Chapter Text
At the age of 23, Hyunjin feels 18. He’s stuck, haunted by the ghost that lives next door, the mere sight of the walls taunting him, plaguing him, laughing at his face. Maybe it’s silly, but Hyunjin has always been one to take things to his heart—and the absence of one Kim Seungmin in his life is like a wound that keeps tearing open again and again, no matter how Hyunjin does his everything to let it heal.
He avoids letting his thoughts travel to what once was. Rather keeps the curtains of his childhood bedroom drawn closed, tries to find a middle ground between cherishing the memories and trying to banish them from his mind. Even five years later, he can’t quite move on, even despite having found solace in acceptance.
For the first year, he lives in a false narrative. Tries to chase for glimpses of the past while simultaneously holding onto the past to keep himself from wallowing in misery.
When reality kicks in, he lets himself sulk. Curses the songs he used to listen to, curses the shows and movies he used to watch. They’re a bunch of reminders, nothing more.
Ultimately, he starts finding himself ridiculous. Not everyone and everything is out to get him, they’re not mocking him. When he visits his mother during the holidays, the house next door doesn’t shoot shards of glass through his heart.
He still likes to distract himself more often than not. Prefers to ignore the small glimpses he catches of Seungmin’s ghost in the taste of hot chocolate or in the winter breeze—the glimpses of his best friend, of the one who stole his heart from his sleeve and took it with him to the other side of the globe. It’s not a big deal, they were never even together, Hyunjin tells himself, yet longs, longs, longs.
For five years, he yearns. He wakes up, remembers how his dreams were never achieved, gets through the day, goes to sleep, and prays things would change. They never do. And maybe it’s dramatic to long for something that’s slipped from him half a decade ago, but Hyunjin no longer has hope for the yearning to ever stop; as the days turned into weeks, which then turned into months and finally years, Hyunjin made his peace.
He knows moving on would be timely, but it’s impossible. There’s nothing he can do, not when Hyunjin feels trapped in time, thrown to the past the second he hears a laugh which resembles Seungmin’s an eerie amount, or whenever the air smells precisely like it once smelled all those years ago.
Nostalgia’s a bitch, and Hyunjin can’t escape it.
He’s stuck. What goes around comes around, so he’s not even surprised it’s his childhood home in his decaying hometown he finds himself living in after university. Again.
He knows he’s a coward, knows he’s pathetic, yet he keeps going on, as if it’s his second nature. Moving forward, day after day. Avoiding the playground he met Seungmin at where nothing except for the rusty and screeching swings remain, never stepping foot near the abandoned train tracks where they had escaped only to walk along them for hours on end without a destination, and rather looking the other way than glancing at Seungmin’s old house, which was more of a home to him than his own house has ever been.
He doesn’t consider himself sad. He doesn’t feel happy either, for that matter. His life is quite stable: he has a job at a nearby bar, he takes care of the house on behalf of his mother, he dances and paints in his freetime, and has his coworkers to consider as something akin to friends.
Hyunjin is the only one from their former friend group who remains, still stuck in the cage each of them had been dreaming to escape. It’s disheartening, not having the slightest of clues about where any of his former friends are now. They used to be eight, a group of boys with dreams about reaching the stars, and Hyunjin feels bitter. Bitter that he was unfortunate enough to stay behind. Bitter that he never escaped. He can only blame himself.
None of Hyunjin’s life satisfies him.
He can chase after the highs and wallow in the lows, but he still doesn’t quite feel anything as he once used to. Is he depressed? Perhaps, but that’s something he won’t admit until he’s six feet under.
Every now and then, Hyunjin gets hit with a wave of ennui so overwhelming he needs a break from the haziness of his life and the days that blend together—even if that means succumbing to his desolation. That’s when he romanticizes the hell out of his life, puts on some nostalgic songs, takes a trip down memory lane and wanders along the streets he once walked with his person. He naively imagines how one day he’s bound to run into Seungmin again, properly. Maybe they’ll reconnect, get back what they lost, or, in Hyunjin’s wildest dreams, gain something new. Something Hyunjin still longs for so much he aches.
Goes without saying, it’s a childlike wish.
It’s a cloudy day in the middle of April as Hyunjin is sitting on one of the two swings that to this day ornament the playground. The former red color has long ago faded into a maroon one, and the seats of the swings are covered in markings of some young vandals who think scribbling over playground objects is peak delinquency.
His eyes wander across the horizon as his legs dangle. There’s a pair of kids running a circle around the slide, one seemingly chasing the other. They’re laughing, cheerful and high-pitched. Still having their lives ahead, still holding that positive outlook on the world of a child. Hyunjin smiles, bittersweet, thinking about all that could have been.
He wishes he’d have a hint of his optimism left. Maybe his days would go by easier, maybe his heart would feel lighter. He sighs, shakes his head. It’s all so pathetic—that’s what Hyunjin’s life is.
In their pathetic little town Hyunjin swore to escape, dust covering the streets, all alone with no one but his worn off mother as his company, his life is truly pitiful. Wasting away his days, Hyunjin lives on.
As a five-year-old, Hyunjin’s days aren’t all that devoid of human interaction. He’s a lively child who will play with anyone and everyone, despite their differing interests, all cofactors aside. All it requires for Hyunjin to make a friend is an exchange of hellos. He loves going to the kindergarten his mother drops him off every morning, for in the midst of a crowd is where he belongs . Smiles and laughter all around him, everyone getting along.
It’s not like Hyunjin wants to be the center of attention; he only feels a deep sense of belonging in his kindergarten friend group, playing house and giggling alongside everyone. There, Hyunjin can be anyone he wants to be. The president, a princess, even a horse!
One day, Hyunjin is on the playground with six of his friends. One of the kids’ fathers, Jisung’s, is watching after them.
