonghyun stuck the earphone in his own ear and sat next to jinki.

“what is this, ‘white winter’? why are you listening to a winter song in the middle of summer?”

“ah, i recorded this last year.”

jonghyun took jinki’s mymy cassette player into his hands.³ he could see the rapid winding of the tape through the clear window of its case.

“what else do you have on here?”

“haebaragi songs.”

“geez. your taste is kinda.. don’t you have anything more recent?”

“‘white winter’ is the most recent song i have..”

at this, jonghyun nodded and placed the mymy back on jinki’s desk. from the looks of it it seemed he'd continue sitting beside him in silence, but soon enough he opened his mouth again to speak.

“so, how’s the letter writing going?”

the letters called for jonghyun day after day. jonghyunah, jonghyunah. annyeong, annyeong. jinki had quickly come to understand why jonghyun had grown so tired of these letters. jonghyunah, jonghyunah. annyeong. i, i. you, you. jinki kept covering and uncovering jonghyun’s name with his index finger. annyeong, annyeong. i heard you singing on the radio. i heard you sing. not long after, jinki had also come to understand the reason why jonghyun didn’t like the letters. jonghyunah, jonghyunah, annyeong, annyeong. so i, i. you, you. you. you. you. you. so you. no. you. i. i. i. jinki felt like he might be able to understand the fact that sometimes, it was impossible to tell the difference between something you hated and something you feared.

“about that. i did write the replies.. but i forgot to consider how i would actually deliver them.”

“oh yeah. you don’t have any addresses or anything, right?”

“no. so i went to the schools myself.”

“what?!”

jonghyun cried out in genuine surprise.

“those girls probably all think i’m your henchman or something.”

“are you an idiot? why would you do that?”

jinki only flashed a grin in reply. one of his eyes crinkled shut a little more tightly than the other.

“maybe it's that lee jinki just feels sorry for all those letters?” suggested haeyeon, who had skipped supplementary class and was now sitting in the snack bar. it was just after jonghyun had said, 'there’s something wrong with that lee jinki kid' while shaking his head in the seat across from him. jonghyun didn’t like the fact that he and jinki still felt awkward around each other. haeyeon, who’d gone to middle school with jinki and was also his best friend, didn’t agree with jonghyun’s accusation -- but neither did he argue with him. on the contrary, haeyeon reflected about the matter calmly and neutrally.

“i’ve seen jinki look at the letters in the trash with a pitying look on his face every once in a while.”

“well isn’t he just full of compassion.”

“you’re such a moron. do you really think he’d literally feel sorry for the letters themselves? because he’s afraid the letters would feel hurt or something? it’s the writers' sincerity and devotion that he feels sorry for.”

jonghyun’s eyebrows twitched. he sensed a biting tone to haeyeon’s words, but chose not to get defensive just yet.

“i still think he’s being a nosy parker. in any case.”

“ah, or. maybe lee jinki’s had his own painful experience with unrequited love.”

“..lee jinki, has he liked anyone before?”

“i don’t know, either.”

“you said you went to middle school with him.”

“well it’s not like jinki would ask for my permission to like someone.”

the more he talked to haeyeon, the more jonghyun’s mood plummeted. has he liked someone really passionately before? is that why he couldn’t just let go of the letters?

“on another note, don’t you think jinki seems like the type that would go for student teachers?”

another boy started talking rot out of nowhere. ‘he’s all gentle and innocent-looking so he seems like the type to follow the student teacher really well. and there’s some student teachers that get letters written to them too.’ -- ‘ooh, are you talking about in 10th grade? which student teacher from then?’

there were also days where no letters came.

on a completely ordinary thursday, something colossal crumbled to pieces and many people got trapped beneath the rubble. the news that poured out in the evening and the papers that flew in in the morning were full of images of total destruction, where nothing but the two sides of an elevator tower remained in the shape of the number 11. people were trapped in concrete; and if not in concrete, they were trapped in fear. the collapsed department store summoned up memories of the subway in daegu that had exploded a few months before, and all the people that had exploded with it, along with the bridge that had fallen the previous year, and all the people it had taken into the water with it. thanks to this, everyone became slightly hysterical. everything was going to collapse. everything was going to explode. hospitals, the national assembly building, schools, airports, our house, me, you. everyone went to school on friday, but there was no way anyone could focus on their classes.⁴

it was only on the day after a college student was rescued approximately 230 hours after the collapse that the letters began to arrive again. after that, two female employees were rescued. the spread of a religious proposition that claimed ‘an optimistic outlook on life provides strength during times of calamity’ pulled citizens out of their fear, and one by one they began to resume their lives as people who were simply a little more hysterical than they had been before.

jonghyun climbed onto the bus and headed for the seats at the very back. jinki followed after him.

“they’re still holding exams after all. it’s so cruel.”

jonghyun's mouth hung open as he rolled his eyes in a pained expression. students were still cautious about complaining, but it was true that they were in distress. for the time being at least, they’d pledged not to take the subway, cross the bridge to go to gangnam, or to go anywhere near department stores.

“oh, yeah.”

jonghyun lightly clapped his hands together; it seemed he’d suddenly remembered something. he unzipped the pocket at the front of his backpack and handed out a cassette tape to jinki. jinki accepted it reflexively, but opened his eyes widely and asked jonghyun what it was.

“so you can listen to some new songs. last time i listened to your mix, it was all haebaragi, dongmulwon. ugh, don’t you think it’s a bit much? there’s so many good songs nowadays!”

“did you record them?”

jonghyun nodded his head coolly, then grinned.

“yourself?”

“of course! radio’s king of popularity hand-picked these songs and recorded them for you. cap, right?”⁵

jinki looked down at the tape he'd grasped in his hands. the little slip of paper inside the case was crammed full of artist names and song titles in jonghyun’s writing.

“the korean pop scene is going through a paradigm shift right now! it’s chaos, chaos, just chaos! music unlike anything you’ve ever seen or heard of is coming out nowadays. soon there won’t even be a need to listen to american music anymore.”

jinki burst into laughter and nodded. whenever he laughed, one eye squeezed shut just slightly harder than the other. jonghyun snuck a glance at jinki to gauge his current mood.

“hey. how’s the letter writing going?”

jinki’s face immediately crumpled with unease. he glanced down at the painfully swollen middle finger on his right hand, which was still holding jonghyun’s mixtape.

“it’s about the same.”

“those freaks. they need to give it a rest during exam period.”

“jonghyunah.”

“yeah?”

“are you going to become a singer?”

at jinki’s sudden inquiry, jonghyun forgot all about his own question and focused instead on what to answer. he slumped his body and replied.

“i don’t know.”

“you don’t know? i thought for sure you’d say you’re gonna be a singer.”

“i’m not sure yet. i like to sing, but would i still like it if i had to do it for a living? even when i went on radio, i got really pissed off at all the ahjussis telling me how to do this and that.”

jinki nodded.

“and this is kind of embarrassing to admit, but.. i’m not that great at singing.”

jonghyun shrugged and purposely dragged his lips into a smile. he’d just shared an intimate thought he rarely revealed in front of others, lest he hurt his pride.

“to be honest……. i wrote ‘i’m going to become a singer’ in the letters. 'that’s why i can’t date anyone right now. because it could cause problems for us when i become a singer. you understand, right?' like that.”

“what, who said you could just decide i’m gonna be a singer?”

jonghyun chuckled and shoved jinki’s shoulder. jinki put jonghyun’s tape into his mymy player. he handed an earphone out to jonghyun, who stuck it into his ear without hesitation. with the sound of a click, the songs that jonghyun had recorded began flowing out one by one.

“in my opinion, you’re really good at singing.”

jinki remarked casually just as the first song was transitioning into the next. jonghyun turned his head and searched jinki’s face. he stared at his lips, which were pressed together tightly as if they’d never spoken a word. then he thought to himself how round and plump jinki’s cheeks were.

a bedroom door draped with a poster of michael jackson swung open and jonghyun stepped inside, dragging his bag on the floor. each step he took sent cassette tapes and CDs spinning across the floor; the mess was the aftermath of him tearing through his cassettes, CD collection, and his own head in order to create the best mixtape possible the night before. i should clean this up before mom sees and threatens to throw everything out, jonghyun thought, but he was already flinging himself on top of his bed.

the shoe cabinet was empty yet again. jonghyun peered into cabinet 7 with one shoe in each hand. the school was quiet, but there were still a few people around. jonghyun had rushed to arrive early but jinki had beaten him again, as always. he shifted his gaze to shoe cabinet 32. a white pair of sneakers sat obediently inside, just like its owner. jonghyun turned around and squinted into the classroom through the window. the sight of jinki working away at the letters with his earphones in made him feel sick to his stomach.

i even made a mixtape for him yesterday.

jonghyun puffed out his cheeks and released the air noisily through his lips. he repeated this a few times. for some reason, his stomach wouldn’t stop twisting into painful knots.

“lee jinki, i just can’t figure that kid out.”

haeyeon shrugged instead of offering jonghyun a reply.

“he’s replying to all my letters, you know that?”

“which one of us here doesn’t know that?”

jonghyun’s face stiffened when he realized haeyeon wasn’t going to take his side so easily. but jinki’s behaviour was so foreign to him, and for this reason it was starting to get on his nerves.

“choi haeyeon, i can’t believe you hung out with lee jinki. jinki’s so introverted and quiet.”

haeyeon snorted.

“jinki must still be shy around you. he’s not introverted at all. he’s hilarious. he caused a lot of trouble in middle school, too. although he’s not one of those bad kids.”

jonghyun gave a look of disbelief.

“it’s because he doesn’t feel close to you yet.”

after hearing this, jonghyun’s stomach twisted even harder. he pressed his lips into a thin line and filled a corner of his textbook with black scratches until he’d used up an entire stick of lead. haeyeon was nodding off beside him, free of any worries. so annoying. i’m so annoyed. hate it. hate everything. i’m sick of it. i’m so sick of it. the pencil lead snapped and the tip of his automatic pencil ripped into the worn out page of his textbook. when he lifted his head and looked toward a familiar direction, he could see jinki killing time by slicing his eraser into little bits with a box cutter behind the makeshift screen of his textbook.

jonghyun could remember the way jinki looked when he sang. the music teacher, who had majored in woodwind instruments, wasn’t skilled when it came to keyboards. whenever he clumsily attempted to play the piano the students would begin to snicker, and their snickers would eventually evolve into full blown laughter. the good-natured music teacher didn’t get angry at the students’ ridicule -- he merely felt a little dispirited and discouraged. thankfully, even among the sea of dark boys’ faces, there were usually one or two students that could play the piano in each class. living up to everyone’s expectations, the pianist in this class was jonghyun.

one day in april, jonghyun had been forced to perform ‘spring maiden’ 43 times. rather than bringing about the feeling of spring, the ‘spring maiden’ everyone had been singing under their breaths since early morning only succeeded in creating an ominous atmosphere in the classroom. it went without saying that there were hardly any students who were aiming to get the best mark on the vocals test, and even fewer had managed to remember there was supposed to be a test at all in the first place. jonghyun, who had been assigned the role of accompanist, had also completely forgotten about the vocals test.

none of the students could memorize a single line properly even while standing in front of the piano. here comes the spring maiden. it was rare for a student to be able to sing past this opening line. the music teacher, who was so gentle to the point of being too gentle, couldn’t bring himself to cut off the students’ singing midway -- which tacitly forced them to stand awkwardly in front of the piano for two whole minutes until the song came to an end. ultimately, it was only poor jonghyun who had to play through the entirety of ‘spring maiden’ each time to no avail.

after the tenth student’s gruesome result, the teacher allotted ten minutes for the students to prepare and pleaded with them to at least memorize the lyrics. sitting alone at the piano, jonghyun looked at the lyrics for the first time and hummed the notes. here comes the spring maiden, dressed in fresh new foliage. donning a white cloud veil and shoes of pearly dew. with the bouquet in her arms, who could she be coming for. the music teacher added an excessive request to appreciate how beautifully the lyrics of the song personified the coming of spring.

