Chapter Text
Song:
We weren’t born to follow; Bon Jovi
The arrival of the new decade was something to look forward to for the inhabitants of The Town, where the tarotists attracted the good energies in order to have better harvest as well as the farmers began to project their crops in an optimistic way. However, even with the arrival of the new decade, nothing was taking them away from the old-fashioned.
The people of the town preferred to watch cable television rather than satellite, because the connection between hills was not very good, as well as the internet and telephone signals outside the town. Connectivity wasn’t very good in any area, so to find out news they resorted to the classic newspaper, and for music there was a diversity of stores in the village gallery where have some generic music you can joy. The activity was high; the television was the last device used as well as the cellphone; that’s why everyone resorted to their classic and loyal media friend:
The radio.
Murmurs and friendly conversations were recurrent, especially when everyone knew each other in The Town.
Near the poplars and the forest, a little further away from the intensity of the town and its inhabitants, there was a distinctive black-haired boy who had revolutionized the town with his star tattoos on his neck, leaning on the insecure wooden railings of the old bridge christened “The Kissing Bridge” while listening to a bit of the well-know Simple Plan on his mp3, drumming his fingers to the beat of the drums and lost in his vague thoughts along with the smoke of his cigarette.
It was a bad vide, of course; however, in the society where there were two types of youth: those who did something to change their future or those who did not consider having a future, Lee MinHo was necessarily categorized in the second category, and although his father scolded him for his stained teeth, the black-haired man was disappointed that his father cared more about his job as a town dentist than about his son’s lungs.
“I remember every sunset, I remember every word you say…” MinHo murmurs calmly, watching how the creek is carting sounding stones. “We will never gonna say goodbye…”
“…It will be fun.”
“Please, Yuna, don’t be a hooligan.”
“Everyone does it, Hannie, or are you going to tell me that no one has ever done it?”
“If you do the engraving… I will not kiss you.”
“Hannie~!”
MinHo turned his body curiously towards the left loop to see, as meters away, the girl in the relationship was squatting with a knife in her hands while the other boy in a large sweater was talking to her. He could recognize them as his schoolmates since they didn’t tend to go unnoticed, but he only knew the girl directly from being a classmate: Shin Yuna; she was active in The Town’s municipal as well as school activities, plus everyone liked her for being an outgoing blonde. He also recognized her companion, but not by name. He recognized him for being a member of the astronomy club, for having a ridiculously orange hair and, sadly, for seconding his girlfriend everything she set her mind to.
He thought he was unnoticed by them, turning so he could make a break for the bridge after breaking away from their private air, however, the girl seemed to exclaim his name.
“MinHo!” She called out to him. Her voice timber was too high-pitched compared to the timber the rest of the girls had, so much so that he could hear her over the music. Even JeongIn had a respectable tone. “Hello!”
Why does she get excited if we run into each other all the time? He asks himself before turning around and forcibly smiling as he takes out his headphones. “Hi, Yuna.”
MinHo didn’t know hot to greet her boy companion, so he bowed his head cordially which was reciprocated with a pleasant wave of the hand.
“What are you doing here?” And this was what MinHo wanted to avoid. He began to feel uncomfortable when the blonde seemed attentive to him, and her poor keychain boyfriend didn’t seem to notice the hearts that were coming out of her eyes. “Are you alone? Don’t you want to be with us?”
“Threesomes are not my thing.” He answered in a joking tone, he had to stifle a laugh when the girl blushed up to her ears and her boyfriend cleared his throat in embarrassment. “You’d better stay with your boyfriend.”
“JiSung, this is my classmate, Lee MinHo.” Yuna pointed at him. MinHo was more interested thinking why the boy was wearing a big sweater.
“A pleasure.” MinHo said hello. JiSung did not respond but only bowed his head, noticeably uncomfortable.
When MinHo saw that, the girl was about to open her mouth to comment on something else with high chances of making the atmosphere more suffocating that it already was, he didn’t hesitate to put his earphones back on and say goodbye to both teenagers. He ended up leaving the Kissing Bridge without looking back.