He has a nice group of friends; Chan, a lively and empathetic kid, who’s the oldest of everyone; Minho, who loves to play pranks on his friends; Changbin, who tries to act all tough but deep down is the most sensitive person Hyunjin has ever met; Jisung, with whom Hyunjin keeps on getting into silly arguments, but who always makes him laugh with his stomach; Felix, who’s the newest addition to their group, having moved from Australia some months ago; and Jeongin, the youngest of them, but who still often is the one guiding their playground dates.
The seven children are playing tag with a twist of the tagger being an evil witch and the others being brave knights who must run from the witch to make it back to their castle, to their princesses. Hyunjin doesn’t exactly understand why they must have princesses to run back home to. But he doesn’t mention it, as objectifying others is already something he has grown a fear of.
He never dares do it at home, and he never dares do it with his friends.
“No, no! Not me! My princess hasn’t seen me in months!” Chan laughs and screams while swiftly avoiding being tagged.
Hyunjin is catching his breath some feet away from Chan’s struggling, as he just managed to duck under the tagger’s, Felix’s, reaching arm.
But he gets distracted. There’s a boy on the swing, looking down at his feet while his mother (it must be his mother, Hyunjin assumes) tries patting his back but gets pushed away by the violently frowning boy.
Why does he look so upset?
Hyunjin forgets all about the tag as he strolls towards the swings with pure determination in his steps. Maybe Jeongin yells after him, but Hyunjin is already too occupied by this other boy to hear his friend.
With his head tilted and his lower lip jutted out in a pout, Hyunjin looks at the boy in front of him. He doesn’t see it, but the presumed mother gives a blinding smile to his son, and gives Hyunjin way as he appears.
“Why are you here all alone?”
The frown doesn’t falter. “Because.” He crosses his arms.
“Come play with me!” Hyunjin brightens and smiles, offering his hand for the boy who he has to look slightly upwards to in order to meet his eyes, as he is still situated on the red swing.
“Why?”
“I want to be friends! My name is Hyunjin.”
“Why do you want to be my friend?” The boy’s eyebrows are still furrowed and his eyes narrowed, but the crinkle in his forehead is slowly smoothening out.
“Because I just do!”
“I don’t want to play.”
“Why not? We can play that we’re traveling the world! We can go anywhere!”
“Mom says you’re not supposed to travel with strangers.”
“I told you my name already, so I’m not a stranger anymore!”
“But I am to you,” the boy is stubborn, which Hyunjin is still quite too young to register, but he finds amusement in the way his eyes look funny, like he’s angry.
“Tell me your name and then you’re not anymore.”
He looks up at his mother, who gives an approving nod. “I’m Seungmin,” the boy jumps off from the swing and starts walking. Hyunjin follows, smiling brightly as the boy, Seungmin, wordlessly agrees to play with him.
“Where do you want to travel to, Seungmin?” Hyunjin wonders as he picks up a stick from the ground and starts drawing a car they can travel by.
”I don’t know. I don’t even know what places I can travel to,” Seungmin furrows his eyebrows.
Hyunjin traces the outlines of a car into the surface of the ground. It’s drawn from the side, so logically, there’s no way they could go inside. But it doesn’t matter, not in the slightest: when you’re only five, details barely make a difference. ”We can go to America! My mom always watches movies from there, and when I ask why everything is so different she just says because it’s America. It’s always sunny there!” Hyunjin explains as he thickens the lines of the wheels.
Seungmin has tilted his head to the side. ”It can’t be sunny all the time,” there’s a precocious tone to his voice, “There’s a night-time there, too.”
Hyunjin drops the stick and his mouth falls slightly agape. “Really?!”
It makes Seungmin giggle. “You’re a dummy, of course night comes everywhere!”
Hyunjin pulls a face, but continues drawing the car anyway. “Our car is done! Get in and I can drive!”
Seungmin tilts his head, once again. Hyunjin finds it funny. “You look like a puppy!” he giggles, but doesn’t get a reaction as Seungmin only seems confused.
“Do we have to lay down on our sides to get in there?”
Only pointing it out makes the realization dawn on Hyunjin. “Oopsie,” he grins. “We’ll just run!” With that, he grabs Seungmin’s hand and starts sprinting across the playground.
They end up next to a slide.
“Here’s ice cream! What flavor do you want?” Hyunjin starts scooping the air.
“Pistachio with chocolate sauce.”
“Ew,” he grimaces but follows the order, scooping some air and handing Seungmin the finished product.
As they start looking for a pool (Hyunjin says there was a pool in America in one of his mother’s movies), Hyunjin explains how he wants to be a traveler when he grows up.
“I’m going to go to every place! I’ll see America and every other one of the places, that’s what I want to be. Who will you be when you grow up?”
“I’m going to be a doctor like my mom!” Seungmin points to his mother who is standing by the swings.
“My mom just writes something on her laptop and talks to people all day. That’s what she told me. And my dad’s job is to watch TV and drink something from his big mug. But I’m never allowed to taste what he’s having,” Hyunjin frowns. He thinks it’s unfair that only adults get to do certain things. “What does your dad do?”
“I don’t have a dad.”
“Of course you do! Everyone does! My mom said that.”
Seungmin shrugs his shoulders. “Not me.”
It makes Hyunjin confused. How can he not have a dad? Maybe Hyunjin will ask later today about it from his mother.
For the rest of the day (or for the next hour, which is practically the whole day for a five-year-old) Hyunjin takes Seungmin to different places all around the world on the premises of the playground. They have fun, and Hyunjin is happy to have found a new friend. Once Seungmin’s mother signals that it’s time to go, she asks where Hyunjin lives. Obviously, Hyunjin can only point to a direction and say over there, but with Jisung’s father chiming in, they end up finding out they live right next to each other anyway.
Why Hyunjin never knew it before he can’t know, but it’s not like it matters to him, anyway.
“Hyunjin-ah, now you can come play with me every day if you want to!” Seungmin rejoices.
And so he does. Almost without fail, the pattern being broken only if either is sick to the point of not being able to function properly, Hyunjin goes to Seungmin’s house every single day.
