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The sun is already sitting on its throne, flashing its bright and warm rays all over the village. The wind blows quietly, allowing the large old trees to dance in their given rhythm with the birds chirping and flying up in the sky, free and unknowing where to go. Another day has started for the villagers of the old province of Gwangju; some have already gone to their works: fishing, farming, and producing livestock; while some are left in the house, just like a normal rural town would.
An alarm rings loudly across the room; Renjun throws an arm over his eyes, eyes still shut and hands searching for the main suspect of the sound. He finds his phone and switches it off to stop the continuous beeping sound. Snuggling his favorite pillow, he rolls over and tries to sleep soundly again.
Five more minutes.
“Huang Renjun! How many times have I told you to wake up once the sun rises? The sun will set soon yet you’re still dreaming there. Hey, wake up!”
Although he stopped the alarm from entirely waking him up, he cannot stop the piercing holler coming from his mother downstairs.
Renjun’s eyes shoot wide open and he covers his ears. He gets off the bed as fast as possible, scrambling on the covers, almost falling headfirst on the floor.
“I’m already awake mom! Okay, okay, stop please!” He yells back at her and fixes his bed. The woman ends her shouting, tells her son about the breakfast at the table, and slams the door shut. Renjun sighs and goes inside the bathroom to do his morning ritual. He gets out after a while and glances on his left, where his window is, reflecting a podium-like patio with vines of orchids twisted on its welded metal linings.
Huh, that’s weird. Renjun remembers the neighboring house as lifeless. It hasn’t been occupied for years, seeing flowers bloom is a surprise to him. Since when has the patio been like that?
“Oh, by the way son, someone’s moving into the house besides ours. Can you believe it? We’ll finally have a neighbor!”
Renjun heaves a deep sigh before pressing the remote button to change channels of the television. Listening to his mother’s constant chatter would not help his case at all. He has been doing the same thing for the past two months already; waking up, helping with the house chores, and working as his mother’s assistant at her business.
(“I need some help, son. They have been unbearable lately.”)
He has been doing all of this in hopes that something will spark as a new prospect for his art, but none comes each and every day. It's getting exhausting.
“Hey hey hey! That drama is good don’t switch- hey!”
He ignores his mother’s bickering and searches for an interesting show to watch; in the end he decides to tune in on a random variety show with high hopes it could make him laugh. But like many others, it fails.
Sprawling on the couch, Renjun grits his teeth and groans in frustration, surprising his mother, who is seated beside him, busy folding their freshly laundered clothes.
“Jeez what’s wrong son? Hey Renjun-ah!”
He bolts up and marches upstairs, to his room where there is silence, so he can have peace. Nestling inside his warm sheets, his eyes dart on the cold ceiling above him. If this blank white space could turn into an artistic ceiling... Renjun lets out a disappointed sigh, his mind as empty as a piece of canvas.
By now, whenever he glances at his materials, a surge of heaviness sets in. He wants to paint, so badly, but for some reason he can’t. He tries to rack his mind for any ideas, any prompts to get him going, but he just can’t settle with the perfect one.
Renjun sighs once more before his eyes slowly drift to sleep. Perhaps tomorrow would be the day; if not, the next.
The next morning, he wakes up neither from the sound of his alarm nor from his mother shouting. It is as if he is dreaming of something and it ends in a snap, jolting him awake.
Getting up, Renjun stretches his arms and rubs his eyes. He goes to the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth to prepare for the day. Renjun slumps back on his bed to lie down without a care, but he gets up from the bed almost immediately when he notices an unusual figure standing on the balcony next door.
As he looks at it, he realizes the figure is a boy, sitting on a chair outside his room’s terrace, his eyes shut and head bobbing rhythmically. He notices a pair of earphones attached to a Walkman in his lap, his hair is dark brown and a bit long, tied loosely, with some fringe covering his face. He’s glimmering, as if there’s glitters all over him. Maybe it’s just Renjun’s sleep-addled mind playing tricks on him.
The view is calming, as if Renjun is looking at a fallen angel stranded on the house next door.
He is oblivious of everything, like he is on the other side of the world.
Slowly, a smile begins to appear on Renjun’s lips. The frown long gone for the rest of the day.
It has become a regular sight to see the boy next door. In the morning, Renjun always sees him there, on the balcony, in the same spot where he first saw him. Renjun finds him amusing; all he does is sit on that wooden chair, close his eyes, and listen to the music from his Walkman. Sometimes he reads a few books too. Renjun will watch him for a few minutes before he goes downstairs to begin his day.
After lunch, Renjun notices that the boy will not be at his usual place, and it continues until evening, where Renjun would wait for morning to come to see him again.
One morning though, he sees a different scene outside his window.
Instead of earphones or a book, the boy is looking at a distance, this time with a guitar on his lap, plucking a few strings here and there.
Renjun is surprised to see him with something other than his phone or a hardbound novel. It looks like he is lost in his own world, swaying his upper body to the melody from his guitar.
The boy stops strumming and picks up a pen; Renjun subtly tiptoes to peek at what he is doing. The distance between their houses is not much, allowing him to catch a glimpse of his balcony. Renjun finds out the boy is writing something on a page of a notebook. What is it— is it lyrics, or perhaps chords of a song? Renjun cannot help but ponder. Nevertheless, whatever it is, something is growing inside him. A spark. An ignition.
One day, he decides to face his fear.
Gathering up the paint tools he can find on the old wooden cupboard, Renjun places them one by one on the ground and on the table, just any place near the easel.