Lee MinHo -or Lee Know for the fans-, was not so sociable with the rest of the people and preferred to stay out of society that to be someone vainly know as Shin Yuna was than her keychain boyfriend, although that did not take him out of the sight of people like her, who seemed to have some kind of sexual fantasy with wanting to get involved with superficially asocial and hooligan boys.
MinHo was not a vandal, he was just alternative.
Although it was considered a cliché of because of the kind of life he led.
Cliché…
He laughed at that sudden thought that came to his mind when Simple Plan was replaced by Bon Jovi with Always; sometimes his friend SeungMin would tell him that he was a walking cliché for always preferring solitude over being with his friends groupt to listen to music and smoke like a crazy. (“It’s to inspire me.” “Shut up, MinHo.”)
And if he wanted to continue accumulating bingo tickets for the classics, he was also the vocalist of a small band that he formed with his friends, so MinHo considered that Yuna’s behavior towards him was being copied by the other girls who considered him a character from an American 90’s movie.
“SeungMin, stop throwing ashes on the leaves.” Chan asked as he scattered the residue with his hand.
“I’m sorry.”
Garages were always a gathering spot, especially when someone parental indulgence was needed, which is why MinHo’s disengaged mother was overly optimistic (or disinterested) with the idea of her son having an aspiring alternative rock band, plus they weren’t too bad with their music either, so as long as they complied with basic house rules (no rehearsing past nine o’clock on weekdays) the boys had free reign inside the garage.
“And what time is MinHo supposed to arrive?” HyunJin asked while twirling one of the drumsticks with his left hand and banging the bass drum rhythmically. “I don’t want to sound intense, but Kim TaeYeon’s autobiography is going to be shown and I don’t want to miss it.”
“How gay.” SeungMin mocks.
“It’s gayer that you don’t like Kim TaeYeon.” HyunJin points the drumstick at him. “Who doesn’t like that goddess?”
“Do you have to talk about how you’re excited to worship idols now?” SeungMin gracefully argues. “I mean, JeongIn is here.”
JeongIn seems to be more dead than alive. He points to the boy sleeping peacefully on the old sofa in the garage.
“Can you please be quiet?” Chan asks, completely unfocused. “I must finish this if I don’t want to die at MinHo’s hands.”
Both boys snorted and went on with their activities. SeungMin continued to smoke while swinging her legs from sitting at the iconic desk of Bang Chan, who was working inside the garage writing lyrics for their upcoming singles while HyunJin played in ambient tone the lasts cover they had done of U2.
For MinHo, that was the closest thing to family. Not those aunts who constantly talked about his looks or his grandfather who was traumatized by the Korean War. They -the guys- were his after-school joy, so he wasn’t afraid to express his affection by greeting each of them with a kiss on the hair of each before tossing his backpack onto the garage couch -awakening JeongIn- and grabbing his beloved Cessi (A merchandise copy of Queen guitarist Brian May’s guitar) and slung it across his back.
“Shall we start?”
“You’re ten minutes late. Where the hell have you been?” Asks SeungMin.
“You are in a good mood.” HyunJin points out. “Did you see Kim DaHyun’s underwear?”
“The day I do, I will rise to heaven to go with my brother.” He scoffs, but then roll his tongue in annoyance, changing his countenances at once. “Good day, my ass. The truth is that I’m suffocated to the teeth and I just want to relax” He explains while tuning Cessi. “I was on the Kissing Bridge, you know, being the alternative guy that I am, and suddenly Shin Yuna arrived with her keychain boyfriend and, well, you can imagine what happened.”
“No. What was so terrible?” HyunJin asks.
MinHo paused dramatically before answering.
“She introduced me to her boyfriend.”
HyunJin and SeungMin laughed at MinHo’s dramatics.
“Please, you say it like it’s something weird.” HyunJin says whit a shrug. “Yuna seems nice.”
“She’s nice. She is nice to you, but she melts for me.” Says MinHo, completely dismayed. “And she didn’t even hide it when she saw me. I felt sorry for the guy next to him; he didn’t even look me in the eyes.”
“Maybe he was upset because his girlfriend drools over you.” SeungMin commented.