At the age of eight, Hyunjin still spends most of his days at Seungmin’s. They find great joy in shutting themselves out from the whole wide world in the treehouse built on the large oak in the backyard.
The perks of small towns; spacious yards.
One time Hyunjin wonders where exactly the treehouse has come from. He voices the question after Seungmin’s mother brings them milk and cookies for a snack.
”What are these kinds of trees that grow houses? I want one too,” he wonders with frown lines between his eyebrows.
Hyunjin is a little oblivious to how the world exactly works, the blame for this going for none other than his parents, but Seungmin always kindly educates him with his impossible wisdom—after laughing at his stupid question.
”Trees don’t grow houses, you dummy. The treehouse has to be built. With these wooden planks,” Seungmin knocks on one of the walls, ”And you have to use a hammer and nails to make the planks stay together.”
Hyunjin’s mouth widens as he breathes out an ah with an enlightened nod. ”Where do you get people who can build them?” he questions further. He’s not exactly sure what prompts him to inquire about this now, because they have been spending time here for closer to years already. Maybe his brain just decides to start bugging him about the wonders of the world very impromptu, and it has very little to do with how new a concept may or may not be to him.
”I don’t know. Maybe someone does it for a job,” Seungmin muses with a shrug of his shoulders.
”Where did you find the person who built this?”
”It was my dad,” Seungmin breaks out into a bright smile as he announces it with pride.
So far, Hyunjin has learned that Seungmin’s father is gone. That much he was told by his own mother, before she urged Hyunjin not to ask any further questions about it from Seungmin. He felt confused, all too used to blurting out each and every question that pops up in his head, but he always listens to his mother—well, except for the times when he doesn’t—because Daeun is Hyunjin’s only reliable source of information.
”When did he leave? Where did he go? My mom said I shouldn’t be asking so many questions about it, but you always answer me, right Seungminnie?”
Seungmin doesn’t look too bothered by it. ”A car hit him when I was a baby. He built this before that.”
”So… he got hurt?” Hyunjin’s eyebrows furrow and his lower lip juts out into a pout. He does understand the concept of death, as one time in his mother’s movie a character died, and she explained it to him: people stop existing eventually. They can’t live forever. When they leave, it’s like they’re sleeping forever.
”Yeah, so hurt he’s gone now,” Seungmin still smiles in a crooked way as he explains.
”Do you miss him?” Hyunjin wonders with his head tilted to the side as he chews on a chocolate chip cookie. He really loves the cookies Seungmin’s mother bakes.
Seungmin seems to think about it for a moment. ”No, I don’t think so. I don’t even remember him. I think about him sometimes, but it feels like he’s still with me every time I come here.”
Hyunjin’s forehead forms a deep crinkle. Although he barely grasps what Seungmin is saying, he wonders how he can think such abstract thoughts. Hyunjin is yet to discover just how wise Seungmin is, but one day he’ll be old enough to understand, mature enough to admire his mind an impossible amount.
”So the treehouse is like your dad?”
Seungmin laughs, and Hyunjin’s forehead smooths out. ”Maybe. A little.”
”I like your dad then. He’s very nice,” Hyunjin nods enthusiastically, and they revert back to drawing portraits of themselves in any undiscovered areas left for them to discover. They have their whole lives ahead, and Hyunjin likes the thought of finding an amusement park as fun as the one he is currently drawing the two visiting.
Hyunjin’s drawings have always been a little nicer-looking than Seungmin’s. Neither of them ever comments on the fact.
One day, after Hyunjin gets off from school an hour later than Seungmin does, he eagerly runs right back home. He’ll only leave his backpack and in turn grab his two stuffed animals and then go right back to where he always goes: the treehouse in Seungmin’s backyard, which has become a safe haven for him.
“Hyunjin-ah!” His father’s stern voice has Hyunjin stopping in his tracks as he’s already zooming down the stairs with his plushies tucked in his arms.
“Yes, dad?” Hyunjin cautiously walks up to his father, who is, as always, swallowed by his large armchair, a bottle of beer in his hand. He doesn’t know where the agitation derives from, but each time his father addresses him, Hyunjin feels a little lightheaded. He thinks there’s something tightening inside his chest
“You going to that boy’s house again?” Hyunjin’s father asks in a raspy voice with a charged tone.
“Seungminnie’s, yeah.”
“Why are you always there? You have more important things to do. Have you even—” he hiccups, “—done your homework?” He sounds a tad bit heated, but it’s not like Hyunjin can separate the usual tensed up demeanor from a truly irritated one.
“Yes” he informs with a nod before continuing with a small voice. “I always do extra work on the weekends so I have free time after school to play with Seungminnie.”
His mother soon chimes in. “Which you would see just fine if you paid any attention, because your son sits at the kitchen table for multiple hours every Saturday and Sunday, almost without fail.” The signature exhaustion is seeping from Daeun’s voice—not that Hyunjin can pinpoint it, as it’s there every hour of every day, so it’s all he knows.
His father bites something back, but Hyunjin is already slipping from the situation, halfway out the door, as he’s decided the conversation is no longer a place for him to remain in.
He runs as fast as his tiny legs only allow him to, up until he’s panting heavily at the root of the large oak tree. Seungmin is usually in there from the second he gets home, and Hyunjin has only had to go knocking on his front door to look for him a total of three times before.
Hyunjin climbs up the ladder, maneuvering himself up each step with caution to keep his precious plushies from falling from his grasp. One of them is a puppy, and the other is a llama. Back when Hyunjin got the two as a present for his sixth birthday, he instantly went to Seungmin for name recommendations. Seungmin told him the llama reminded him of Hyunjin, but that Hyunjin was also a ferret. His knowledge of basic English prompted him to come up with the name Jiniret. So when Hyunjin said it would only be fair to name the puppy at least somewhat after Seungmin (because Seungmin really resembles a puppy), the name PuppyMin, or PuppyM for short was created.