if she’s coming, she’s coming. why do they have to say ‘here she comes’?
what’s ‘foliage’?
a ‘veil’?
what does it mean by ‘who’?

even haeyeon, who had previously claimed trivial matters such as this were meaningless to a man of substance like himself, was reading the lyrics again and again in the effort to commit them to memory. jinki, too, was furiously memorizing the words with his nose buried in his music book.

finally, jinki stood in front of the piano. put another way, he was standing beside jonghyun. with his legs crossed, the music teacher reached his hand out and signalled for them to begin. the old wooden floorboards creaked with each movement jinki made. having received the signal to start, jonghyun snuck a glance at jinki. he was staring at the hill that stood beyond the window of the music room; it seemed like he was nervous. jonghyun’s fingers pressed down on the keys. jinki missed the first beat and belatedly started to sing.

here comes the spring maiden. dressed in fresh new foliage.

jonghyun, who had been playing the music detachedly, opened his eyes wide and stared at jinki. he had memorized the sheet music after playing through it so many times, so his fingers continued their movement as he watched jinki. he’d known jinki normally had a nice voice when he spoke, but hearing his singing voice was something new. it was a pure, and gentle voice. perhaps because he was singing a classical song, jonghyun thought to himself that jinki’s voice sounded elegant -- then he shuddered with the corniness of it all and erased the thought from his mind.

this punk, he’s got a nice voice.

his rhythm was just slightly offbeat, but everything else was good. his voice had a nice tone, and his pitch was perfect.

on the way to her dear one does she pass my house. how very odd and sweet, could she be coming for me. as though foolish and sorry, should i venture to ask. jinki was the first student to sing the second verse properly. his classmates buzzed with a strange noise in envy. jinki, who had been staring out the window stiff as a frozen corpse, let out a deep sigh of relief only after jonghyun’s piano accompaniment had ended.

the floorboards creaked again as jinki turned around to head back to his seat. the students began to discuss what “mianko” could possibly mean, which turned into loud nonsense about wanting to eat double biancos.⁶ the next student flinchingly made his way next to jonghyun, who began to play once more. ‘as though foolish and sorry, should i venture to ask.’ do they mean they’re going to ask spring? jonghyun, who'd only heard the rest of the lyrics when jinki had sung them, tilted his head in curiosity. what exactly are they wanting to ask? he eventually looked out through the window jinki had been gazing at. a sky saturated with water was spreading out, slowly and endlessly.

this is so annoying. seriously.

jonghyun wrote the line could she be coming for me at the corner of his textbook, then crossed it out in big strokes.

jinki unconsciously fidgeted with his hands, then started scratching the callous on his right middle finger. the callous had set in like a scab, and jinki ripped at it absent-mindedly. the layer of skin peeled away like a sticker and revealed new skin underneath that was still tender to the touch. jinki continued to write replies to letters on behalf of their recipient each day, but even haeyeon, who usually didn’t concern himself with others’ affairs, didn’t seem too pleased about what jinki was doing. his reasoning was that more and more, jinki was unable to finish his homework on time since he was so preoccupied with the letters, which meant he was also getting lashings or some other kind of disciplinary punishment more frequently during class.

with gym class coming up next, the classroom was tranquil. jonghyun, who hated physical exertion of any kind, was still in his uniform even though he had none of the skills or plans necessary to skip class. in the end, he stayed behind in the empty classroom after everyone else had gone and slowly started to change his clothes. jonghyun wasn’t a rebellious student, but he detested being forced to do things he didn’t want to do. he adjusted his hair, which had gotten mussed from pulling on his gym shirt, and slowly loitered along the classroom. the last thing he wanted to do was go outside right away. his leisurely footsteps soon brought him to the center of the room where jinki sat. there was an english textbook on top of his desk, and coloured paper was sticking out from underneath.

come to think of it, jonghyun had never read any of the letters of rejection jinki wrote for him. it was only natural for him to become curious about it. jonghyun pulled out the stationery from beneath the textbook. the sound of the gym teacher’s whistle, the national gymnastics drills, and students’ voices were resonating outside the classroom. jonghyun sat himself on top of jinki’s desk; on the backrest of the chair, jinki’s summer uniform shirt fluttered in the breeze.

jinki’s writing wasn’t very nice. but he always wrote in clear, big strokes, and the paper spread open in jonghyun’s hands with a satisfying sound. jonghyun’s face was sincere for a moment as he inspected the letter; then without warning, his eyes drew themselves into sharp, narrow slits. jonghyun had not written the letter, but it was still a letter from jonghyun. neither the handwriting nor the words were his own, yet he was holding a kind -- and friendly, even -- letter of rejection in his name.

jonghyun’s mood plunged into a dark, fathomless pit. outside the window, the early summer sun was shining blindingly bright and jinki’s white uniform was fluttering even without a breeze and jonghyun felt absolutely wretched.

still sitting on jinki’s desk, jonghyun held the letter limply in his hand and looked vacantly through the window at the hill behind the school. his emotional state had changed so quickly that he almost felt exhausted by it.

when he was young, when he had been very young there had been such a time. had they been playing tag, or hide-and-go-seek? in any case, the person who was ‘it’ had to close their eyes and count to ten before going off to catch the others. jonghyun had closed his eyes and counted down from ten in a loud voice. 'ten, nine, eight, seven,..' he’d counted down like this all the way to the last number that was necessary to play fair. when he’d opened his eyes, the playground had been completely empty. in the ten seconds it had taken to count, the sun had sunk lower and the world had become darker and more scarlet than it had been before he’d closed his eyes. jonghyun had purposely shouted loudly,

'ready or not, here i come! here i come!'

...there had been no reply. whether the children had actually excluded jonghyun from their game and gone home, or whether the whole thing was simply a childhood nightmare, he couldn’t tell. but the strange thing was, jonghyun could sense something that resembled the same loneliness he’d felt back then creeping up on him as he read jinki’s letter. he put the letter back underneath jinki’s english textbook. aside from the cold expression on his face, nothing else had particularly changed.

jinki tore open the wrapping for the blank cassette tape with his front teeth. on the label inside the packaging, he wrote the day's date with a black felt-tip pen. the dj’s calm voice could be heard crackling over the radio. this is the ‘best of the best’ special broadcast. final exams are coming up for everyone, right? we hope you’ll gain strength from today’s program. jonghyun would be appearing on today’s broadcast, and jinki was waiting for his turn to come up while putting liquid glue on his envelopes. will even more letters be coming tomorrow? it was true that the letter writing was hard work. the name ‘jonghyun’ was beginning to sound more and more foreign to him. throughout the day, jinki repeated the name ‘jonghyun’ countless times, echoing the letters he was reading and replying to. there was something moving about jonghyun’s name when you recited it out loud.

part three of the program started, and jonghyun’s lively voice flowed out from the radio speakers. jinki pressed down firmly on the red circle of the record button. the wheels of the tape jerked and started to whirl.

jonghyun peered into shoe cabinet 7, which was empty -- and then on to number 32, in which sat a pair of white sneakers. his cantankerous expression soon transformed into a look of triumph. as soon as he opened the back door of the classroom and stepped inside, the students began to applaud like they’d all been waiting for his arrival.

“kim jonghyun, yesterday……”

jonghyun stared at jinki’s spot in the middle of the room as he walked over to his own seat next to the window. jinki sat with his earphones on, seemingly unaware of jonghyun’s presence. only his right arm jerked occasionally as he wrote. jonghyun threw his bag in his seat and walked over to jinki, ignoring the other boys’ requests for stories about his latest broadcast adventure. his deskmate haeyeon was watching him intently from behind.

“oy, lee jinki.”

jonghyun pulled out jinki’s earphone. jinki thrust his head up, taken by surprise.

“are there lots of letters today too?”

“..yeah.”

“but what'll we ever do. those letters……. they aren’t going to come anymore.”

jinki gave no response, and only continued staring at jonghyun’s face. jonghyun wasn’t being his usual self; he was exaggerating his voice, just like an actor would do on stage.

“i said so on the radio yesterday. that i’ve never written a single reply.”

jinki had been listening to the radio at the time, so he already knew.

“it’s a confession. a confession that the replies have been fake all along.”

jinki slid the letter he’d been writing underneath his textbook to hide it. jonghyun had put emphasis on the word ‘fake.’ he patted jinki’s shoulder lightly.

“it’ll probably be best for you to take your time writing those. the letters that arrived today are going to be the last. appreciate the time you’ve got left to enjoy those.”

was it because of jonghyun’s accusation of him being a fake? or, could it have been the condescension he’d felt from the fingertips that patted his shoulder? all at once, jinki flared up in anger and spat out,

“the letters are still going to come.”

jonghyun’s arrogant smile immediately cracked at his reply. he clenched his fist so tightly it seemed jinki’s earphone would break. jinki knew a truth jonghyun had faintly suspected -- but had refused to acknowledge -- while he’d been receiving his letters. when jinki attempted to speak again, jonghyun was glowering at him, unable to conceal his anger any longer.

“i mean, that is. the letters…….”

jonghyun shoved jinki’s desk into his chest, hard.

“i get it. lee jinki, i finally get what your motive is now.”

jinki knit his brow in pain as his desk crushed into his ribs. he unsteadily tried to stand up, but jonghyun pushed him down by the shoulders and growled at him as he hunched over his face. it was a side of jonghyun he’d never revealed as the school celebrity before. seeing kim jonghyun with his claws out and baring his teeth, so to speak, was a shocking event.

“you want to become famous too? you want to become popular? you want people to notice you? is that why, goddamn it, you’re writing letters to the point of ruining your hand? why? you think doing that would make them start looking for you instead of writing me letters? trying to lure them in with your fake role? is that how badly! you want to become popular?”

jinki kept parting his lips, but eventually bit them back without saying a word. the only one who actually felt embarrassed by the sudden outburst was jonghyun himself. jinki continued staring at jonghyun, then eventually lowered his gaze. watching as jinki's eyes anxiously darted around the room, jonghyun didn't feel any satisfaction from the fact he’d scared and intimidated him.

is that how badly you want to become popular?

the sound of a chair being pushed back echoed loudly through the silent classroom. it was likely haeyeon, who had a fairly large build. jinki looked over and confirmed it was him coming toward them. when he turned back around to face jonghyun, he found he was still being glared at. but jonghyun also noticed haeyeon approaching and tried to calm himself down.

