Chapter Text
During the night Mrs. Yang gave birth to his first and only child, it was raining. The labour had been long and exhausting, moreover the baby came out of her belly in the middle of the night. At 3 a.m., after three (maybe, four?) hours. All the new mum wanted to do in the morning, obviously, was take a nap and rest; but it wasn’t something she could gain.
The woman had never needed someone by her side, which is why she wasn’t married nor engaged. The story of how she found herself pregnant was a kind of anecdote nobody had the honour to hear. Right in that moment, she was joyful; turning around and seeing her son, her baby, the person she would have probably loved better for the rest of her existence was something she couldn’t fully explain.
Mrs. Yang was still feverish of happiness, when her beloved sister came in her hospital room. Her sister was her opposite, but she was the only one who would’ve always reached her. Greeting, at 6 a.m. after her sister gave birth to her nephew, had been embarrassing. They looked at each other and giggled. Then, the attention was all on the baby. The woman got closer to the cradle where the baby was sleeping, smiling brightly at the sight of such a calm and warm imagine. A little sadness, however, broke her smile. Maybe for actual sadness, maybe for shame.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be here earlier.” she said, even though they both knew they couldn’t blame each other for their different lives. One had a child, the other was busy working, “He’s gorgeous, you know? All babies are, though. I think he has something more.”
Mrs. Yang laughed slightly, a detail she wouldn’t have remembered the next day. In those absurd moments, even the tiniest things were suddenly the greatest action a human could make. A new life was there, right in front of them. “It’s because you love him already.”
The sister sat on a chair in front of the new mum’s bed, hiding her face with the hands: a clumsy attempt to hide her joy. “Have you chosen a name?”
The mum looked at her baby, thinking that no, she hadn’t chosen. That little nose, the eyes peacefully closed, the hands that were holding a still empty bracelet; and the soul she didn’t know yet, the habits he would have had, the life he would have lived. Mrs. Yang couldn’t let her son become an other sad, rude figure of the world he was, now, living in. “Yes, his name’s Jeongin. I’ve heard it is related to a respectful and shiny person."
“It’s nice but.. Have I ever told you people say that if you give birth on a rainy day, the baby will be stubborn?”
At first, Jeongin’s mum didn’t believe her sister’s words. As time went by, anyway, she was right. Jeongin was really stubborn. And he should’ve listened to his mother. Jeongin, sadly, didn’t want to listen any advice concerning University when he graduated from high school. That’s how he found himself studying Latin that day.
For a few months, he thought that was interesting studying a language as Latin and seeing how it is the origin of many other languages. Jeongin believed it had such a strong and long history. But then, he started translating. And translating meant learning multiples declensions. And declined adjectives. And he was so confused. And he couldn’t do it. His headstrong attitude could’ve helped him going through many hours spent studying stuff he wouldn’t have remembered the following day. Now it was too much, though. He couldn’t stand any of the authors he had to study or translate, even though, at the same time, he still felt a strange, strong attraction toward the ancient language.
However, University turned out to be less bad than expected. For the first week he had been completely lost, the institute was huge and so had to be his sense of direction. Yes, he got lost many times, but now that he learnt how to wander around the establishment, it was just fine. One of his biggest fears was getting to know his roommate; he met him the first day. Jeongin, with a surprising photographic memory only for the things he wants to remember, remembered every aspect of his first day of his new life – that’s just how he liked to call this period of his existence.
Jeongin barely recalled the image of the school from the open house he had before his finals. At the time it was easier: he was with a bunch of other students that were guided around, explaining every thing they saw during their walk. That’s how Jeongin thought it was easy going around the dorm; no, it was harder than he thought. Or maybe was just the fact that he was alone.
He had this revelation pretty early, when he was still wandering around the many identical hallways: from now on, he had to solve his problems on his own. Not because he was lonely, because he was alone.
In his right hand, the purple suitcase; in his left hand, a box full of stuff he was emotionally attached to – from the photo he and his mum took that time they went to Disneyland when he was eight years old, the blanket he used to sleep with in every dark night, his seven favourite books because I can’t choose, they’re all worth it!, to his new Latin-English dictionary that, he could swear, made the box too heavy. His gaze was dancing all over the hallway (the right one), to run off from his own thoughts, from the fear which got his hands shaking, his heart to bump on his chest at every wrong door. The excitement was just a way to hide the scare that travelled through his backbone, reminding him he was alive and couldn’t do a step back.
Room 421: finally, he was in front of it. All he had to do was taking the key in the trouser pocket and getting in. Jeongin leaned his suitcase on the door frame, and looked for the key. The boy touched frantically every part of his blue jeans, not finding that damn key. He tried to recall the last twenty minutes; his mother greeting him like he was going at the battlefront, himself walking through probably all of the hallways of the dorm, himself in front of the door. Where was his key?
Instantly, he looked at his left; the hand still holding the heavy carton box. It couldn’t be, but he felt it: the treasure was among all that stuff. Jeongin sighed heavily, even more than his box, if we could count heaviness like this. Then, the only thing he could do was placing the box on the blue moquette, seeking it desperately. If University years were supposed to be all like the first day, the only reasonable action Jeongin could do was begging God to have mercy on him.