So now, with Jiniret and PuppyM in his arms, Hyunjin makes his way up to the small deck in front of the entrance of the treehouse. He knocks. Before he can open his mouth to inform that he’s there with their children (yes, PuppyM and Jiniret are their children), he hears Seungmin yelling from inside.
“Go away! Why can’t everyone just go away?” Seungmin has to be moping. Hyunjin can tell by his voice. He’s a bit short-tempered, hot-headed, and when upset, he ends up snapping at others and locking himself up somewhere alone.
Hyunjin’s lip twists into a pout. “Seungminnie?” He asks with a small voice, lip almost quivering with fear over Seungmin potentially being mad at him. What if he never wants to play with Hyunjin again?
He does have other friends—they’re a rather tight-knit group with the six other kids—but Seungmin is his best friend. The one Hyunjin shares the wildest imaginary worlds with, the one Hyunjin always laughs the most with.
It’s quiet for some time, before Seungmin’s voice is carried to his ears again. “Hyune-yah? Is that you?”
“Yes. And your two children. They miss their dad,” Hyunjin says with a tinge of hurt in his tone. He’s always been sensitive, so now the thought of Seungmin possibly wanting to abandon Hyunjin and their children is making him feel small.
“Oh.”
“Do you really want everyone to go away?” Hyunjin cautiously asks, his voice small and strained.
There’s a short silence before Hyunjin hears steps approaching the doorway. “Everyone except you. You can stay,” Seungmin’s voice is far from the agitated one Hyunjin heard moments before. The door opens. A corner of Seungmin’s mouth quirks upwards, but the ghost of a smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Hi Minnie! They missed you,” Hyunjin reaches out the two plushies towards Seungmin as he enters, and the latter grabs them into a hug. His eyes turn to moon-crescents as he nuzzles his face into the soft animals.
“Why did you want everyone to go away?” Hyunjin can’t help but ask with a slight furrow in his eyebrows with his head tilted to the side.
Seungmin’s face slightly drops at that, his lower lip jutting out. “I got an 85 from a science test.”
It’s such a Seungmin-like reason for such a Seungmin-like struggle. Hyunjin can’t help but chuckle. “That’s the highest I’ve gotten from a science test,” he says with a beaming smile. Seungmin really is smart in every way possible, and Hyunjin wonders how he can excel in everything. Hyunjin himself is… well, he’s average. Lacks critical thinking and the capacity to comprehend complex and mathematical issues, but makes up for it in creativity. His mother praises him for his beautiful mind, and that’s enough for Hyunjin.
”Yeah, but when I’m a doctor I have to be perfect! I can’t cure people only 85 percent, I have to do it 100 percent,” Seungmin huffs with a frown, leaning back into a wall and slumping down as he hugs the plushies even closer to his chest.
Hyunjin walks over to pat his head, the brown hair flopping over his forehead and going into his eyes. ”Stop it, you’re gonna blind me!” Seungmin exclaims as his lips pucker, but Hyunjin only giggles and continues his patting even more eagerly, the accelerating pace of the motion making the soft pats transform into taps.
After a moment of Seungmin staring at him expressionlessly, he eventually lets a smile creep on his face. Oftentimes Hyunjin likes to annoy him, not because he enjoys seeing Seungmin annoyed, but because he always breaks out into laughter in the end.
”But you’re not a doctor yet! You don’t have to be perfect,” Hyunjin smiles brightly, and finally a laugh escapes Seungmin’s priorly pursed lips.
”See, Jiniret and PuppyM agree with me, don’t you guys?” he squats down to Seungmin’s level, looking at each of the stuffed animals in turn. The smile on his face only widens when Seungmin keeps giggling.
”They say yes,” Hyunjin pointedly nods.
It’s at the age of eleven when Hyunjin starts understanding; that’s when the rose colored glasses slowly begin lifting from his eyes.
When all he’s ever known is a binge-drinking dad and a work-centered mom, he’s never questioned if it’s how things should be.
His friends always tell stories about their parents, especially about their fathers; about how they went out to fish, or for a walk, or about how they spent the whole night watching movies.
And so piece by piece, day by day, the big picture unveils itself for him.
It’s a beautiful and serene summer day when his father is all Hyunjin can suddenly think about. Their friend group is having a picnic at a field, and Changbin is explaining how he wants to become as strong as his father.
”He works out six days a week and he can bench, like, all of us combined!” he claims with firm nods, ostentatious.
Seungmin cocks an eyebrow at that. ”I highly doubt that.”
”Shut up, smartass,” Changbin scowls, making half the group laugh. He has a tendency to exaggerate and swank about this and that, but it’s more funny than it is annoying.
Hyunjin listens with half an ear as the bickering goes on, running his fingers through the grass and picking some flowers. All he can think about is his father; his stupid armchair, his stupid TV shows and his stupid goddamn beers.
He’s never really spoken about the whole thing. Never voiced how his own father, someone who’s supposed to guide and support him, only brings him an uncomfortable clenching sensation in his chest, only fills him with anxiety and dread. Maybe he should speak to Seungmin about it. Seungmin always understands.
It’s taken quite some time for Hyunjin to acknowledge what exactly it is that pulls his guard up each time his father addresses him. Right now, he only has to close his eyes and picture the grumpy voice calling for him to feel nauseous. He’s never done so much as lay a hand on Hyunjin or his mother for what it’s worth, but when each word that leaves his mouth is only condemning, demeaning and devoid of all love, can Hyunjin be blamed for beginning to resent him?
He feels Seungmin poke his side. “Hyunjin-ah? Everything okay?” It’s a wonder how even at such a young age he has the inexplicable ability to sense others’ emotions so flawlessly.
Hyunjin gets pulled from his thoughts, the mental string consisting of each time his father has yelled at him slipping from his grasp and escaping with the wind. “Oh. Yeah.” To further prove his point, he picks a strawberry from a bowl on their blanket and shoves it at Seungmin’s face, making him frown. In the attempt to make him eat it, Hyunjin hits his pursed lips with the strawberry, breaking out into laughter before Seungmin finally gives in and takes a bite.