“sorry.”

a single word finally managed to escape the lips that had been parting and closing for so long in hesitation. now that he'd finished saying what he had to say, jinki’s chin stiffened and slightly trembled. jonghyun’s expression remained cold even after receiving his apology; only, he released the desk he’d pushed into jinki to corner him. it was then that jonghyun realized the entire class had tensed up, and that he was the source of their tension.

now that he’d received an apology, jonghyun couldn’t understand why he’d gotten upset at jinki and became even more frustrated because of it. he felt the urge to punch jinki in the face, but he knew it wasn’t because he was angry at him. who am i angry at? his insides were still roiling uncontrollably, but he couldn’t figure out or identify the reason for it, and it was only making him get angrier and angrier in turn.

haeyeon approached the two of them and shot a glare at jonghyun before gently smacking jinki’s shoulder. 'lee jinki, let’s go to the snack bar.' without waiting for a reply, haeyeon stuck his hands under jinki’s arms and hauled him up from his seat. between the two of them, the one who’d really wanted to escape the icy atmosphere of the classroom had been jonghyun, but haeyeon had essentially chosen not to rescue him.

early the next morning, jinki stood in front of the shoe cabinet in the hallway. the number of letters that had been stuffed into cabinet 7 hadn’t changed at all from the previous day. jinki wore a grim expression on his face as he scrutinized the letters. for a while, he continued staring at them in silence. should i just pretend i haven’t noticed? jinki cautiously surveyed his surroundings. there he stayed, biting his lips in front of the shoe cabinet until the shade of the morning sun had dramatically shifted its slope. then impulsively, like a pickpocket, he grabbed the letters and dashed out of the school building.

jinki threw all of the letters into the incinerator.

jonghyun came to school much later than jinki, and arrived in class just barely avoiding the late penalty. shoe cabinet 7 was thankfully empty, and when he looked beyond the window there was no one quietly sitting in the classroom writing letters and getting on his nerves. jinki was goofing off and chatting noisily with his deskmate as though it were what he’d been doing every morning the past few weeks.

jonghyun leaned against the window frame in the hallway and observed the playground below. the sun was beating down in such fine rays of light that it was difficult even to see straight ahead. near the wisteria right below the building, jonghyun could see haeyeon and jinki sitting side by side. each of them held a sausage bun in their hands, and each of them was taking large bites out of them. jonghyun was neither hungry nor craving sausage buns, but he still felt disdainful of the mere fact that the two of them were sitting together eating something.

haeyeon and jinki only returned to class right before the bell rang to signal the end of their break. the smell of sausage buns wafted from haeyeon as he sat next to jonghyun. 'you stink, asshole.' jonghyun purposely grumbled at him, but all haeyeon did was tease him, asking if he was jealous.

after fourth period, jonghyun got up from his seat and headed for the back door. students who hadn’t brought a lunch always had to race straight to the snack bar. but when he saw jinki -- who was normally part of this pack -- take out a bagged lunch and get up from his seat, he stopped in his tracks.

“enjoy your lunch.”

jinki smiled and said to jonghyun’s pack -- or rather, jinki’s own pack. haeyeon replied to him casually and stepped out of the back door as though he and jinki had always eaten their lunches separately. jonghyun looked back and forth between jinki walking away to another classroom with his lunch and haeyeon quietly heading for the snack bar.

in this way, jinki accepted the role of someone who’d simply been jealous of jonghyun’s popularity and had attempted to profit from him. jonghyun hadn’t spent a lot of time with jinki, but deep down he knew he wasn’t the type of person to do such a thing. his outburst the day before had just been a slew of careless words spilled out in a fit of anger. but jinki didn’t make any attempt to defend himself.

jinki squeezed in through the school gate early in the morning and headed for his classroom. the old security guard took one look at his face and handed the class record to him. the sun was getting busier with each passing day and brightening the world earlier and earlier. shoe cabinet 7 was just as full of letters as before; jinki gathered them all and ran to the incinerator.

jonghyun checked that his shoe cabinet was empty each morning and let out a sigh of relief. he then checked cabinet 32 and verified that jinki had arrived. in class, jinki laughed and fooled around with his deskmate. some days, he’d be frantically trying to finish off the math or english homework he hadn’t yet managed to do. there were no more instances of him getting lashings or other punishments in class for not doing his homework. the view of jinki’s back seemed to primly suggest he’d never done such a thing as write a letter before.

jonghyun stretched out the corners of his eyes with his fingers. he purposely made an ugly face and glared at the whole class, filled with spite. he himself couldn’t understand why he felt so frustrated and temperamental. he wanted to take it out on someone, but there wasn’t a suitable target. what was more, haeyeon -- who had just returned from going out for break time -- still smelled like sausage buns. jonghyun shot a dirty look at jinki’s seat. jinki and haeyeon were still close. but he no longer spoke to jonghyun.

did we have a fight?

the boundary was ambiguous. the two of them hadn’t been close enough to begin with to be able to say they’d stopped talking because they’d had a fight. they’d take the same bus sometimes since their houses were in the same direction, but it wasn’t like they’d promised each other to or anything like that. nowadays, jinki laughed guilefully and made excuses to put off leaving school. jonghyun wasn’t sure whether or not he was supposed to wait for jinki, or if jinki would like it if he waited, or if he would even care at all so eventually he just went home all by himself. he was confused. who had broken the routine of going home together? had it been jinki, who had delayed leaving the school? had it been jonghyun, who had headed straight home without waiting?

whenever the three of them walked in the hallways together, haeyeon always stood in the middle. jonghyun and haeyeon would talk to each other, and haeyeon and jinki would talk to each other, and so they’d go on walking as if the three of them were talking to each other. jonghyun would see jinki laughing on the other side of haeyeon. jinki, too, would hear jonghyun’s voice resonating pleasantly behind haeyeon’s shoulders.

jonghyun and jinki could remember haeyeon. it had been one morning last winter. jonghyun, who had been huddled over in the cold, had run into haeyeon coincidentally and was walking with him slowly. since he was hunched over, his eyes had been following the ground in front of him when out of nowhere, a bright yellow mandarin rolled out onto the black asphalt. no,-- they were mandarins, plural. jonghyun accidentally stepped on one of them and grimaced in disgust. haeyeon picked up the little round fruits rolling toward them and looked up.

just ahead, jinki was too busy laughing with a friend to notice that his backpack was open. another mandarin fell out of his bag and rolled toward them.

“yah, lee jinki!”

haeyeon hollered jinki’s name. jonghyun raised his foot and carefully examined his shoe to make sure it wasn’t stained with mandarin pulp.

“thanks for the mandarin!”

haeyeon yelled, waving the mandarin in his hand. jinki felt around fumblingly behind his back, then smiled brightly, waving back at haeyeon.

“no problem, enjoy!”

it was a voice that sounded like he’d always meant to give the oranges to haeyeon. haeyeon placed the mandarin in jonghyun’s hand. he was a precious friend to both jonghyun and jinki. haeyeon was a friend that was always fun to be around, and someone they could lean on.

jonghyun, who had been walking slowly, realized haeyeon was no longer there. it was just him and jinki in the hallway. instantly, his body started to tense up. jinki also stiffened awkwardly and grew silent.

without haeyeon, what are the two of us to each other?

final exams were over.

here comes the spring maiden. dressed in fresh new foliage. the lp record spun round and round. jonghyun was sitting quietly in front of a turntable that had been set on top of a desk in the classroom. donning a white cloud veil and shoes of pearly dew. when he leaned over and held his ear close to the needle, he could hear it scratching the surface of the vinyl. the sound mingled with the music just like another instrument. with the bouquet in her arms, who could she be coming for. the baritone voice sounded so different from the students who had been singing during the vocals test that it made him wonder whether it was really the same song. on the way to her dear one does she pass my house. jonghyun wrinkled his brow, thinking pointlessly about the spring gone by when the season had already deepened into a hot summer.
how very odd and sweet, could she be coming for me.
the song evoked the season jinki had sung standing next to him, looking out to the faraway hills.
as though foolish and sorry, should i venture to ask.

“..so this is a sad song after all.”

when the song ended, jonghyun placed the needle that had sprung out back onto the edge of the lp record. the record shifted up and down as it found its place, and soon the music flowed out once more, blanketing the noise of the needle’s scratches.

“looks like it’s gonna rain today, huh?”

the music teacher asked jonghyun as he reached to shut the window, but jonghyun didn’t answer. the teacher turned around and stared at the skinny rise of jonghyun’s back as he sat with his face up close to the turntable. slowly closing the window, the music teacher mumbled to himself again, 'looks like it’s going to rain.'

when on earth do they actually deliver those letters?

jinki crouched down on the steps and studied the hallway attentively. that saturday afternoon, rainclouds had crawled in and cast the school in darkness. jinki had seen the black clouds since third period, but was still full of a baseless conviction that it wouldn’t rain before he got home. he still lacked the ability to read quick changes in the weather, and had yet to fully grasp that it was something beyond the limits of his own will.

shouldn’t they get here by now?

instead of the letters he was expecting, what actually descended was a violent downpour of rain. thick drops of water pelted down on the school in dense, merciless torrents. jinki’s face was writ with anxiety at the rainwater that was slipping in through the open window and pooling on the floor. he sat crouched at the left entrance on the first floor and waited for the rain to stop, but as time passed the world became darker and darker, and more and more immersed in water.

jinki waited around thirty minutes. eventually, he grudgingly acknowledged the fact that the weather wouldn’t clear the way he’d been hoping for. he emptied everything inside his backpack into the classroom, and held it above his head like a shield as he dashed into the enemy camp where rain was streaming down like bullets. he thought of the joke 'go between the rain' and felt the urge to race between the raindrops, but by the time he got to the bus stop he was soaked from head to toe, all the way through his uniform shirt. jinki shook the rainwater off his backpack and thought to himself what a relief it was that the stop had a roof. if it weren’t for the roof, he would have been stuck getting rained on the entire time he had to wait for the bus. as jinki brushed off his shoulders and started to turn around, he locked eyes with jonghyun, who was sitting on the bench staring at him with wide, rounded eyes, just like a puppy. jinki’s eyes, too, widened with surprise.

jinki quickly turned away and pretended he hadn’t just seen jonghyun and made eye contact with him. jonghyun’s shoulders -- which had been rigid with tension -- sagged at jinki’s response. he fixed his gaze on the view of jinki’s back; his wet uniform was clinging to his back and waist, revealing the contour of his spine. jonghyun, too, decided not to acknowledge him. drops of water dripped onto the ground where jinki stood.

thankfully, the bus arrived not long afterward and jinki quickly climbed on. he hesitated, wondering if it would be ok for him to sit with his wet clothes, but he was so tired. he folded his body into the very back seat and saw jonghyun, who had followed him onto the bus, sit near the front. it was only then that he started to worry whether ignoring him had been too harsh.

the only part of the road that was still dry was inside the tunnels. jinki blinked his eyes languidly in the haze of orange headlights and saw jonghyun rise up from his seat. whenever they took the bus home, jonghyun always got off first and jinki got off two stops after him. seeing jonghyun getting up meant it would be time for jinki to get off soon, too. i can’t fall asleep like this......., he thought, but his eyelids were so heavy he couldn’t stop himself. just as he was about to tumble down a distant rabbit hole of darkness, someone’s hand grabbed and shook at his knee. he awoke at the touch and found jonghyun staring back at him.

“get up. we’re here.”

jinki saw the familiar scenery outside the window and followed jonghyun, clutching his bag tightly against his chest. jonghyun sheltered jinki with his umbrella as though they had been going home together from the very beginning. the rain hadn’t eased off in the slightest. because jonghyun didn’t know the way to jinki’s house, he followed one step behind him. jinki himself couldn’t speed up since jonghyun kept sending him furtive looks, and in the end it took the two of them far longer than usual to approach his neighbourhood. the rows of two-floor houses were like those on any other street, but the lane was unfamiliar to jonghyun.

the two of them were at a loss as to what to say to each other.

they couldn’t exactly talk about the letters anymore. jonghyun just kept bobbing his head up and down in a steady beat, which he’d never done before in his life. he was grasping at anything he could do to distract himself from the uncomfortable silence that hung between them.

shockingly, neither of the boys said a word to each other until they arrived at jinki’s house. jonghyun felt he’d conceded quite a bit on his part by taking the initiative to wake jinki on the bus and shield him with his umbrella. considering how far he’d stepped down, he’d expected jinki to reciprocate somehow. jonghyun went home feeling strangely empty inside.

once jonghyun got home he found his sister had already arrived there before him, which was an extremely rare occurrence. upon seeing him, she asked how badly it was raining outside. jonghyun replied that it was raining cats and dogs and strode toward his bedroom. his socks were so wet that they were leaving footprints in the living room. jonghyun pulled them off and tossed them aside, staining his thumb and index finger with the smell of rotting water. he threw his backpack into his room and decided he may as well have a shower while he was at it. feeling pleasant after bathing in the warm water, he returned to his room only to find an unwelcome intruder sitting on top of his desk: a familiar -- yet unfamiliar -- single letter in an envelope. jonghyun felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and grabbed it with a steely look on his face. it was the first love letter he’d seen in some time.

“noona, did you put this here?”

at jonghyun’s query, his sister responded with her eyes still fixed on the singers in the tv screen.