“Are you looking for something?” suddenly he heard a voice, after the door of his room had been opened. Jeongin looked up at the speaker, finding in front of him a boy wearing casually a tracksuit, which had lived already a decade, at least. To answer, Jeongin mumbled something the other didn’t understand. The latter kneeled down, so that Jeongin could communicate with him properly. Seeing the new student not telling anything, he started looking at the carton box as well. “Are you looking for this?”
Bingo. Jeongin created an eye contact with the stranger, that was showing proudly the key.
“No way! Where did you find it? I’ve been looking for it for ages!”
The boy smirked, “It was under your dictionary. Latin, huh? Good luck.” he handed Jeongin the key, who was quite shocked by the whole situation. “I’m Minho, by the way. And I guess we’re roommates, so you’re..”
“Jeongin, nice to meet you.” and he could’ve had a revelation five minutes before, but he had another one right after: he wasn’t alone either. He had Seungmin and, now, Minho, too.
“Jeongin? Jeongin!?” Seungmin screamed, snapping his fingers dangerously close to his friend. They had been sitting on the grass for hours and Jeongin seemed more and more absent-minded, “Are you even listening to me?”
Jeongin’s eyes could be stuck on the Latin book, but his mind was definitely somewhere else, “Hmm?”
“You’ve stopped on this line for half an hour, did you get it now?” Jeongin confused face, to Seungmin, was another disarming proof that Jeongin gave up listening to him too much time ago. Seungmin was exhausted, tutoring a third-grader would have been much easier than tutoring Jeongin. Not only he was terrible at Latin, he didn’t even care. “Listen, it’s easy, okay? Let’s start with Stat supra caput Fatum. It’s very basic, what’s the subject?”
Jeongin puffed, “I don’t know, Fatum?”
Seungmin’s expression immediately lighted up, “Exactly! You can do it, see? What’s the verb?”
“Stat, I think.” his best friend nodded happily, “What does it mean?”
“Loom: fate looms on our head.”
Jeongin rolled his eyes, “Thanks sir Seneca for this lesson.” however, he wrote down the sentence Seungmin translated for him unknowingly.
That afternoon, Jeongin flicked through the pages of the dictionary perhaps too many times, looking for words that were sometimes tricky and difficult to understand. Jeongin didn’t even try to count the time Seungmin repeated that the translation was easy, that Seneca was easy. The younger thought that the only easy thing about that author was his philosophy. Pity that it ended up making his life harsher.
“Innie, fortasse is an adverb. Even an high-school student could translate this without any problem.”
“Then let them translate this thing!”
Click.
Seungmin had told him that Latin was though, Seungmin had been giving Jeongin the greatest pieces of advice that he didn’t follow since they met each other, during the first year of middle school of Jeongin. Stubbornness had never helped Jeongin, because it brought him an angry confidence that, in one way or another, brought him troubles and troubles only. Obstinacy was, of course, what didn’t let him give up, but it was, as well, what let him make the biggest mistakes.
“No Innie, it’s super easy. Really, you would’ve translated it right away in September!”
Jeongin puffed again, coming back to his books. Click.
Meanwhile, Seungmin leaned on the grass, holding himself with the hands; his arms behind is back. Although it was almost evening, the Sun was still shining and warming Seungmin up. That little park was a peaceful place among the rush and busy establishment of University, which is why he constricted Jeongin to come here to study. Whenever he needed a place to stay at ease, the little park was perfect. They were sitting sitting next to a weeping willow – Jeongin was actually under it (he didn’t want the Sun to disturb him), while Seungmin was distant enough to catch some light.
Not far from them, you could see a statue of, Seungmin imagined, the benefactor of the park, Seungmin would’ve thanked him cheerfully. Or maybe, he thought again, that elderly woman was a person who used to be important when she attended their University; Seungmin had never get interested enough to search some information about her. What he knew was that it was pretty sad seeing that the only creatures who cared about it were the pigeons. And the pigeons cared about her and her statue when they had to take a dump. Miserable. Click.
However, Seungmin had to mend; the only creatures who cared about that woman and her story were the pigeons and a tall boy with a camera around his neck, who had been taking photos for all the afternoon.
Click.
“How are you doing with Seneca?” Seungmin asked, still focused on the statue and all the stuff he was thinking.
“I’m almost done actually” after that, Jeongin screamed in desperation; which was both surprising and terrifying, because he seemed calm, once he started translating on his own.
Click.
“I swear to God, if I hear another damn click I will throw my book on them!” complained the poor student, not looking up from his book, “Gosh, who’s keeping doing all that noise?”
“Huh? A boy over there. But to be honest, Innie, you did even more noise two minutes ago-“
“Can you tell him to stop?”
“He’s disturbing you, so you go.”
“Never in a million years.”
“Then stop complaining.”
Jeongin looked up for the first time from the books, just in order to see who was annoying him. He was in front of him and, Jeongin could feel it, he didn’t stand him already.
“Did you finish?” Seungmin demanded, even though he didn’t receive any answer; Jeongin was too busy getting mad with a stranger whose biggest perk was taking photos while Jeongin was studying Latin. Seungmin, however, gave a reading to the last sentence of the translation Jeongin was working on, “I think it’s right, you know? Fate looms on our head; the hour you suggest for others’ death, maybe is close to yours.”
Pity that Jeongin wasn’t paying attention again.