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“And now that you don’t have to be perfect,
You can be good."
- John Steinbeck
Heeseung had always wondered what his life would turn into when he was finally forced to let go.
Would he be alone? Would everything change? He had spent the duration of most of his existence with tunnel vision, with one goal in sight, one person in his heart. And now it was time to face the music, except that he didn’t know which tune he was supposed to be singing now.
He didn’t know what he’d expected. Maybe for Sunoo to distance himself, to be caught up in that pent up, blossoming thing that he had found with Sunghoon. But no. He should’ve known better because he knew Sunoo, and Sunoo would never leave his side. They were closer than ever, and yet there was a facet to their relationship that contained an unbridgeable distance.
It was a distance that Heeseung could try to close with as many steps forward as he liked, but Sunoo would always be moving in the opposite direction. Towards someone else. Heeseung had been walking his whole life. He was so used to walking, his eyes fixed on that beautiful mirage of a person, that he had been blind to everything in his periphery.
Now that he had stopped in his tracks, he was finally confronted with what had been all around him all along. If you asked a person who had lost their sight if they would choose to see again, many would say no. Heeseung had gotten used to not seeing. He had adjusted to it, and learned to live his life that way. Light can be blinding when you have already gotten used to the dark.
“That can’t be comfortable,” Niki remarked.
Heeseung was sitting upside down, hanging off of the small two-seater couch in his living room. His hair brushed the floor and his legs were propped straight up against the wall.
“All the blood rushes to my head,” Heeseung replied. “It helps me think.”
“I’m not sure that’s how it works,” Niki said with a snort. Heeseung craned his neck up, squinting up at the boy through one eye.
“What do you know?”
“I know that if we don’t at least get the chords down for this song, you’re going to whine all day.”
Heeseung grunted and re-oriented himself, sitting properly. He’d been spending the last couple of months working on his album, though the progress had been slow. He wasn’t expecting much out of it really. He didn’t expect to make it big, or for anyone to even buy his music. But it was the one thing he could make time for and do for himself at the moment.
He’d enlisted Niki’s help, and with Heeseung working on beats and Niki messing around on the piano, they’d managed to come up with a couple of half-baked tracks. As for lyrics, Heeseung hadn’t really gotten much of anything done.
“What’s on your mind?” Niki asked. “You’ve got your pensive face on.”
Heeseung immediately schooled his features into something he hoped looked less emotionally constipated. “I don’t usually talk about myself,” he said stiffly.
“Me neither. But that’s not what I asked.”
Heeseung sighed. “Do you think I’m a good person?”
It was the thing that had been weighing on him the most these days. The image people seemed to have of him and the image he had of himself clashed, creating an uncomfortable dissonance.
Niki hummed in thought. “I think it’s hard to define what makes someone good. But the fact that you’re asking, means that you want to be— and isn’t that what really matters?”
Heeseung let out a laugh of disbelief. “When did you get so wise?”
Niki clicked his tongue, his eyes rolling up to ponder the ceiling. “I grew up. And you did too.”
Heeseung shook his head to himself. “I still have a lot of growing up to do.”
“I don’t think we ever stop growing. We just stop resisting it,” Niki said pointedly.
“Okay, oh wise one,” he chuckled. “So what do I do next?”
“Chords,” Niki reminded him, plonking away at a key repeatedly to get him to focus. Heeseung chewed on the inside of his cheek, trying to concentrate.
“C Major. A minor. F Major. G Major.”
The pianist looked at him askance. “I see you’re taking inspiration from every other pop song in the universe.”
“It’s a starting point,” he mumbled. “I don’t know what to write about though.”
“Are you sure about that?” Niki raised an eyebrow at him.
“I have too many things to write about,” he amended.
“You should write a song about soulmates,” Niki said slyly, his face lighting up.
Heeseung scooped up his notepad and pencil, tucking the latter behind his ear. “And what would I know about that?”
“I think we’re soulmates,” Niki said matter-of-factly.
Heeseung choked. “What are you on about, kid?”
“Well why am I here right now?” Niki asked, a challenge in his voice.
“Because I don’t have to pay you.”
“I mean, why are we always together these days? It’s because we’re the same. We’re both alone.”
Heeseung’s fingers twitched. Alone. He didn’t like that word. His leg started bouncing up and down, the heel of his shoe tapping out an anxious rhythm against the wooden floor.
“That’s not true,” he said. “You have Jay and Jungwon. And I have…” Sunoo.
“True, we have people,” Niki agreed. “But they have other people too. Isn’t a soulmate the one person that you choose, who could only ever choose you back? That’s all we want, you and I. Not to choose, but to be chosen.”
Heeseung thought back to that very first day, all those years ago. Soulmates.
Sunoo had found his soulmate in Sunghoon now. But he recalled what Jay had said to him on his birthday:
Did you ever consider that you can love more than one person in this lifetime?