“Do you really think Yuna has a crush on you?” Chan asks him, completely surrendering to his concentration with the new song. “Yuna tends to show off JiSung a lot, and they are always together…”
“The food has arrived!”
From the entrance of MinHo’s garage Felix appears together with ChangBin carrying bags of chips and soft drinks. They mercilessly dumped the load on Chan’s desk to continually settle into their respective instruments and being tuning them.
“You suck.” Chan spat. SeungMin just laughed beside him.
The young band, most of whom were sixteen years old, followed the rhythm of HyunJin on the drums to start playing one of their new singles which, like all the pieces they played, they had worked hard to make; every sacrifice and sleeplessness to compose a new song under Chan’s authorship together with the band made them feel a little more satisfied with their created art, and each step was more hopeful than the previous one, where they believed they could practice with that hobby.
The Town was usually quiet, but when the band played, music abounded.
. . .
As was customary in the halls of the school, MinHo drummed his fingers on the side of his jeans to the rhythm of the random song playing through his mp3 along with the humming of the lyrics and a disconnection from the rest of the world. He strolled trough his journey to the school library to finally return a book he had requested a couple of weeks ago and was already being pestered by the school administration to return it.
“If you keep this up, I’m going to suspend you from the library.” The old librarian threatened.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Don.” The boy apologizes without a hint of forgiveness.
“Go and leave it on the shelves better.” She orders him. “You should help me in the library as a merit for me to forgive you.”
“If you are going to charge me to the director for every delay, then no.” He ends up joking.
Literature was not of much interest to MinHo. Yes, he liked to read and had it as a hobby, but unlike ChangBin who swallowed books or Chand who bathed in lyrics, MinHo took it more calmly and devoted himself to read just enough to be able to better develop his ideas when composing songs.
“Shi!”
MinHo stopped at one of the shelves after hearing a clatter that caught the attention of the few students who were there. He took a couple of steps back to meet the boy he had seen yesterday on the bridge picking up the fallen books.
Hey, it’s the keychain boyfriend.
With a sly smile MinHo entered the hallway walking melodiously to make himself noticed by the boy, but the other so completely ignored his existence that he was stubbornly focused on reaching all the books in one arm.
“Hi, Hannie, do you need help?”
“Ah!”
JiSung dropped all the books he carried in his arm along with a small jump from his fright. MinHo felt ugly seeing how the other had been scared just by the sight of him.
“I’m fine, thank you.” JiSung replies before returning to his work and this time arranging the books on the shelf one by one. “And don’t call me Hannie.”
MinHo rolled his eyes and reached down to reach some of the fallen books to help JiSung organize the library again.
“Where are you looking for something?” MinHo asks.
“An astronomy book that I think is missing.” JiSung answers in a neutral tone of voice.
“Uh, I have one now.”
MinHo shows the book to JiSung, the cover was titled with a prominent white ‘Stars of Dawn’ along with different moons of the solar system peeking over the sun. JiSung’s eyes widened at the sight of the book and he took it with great care not to brush against MinHo.
“I’ve been looking for it for weeks.” JiSung looked at the book.
“Yes, I don’t have a good memory for these things.” The other excuses himself scratching the back of his head.
MinHo stood for a while in front of JiSung while the other continued reading, completely ignoring MinHo’s presence. The black-haired man felt insulted that the boy wasn’t paying attention to him, so he cleared his throat to get his attention.
“Hey…”
“See you later.”
JiSung reached for his backpack from the floor and quickly got the hell out of there. The whole time they were facing each other, JiSung never looked at him in the eyes.
I’m right, Chan, MinHo thought, JiSung probably doesn’t like me.
It’s not something MinHo would really be perturbed about. He didn’t mind if someone disliked him, but if it was a guy, he had never talked to and that is the reason for disliked him and that his reason for disliking him was unfair, that made MinHo feel bad.
“I feel sorry for JiSung.” That was the first thing SeungMin said after MinHo told him in the garage what happened in his casual encounter with JiSung. “To know that your girlfriend is hung up on someone else…”
“But it was rude.” MinHo says. “He didn’t even thank me.”
“Maybe he’s shy.” Chan reasons.
“Shy my mother, he avoided me completely” Exclaimed the black-haired man in frustration. “He won’t make any friends if he’s this rude.”