“You’re annoying.”
Hyunjin only laughs.
When Felix brings up all the fun things they can do this summer, it’s all Hyunjin can think about, the thoughts about his father crawling somewhere to the back of his mind.
The day flows by nicely, and once it’s nearing curfew time, the boys begin packing up their stuff and making their way back home. The field is located fairly close to everyone, and their small town is the furthest from a dangerous one, so even Jeongin as the youngest from the bunch is allowed to stay out quite late.
Spikes of laughter echo from the eight up until the moment they need to split up. Hyunjin and Seungmin are the first ones to part from the rest as they begin heading towards their homes.
Hyunjin’s thoughts start bothering him again the second they take a turn towards their street. His eyes fixed to the ground, he chooses a round, interesting-looking rock to kick for the rest of the journey. “Seungmin-ah?”
“Mh?”
“Would it be bad if someone didn’t like their dad?”
Seungmin seems to fall in thought. “No, I don’t think so. Nobody can get along with everyone, there are always people you won’t like. It’s just really bad luck if someone has a dad they don’t like. Why?”
He always makes so much sense. Hyunjin thinks it’s unfair how he can’t be as reasonable as Seungmin, and how he’s unable to understand the world to the extent Seungmin does.
“I don’t think I like my dad,” Hyunjin confesses, his voice small.
“Why?”
Hyunjin shrugs. He can’t explain it, not fully, but it doesn’t stop him from trying. “He’s a little scary sometimes. I think he makes me afraid. Sometimes.”
“Afraid of what?” They’ve stopped walking right in the middle of their street, allowing the conversation to continue.
Hyunjin thinks for a minute, then settles for an answer. “That I do something wrong.”
“What would happen if you did something wrong?”
He doesn’t really know. All he knows is that the idea is terrifying, that his father would not be happy. “He’d be mad. I hate when he’s mad. He’s scary when he’s mad.” Hyunjin speaks with his voice still quiet, his eyes glued to the rock he keeps kicking back and forth between his feet.
Seungmin’s eyebrows furrow. “Has he hurt you?” The concern in his tone is irrefutable.
Hyunjin shakes his head. ”He’s just a jerk sometimes. Says… mean things.”
”That’s not fair. You should be able to make mistakes without being afraid.” Seungmin flashes him an emphatic smile, and Hyunjin feels understood. He’s always been more or less scared of speaking up if something is bothering him, so talking to Seungmin, sweet, understanding Seungmin, makes him feel like his heart is now half lighter than it used to be.
”If he’s being mean you can always come to my house,” Seungmin offers, a bright smile appearing on his face. Hyunjin smiles back. Subconsciously, he’s started feeling more comfortable in Seungmin’s house than in his own, so Seungmin’s offer is truly consoling.
“Thank you, Seungminnie.”
So if Hyunjin was already visiting his house often, he now does it even more frequently, for longer periods of time. He’s honestly spending more time at Seungmin’s house than he is at his own home. Seungmin always assures he doesn’t mind, yet Hyunjin can’t help but have his doubts.
During a chilly fall afternoon, the two are playing Mario Kart on Seungmin’s bedroom floor, and Hyunjin is completely beating Seungmin’s ass.
”Ha!” Hyunjin laughs, victorious, as his shell lands yet another hit.
”I hate this game,” Seungmin blankly states, yet can’t help but let a smile creep on his face when Hyunjin cheers at his own victory.
”I love this game!”
”Break time, please?”
Hyunjin nods, leaving his controller on Seungmin’s bed while the latter starts making his way towards the kitchen, Hyunjin in tow. ”Mom! Do we have anything to eat?”
Before she can answer, the two find her with a hand in her hair, sighing deeply at the despairing sight of the kitchen floor covered in packages of dry ingredients and canned foods. ”Well, as you can see, there’s plenty,” she chuckles.
”What are you doing?” Seungmin wonders with his eyebrows furrowed.
”Organizing the pantries,” she flashes a crooked smile, ”Or, trying to organize the pantries. Got a burst of energy, but now it’s gone.”
Hyunjin immediately wants to offer his help. ”What if we finished doing that?” Seungmin and his mother are always so kind to him, so he can’t help but want to offer even the tiniest favor.
”Oh, no, you boys just go play, I’ll be fine with this.”
”No, mom, that might actually be fun,” Seungmin gets intrigued, slightly tugging on her sleeve to further assure her.
She glances at each of them, eyes smiley and soft, and ends up nodding. ”Well, if you insist.”
So the two begin to sort the items into different categories, throwing out expired cans of tuna and whatnot. It turns out to be quite entertaining, and Hyunjin basks in the feeling of being helpful. At home, he’s always pushed aside, never allowed to assist in anything. Someone might say he should be glad he has no chores to do, but it only makes him feel insignificant, useless; as though he’s merely another item in their household, a piece of furniture to wipe some dust off once every month—nothing more.
”Why’d you offer to do this?” Seungmin suddenly wonders, maneuvering his way across the kitchen, cautiously evading the piles of boxes.
”Well, I always hang around here, your mom offers me food all the time, and I don’t just wanna be a burden,” Hyunjin explains with a shrug, crouched over on the floor as he checks the expiration dates on some canned fruits.
”You’re not a burden,” Seungmin jumps in to assure him, his forehead wrinkling at Hyunjin’s claim. When he doesn’t look convinced, Seungmin resorts to calling out for his mother. ”Mom, you love having Hyunjinnie around, right?”
Hyunjin falls red, glaring at his best friend.
”Of course I do,” she emerges from her bedroom, her signature warm smile adorning her features. ”You’re essentially a part of our family at this point, it honestly feels weird not having you here.”
He can’t believe how anyone can be as sweet as Kim Haeyeon is. His own exhausted mother barely has time for him, and he understands, he really does, but sometimes he can’t help but feel envious.