Maybe Niki was right. Maybe having a soulmate was to choose, and to be chosen.
But all Heeseung knew for sure was that in the very beginning, he and Sunoo had chosen each other.
—
It was through a curtain of raindrops that Heeseung first saw him. The boy was standing all alone in the middle of the sidewalk, his body quivering from the cold that soaked into his clothes. He looked tiny, dwarfed by a world that was far too big for him.
Heeseung himself was used to being alone, but he didn’t mind it at all. He was quite independent for his age, and it wasn’t unusual for him to go out for walks by himself with a handful of coins in his pocket that his mother spared him for sweets. If there was one thing he did mind however, it was seeing other people alone.
He watched the boy standing in the rain for a minute longer. He looked cold and miserable, but he didn’t make any move to take cover or shield himself from the impromptu drizzle. Heeseung pursed his lips. Then he turned around and left.
He walked along the path to that familiar little store at the end of the street, where an old woman ran the shop and always greeted him with a warm smile and an extra piece of candy. The bell tinkled as he walked in, and he stood on the mat just in front of the door for a few moments, shaking out his hair so that he wouldn’t drip onto the floor.
“The usual, dear?” the owner greeted him, gesturing over to the array of wrapped chocolates lining the counter in front of the cash register. Heeseung shook his head and let his coins fall onto the table with a clatter.
“An umbrella, please.”
The woman looked down at the small sum of money, and then back at the assortment of umbrellas stacked together in a cardbox behind her. It wasn’t nearly enough. The amount that this child always brought with him was hardly enough to buy him a couple pieces of candy. It made her quite sad, and so she always set aside more than he paid for. She had grandchildren of her own, after all.
She looked at Heeseung, soaked through with rain, biting his lip so that his teeth wouldn’t chatter. She turned around and picked up an umbrella.
“How about this one, hm?” It was a vibrant red color, fitting for a young boy like him. “Nice and bright, just like you.”
Heeseung bowed deeply in thanks, and received the item from her.
“Do you want the candy too?” she asked, sliding a few pieces of chocolate over to him.
He shook his head firmly. “I don’t have enough money,” Heeseung said, and he walked out the door.
He ran back to where he’d found the boy and saw him still standing there, unmoved. He opened up the umbrella and walked over.
“Why are you standing here?” he called out as he approached. The boy snapped his head towards him. Rivulets of water streamed from his hair and flowed into his mouth, parted in surprise.
“Who are you?” he asked in a soft voice.
“Heeseung. What about you?”
The boy hesitated, then said shyly, “Sunoo.”
“Here.” Heeseung held the umbrella out, and when the other made no move to take it, he stepped closer and held it over the both of them. The shield cast a scarlet shadow over Sunoo’s face. His mouth spread into a shy smile that cut through the air like a beam of light.
“It’s bright, just like you,” Heeseung said without thinking.
“Bright?” Sunoo asked in surprise.
“Do you live here?” Heeseung continued. “I’ve never seen you.”
“We moved. Mother wanted to live near the beach. For fresh air,” he mumbled, his lips puckering into a small pout as he strained to remember what he had been told. He looked so precious. Heeseung didn’t want to let go, but his parents had taught him better than to intrude on a stranger’s life.
He reached down and grabbed Sunoo’s hand, unfurling his fingers and wrapping it around the cane of the umbrella. “Don’t walk alone in the rain,” Heeseung said, and turned around.
He made it a few steps, then stopped. He held his hand out and let the raindrops hit his open palm, already mourning the loss of the umbrella. He made a fist, trying to keep the water closed inside, but the rain escaped through the cracks in his fingers and trickled down his forearm. He watched it in strange fascination.
“You wanna catch the water?” came the small voice from behind him.
Heeseung looked over his shoulder. Sunoo was still standing there, still looking tiny, still drenched, still shivering. The weight of the umbrella in his weak grip made it lean over to one side, and the corner of his left pant-leg continued to get slashed by the rain.
Heeseung was only a child himself, and this boy couldn’t have been more than a couple of years younger than him. Even so, a surge of some unknown feeling rose up within him, an instinct that told him, protect.
He nodded at Sunoo mutely, and Sunoo said, “Watch.” The boy flipped the umbrella upside down and leaned it on the ground. They both watched as the rain immediately fell into its open, red mouth, filling it to the brim. Sunoo tilted his head in contemplation, and then stepped inside.
His light denim jeans completely darkened to his knees and he giggled, stomping around and splashing. Heeseung made his way over and Sunoo made room for him to step inside. They fit perfectly into that tiny space, just the two of them.
They were knee deep in water, trembling, and ecstatic, and they had never been warmer. Their hands closed over each other on top of the curve of the umbrella handle, and Heeseung thought he had never had as much fun in his life as he was having with this stranger.
He had walked up to that child standing alone in the rain that day, and chose him. Sunoo chose him back.
And Heeseung never let go again.