“i met up with a friend today and her little sister asked me to pass it on.”

“doesn’t she know i won’t reply?”

“what’s that got to do with anything?”

at this, jonghyun glared at his sister.

“what’d you just say?”

“what?”

his sister finally turned around and looked up at jonghyun. he was staring back at her with a furious expression on his face.

“i said, what did you just say to me.”

because she'd been responding without much thought, his sister couldn’t recall what she’d said and started to get flustered.

“i don’t reply to the letters.”

“yeah?”

“and you said, what does it matter.”

at last, his sister let out a chuckle and replied,

“you know the whole thing’s just a trend anyway. it doesn’t matter whether you reply or not. it doesn’t even matter if you read them. they’re just doing it amongst themselves for fun.”

“then why did you give this to me? why don’t they just write them and throw them out! or send them to soldiers in the army for all i care! why me!! why do they have to send them to me!!”

sufficiently dumbfounded by jonghyun’s outburst, his sister asked,

“hey, is something going on with you?”

the only thing ‘going on’ was what was happening right in front of jonghyun and his sister at that very moment. but she didn’t seem capable of understanding this at all.

slamming his door shut, jonghyun vowed to himself he’d never become a singer. becoming a singer was the same thing as counting down from ten to zero with a heart full of expectations, then opening your eyes to find there was no one by your side.
jonghyun crumpled the letter and threw it into the trash can.

shoe cabinet 7 was exploding with colourful letters, the same as always. it was early enough in the morning that the busy summer sun had yet to rise. instead of jinki however, it was jonghyun this time who stood peering down at the shoe cabinet. in one instant, the declaration, the confidence with which he’d shouted out as he crushed jinki’s ribs, had crumbled into a pile of dust. jonghyun seethed. in the end, his sister had been right -- and jinki had been right. flushed with humiliation, he threw one half of the pair of indoor shoes from cabinet 32 down the hallway. the only target he felt he could take his anger out on was jinki. jonghyun glared at the shoe that lay abandoned in the dark, then opened the window and hurled it outside. jinki’s shoe landed in the wisteria under which haeyeon and jinki sat to eat their sausage buns from time to time.

jonghyun hid behind the stairs with his classroom still in view. it was the same place that jinki had hidden the day before. jonghyun clutched his backpack to his chest and squinted into the darkness.

jonghyun wanted to see jinki. he wanted to see him, with his own eyes, sauntering into the school early in the morning to look at his shoe cabinet full of letters and scoffing at him in triumph. that asshole. jonghyun grinded his teeth and waited.

jinki arrived, smoothly passing through the wooden hallway with hardly a footstep to indicate his presence. if it hadn’t been for one of the old steps creaking, jonghyun wouldn’t have noticed him approaching at all. he squeezed his backpack closer and carefully craned out his neck. just as he’d thought, jinki was standing in front of shoe cabinet 7.

jinki appeared not to have noticed that one of his indoor shoes was missing back in his own cabinet. jonghyun contemplated whether he should run out this very moment and land a punch on jinki’s face. i should teach him a lesson before he has the chance to laugh at me. but then, out of nowhere, jinki gathered all the letters from the shoe cabinet in his usual dour expression and started down the path he had come from. at this unexpected turn of events, jonghyun sat back down on the floor. unlike his silent ascent up the stairs, when jinki was going down he made a noise that resonated like low-pitched piano keys. jonghyun hurried to the window facing the playground; not a single thing stirred. he turned the opposite direction and checked the backyard of the school. he could see jinki standing in front of the incinerator.

a while later, jonghyun opened the steel door of the incinerator and took out an ornately coloured envelope. as predicted, the first line opened with 'to jonghyun.' it was the same letter as always; not a thing had changed.

with no notice, jonghyun was absent from school. jinki, with one foot wearing only a sock, squirmed his toes in the wake of his missing shoe and sent fleeting glances toward jonghyun’s seat until fourth period. he’d been hoping to finally thank jonghyun for sharing his umbrella the night before and resolve the awkwardness that had built up between them, but his sudden absence had thrown him off. moreover, by the looks of their homeroom teacher it appeared even his family was unaware of what was going on.

maybe he went to the broadcasting station? but then he should have told the teacher. and they’d know at home..

jinki’s shoe was discovered at lunch time.

“how’d it get all the way up there?”

haeyeon stooped down and had jinki climb up on his shoulders. jinki reached up and rummaged through the branches of the wisteria. green leaves, translucent with sunlight, dripped the previous night’s raindrops onto jinki’s face one by one. a group of boys made a fuss and surrounded them with their arms open, apprehensive over haeyeon's ability to carry jinki on his shoulders. students from other classes were also sticking their heads out of their windows to watch the commotion unfold during their lunch period.

meanwhile, jonghyun was crouched at a bus stop near the school. ants were busily crawling to and fro on the hot pavement and jonghyun was tediously killing time by blocking their pathways with rocks. he was incapable of doing things he didn’t want to do, and for the day at least, he absolutely couldn’t bear the thought of being at school. he couldn’t stand having to see the view of jinki sitting at his desk from behind. no -- what he couldn’t stand was the fact that there were letters still in the incinerator that hadn’t been burnt. no -- what he really couldn’t stand was the shoe cabinet that would be filled up yet again with letters tomorrow. no, no -- what do my feelings have to do with anything, anyway?

jonghyun was swiftly seized by a premonition that he’d grow up to be a dreadful adult.

having skipped his lunch, jonghyun bought a hot dog from the snack bar across from an elementary school around supper time. he kept the wooden chopstick after eating his fill of the white bun and sausage; he would need something like it for what he was about to do. along the way, he discovered a tree branch that was longer than the chopstick and abandoned the latter in favour of his new weapon. he’d decided that his plan called for the longest stick he could find. when he came upon yet another branch that was even longer than the last, he tossed his old stick aside and picked his latest discovery off the ground.

eventually, jonghyun’s final destination was in front of jinki’s house, where he’d walked him the night before while shielding him with his umbrella. it was the last face on earth he wanted to see, yet at the same time he felt an imperative need to see him that very moment. jonghyun placed his hands on the fence and hoisted himself up. with the cement fence between his arms, he knocked on jinki’s window with the tree branch he’d picked up on his way. it was the room that had lit up right after jinki had gone home the previous night.

tap tap tap.

jonghyun couldn’t hold his weight up any longer. he slid back to the ground, then lifted himself on the fence once more. the tree branch went tap tap tap. he slid back down, then strained his arms once again. tap tap tap.

a shadow approached the glass pane, and the window slid open. it was jinki, by this time dressed in comfortable clothes. he was bewildered to see jonghyun, who had been absent from school, hanging from the fence still wearing his uniform.

“lee jinki.”

“what’s going on? why didn’t you come to school today?”

“lee jinki. i’m challenging you to a duel. let’s fight.”

jonghyun and jinki faced each other at the playground of a nearby elementary school. the sun had already set, tingeing the world a cool shade of pale navy blue. the colour made it ambiguous as to whether it was really early morning or evening. jinki was in sweatpants and a green, round-collared t-shirt, while jonghyun was wearing navy blue pants and his white uniform blouse with his backpack slung over his shoulder. jinki’s eyes trailed jonghyun’s backpack as he flung it toward the tire fence. a yellow smiley face badge winked at him from the black bag.

“let’s just punch each other a few times.”

jinki furrowed his brow. jonghyun wasn’t making any sense. but he was more serious than ever, and the way he was fuming seemed to suggest he wouldn’t hesitate to attack jinki if he so much as nodded his head.

“but i have no intention of hitting you.”

“why not! i’m annoying, aren’t i?!”

jinki’s whole face twisted into a frown. he sincerely contemplated whether or not he found jonghyun annoying. he’d never felt that way about him in the slightest. jinki shook his head in reply, but jonghyun scowled at him as though to tell him to stop lying.

“it doesn’t matter. i’m gonna punch you. i’m gonna punch you hard.”

jonghyun clenched his hands into fists.

“do i have to get hit?”

even as jinki asked, both jonghyun and jinki simultaneously thought to themselves what a stupid question it was.

“i won’t hit your face. let’s just do your stomach.”

jinki’s lips drew themselves into a pout. jonghyun finally realized this was one of his trademark expressions, and that it surfaced whenever jinki felt dissatisfied with something. jinki squeezed his eyes shut. prepared to take jonghyun’s punch, he balled his own hands tightly into fists.

“i’m gonna do it now!”

“ok…….”

“get ready. i’m gonna hit you really hard!”

“k!!!”

jinki’s eyelids trembled. jonghyun backed up a distance to make room for his approach -- just as if he were winding up for a punching game at the arcade -- and started running toward jinki, his feet crunching the gravel below. the sound was refreshing, like a cool summer night. jonghyun was planning to use the momentum from his approach to slam his fist into jinki’s stomach. he was convinced that if he could give jinki just one satisfying punch, he would finally be freed from all the shadowy, nebulous things that had been plaguing his mind lately. the boundaries of their relationship would become more distinctly defined, and there would be no more days of beating each other up like this for no reason. it was possible they’d become comfortable enough friends that they could casually exchange profanities in their conversations together. on the other hand, they might end up calling each other sons of bitches and want nothing to do with each other ever again. either way, jonghyun wanted a clear outcome.

but at the moment, jinki’s lashes were still quivering as jonghyun reeled with the momentum he’d built up from his run. he started to waver on what his next move should be. his desire to fight was plummeting rapidly before jinki’s complete willingness to take his punch.

"arrrghh!!!"

jonghyun shouted. startled, jinki winced and opened his eyes in narrow slits. jonghyun was vibrating all over as he stood with his fists clenched until, squeezing his eyes closed, he let out another howl of anguish. jinki hesitated and drew back -- then, all of a sudden, jonghyun turned around and started sprinting away from him. he made a big loop around the playground, then whooshed past jinki again. kim jonghyun was running at full speed with all his strength, which was a sight never seen before, even in gym class.

"uaagh! auughh! you asshole! fight me! i said let’s fight!!!"

jinki stared after jonghyun’s back as he ran past him once more. his white uniform was flapping in the wind as he sped away. jinki, too, began hastily running after him like he’d abruptly remembered something important to tell him. unlike jonghyun, who was wearing the latest trend in basketball shoes, jinki was equipped with only a pair of loose slippers and couldn’t bring his speed up enough to catch up to him. eventually, the slippers fell off and jinki continued running for a few meters on the gravel before cringing in pain and slowing to a stop. jonghyun, who had done three laps around the playground at full speed, kicked one of jinki’s slippers over the fence as if that had been his goal all along. jinki limped over to jonghyun and turned his head toward the same direction as him, looking dazedly out into the night sky.

jinki sat at the peak of the jungle gym and watched jonghyun walk back inside the entrance of the school. his bare feet felt pleasant against the cool metal bars. jonghyun was holding jinki’s slipper in one hand and trudging back to the playground. he looked up at jinki on the jungle gym.

“how come you didn’t hit me?”

“i don’t know!”

“why did you want to hit me?”

“i don’t know!”

as jinki questioned from above and jonghyun answered below, they gave the appearance of heracles standing off against the fate decreed to him by a great sphinx; but of course, the quality of questioning fell incredibly short in comparison.

“why did you run?”

“i don’t know!”

“do you know anything?”

“i don’t know! i don’t know! i don’t know! speak for yourself!”

jonghyun had run out of comebacks, and he bit his lip in petulant silence. jinki could have rubbed it in that the letters had kept coming. he could have made a complete fool out of jonghyun and gotten back at him for hurting his pride and looking down on him. i told you. the letters still came. it doesn’t matter what you do. actually, these letters are....... but instead, jinki had stubbornly arrived early to school each morning to get rid of the letters. before jonghyun could ever see them.

why?

jonghyun flushed; he couldn’t bring himself to ask the question. meanwhile, in the blink of an eye, jinki had scaled down the metal bars of the jungle gym like a monkey and taken his slipper away from jonghyun to put it back on his foot.