”See?” Seungmin grins, revealing the uneven row of his front teeth. His mother softly ruffles Hyunjin’s hair before making her way back to her bedroom. ”Thanks for helping me out, boys,” she chirps as she disappears through the doorway.
Hyunjin feels like he belongs.
He’s thirteen when he thinks he’s had enough.
With each year passing by, the resentment only grows, grows, grows, leaving him crying into his plushies every night as he tries to block out the fighting by burying his face into his pillow.
It’s all muffled sounds of the same argument each night.
You’re just a goddamn parasite, can’t even hold a job, don’t even care about your family!
It’s not my fault you kept him.
Yeah, Hyunjin has long ago figured out he was an accident. To his surprise, the sting of it was short-lived, more like a cherry on top of the cake rather than something that made his world crumble. Honestly, maybe it’s because his world is quite crumbled as it is, so what’s a little more cracks to a ground that’s already collapsed?
Once again, he finds himself turning on the TV screen he got for his birthday a couple months prior to watch a drama, turning the volume all the way up at midnight. It’s all he can do at a time like this, when the screaming gets too loud and the lump in his throat grows too big to swallow around.
He finds comfort in his silly, idle little dramas. It’s distracting to get sucked into a dramatic love story; to zone in on the endless longing of the protagonist; to the moments where a simple eye contact or a brush of fingers against skin is everything and more.
Hyunjin loves romance. Always has loved the idea of it. Even when he was a kid, it was the romantic movies his mother watched that always had him the most entranced.
He’s fascinated by the whole concept. What is it exactly that makes one look at another like they’d look at something such as a nebula? What is the feeling powerful enough to drive mankind into the most desperate actions, drive them into prioritizing their lover over everything?
Love seems so grand, so intoxicating—formidable, in a way. To hold someone closely to his heart, to make them feel like the most divine being to ever walk the earth. It’s all Hyunjin desires.
In the awkward and clumsy state of pre teenage, his friends mostly gossip and giggle over the girl in their grade they think is the prettiest, the cutest. These silly, childish crushes which always pass in a few week’s time—although, there was that one time Felix dated a girl for a week until she kissed him on the cheek and Felix decided it wouldn’t work out.
Hyunjin doesn’t really comprehend how they can all look at a girl, think she’s pretty, and develop a crush just like that. He’s young, he knows it, so it’s not like he’s scared of dying alone. It just makes him wonder.
He’s tried going over each girl in his grade, assessing their looks and personalities, but he cannot for the life of him picture himself crushing on any of them.
Maybe he’s just picky. Maybe he’ll be a late bloomer. He doesn’t really know, but it doesn’t really matter anyway.
It’s another coping mechanism to close his eyes shut each night and picture himself as the lead of a drama. Fall in love at first sight, live out all those cliché moments from blushing when a smear of ice cream gets wiped from the corner of his mouth to squealing into his pillow when he gets back from a perfect first date.
In his daydreams, he’s in control. There’s no burned out mother whose eye bags rival the sizes of mountains and who has no time or energy for showing interest in her child, no deadbeat father whose only contribution to his child’s life is a handful of belittling and heart-crushing comments.
Hyunjin’s only escapes are, have always been, and will always be his dramas, his own whimsical dreams of running away with the love of his life, and, of course, his friends—especially Seungmin.
It’s a hasty decision he makes one Friday afternoon to pack his bag and make a couple of sandwiches.
He shoves the neatly packed sandwiches, his plushies, a pencil, a rock he’s grown an emotional attachment to when he was nine, a potato, a quilt, and the contents of his piggy bank into his red school backpack, and he’s about to run downstairs when his eye catches on his plushies. His children. Hyunjin takes PuppyM into his hands, brings it close to his face, assessing. Frees one hand, grabs Jiniret with it. Should he bring them along? Is he too old for that? He’s running away for god’s sake, he isn’t a child anymore.
Thus, he hugs the plushies close to his chest, whispers them a goodbye, and tucks them neatly under a comforter. “I’m sorry but this is where we part. I love you two,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to each of their heads.
He’s not a child, and letting go of his home should come with letting go of his stuffed animals as well. They’ll be fine without him, Hyunjin’s bed is impossibly comfortable.
With that, he deems everything packed. He runs down the stairs and sneaks behind the armchair his father is sleeping in to escape his house. Luckily, his mother is running some errands, so it’s not hard to slip away unnoticed.
Skipping the short distance to Seungmin’s porch, he hums a tune he heard on the radio. Girl’s Generation, I got a boy.
He knocks, bobbing his head to the song playing in his head, his shoulders absentmindedly mimicking the choreography. Girl groups are his guilty pleasure, even though Seungmin keeps assuring him they shouldn't make him feel guilty to begin with.
“Hey, Hyun, what’s up?”
“I’m running away!”
Seungmin’s lips part and his eyebrows lift up. “You’re running away?” he gapes, eyes blinking rapidly. When Hyunjin nods pointedly with a grin on his face, Seungmin snorts.
“Why are you telling me, isn’t running away supposed to be something you keep a secret so people can’t find you?”
“Well, yeah, but—” Hyunjin starts explaining, “I just thought you deserved to know so you don’t get worried. Just don’t tell your mom so she can’t tell my parents..?”
The momentary amusement on Seungmin’s face morphs into incredulity. “Wait— you’re not serious, are you?”
“Of course I am! Just doing my parents a favor, honestly, they don’t have to be burdened with me anymore,” Hyunjin shrugs, indifferent. Does he have a plan? No. Does he need one? Also no. He has his emotional support rock and a potato among other things, he’ll be perfectly fine!
Seungmin keeps blinking, his brows knitting tighter together with each second passing by. His train of thought is visible on his face; the frown of his brows eventually smooths out, and he rolls his eyes with a barely-there shake of his head. “Jesus Christ…” he sighs, leaning on the doorway. “Just give me five minutes, I’m coming with you.”
It’s Hyunjin’s turn to blink. “Oh. Okay.”