“Hey, you idiots!”
The group in the garage looked down the street: two boys from the school -part of the basketball team and known friends of JiSung’s- passed by on bicycles outside, watched in slow motion as they tossed a can inside while hurling a couple of insults at them before retreating.
“Why always cans?” JeongIn mutters, walking over to the can to throw in the trash.
“What? You prefer stones?” SeungMin asks sarcastically.
“Have you ever seen JiSung, MinHo?” HyunJin resumes the topic with MinHo. “I’m serious. JiSung is always surrounded by people.” He says the last thing pointing at the pair of idiots who passed by.
“The truth is that I’ve always seen him with Yuna.” He shrugs. “I don’t care if he really has friends.”
“Those are not friends.” ChangBin critics. “Those people are like, I don’t know, they’re starlings and JiSung is a hummingbird.”
“The hummingbird was not an insect?”
“For God’s sake, MinHo.” The six shout at him.
But who can blame him? MinHo was frustrated and remained; every time he saw the orange guy with Yuna or one of those extroverted boys he seemed more like an accessory than a friend.
He didn’t know JiSung and Yuna’s friend group well, especially since he wasn’t interested in it, but during one day, while having lunch in the cafeteria with his friends, he watched as JiSung ate in silence while watching the ridiculous game the three boys who seems to be his friend playing while five other girls -including Yuna- were chatting who know what.
MinHo believed that he was nothing more than a boy just as adverse as them, he shouldn’t think too much about it if it wasn’t that relevant to his day either.
But what MinHo didn’t know was the fact that JiSung was having a bit of a hard time.
. . .
JiSung was asthmatic, he constantly pulled the trigger of his inhaler to feel better when his chest pressed and he couldn’t feel the air; his mother had him strictly do some physical sport and for the physical education classes he took a little longer breaths than the rest.
And that fact was completely irrelevant to his friends.
On one side he had Yuna, who was chatting whit her friends while sharing an electronic cigarette with a toxic smell of orange essence; and on the other side, MinGi, San and YeoSang were smoking mercilessly next to him, intoxicating him twice as much by the cigarette smell.
He was in the bleachers of the school field where they held baseball games, watching other kids lazily wasting time playing soccer and baseball; and while it was already Friday after school, JiSung instead of enjoying his youth was just anxious about studying.
“Yuna…” JiSung whispers softly to the girl’s ear to get her attention, but she simply raises her hand from her electric cigarette to listen to her friend’s absurd story. “Hey…”
The girl paid no attention to him, which exasperates JiSung. He had been with the girl for three months and still she treated him like anything, although he couldn’t demand much either because JiSung -from his mother’s perspective, sadly- didn’t care for their relationship too.
JiSung obviously liked Yuna, and when he asked her out for the first time one Sunday afternoon to go to the movies, he never expected that she would agree not only to go out but to start a formal relationship so soon after they met. His mother was completely delighted that a sixteen year old boy had as a girlfriend such a pretty girl as Yuna was, with an elegant and cheerful face, and big brown eyes completely mesmerizing, plus she had the peculiarity tan her sun blonde hair was always artificially dyed with bright colors giving a more unique touch to her personality.
When JiSung watched Yuna dye her hair with colored crayons when she was bored, it was a pleasant reminder of how fantastic she was and why he liked her. He also liked that she smelled like various candles because he liked fruity smells, and even though it made JiSung a little dizzy, it was nice to come home to the smell of her permeating his sweater. He also liked it when they went out, because she always bought gifts for her family and JiSung’s mother. And most of all, he liked Yuna because she was nice to people.
But like all people, she had a flaw that made JiSung feel guilty.
Yuna did not like him.
No matter how many kisses she gave him, hand-holding or clichéd romantic insistences she asked to recreate with him were no more for JiSung empty actions. He couldn’t understand how a girl like her would like a guy like JiSung.
What was it that she saw in him?
“I must go.” JiSung announces as he gets up from the bleachers.
“Hey, we were going to go to the cove outside the village to look for mushrooms!” MinGi arrives.
“So soon?” Finally, Yuna stopped paying attention to Lia’s story to look at her boyfriend, pouting adorably. “Why?”