“i’ve lost a lot of shoes today.”

the words pricked at jonghyun’s conscience and he flinched. jinki took off jonghyun’s backpack and thrust it back out to him in a wordless offering.

the two boys slowly walked to the outer wall of the playground. they came to a suspension bridge and bent their knees before coming up to hold onto its safety railings. jinki’s arms were the first to let go; they appeared to be slightly weaker than jonghyun’s. next up was a tire obstacle, which caved and rumpled under their weight as they walked across while trying to keep their balance. as usual, no words were being exchanged between the two. after the tires they came upon a ropes course, which they both ignored. unlike before, the silence between them no longer felt awkward. when they approached the last seesaw, the two of them wriggled onto each end and, facing each other, began their steady ride up and down.

“i actually came to make you a proposition,” said jonghyun, which was a lie -- but as he rode his seesaw up to the sky, he decided to roll with the idea that had just sprung to his mind.

“what is it?”

thump

“first, you have to agree to do it with me.”

“you haven’t even said what it is yet.”

thump

“whatever! it’s my choice!”

jinki pouted as his seat thumped back to the ground.

“i thought about it and, there’s a way for both of us to become popular together!”

thump. jonghyun had definitely misunderstood jinki as wanting to become popular, but jinki didn’t put up any protest. he was grateful that jonghyun had opened himself up to him again, and the last thing he wanted to do was embarrass him by disagreeing with his judgment.

“what way?”

thump

“singing together! we can do a duet!”

“me, sing?”

thump

“you sing a bit too, don’t you? of course, doing a song on your own is really tough to pull off.”

thump

“which is why you can sing with me. you said you like haebaragi.”

thump

“two guys singing together, like haebaragi! with harmonies and everything!”

thump

“singing haebaragi together, you and me?”

“for instance!”

thump

“green zone would be good too, or mr. 2.”

thump

“you don’t know how to rap, right? deux would be good too, but.”

thump. jinki shook his head.

“i’ve never even sung haebaragi!”

“you’ll do fine. you’ve sung it by yourself.”

thump

“you’ve never even heard me sing. how would you know!”

thump. jonghyun recalled the spring in march when jinki had stood next to him, fidgeting his fingers. he’d been one of the only students in class to sing through ‘spring maiden’ properly. jonghyun was disappointed that jinki didn’t share his memory, but didn’t insist on bringing it back up.

“we can just try it and see!”

jonghyun stared at the house jinki had entered. the front door opened, followed by a bedroom door. a room close to the fence lit up with a fluorescent light. a shadowy figure appeared in the window, and jonghyun hurriedly hid behind the fence when he realized it was about to open. jinki stuck his head out and searched the entrance to the alley, but jonghyun was nowhere in sight.

jinki headed to school early each morning without fail. he wanted to be the first to arrive at the shoe cabinet and deal with the wearisome letters that had piled up before anyone else could see them. after pouring the letters into the incinerator, he went back to the classroom and checked the time. there was still quite a bit of time left until their morning self-study period. jinki sat on the bleachers at the field and plugged in his earphones to listen to his music.

what had jonghyun been thinking when he proposed such a thing?

“let’s do mr. 2.”

it was very difficult to find a song that satisfied both jonghyun and jinki’s tastes. while jonghyun preferred rock ballads for the most part, jinki only listened to folk ballads.

jinki nodded at jonghyun’s suggestion. ‘white winter’ was a song he’d been listening to non-stop since he’d discovered it last year. jinki looked out into the field with only one earphone in his ear. he’d never known what a blissful thing it was to listen to music while hiding under the shade of wisteria. after final exams had ended, the students had been given free time outdoors for gym class until summer break. most of the boys, including haeyeon, divided themselves into teams to kick a few balls around. only jinki and jonghyun would go off on their own to listen to music together, splitting a pair of earphones between the two of them. their classmates had found out that they were preparing to go on radio together, and purposely gave jinki a hard time by calling him ‘singer’ and teasing him. sitting next to him, jonghyun glanced over at jinki gazing out at the field and poked at his thigh.

“do you want to play soccer?”

jinki waved his hands in denial, realizing jonghyun had mistaken his moony look as a desire to go out and play with the others.

“i’m just not sure which part i should sing.”

“you do the first part.”

“won’t it be too low for me?”

“i’ll sing higher. just sing in your usual pitch.”

jinki held out the sheet music he’d bought at the stationery store in front of him like a book.

“then....... i don’t know since when you felt so far away, after seeing you with someone else, the way you looked in his arms on that snow white winter night.......”

jinki sang his line and waited for jonghyun to come in with his part. when he didn’t hear the voice he'd anticipated, he put his sheet music down and looked at jonghyun, puzzled. jonghyun stared back at jinki and belatedly blinked his eyes.

“did i not tell you? that’s not how you practice a duet.”

“huh?”

“have you not memorized the sheet music yet?”

jinki swallowed nervously, feeling like he’d done something wrong.

“i haven’t been able to yet.”

“that’s ok. but you should by next time. and--”

jonghyun stretched out his arms and reached his hands out to jinki. jinki stared at him, unable to make out what he wanted him to do. jonghyun’s left hand grabbed jinki’s right hand and placed it in his right palm. when he spread out his left palm, jinki criss crossed his other hand on top of it -- this time, without any help. jonghyun held jinki’s hands tightly and pulled.

“this is how you’re supposed to practice duets.”

“we have to hold hands?”

from jinki’s point of view, jonghyun’s teaching method was difficult to comprehend. as they held each other’s hands, their bodies naturally turned to face each other. eventually, their knees touched. the distance between them became more and more uncomfortable as time passed; their knees crossed each other and drew even closer.

“we’ll need to know each other’s dynamics when we sing. so it’s good to practice like this. just watch. now i’ll forget you too. it’s just too hard to bear.”

still holding jinki’s hands, jonghyun began to sing. he was right -- whenever the dynamics of the song changed, the pressure in his hands followed accordingly. as the song progressed, it was jinki rather than jonghyun that started to tense up. their clasped hands became slippery and wet; whether the sweat had come from jinki’s palms or jonghyun’s, it was impossible to tell.

"try a love where you give your all. not just a love that takes. you already know. that there’s no end, that we just have to endure it.”

from the end verse on, jonghyun raised his tone and belted the high notes. he squeezed jinki’s hands, and jinki squeezed back instinctively. to demonstrate that he could sing higher, jonghyun repeated the verse and belted out the line 'we just have to endure it' in an even higher key than before. jinki, who had been gripping jonghyun’s hands for dear life, let out a cry of admiration when the song came to an end.

“whoa.”

he was right in front of him. jonghyun had sung right in front of him. jinki had heard him -- not through radio frequencies, but right before his eyes in real life. jonghyun’s voice was the same as on radio, but also completely different. it vibrated with a totally different range as it reached jinki’s ears. the capacity of his voice was beyond what he’d imagined, and jonghyun’s hands were warm. jinki finally released the tension from his body and slouched.

“told you. you were tensed up too, right? it’s important to be aware of each other’s condition during a duet.”

“whoa.”

“lee jinki?”

“jonghyunah. you’re seriously.. the best.”

nowadays, jonghyun always stopped by the incinerator whenever he arrived at school, checking for traces left behind by jinki. jinki was always being a busy little bee. when school ended, the two of them took the bus and went off to their respective homes; then, after supper, they reunited at the elementary school at the halfway point between their houses.

“i can make my voice go all husky, too. don’t curse me for being that way. you might regret it. what do you think?”

as he walked across the tire obstacle, jinki imitated a rough singing voice and asked for jonghyun’s opinion.

“not bad. should we have gone with green zone instead?”

“thing is, i can’t go for very long doing it.”

jonghyun climbed onto the suspension bridge. jinki watched him go up, then crossed the bridge by hanging on and swinging himself forward with his arms. when jonghyun got to the middle, he unexpectedly became frightened and turned around to check the distance he’d crossed. before he’d realized it, he’d already arrived at the middle of the bridge. it was an ambiguous distance that made it awkward to either go back or continue going forward.

all the things we go on losing, all the people that we love, all the moments. the way we turn our faces as soon as the wind blows, this way and that, with colours faded like reeds, trying to see two sides when we don’t even know the first. but the heart that loves is always there. love (love) the heart that loves stays there everlasting, love (love) the heart that loves is always there.

before he knew it, jonghyun had listened to jinki’s favourite song so many times that he could harmonize to its refrain. whenever he sang it, jinki looked somewhat shy, yet proud at the same time. is he related to someone in haebaragi or something? jonghyun thought to himself that there must be a reason for jinki to love the song so much.

summer break had arrived, but jinki and jonghyun had to keep going to school for supplementary classes. once in a while, jonghyun would sit next to jinki. today when he looked at jinki’s hand, he saw it was plastered with a gigantic picture of a dinosaur. when he scratched at it, bits of the temporary tattoo came off and got stuck under his nails. jinki balled up his hand at the sharp sensation of jonghyun’s scratches.

“what is this, are you a child?”

"oh, this thing? i have another one, do you want it?”

“i’m good.”

“why? just try it.”

jinki crammed a stick of tire gum into his mouth and began to chew.⁷ he had to really work at the gum for it to soften since it was so thick and tough. jinki’s lips smacked noisily. watching his lips, jonghyun thought to himself that they reminded him of something, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. jinki stuck the oval-shaped decal that had come with the gum onto the back of jonghyun’s hand, and started to scratch at the paper. 'you have to scratch the whole thing without missing any spots if you want it to stick on evenly.' the adhesive paper lifted off and jonghyun’s hand was left engraved with the image of a roaring tyrannosaurus rex.

“perfect.”

jonghyun inspected his hand the same way he'd check over his watch for the time. jinki smiled in satisfaction and blew a gigantic bubble. as the bubble expanded, jinki’s face gradually disappeared from sight. through the thin, translucent layer of gum, jonghyun could just barely make out the two black dots of jinki’s eyes. he lifted his hand, struck by a desire to pop the bubble. jinki was engrossed in blowing his bubblegum, and jonghyun was engrossed in waiting for the right timing to pop it. finally, the bubble exploded and covered jinki’s face with a sticky web. jinki stuck out his tongue and gathered the bits into his mouth.

“gross.”

at jonghyun’s chiding, jinki chuckled uneasily and tore out the first page of his textbook to spit out his gum.

one day, a student brought in plastic bubbles as a joke, which turned the whole classroom upside down.⁸ and who was the resident plastic bubble expert? naturally, it turned out to be jinki, who nimbly stuffed the end of the thin, white, candy-shaped straw with liquid plastic and blew into the ball as carefully as he would while playing an instrument. 'you can’t just blow into it willy nilly. there’s a technique to it.' jinki’s bubbles were so pretty and crystal-clear that all of his classmates acknowledged his skill. bubbles were piling up steadily in a heap all around his desk.

“if you’d been born in the olden days, you’d have definitely joined the circus.”

jonghyun mumbled, assembling jinki’s plastic bubbles into his arms one by one. together, they skipped one of their supplementary classes and escaped to the hill behind the school. jonghyun’s fingers tapped the glassy bubbles into the air where they glistened in the sunlight. caught up in the excitement, jinki kept blowing more bubbles. he’d blown so many in class that his lips were swollen. soon, he created one last massive bubble and collapsed in exhaustion.

“you’ve probably expanded your lung capacity, at least.”

jinki panted, unable to reply; he was still trying to catch his breath. his head was spinning and he felt nauseous. jonghyun arranged the bubbles he’d been carrying in a row around jinki’s head. he decorated jinki’s whole body with the bubbles he’d blown. jinki was careful not to move, lest he disrupt the chain of bubbles surrounding his body.

“it feels like i’m dead.”

hearing jinki’s comment, jonghyun plucked a few clusters of chrysanthemums and laid them on his chest.