This wasn’t his goal, not his plan. Honestly, he only wanted Seungmin to know to grant him peace of mind. Hyunjin cares about his best friend too much to leave without saying goodbye.
Yet it doesn’t come as a surprise. Seungmin always follows him around, humors him and his absurd plans and whims. He complains, yes, makes it painfully clear to Hyunjin how strange he finds him, but he always follows along. Stays by Hyunjin’s side.
Hyunjin steps inside and closes the door behind when Seungmin disappears from the hallway to his bedroom, potentially to pack his bag.
“You got any food with you?” Seungmin calls for him after a beat as he walks past Hyunjin to the kitchen.
“Yep! Sandwiches and a potato!”
Hyunjin hears the sigh loud and clear. He waits patiently by the door, listening to Seungmin forage through the pantries and drawers. “I’ll just leave a quick note for my mom, this’ll only take a moment,” Seungmin mutters from the kitchen, and after said moment passes, he’s accompanying Hyunjin by the door with his black Supreme backpack hanging from his shoulders.
“So, where we going?”
Hyunjin presses his lips together. He hasn’t actually gotten that far. “I don’t know. Away?” he suggests with a wry grin on his face.
Seungmin grabs his wrist and leads them out through the door he opens, pinching the bridge of his nose after pushing the door back shut. “You’re a lost cause without me, Jin, you know that?”
“Of course I do!”
“Good thing you came to me before disappearing, like— you’d be dead on your own within 24 hours.”
“I would so not be dead!” Hyunjin argues, gasping and placing a hand on his heart as they head to the opposite direction from the town center. Far away. To where no one can find them.
Seungmin raises an eyebrow as he lets Hyunjin’s wrist go. ”Really? Did you have any plan at all, then?”
“No,” Hyunjin admits meekly, glancing down at his feet. “But I don’t need one! I’m at my best when I’m just winging it!”
Seungmin snorts. “Sure, because your last minute plans have never failed.”
“Uhh, excuse me, of course they haven’t?” Hyunjin squeaks, upset to his very core. How dare Seungmin belittle his elaborate plans crafted in under a minute like that?
“Need me to remind you of when you winged going swimming and used your clothes as a towel and got sick for a week after it? Or that time when we went on a school trip to that museum and we got lost from the others because of you and you winged finding our way back to them by sitting down and waiting for the others to find us which resulted in everyone searching for us when it was time to leave and it took ages so all the parents were fuming because we got back an hour later than was planned?”
Hyunjin scoffs. “I mean, I did dry myself with the clothes! Not my fault the clothes didn’t dry themselves and I caught a cold. And they did find us eventually at the museum!” he insists. So his plans contain more stepping stones than perhaps is necessary, but they work either way, regardless of the adversities they often entail.
“You’re such a lost cause…” Seungmin sighs.
“Why’d you come with me if my plans are so shitty, then?”
“Because you need me to keep you alive. Did you really think I’d let you run away on your own?”
“I don’t know,” Hyunjin shrugs. “Guess I thought you liked your life here.”
“You thought I liked this shitty town? Oh please, I can’t wait to get away.”
Hyunjin sighs, dreamy, as they enter a forest. The town consists of acres of woods. Fields, lakes, abandoned houses left to rot, rivers running through the quiet forests. It’s something Hyunjin likes about their town. Nature is always close. It’s easy to escape, go outside and explore, play with fantasies about what kinds of people have walked to form the paths Hyunjin now strolls with Seungmin. Were they as eager to get away? Or were they fascinated by their surroundings, glued to this area with the need to explore and settle down? Maybe someone akin to Hyunjin has walked the exact path he walks right now, maybe they’ve dreamed about leaving, going far away, traveling all the lands and cities they’ve heard stories about.
“Where would you go right now if you had the chance?”
Seungmin hums in contemplation. “A big city, I guess. For a change of scenery. New York City, maybe. Explore all of Manhattan.”
“Manhattan…”
"Yep," Seungmin nods pointedly, "After that I’d like to go somewhere quiet again. French countryside, maybe. See the small towns of other countries.”
“Why? Small towns suck, our town sucks. What’s so different about other small towns?”
Seungmin shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s not that I hate small towns, I just hate our town. Because there’s nothing new here, and everyone’s so stuck up and prejudiced and nosey.”
“Am I like that too?” Hyunjin is asking because he’s genuinely curious. He barely knows shit about how most of the people are. He only knows his parents and his friend group, and he hasn’t really hit the gold mine with his family, though the latter makes up for what the former lacks to some extent. No, his friends won’t ever fully compensate for the parental love he’s never truly experienced, but he can confide in them. He can forget about everything for a while, even if it all inevitably returns to him once he gets back home and sees his father passed out in that goddamn armchair again.
Seungmin halts in his steps to stare at Hyunjin like he’s grown a second head. He blinks. “Don’t tell me you’re seriously asking that.”
Hyunjin tilts his head in confusion. “I am…”
“Oh, Jinnie,” Seungmin scoffs in good nature, “You’re the farthest thing from that. I think you’re my favorite part of this town. If it weren’t for you being my friend, I’d hate living here so much more.”
A smile tugs at the corners of Hyunjin’s mouth. He feels an odd sensation in his chest. It’s warm and it feels fuzzy, like drinking hot chocolate after spending all day outside on a cold winter day. “Aw, Seungminnie,” he giggles, slinging an arm over Seungmin’s shoulder and pulling him close. “You’re my favorite part of this town too.” Hyunjin sways them from side to side and nuzzles his face against Seungmin’s shoulder. He needs to tiptoe to do so, for Seungmin’s got some inches over Hyunjin, having started growing at a quick pace during the past winter.
“Okay, thanks, but—” Seungmin tries shooing him away, pushing him by the top of his head. “You don’t have to be so aggressive about it.”
Hyunjin replies with a giggle, only pulling Seungmin closer in retaliation. He stumbles on a rock and the only thing keeping him from falling face first onto the ground is the hand around Seungmin, stabilizing him.
“You know what— I’m taking that back, you’re annoying as hell.”