He plugs the cassette and inserts the CD he just bought from a local store down the road. Pressing the button, the cassette plays a song unknown to Renjun. Truthfully, this setup feels odd to him. This will be his first time attempting to paint again after so long, and he will try doing it with background music nonetheless. Instead of trying to focus on the piece in silence, there will be noise surrounding him.
The boy does the same though, Renjun argues; music always accompanies him. So, what’s the harm in trying?
The chair feels foreign as he sits on it — it’s been a while. Tying his apron and picking up his palette knife, Renjun closes his eyes, taking himself to another world where flowers, music, and a boy welcome his sight.
He sighs and smiles at the thought. Dabbing the knife on the paint, he begins to spread the medium on the canvas. Little by little, he translates his vision into art.
A few hours after, Renjun stares at the canvas, now full of color, with tired eyes. It’s nowhere near done but he feels satisfied at his progress. He sets it aside for now, hearing his mother call him for dinner.
Just like that, Renjun finally breaks out from his slump.
All thanks to him.
There is a moment in his life where Renjun almost feels his heart come out from his chest.
He wakes up from a sweet slumber and just like usual, he takes his time to gaze at the beauty beyond his window. The boy looks good; dashingly so, Renjun must say. His pale skin glistening as the morning sun shines on him. A beautiful purple necklace adorns his skin.
He’s like a god, too divine to be alive and real.
He is humming what it seems like a familiar song to him. His hair now brushed up with a headband, his beloved guitar on his lap, strumming chords Renjun is unfamiliar with. How would he know—he has never been interested in anything, but him.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, Renjun tends to forget the time whenever he pays his attention to him. The boy is a drug and Renjun is addicted, attracted, and he cannot stop looking.
Suddenly, oh so suddenly, the boy decides to spare a glance at his direction. Renjun feels the heat of his stare as he struggles to get out of his field of vision. He did not want his neighbor to see him. The boy might think of him as a weirdo, or even worse— a pervert.
Renjun ducks below his window, almost falling face first on the floor. He clenches his jaw and pats his chest; he was panting like he ran a marathon.
Staying on that position for a minute longer, he peeps to check if the boy is still looking at his window. Has he seen him already? Will he be mad? Will he stop sitting at the porch every morning because there’s a weird boy staring at him every time he does?
Renjun asks himself those questions the whole day. He doesn’t get a good sleep that night.
“No mom! I don’t want to-”
“But please son, do it for me, please? I am in a hurry and as much as I’d want to, I cannot. Please, pretty please?”
Renjun presses a defeated sigh, much to his mother’s delight. Snatching the heavy box of rice cakes from her, she smiles widely, almost attempting to kiss his cheeks if not for her son’s attentiveness.
“Bye son! I’ll be home late. Make sure to drop them off, like right now, because they’re best served hot!”
Hearing the door slam, Renjun groans in frustration. Why is his mom such a forgetful person that she forgot to give welcoming treats to her new neighbors? Renjun sighs heavily. Perhaps that is also why nobody wants to move next door: the Huangs are hostile.
As much as possible, Renjun does not want to do anything that concerns his new neighbor. He is afraid that he might encounter a conversation with him, and he is not prepared for that yet. Renjun considers himself almost a percentage close to being an unsociable freak. If not for Jaemin, who dared approached him at third grade, he wouldn’t have a single friend.
Really, who in their right mind will befriend him anyway? He’s a weirdo. His family is weird, he remembers his classmates whisper it to him during class, their words too sharp for nine year olds.
(“Your father got taken by the monsters because he keeps messing with them!”
“My mom told me your mother can see spirits. Can you see them too?”
“Don’t talk to Renjun, he has boogeyman friends!”)
Scratching his head in aggravation, Renjun is left with no choice but to deliver the box and talk to anybody who will open the door for him, greet them with a belated ‘welcome to the neighborhood’, and make an abrupt leave. He might look like a total freak in the end, but it is not like his family isn’t anyway.
The house beside theirs is a simple two-story bungalow, much like how houses are in a province like Gwangju, though it’s bare: no plants, animals, or farming items. Again, not like Renjun’s house is any different, his mom doesn’t have enough passion for growing life.
(“I’ll just end up killing them, son, you know me,” she said when young Renjun asked him about it one day.)
After giving himself some words of encouragement, Renjun knocks on the mahogany painted door three times and waits for someone to open it. What if he will just drop the box outside the door and run back to his house? His mind is running with nonsense thoughts that he hasn’t noticed a figure already standing in front of him.
“Yes, what is it, young lad?”
Renjun snaps out of his train of thought and looks in front. There he saw a woman, probably in her forties with those crooked brows and creases on her face, looking at him with a warm smile etched on her lips. Renjun clears his throat and fumbles on what to say. In the end, he greets her a good afternoon and tells her about the rice cakes.
“I-I’m sorry if it took long, I mean, my, my mother- she gets forgetful sometimes,” he says and sheepishly beams, his head ducked low, facing the floor in embarrassment.
“Oh goodness, you don’t have to! But thank you nonetheless, your name is?”
He coughs and introduces himself. “Renjun. I’m Huang Renjun, ma’am.”
“What a beautiful name for a pretty boy like you.” His cheeks turn even redder at the compliment.
“You know you do look like around the age of my son too, oh--” the woman looks behind and around the house, “Donghyuck and you would have been good friends. He was a lovely kid, too bad he chose to leave.”
Donghyuck, is that the name of the boy beyond his window?
Wanting to know more about said boy, he prods. “Did he go somewhere ma’am?”
The lady hums and casts a look at him, raising her brow. Her glint is too knowing, he feels exposed.
“Oh, but he’s here upstairs, you’d know that won’t you, Renjun?”