“should i do the wail? aigoo. aigoo.”

“no. i’m gonna have an american-style funeral.”

“do you go to church?”

“nope.”

because the sun was too bright, jonghyun picked off a pair of green leaves and laid them on jinki’s eyes.

“i’ll send you a really huge funeral wreath.”

“does that mean i’ll be getting a funeral wreath from a singer?”

“no, didn’t you know? i’m gonna be an executive at a big corporation. i’m gonna get into samsung, hyundai.”

jinki lifted one of the leaves from his eyes and peered up at jonghyun. jonghyun was uselessly ripping at the grass.

“..that doesn’t suit you.”

jinki pressed his face against the rusted steel bars of the cage, squishing his cheeks as he leaned forward. sniff, sniff. he snuffed his nose in the air and made monkey noises. ooh ah ah. a few monkeys inside the cage turned their heads toward him in response, and jinki bobbed up and down in excitement. the japanese monkeys quickly lost interest in him, however, and rededicated themselves to picking over each other’s fur.

“yah! yah!”

jinki called out impatiently, but the monkeys didn’t budge. jonghyun appeared, carrying two ice cream cones. he stared blankly at the back of jinki’s head; the part in his hair looked unusually tidy.

jonghyun and jinki had been going around to such places all summer break. ‘such places’ included movie theatres with matinees that they could watch on weekends, shopping districts where they could buy accessories, the playground near their house, the school field, the pool, and the zoo.

jinki wasn’t sure what the connection was between going to such places and practicing their singing, but didn’t add any further comments on the matter. he was sure jonghyun, who had experience with more than his share of singing competitions, knew what he was doing.

jinki bounced his feet on the ground as he gnawed at the peak of the large ice cream cone he’d taken from jonghyun’s hands. more and more, jonghyun was realizing that jinki wasn’t just the introverted or quiet type he'd initially thought he was. as haeyeon had suggested he’d probably just been shy around him before, because nowadays he didn’t seem capable of staying still for one second. on the contrary, jonghyun now considered himself to be a relatively quiet person when compared to jinki.

“are you absorbing the spirit of the animals?”

jinki asked a lion that was languishing in the summer heat; it was a rhetorical question.

“the energy of the wild. roar!”

but the lion, too, didn’t pay jinki any heed.

“he must be so hot. i bet he wants to shave off his fur,” jinki said as they passed by the lion.

“but then he won’t look as cool.”

“..my hair’s grown a lot, too.”

jinki mumbled as he brushed his bangs down over his forehead. jonghyun looked over at jinki -- who was still walking with his hair covering his eyes -- and grabbed his arm to steady him just as he was about to topple over.

as they sat facing each other on a bench at the zoo, a bee wandered into jinki’s periphery. it rested momentarily on a flower nearby; however, it wasn’t long before the bee, drunk on the flower’s nectar, had followed the sweet scent of their hot dog sauce and started to linger about jonghyun’s left shoulder. jonghyun didn’t seem to have noticed yet. this isn’t good, jinki thought to himself. if he realized there was a bee nearby, jonghyun, who was afraid of bees, would start to freak out and the peacefulness that had settled between them on the bench would be broken. jinki felt faint whenever jonghyun’s body flailed in excitement as he chattered away.

if jonghyun keeps doing that and gets stung, what will i do?

he didn’t want jonghyun to be in pain.

what do i do--

while jinki agonized over his dilemma, jonghyun’s left hand swept over his ear and the bee flew in a big circle. when it began charging toward them again after managing to dodge jonghyun’s hand, jinki reached out and grasped it in his fist.

“ouch!”

the bee drove its stinger into jinki’s palm. alarmed, jonghyun grabbed jinki’s fist and dragged it toward him, anxious with worry when he saw jinki was on the verge of tears. jinki was clenching his fist so tightly that his knuckles were white. blood slowly began to circulate as jonghyun unfolded his fingers one by one, revealing his angry red palm. it was so swollen that the lines of his hands had disappeared.

“you caught a bee? with your bare hand?”

jonghyun yelled in horror. jinki’s right hand continued to throb and swell. jonghyun got up from the bench and ran to the store, returning with an ice-cold freezie. he put the freezie into jinki’s hand and wrapped both his hands around his fist.

“you idiot. what were you thinking, catching a bee like that.”

jonghyun scolded him lightly. 'tsk tsk. it’s all swollen.' jinki felt the throbbing heat in his hand subside with the icy temperature of the freezie and let out a sigh of relief. he himself couldn’t understand why he’d done such a foolish thing. all he’d wanted was for that moment between them not to be disturbed. he’d felt like if jonghyun were to jump up in a fright just then, they’d never be able to talk to each other warmly like they had been while sitting together at the zoo ever again.

jinki stared at jonghyun’s hands wrapped around his own and thought to himself how strange it all was.

from that day forward, jonghyun hated bees even more fervently than before. he flicked away the bee that had been squashed into a ball inside jinki’s palm and seethed. he thought to himself what hateful insects they were, over and over again.

for jonghyun, the distance between jinki’s house and his own felt shorter and shorter as the days went by. if he walked cheerfully and steadily along, he’d find himself at jinki’s side street in the blink of an eye. the lane he’d been so unaccustomed to before now felt as familiar as a street from his own childhood. if he arrived early enough, he could see jinki walking around in his room from the window since it was mostly kept open during the summer.

time seemed to move along too slowly for the impatient boys, but before they knew it, the day of their final showdown had neared the horizon. jinki’s heart pounded with excitement at the prospect of finally getting to see inside the broadcasting station. this time, his friends, including haeyeon, clustered around him and blew him full of hot air. 'what are you gonna do if you meet a celebrity? make sure you take your camera and take pictures, ok. pictures. get their autograph.' even as he listened to his friends’ manual on how to behave at the broadcasting station, jinki’s heart twinged with an ache when he thought about how he’d no longer have an excuse to see jonghyun every day the way he’d been doing all summer break. jonghyun told him he’d become a star after the radio broadcast, but that was beyond the realm of his interests.

course consultations had begun at the start of the break and were continuing in reverse order. they had started from number 49, and reached number 32 the day before the broadcast. jonghyun, who had thought they’d surely get to go home together, puffed his cheeks in discontent and got up from his seat, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. ‘i’ll go over to your house after lunch tomorrow.’ -- ‘oy. ok.’ -- ‘you better not freak out and run away!’ jinki burst into laughter at jonghyun’s threat and nodded. jonghyun’s eyes darted around at the other boys before he stuck out his pinky finger. jinki locked pinkies with him and sealed his promise with a stamp.

on his way back to the classroom to collect his shoes and backpack after his consultation, jinki heard the sound of girls’ laughter. startled, he stopped in his tracks and hid behind the wall. the voices were muffled, but by the sounds of it they had come to put letters into the shoe cabinet. 'it’s number 7, right here.' the girls didn’t stay there for long; their light footsteps carried off below the stairs and disappeared. jinki’s heart raced at how close he’d been to seeing the protagonists of the letters he’d been so curious about.

at times, jinki would run into the senders of the letters as he went around delivering his replies. a boy showing up at an all girls’ school was always an exciting event. jinki felt embarrassed, but stayed resolute. when he handed out the letters, the girls reacted by getting flustered and self-conscious. they didn’t seem to have expected anything like this to arrive. on jinki’s part, he felt embarrassed because he didn’t find any of the expressions he’d imagined he would see. it was true that the whole thing was unexpected and embarrassing -- but beyond that, the feeling of butterflies that could wash all of that away was nowhere to be found on their faces. soon enough, jinki’s replies had also spread like a trend and the students would take letters from him as naturally as they'd receive the milk that was distributed during break time after second period. jinki suspected the people who’d written and delivered the letters and the people who received his replies couldn’t possibly be the same.

jinki had just walked back out into the hallway to check the shoe cabinet when he heard the girls’ shy whispering return. startled once again, jinki hid himself inside the classroom. a few girls with their hair cut neatly up to their ears took letters out from their bags and slid them into shoe cabinet 7, giggling bashfully amongst themselves. jinki leaned against the wall with his pulse pounding in his ears and stared out through the window at the other end of the classroom.

no way.

outside of the window, the world was dark as though submerged under water. everything blurred into a haze of ochre light.

no way.

the tinkling of girls’ laughter echoed throughout the all boys’ school.

no way.

slowly, jinki blinked his eyes. not long after, heavy sheets of summer rain began to pour down from the heavens. shwaaa, shwaaa. it was only then that jinki recalled his mother telling him to remember to take his umbrella that morning. in between,-- in the interval between taking his lunch box and putting on his shoes, he had completely forgotten her warning. jinki sighed and looked absent-mindedly out at the hill behind the school that was soaked with the color of mud.

standing in front of jinki’s house, jonghyun brushed his bangs this way and that. since he had no mirror, he inspected himself in the reflection that stretched across jinki’s mailbox and swept his hair to one side and the other, trying to decide what would look best. beyond the fence, he heard the sound of the front door opening. soon, the metal gate clunked and swung open. jonghyun took one look at jinki and got so shocked that he forgot to say hello.

“lee jinki. what's the matter?”

jinki was wearing a turtleneck shirt in the middle of summer and dripping with cold sweat.

“..if you’re hot, you should just wear a t-shirt.”

jinki just barely made it over the threshold of the gate. the end of his nose was red and swollen. he looked at jonghyun worriedly, apparently unaware that the person really deserving of worry was himself. his gaze invoked even more pity since he'd suffered from his cold all night.

“i caught a cold.”

“is it really bad?”

“no, no. i just have a bit of a runny nose.”

to demonstrate that he was ok, jinki started to walk. he’d reproached himself all night while shivering in bed, wondering why he couldn’t ever remember to look out for the weather or take his umbrella around. jonghyun frowned at jinki’s nasally voice. with that voice, and in that condition, there was no way he would be able to sing properly. jonghyun walked closely beside him and put the back of his hand against his throat. the warmth from his fever transferred straight onto his hand.

“you mean you’re still going to sing in this condition?”

jinki nodded and winced; even the smallest movement appeared to be painful for him. jonghyun watched him warily. soon, the two of them took their seats on the bus. jonghyun sat in front of jinki and twisted his body around, laying his chin on his backrest to look up at him. jinki drooped over in his seat as though he were drunk. sometimes, he would lean his forehead against jonghyun’s backrest; his hot breaths puffed against jonghyun’s face before dispersing into the air.

at the broadcasting station, jonghyun and jinki sat side by side at a corner of a public hall. surprised to see them, a radio pd who was already acquainted with jonghyun asked them why they’d come so early. he handed out a canned drink to each of the boys, but neither of them could bring themselves to drink.

jonghyun fretfully watched jinki as he continued breathing heavily. his mind was frantic with chaos. if jinki was so sick that he couldn’t even open his eyes, he couldn’t imagine how agonizing it would have been just to take the bus there.

jonghyun bought a bottle of water at the snack bar. he took a straw and stuck it into the open mouth of the bottle.

“drink some of this.”

jinki’s lips puckered and latched onto the straw. once again, jonghyun put his hand against jinki’s throat. his fever hadn’t gone down in the slightest. he felt his forehead with his other hand, but it was the same warm temperature.

“lee jinki. are you ok?”

“uh huh..”

“do you think you’ll be able to sing?”

“uh huh..”

but jonghyun couldn’t trust jinki’s answer. jinki was in so much pain that tears were gathering at the corners of his eyes, sticking his lashes into wet clumps. that morning, jonghyun had planned to meet him earlier so that they could go to the salon beforehand and get their hair done nicely for the broadcast. he’d been thinking of getting jinki’s long hair trimmed neatly for their big day. jonghyun closed the bottle tightly.

he needed to make a decision.

jonghyun reproached himself as he flagged down a taxi in front of the broadcasting station and helped jinki inside. it was the decision he should have made right when he'd first seen the condition jinki was in. he’d made a sick person ride a bus for all that time earlier for no good reason. jinki’s cold had probably gotten worse because of him.

earlier, jonghyun had stopped a random person passing by. 'i’m one of the contestants for today, but i don’t think i’ll be able to participate.' the staff had sent jonghyun to the writer, who’d looked troubled for a moment before replying that he understood. jonghyun had put his hands under jinki’s arms to support him and hadn’t said a word until they’d gotten out of the broadcasting station. it was only after they got inside the taxi that jinki asked, “what about the song?”

jonghyun answered, “we’re not doing it.”

jinki strained to open his eyes.