“I have to study.” He answers in general, and then turns to her. “Will you come with me?”
The girl didn’t seem to want to leave, smiling pitifully at her boyfriend while denying. “No, I’ll leave in a while.”
JiSung nodded and leaned over her to say goodbye with a short kiss on her lips; the rest of the group made a mocking noise that made JiSung blush up to his neck. He finished by bidding them all farewell with a subtle military salute and took off.
When JiSung had started his relationship with Yuna, his mother had made strict rules for him on how to be a good boyfriend -point for her actually, because JiSung had no idea how to be one-, he always copied how gentlemanly he had to be and corresponding to all her demands without even flinching at her request. JiSung was only sixteen and his mother reminded him how much of a man he had to be, and she did it so many times that it intoxicated him in the same way as the smoke from the nicotine-laced orange scents Yuna smoked.
“Oh god…” The orange man expressed with disgust after feeling the taste of smoke in his taste buds, causing repulsion. “I must eat something.”
The smell of cigarettes really disgusted him and increased his levels when it would normally linger in his nostrils and throat from his constant breathing in, so he decided to stop at the small supermarket the village had to appease the taste.
. . .
“Always me, always me…” MinHo muttered, walking along The Town sidewalks while kicking stones. “They should stop eating those animals. They should be like plants; they live off the sun and don’t complain about the kind of drink at home.”
Moments earlier MinHo was extremely relaxed in his garage, leaning back on the old sofa while playing random tunes with HyunJin providing accompaniment; ChangBin was explaining about his scientific hobby to JeongIn who was looking at SeungMin exclaiming for help; and Chan was chatting which Felix about the new composition he was making.
Suddenly, everyone was disconcerted by a sporadic shout from SeungMin.
“What happened?” MinHo asked, frightened.
“I’m hungry.” HyunJin answered meaninglessly as he entered the black-haired man’s house.
“I can’t find ChangBin’s fingernail.” SeungMin exclaims, covering his face in distress. “God, I must have dropped it when I was on the bleachers.”
“Why did he have your fingernail?” JeongIn asks ChangBin. He shrugs.
“He asked to borrow my guitar and my fingernail during lunch, though…”
“What were you doing in the stands?” JeongIn asks again, now addressing SeungMin.
“He was with a girl, champ.” MinHo scoffs.
SeungMin did not reply to MinHo’s defensiveness, causing uproar in the group.
“Really?!”
“You were with a girl?!”
“A real one?!”
“SeungMin is no longer a virgin!”
“The food is finished!” HyunJin announced. “But don’t worry, SeungMin, I’m sure you ate well.”
“Shut up!” SeungMin stops them, completely flushed. “That’s why I don’t tell you anything!”
“MinHo goes for the food.” Chan orders, avoiding SeungMin’s topic.
MinHo let out a loud, pitiful cry as he threw his head back, kicking. “I don’t want to!”
“Don’t be a crybaby.” HyunJin says, going to him to hit his legs. “Feed us.”
“You don’t complain because you’re not the one who carries the food.” The black-haired man answers, leaving Cessi on the sofa to sit down and put on his slippers. “Does anyone want anything?”
“I want-”
“I was just being cordial; I’m not going to bring anything specific.” He interrupts.
“I’ll walk you to the corner.” SeungMin says plaintively. “I have to retrieve ChangBin’s fingernail.”
“And you’d better hope so!”
“Okay.” MinHo stood up and walked over to the distinctive desk where Chan was worked; he held out his hand and the other patted it. MinHo rolled his eyes. “No idiot- the money.”
“Where do you want me to get it?” Chan asks. “We are broke because of HyunJin’s last drums.”
“In my defense, it was ChangBin’s fault!” HyunJin accuses the other. “He got the bass drum stuck in his head!”
“And did it get stuck on it’s own?” Ask the other, defensively.
MinHo let out a sigh thinking about how to pay for the food; maybe he could ask his mother, but she would tell him to go to hell. He also thought that instead of buying, he could loot the cupboard at home, but the memory of his mother expressly telling him ‘you finance your food, no stealing because we are not a foundation’ stopped him at once.