“how do you expect yourself to sing in that condition, dummy.”

dejected by jonghyun’s scolding, jinki stayed silent.

“i’m not getting mad at you. i’m just saying, you’re sick. why did you let yourself come all the way here without saying anything?”

“did they tell you you’re not allowed to sing by yourself?"

jonghyun shook his head.

“it’s a duet. a duet. you and i are supposed to sing it together. if you can’t sing, i won’t sing either.”

jonghyun tried to look nonchalant, but he couldn’t stop the frustration from seeping out of his voice. jinki assumed he was unhappy about not being able to perform their song, but the truth was that jonghyun was upset with himself for bringing jinki all the way to the station when he was ill.

jonghyun wrapped an arm around jinki’s back and supported his arm with his free hand. fat tears were dripping down jinki’s face; he prayed they’d mingle with his sweat so jonghyun wouldn’t notice them. when they got to his front gate, jonghyun rang the doorbell. jinki shifted and laboriously fished out his keys from his pocket. before he could stick his key in the keyhole, the gate opened, followed by the front door.

“jinkiyah, are you ok?”

it was jinki’s mother.

“what were you thinking, going out when you’re sick?”

outside the open gate, jonghyun bowed in greeting. jinki’s mother had been walking toward them in agitation, but noticing jonghyun, she turned back around to give them privacy.

standing in front of jonghyun, jinki twiddled his fingers -- a habit he couldn’t stop even when he was sick. jonghyun worried that jinki would keep beating himself up over what had happened if he sent him inside this way.

“lee jinki.”

“jonghyunah. i’m sorry.”

jinki had beaten him to it. he closed his eyes tightly and repeated thickly, over and over, 'i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m so sorry.' he kept sniffing his nose, but whether it was because he was crying or because his nose was running, it was hard to say. his cold had made a complete mess of his body. tears slid down both of his cheeks when he opened his eyes.

“yah, what are you sorry for!”

jinki shrunk back. jonghyun hated hearing jinki apologize. he'd always used to tell him he was sorry, before. jonghyun tapped his feet restlessly on the ground. he felt utterly helpless. it doesn’t matter whether we get to sing or not, i don’t care if we don’t get to go on broadcast, what hurts me is you being in pain, i’m angry at myself for taking you all the way to the broadcasting station when you’re this sick.

“i’m sorry,” jinki said with a sob.

if jinki had opened his eyes and looked at jonghyun properly, he would have stopped apologizing. jonghyun felt his chest constrict and took deep breaths, in and out. i have to do something. i have to do something. he cradled jinki’s face in both hands and pressed his mouth to jinki’s swollen lips. before jinki could have time to understand what had just happened, jonghyun spread out his arms and drew him into a tight embrace. the heat of jinki’s fever and his shuddering sobs fit snugly into his chest. jonghyun squeezed his arms so that jinki couldn’t escape, and to convince himself the hug wasn’t just a dream.

“thank you. thank you so much, lee jinki.”

jonghyun mumbled into jinki’s neck. even he couldn’t quite process what he’d just done; he felt like he was still dreaming. i kissed him. i kissed him. but now that he was holding jinki tightly in his arms, it felt like the only thing he’d ever wished for, since a very long time ago. jinki’s hands gripped jonghyun’s shirt lightly, sending tingles down his whole body. reluctantly, jonghyun let him go.

the next day, jonghyun quietly observed the letters that filled his shoe cabinet. the other students nudged him as they passed him by. 'where’d the sudden letter explosion come from?' their voices were all but filled with envy, not knowing what the reappearance of the letters signified to jonghyun. jonghyun turned around and peered into the classroom. the middle of the class was completely empty. there was no jinki writing replies, or chatting away with his deskmate. jinki wasn’t there.

at their morning assembly, their homeroom teacher relayed the message that jinki had caught a cold and wouldn’t be coming to school for a few days. he reminded the students to take care of their health. jonghyun balanced his pencil above his upper lip and stared at jinki’s seat.

i did the right thing, hugging him tight yesterday.

jonghyun nodded to himself.

i really did the right thing kissing him, too.

he bit his lip and lowered his head as a blush spread across his cheeks. did i really do that? did i really?

jonghyun hugged himself with his arms. jinki’s body had been smaller and thinner than he’d expected. even after pulling him into his arms, there had been quite a bit of room left. he thought about the way he’d stubbornly embraced jinki without even realizing what he'd been doing. then without warning, his heart jolted with a shock like he’d been caught doing something forbidden.

the next day, jonghyun’s shoe cabinet was once again filled with letters. he took the letters out and looked inside cabinet 32. the indoor shoes he’d flung out once upon a time had somehow been recovered and placed neatly back inside. jonghyun took them out and looked them over. he put one of the shoes on and replaced it with his own indoor shoe in jinki’s cabinet.

shoe cabinet 7 was filled again the next day.

“those pests. do they like me that much? i guess i am pretty hot, though.”

jonghyun said loudly as he checked himself out in a mirror. the other boys jeered at him and began to snicker. still looking in the mirror, jonghyun let out a deep breath. my shoulders are broad, my neck is thick and long, and my face is handsome, he thought. i have thick hair, thick brows, a shapely nose, deep-set eyes, my lips are plump.. i’m pretty fantastic. have confidence. he wished jinki would hurry and come back to school. jonghyun looked at the middle of the classroom through the reflection in the mirror. he longed to see jinki getting up early in the morning, running to school like a busy little squirrel and throwing out all his letters -- all the letters that had made jonghyun lonely.
i miss him.
i really miss him.

jonghyun stood in front of the mailbox once more and fixed his hair. jinki hadn’t come to school in the past four days. each day, he’d thought about how much he missed him and had finally resolved to come visit him. in his hands, he held a pack of ‘sac sac’ mandarin juice he’d brought along as a gift. jonghyun rang the doorbell and waited for the gate to open.

jinki’s mother greeted jonghyun warmly. when he held out the pack of juice and told her he’d come to visit her sick son, she burst into peals of laughter, just like a schoolgirl. seeing a boy his age taking extra care to bring an appropriate gift for the situation was admirable, but cute at the same time.

“jinki just took his medicine and went to sleep. what should we do? should i try to wake him up?”

“no, no. you don’t need to wake him up. just tell him i stopped by when he gets up later.”

jonghyun said half-heartedly as he stood in the living room, glancing toward what he assumed was the door to jinki’s bedroom. the last thing he wanted was to go back home without even getting to see his face, but what could he do? seeming to read jonghyun’s mind, jinki’s mother gently pushed him from behind and guided him toward jinki’s room.

“if you’re not busy, would you like to wait in jinki’s room? he probably won’t be asleep for long.”

jonghyun opened the door and immediately felt the stuffy heat of the room overwhelm him. despite it being the middle of summer, jinki’s door and all his windows were closed because of his cold. on top of that, even his boiler had been turned on. the faint smell of sweat lingered in the snugness of the room. jonghyun gave jinki’s mother a bow and stepped inside. jinki was buried under a thick winter blanket.

jonghyun had been nervously watching jinki’s face when suddenly, a noise startled him and he turned around. the strange sound had come from underneath jinki’s desk. when he pulled out the chair and peered below, he saw a small guinea pig inside a plastic cage, excited by the sudden appearance of a human. it was the first time jonghyun had ever seen a guinea pig.

“are you a mouse?”

the question blurted out of him before he could stop himself. jonghyun clamped a hand over his mouth as he crouched in front of the cage. the guinea pig looked at jonghyun and sniffed the air, turning its head this way and that. the little creature’s interest in him didn’t last long, however -- and soon enough, it turned around and began running in its wheel.

clunk clunk clunk

jonghyun’s nerves stood on edge as the sound of the spinning wheel grew louder and louder. he turned around and searched jinki’s face to ensure he wouldn’t wake up from the noise.

“be quiet. your master is sick.”

the guinea pig ignored jonghyun and continued racing. to stop the noise, jonghyun put his hand inside the cage and stuck his finger between the rungs of the wheel. when the wheel that had been spinning smoothly abruptly came to a halt, the guinea pig scurried about in confusion, then began running again with all its might in an attempt to get the wheel spinning once more. its tiny body trembled in exertion. jonghyun, too, grimaced in pain as his finger struggled against the force of the guinea pig. you little bugger. your master’s life hangs by a thread and you’re just gonna keep running in your little wheel? unable to withstand the pain any longer, jonghyun pulled his finger out -- and the guinea pig toppled out of the wheel, flung by its own momentum.

the guinea pig raised itself on its hind legs and squeaked at jonghyun in indignation. it appeared to be protesting something, but even that didn’t go on for very long.

jonghyun hadn’t come all the way there just to see some lousy guinea pig. he moved himself to the floor beside jinki and peered into his sleeping face. had he gone all the way to the broadcasting station when he was sick enough to be bedridden like this for four days? jonghyun couldn’t stand himself. he lifted himself slightly from where he was sitting to look more closely into jinki’s face. jinki’s eyelashes, his clear cheeks. his funny-shaped nose, and lips. should i not have kissed him? but....... the smell of skin drenched with sweat grew stronger as he lowered his head toward jinki.

jonghyun lifted his head back up to shake off the strange feeling. on jinki’s door, there was a poster of a sports car speeding down a curving road. after rummaging through the uniforms hanging in the closet, jonghyun sat in jinki’s desk chair. the guinea pig was making noises at him below his feet, but jonghyun had no intention of holding a rat-like creature in his bare hands. his eyes meticulously scanned jinki’s desk. textbooks and workbooks lined his bookshelf. opening the drawers, he found pencils, scissors, and glue jumbled together in a heap; the next things to spill out were his letter stationery and envelopes. in one corner of the desk sat a plastic bottle full of dead batteries, and beside it, a bag of sunflower seeds. as jonghyun slowly turned his head, he noticed a pile of blank cassette tapes on the other side of the desk.

turning back around, he could see a small radio cassette player on the floor where jinki was sleeping. curious as to what he’d recorded, jonghyun carefully pulled out the tape. a date was written on the label in jinki’s large, clear printing. with only a date, it was difficult to tell what the recording was actually from. jonghyun was searching through the other tapes to see if he could find something else when all of a sudden, it occurred to him that all the dates seemed familiar.

every single one of the dates written on the tapes -- which started from september 27th, 1994 -- fell on days that jonghyun had appeared on radio broadcast.

jonghyun tapped at the tape with his index finger and furtively glanced at jinki. he was trying to see if he had woken up. jinki had his back toward him and was breathing steadily in the same position as before. after making sure he was still asleep, jonghyun abruptly covered his mouth and burst into laughter. his shoulders trembled and shook as he doubled over on the chair.

“uagh. what is this!”

jonghyun covered his mouth with both hands again. in a quiet room where only the spinning of a guinea pig wheel could be heard, jonghyun’s heart was breaking out into a riot.

“lee jinki, do you like me?”

jonghyun whispered quietly, wishing jinki could hear him and not hear him all at once. when jinki didn’t reply, jonghyun grew bolder and made a megaphone with his hands, whispering again--

“you like me?”

the megaphone soon fell apart and covered jonghyun’s lips. in his struggle to contain the laughter bubbling up inside of him, he accidentally kicked the guinea pig’s cage. squee squee!!! hearing the guinea pig’s belligerent cries, jonghyun held a finger to his lips in silent warning.

the next day brought more letters for shoe cabinet 7. jonghyun gathered them in his arms and brought them to his desk.

“let’s see, shall we read some letters?”

haeyeon stared at jonghyun like he was crazy as he hummed and opened up an envelope. pretending to read through the letter, jonghyun asked,

“does jinki have a pet?”

“uh huh. how’d you know? he has a guinea pig.”

“oh, yeah?”

jonghyun glanced up in feigned nonchalance.

“but, yah-- do you know what his name is?”

“what’s his name?”

“bob. it’s bob.”

“bob? who named him?”

“who do you think. lee jinki. but guess what bob’s last name is?”

“since it’s lee jinki’s pet, wouldn’t it just be lee?”

“hahaha. it’s ‘thingama.’ thingama! thingamabob. puhahaha!”⁹

haeyeon howled with laughter as if he’d just told the funniest joke in the world. jonghyun stared at him apathetically, then thought about the way he’d harassed thingamabob the night before. bob had clearly witnessed him planting a kiss on jinki’s cheek as he slept. just when haeyeon had started trying to calm himself down because he felt awkward about laughing by himself, jonghyun exploded with laughter in a delayed response.

“pahaha! ah, seriously!!!”

jonghyun closed his eyes tightly and shook his head.

“so, so cute! thingamabob. ah, that’s so cute.”

it was a cuteness unparalleled to anything he could have imagined. like a habit, jonghyun looked over at jinki’s empty seat.

“he’s too cute.”

jinki wasn’t able to return until the following monday. after running to school early in the morning, he was horrified to discover the letters exploding out of shoe cabinet 7. they would have filled the cabinet every single day while he was away at home sick. jinki had been plagued with worries about the letters as soon he’d started feeling better. he took them all out and shoved them into the incinerator.

jinki double-checked that cabinet 7 was empty, and then took out his indoor shoes from cabinet 32. something seemed off about the shoes, but his attention was quickly diverted to the sky-blue piece of paper that fell out along with them. the blue letter dropped onto the wooden floor. jinki stared at it as he placed his shoes on the ground and put them on one by one. did i miss a letter from jonghyun’s shoe cabinet? he stooped down to collect it. on the envelope was written, 'to jinki.'

to lee jinki

lee jinki, if you’re reading this letter i guess that means you've survived and made it back to school. are you better now? i kept waiting, wondering when you’d be coming back. but you never showed up, so it made me a little sad. nothing special happened at school while you were away. the other guys were jealous of you for the first few days, but when you still hadn’t come back after so long, they worried you’d caught something fatal. i’m amazed you thought you could go to the broadcasting station when you were sick enough to miss this much school. you’re a tremendous idiot. i can tell you’ll really amount to something special when you grow up.

in the meantime, i’ve been kind of bored. coming to school and talking to the other guys about the broadcasting station, and telling them about the singers and the songs -- all of it was dull and tedious. i bought some bubblegum to maybe try sticking a temporary tattoo on my hand, but it turned out to be a ‘narnia’ tattoo. so i stuck it on haeyeon’s indoor shoes instead. he said it ruined his dignity as a man so he threw the shoes out. i also went to the playground and tried riding this and that, but that wasn’t any fun either. i can’t exactly ride a seesaw by myself. you’ve caught a cold, and it’s a tiresome, boring summer.

i mean, how bored must i be if i’m writing you a letter like this. a few days ago, i went to lotteria with noona. have you ever been? they make you order and then pick up the food yourself there. they fill up your coke the way you fill up gas at the gas station. it was good, but expensive. still, we should go there together next time. and you were right -- i think working at a big corporation probably wouldn’t suit me. i thought about going to med school, but they said you need to be good at math for that so i gave up on that, too. i guess i should just become a singer after all, right? that would suit me, right?
since you got sick and we couldn’t perform this time, let’s try again with a new song during winter break. the reason we didn’t get to go must have been to give us more time to practice. to be honest, i was a bit insecure about going too. let’s try harder and do better next time. if you don’t have anything particular to do in the future either, we should become singers together.

lee jinki. i love you. i miss you. with my whole heart.

jinki saw the name of the sender and turned his head to look over at jonghyun’s seat. he looked back at the letter in round-eyed astonishment. after folding it neatly and putting it back inside the envelope, he placed it gently on top of his desk. he paused for a moment; then, as though he’d been struck by a sudden memory, he took the letter back out and opened it up. the paper that had been folded with care made a crisp, refreshing noise as it spread open. it was the sound of jonghyun’s heart opening and it reached out to tickle jinki’s own. jinki folded and unfolded the letter, again and again.

jonghyun purposely got to class right before the bell. he’d seen that the indoor shoes in shoe cabinet 32 had been replaced with a pair of sneakers. jonghyun went straight to his desk and scanned the middle of the classroom. jinki was sitting in his seat, discussing something with his deskmate. soon, his body seemed to turn around to the side, followed by his head. startled, jonghyun flopped over his desk and covered his face.

jonghyun was in shock; he couldn’t believe how fast and hard his heart was beating. when he covered his chest with his hand, he could clearly feel the thump thump thump of his heart’s vibrations. his heart hadn’t pounded this much even when he’d been sticking his letter inside the shoe cabinet, but now that he thought about jinki actually having read it, it was almost too much to bear. jonghyun shifted in his seat, antsy with nerves. he wanted to run away somewhere, anywhere.

since jinki hadn’t brought a lunch, he mingled with the other students who were heading down to the snack bar. jonghyun kept sending him surreptitious glares over the wall of boys that separated them. he’d thought that once jinki had read his letter, ‘something’ would have been decided right away, though he wasn’t sure exactly what. to be honest, jonghyun had thought jinki would leap for joy and come running straight into his arms. but jinki hadn’t taken any course of action after reading his letter. he hadn’t even looked at jonghyun since the one time during their morning self-study period. as jonghyun walked alongside haeyeon, he was suddenly struck with the feeling that he was going to die this way. if things carried on like this, he’d choke while he was eating and die from asphyxiation. no -- even if he just laid still, he’d die from laying still. he was going to die. he was going to die. jinki was standing on the opposite side of haeyeon seemingly without a care in the world, and jonghyun couldn’t have resented him more for it.

“lee jinki, do you have the runs?”

“what? no!”

jinki yelped, his face flushing a bright red. his eyes momentarily grazed jonghyun as he looked past haeyeon.

“what are you talking about!”

“then why do you keep going to the bathroom during all our breaks?”

“it’s not the runs!”

jinki turned to hide his beet-red face. during each break period, he had been hiding away in the bathroom to read the letter jonghyun had written him. listening to the sound of the paper reverberate off the cold, tiled walls as it unfolded, jinki had been reading and rereading the letter that still felt to him like a dream.

this is too painful.

jonghyun sat in front of his homeroom teacher and made a wretched face. it was enough for the teacher to send him worried glances as he opened jonghyun’s student record.

“it’s just a course consultation, kim jonghyun. i’m not here to scold you.”

all jonghyun had to offer in response was a deep sigh. what good were course consultations to him right now when he felt like he was going to die because of jinki? the entire day had been excruciating for jonghyun. he felt emotionally and physically drained from the tension that was swirling throughout his body. the teacher scanned over his grades and said something. jonghyun’s grades were average.

“jonghyunah, what do you want to do? you’ve been on radio and such. are you really considering taking that path?”

jonghyun stared vacantly at the teacher’s finger, which was pointing at ‘music’ in the row of subjects. i’m never going to become a singer -- an employee at a corporation -- it doesn’t suit you -- you’re the best singer out of anyone i know -- you’re the greatest. jonghyun tore at his hair in anguish, almost on the verge of tears. lee jinki, you’re a real jerk, you know that?

a few days ago, jonghyun had thought jinki liked him and had been over the moon because of it. but now, he wasn’t happy at all. in the slightest. the turnaround in his mood was shocking even to himself. he’d had no idea how deep and wide the breadth of his feelings could be. jonghyun slipped out of the teacher’s office and leaned against the windowsill in the hallway to look out at the field below. the teacher had tried to comfort him by telling him his grades were nothing to be that discouraged about, but there was no way such words could make him feel any better. and time was only carrying them deeper into the month of august.

aren’t there any songs out there about summer that aren’t ‘spring maiden’?

humming to the tune of ‘spring maiden,’ jonghyun walked down the hallway. outside, the white light of the summer sun was sharp and crystalline. unlike the outside world, the inside of the school was as dark as the indistinct walls of a cave. a pleasant chill was rising from its wooden floors. jonghyun skipped the horizontal lines of the floorboards as he slowly made his way toward the classroom.

out of all the shoe cabinets, only number 7 and 32 still had sneakers remaining inside of them. when jonghyun turned around and checked inside the classroom through the window, he could see jinki sitting in the middle of the room. once again, jonghyun’s heart began to throb uncontrollably. jinki’s right hand was moving slowly -- it looked as if he was in the middle of writing something. jonghyun cautiously crept inside the room through the open back door. he could see the familiar -- though it had become rare in recent days -- view of jinki's back as he wrote letters at his desk. jonghyun quietly gazed at the white uniform that stretched across jinki’s back; his fine, neatly combed hair; the thin nape of his neck; and belatedly, he came to the realization that the letter jinki was writing was none other than the reply to his own.

jinki chomped down on the end of his pencil with his front teeth, then pulled the pencil back out and chewed at his lips. he began to erase with a discontented look on his face, only to end up tossing the sheet of paper off to the side. 'kim jonghyun. to jonghyunnie.' jinki mumbled jonghyun’s name and brushed another sheet of paper away.

“to jonghyunnie. to jonghyunnie.”

it seemed jinki wasn’t satisfied with the way he’d written jonghyun’s name. jonghyun strained his ears to carefully listen to the low tone of jinki repeating his name. 'jonghyunah. to jonghyunnie.' exactly what he was so displeased with, it was difficult to say -- but he kept writing, erasing, and rewriting jonghyun’s name, over and over.

jonghyun turned his head and looked out the window. the hill outside was frighteningly green. he turned back around and stared at jinki. from there, he could see the small rise of his back.

bit by bit, jonghyun parted his lips.

“lee jinki.

lee jinki.

lee jinki."

jinki froze as he heard a voice out of nowhere calling out his name. slowly, he turned, his face gradually cresting above his left shoulder.

jinki,
jonghyun,
jonghyun’s voice calling out jinki’s name,
jinki’s hand carefully spelling out jonghyun’s name,
the hot month of august that threatened to rain at any moment,
the hill that stood always behind the school,
the song that couldn’t be heard again if you missed its timing on the radio,
the tape that recorded each song with devotion,
that fleeting moment between sunrise and sunset,
the daily routines that made meeting in person much easier than a phone call,
and the way such meetings made it more difficult to part,

jonghyun and jinki gazed at each other in quiet stillness.

<sup>1. Noise was a techno group that was popular in the 90’s.
2. "Kim" starts with "ㄱ" which is the first consonant in the Korean alphabet, while "Lee" starts with "ㅇ" which comes in the middle.
3. The "MyMy" was Samsung's imitation of the Sony Walkman.
4. This is a reference to the Sampoong Department Store collapse that occurred on June 29th, 1995.
5. "Cap" was the 80’s-90’s version of “jjang,” which means "the best."
6. The lyrics to "Spring Maiden" are written in an old dialect with archaic words, so Jonghyun’s confusion about the lyrics and the students' jokes about it get lost in translation. "Mianko" means sorry, and it rhymes with "Double Bianco" which is a type of ice cream sundae.
7. Tire gum is so named because of its size and toughness (it's basically like Dubble Bubble Gum).
8. Plastic bubbles are long-lasting bubbles made of tacky glue. They've been largely discontinued since they’re toxic.
9. Thingamabob's name was originally "어쭈구리 (eojjuguri)," which doesn't have an exact equivalent in English. It's a reaction phrase you use on someone when they do something unexpected, or even rude. (Kind of like, "Wow, can you believe this person?")</sup>