“You could flirt with the old man at the cashier to see if he’ll give you a discount.” HyunJin gives the idea in a joking tone.
“It might work for you.” He points at him. “Fuck it, I’ll ask him to leave me in debt.”
MinHo and SeungMin came out of the garage with MinHo hinting to the other to tell him about what happened on their lunch break, but MinHo knew SeungMin and knew he wouldn’t tell him anything until it was either life or death, or he was heartbroken (just like all his previous dates).
“Won’t you come with me to the shop?” MinHo asked when he saw that SeungMin was really leaving on his own way.
“And be a accomplice to your theft? Forget it.” He says goodbye with a peace sign before leaving for another direction.
Between curses MinHo arrived at the small supermarket in town and snorted after seeing the huge line at the checkout; it was early November and the cold was not yet fully arrived, but it seemed that people were already beginning to hibernate by the large number of people and shortage of food on the shelves of the supermarket.
He passed through the aisles, grabbed two dozen cans of soda and four large cans of chips to, with difficulty, beat the line and pray that his arms would support all the weight before they fell before he paid. He poked his heat between the people in line to watch the elderly cashier takes his liberty and slowness in cashing out.
I had to have put Viagra in his glass to move the line forward faster.
He sighed in exasperation and kept praying to some God that the cans wouldn’t fall off, but his arms were shaking faster and faster and his shoulders began to tense sharply.
Oh, oh…
But, almost to MinHo’s relief, he noticed the boy in front of him was the famous keychain boyfriend.
“JiSung!”
The named one turned on his axis to look behind him and the first thing he encountered was that boy with star tattoos abruptly handing him the two dozen cans.
“What’s wrong with you?!” JiSung shouted at him, a bit frightened by the sudden events.
MinHo sighed with relief after seeing that nothing had fallen and that everything was in order.
“Phew…, that was close, don’t you think?” Commented MinHo, gracefully. “My arms were shaking like jelly and I swore that at any moment I would drop it and it would all burst dramatically and…”
He stopped his monologue of relief after seeing JiSung’s raised eyebrow expression, but rather than being intimidated he found tenderness in how the boy had a particularly round and pleasant face that seemed impossible angry; he would almost have laughed in his face if it weren’t for JiSung still not speaking.
“I mean- I’m sorry and- uh, thanks for helping me.” MinHo retracts, suddenly feeling shy.
JiSung rolled his eyes in disgust but settled the food in his arms. If that were enough to keep the boy on his back from talking to him then he would help him in any way he wanted.
. . .
“ChangBin is going to kill me…” SeungMin mutters under her breath. “And I will have died virgin.”
He was in the same place as hours ago: under the bleachers of the village school looking for ChangBin’s green fingernail; SeungMin knew it was an important fingernail for ChangBin as he had bought it from a professional store when they went on a field trip to Seoul, and he would feel very guilty if he had indeed lost the fingernail.
Eureka!
He bent down and moved the cigarette butts on the nail and then wiped it with his pants, looked at it with victory. He would not die like a virgin!
“Lee MinHo, how can you miss it?”
The nosy antenna SeungMin had was activated after hearing her friend’s name in the group of five girls sitting on the bleachers. From the colorful hair and tuned timbre SeungMin could recognize that it was Yuna with her friends, also recognizing HyunJin’s twin in the group.
“He’s my classmate.” SeungMin hears Yuna tell one of her friends. “He’s fucking hot, plus he’s hilarious.”
“It’s a walking cliché.” HyunJin’s sister says. “I don´t know him that well, but from what HyunJin tells our parents, MinHo is kind of like a Korean Dany Zuko.”
“Who?”
“That doesn’t take away from his attractiveness.” Expresses Yuna.
“Don’t say that when you have a boyfriend.” Another girl scolds her. “Although, I understand, he is too hot.”
“JiSung is cute and all, but I wouldn’t deny Lee MinHo an outing if he ever invited me.” Yuna ends up saying before laughing nervously.
A bad taste in his mouth left SeungMin that conversation and he knew he didn’t want to listen to anymore. He ended up quickly walking away from there feeling immense pity for her keychain boyfriend.