“Nooo!” Hyunjin whines, giggling all the same, recovering from his almost-fall and letting Seungmin wiggle away from his hold. Regardless of Seungmin’s protesting, Hyunjin knows he loves the affection, even though he hides it behind that curtain of eye rolls and faked grimaces.
He can only ever fool Hyunjin so much.
They come across a train track they start walking along. It’s clearly old; the wood of the railway sleepers rotten, the steel rails a shade of copper with all the rust they’ve gathered. Hyunjin has never been here before, and he can’t help but become fascinated.
“Do you think they use these tracks anymore, Minnie?”
Seungmin shrugs, looks around. “It’s possible. Which is why we’re not crossing a single goddamn bridge if we come across one. I’m not trying to pull a stand by me.”
Hyunjin’s head tips back as he bursts out laughing. They watched the movie last fall. It changed Hyunjin’s life. “I could outrun a train.”
Seungmin’s incredulity is so distinctive and tangible in his laugh Hyunjin thinks he could touch it. Grab it and bottle it up into a jar. “Yeah, sure you could.”
“I’m fast!”
“Which one of us plays baseball sometimes and which one is never active?”
Hyunjin huffs. “Pfft, you might be a good pitcher but your running is just pathetic.” He gains a push to his side with that one.
“So what you’re saying is you could outrun a train but I couldn’t?”
“Yep!” Hyunjin chirps.
“Oh, we’ll see about that,” Seungmin murmurs, adjusting his backpack that’s hanging from his shoulders and quickly speeds his steps, laughing when he glances over his shoulder once he’s already jogging, “Race to that big rock over there!”
Hyunjin gasps but doesn’t have time to dwell on the betrayal because Seungmin is sprinting. “You got a head start, not fair!” he squeaks through his laughter.
His laughing isn’t distracting him, though. Hyunjin is determined to win this one. The wind catches on his hair, he feels free. The heaving of his chest doesn’t feel tiring, the adrenaline carrying him onwards.
Hyunjin does reach the rock first, catching up to Seungmin quickly and gaining a short lead over him. When he slows his sprints into jogs and finally stops running altogether, he hunches down to lean his hands on his knees. “Told ya!” he laughs, victorious.
“Okay, well, fuck you.”
Hyunjin cackles, catching his breath and inevitably falling on his knees and then on his back to lie on the ground. “God, I’m so tired now.”
“Good thing I got water. Like, seriously, you can’t run away and not even bring water with you, you’re such an idiot,” Seungmin pants, dropping his backpack on the ground and kneeling down to pull out a bottle of water. He chugs some, then pulls Hyunjin up to sit and hands him the bottle.
“Thank god I have you,” Hyunjin grins, and although it comes out sarcastic, he means it with all his heart. He pours some water down his throat and returns the bottle to Seungmin.
“Thank god you have me.”
“Can we lie down for a moment? Take a break? I’m tired,” Hyunjin whines. They’ve been walking for hours at this point, and Hyunjin’s endurance is nearing its end with the athletic performance he just executed.
Seungmin hums, and Hyunjin pulls out his quilt. He shuffles on his knees to spread it on the ground, some feet away from the rails. He lays his backpack down and falls back onto his back, limbs splayed out in every direction, Seungmin following suit and pulling his legs up onto his feet.
“Seungminnie?”
“Yes?”
“Where are we going to go?”
“I don’t know. I thought you were responsible for that last minute plan.”
Hyunjin shoots him a glare. “Can we get to a train station or something? Buy tickets, leave somewhere. Far away from here.”
“I don’t know.”
“So are we just going to keep walking?”
“I suppose we are.”
Hyunjin hums. A silence falls over them, the only sounds filling the air being the quiet hum of the gentle breeze of the wind, some birds chirping, inhales and exhales. Hyunjin lets his eyes fall shut.
The weather is nice. Rays of sun kissing the apples of Hyunjin’s cheeks, the spring flowers blooming in colors and the grass green. Hyunjin feels happy, light. Like there’s not a thing to worry about, the reality of truly running away still yet to crash down on him. It’s like a bubble he’s living in, a movie, even.
“This place feels really dreamy. Like a setting for a romantic movie.”
Seungmin laughs. “What’s with you and your obsession over romantic movies?”
“They’re just amazing! Like, come on, fleeing with your lover, it’s just the two of you, escaping from the world…”
“Only it’s me with you and not a girlfriend.”
Hyunjin chuckles. “Yeah, but you’re like, the next best thing.”
“Is there anyone you like?” Seungmin asks. They hardly ever discuss girls, not when it’s just the two of them, so Hyunjin is somewhat surprised by the topic.
“No. I wish there was, but none of the girls in our school are that interesting, I guess.”
“What about Jiyoon? She clearly has a crush on you, she dances, and she’s very friendly. She’s pretty too, don’t you think?”
Hyunjin presses his lips into a line and his nose scrunches. Of course he’s noticed Jiyoon’s crush on him. She keeps smiling at him, being overly friendly and giggly in Hyunjin’s presence. She is pretty, yes, and being a dancer adds a layer of appeal to her.
“Yeah, she is… I just— I don’t know. Guess I could have a crush on her.”
“You guess?”
Hyunjin groans and covers his face with his hand. The topic of girls and crushes feels unnecessarily burdensome, regardless of Hyunjin’s infatuation with the concept of love. He decides to direct the conversation elsewhere. “What about you? Do you have a crush on someone?”
“No,” Seungmin states, indifferent.
The conversation ends with that.
It’s already dark when a sense of discomfort is gnawing at Hyunjin’s insides so much he almost feels sick. A cold sweat has been creeping up his neck for the past twenty minutes, and he thinks the sandwich he ate an hour ago is about to come back up the way it went down any minute now.
His pace is slowing down, he has no idea where they are, and he hugs himself tight. “Seungmin?” he asks, voice slightly wavering.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t—” Hyunjin gulps, brows twisting upwards into a frown, “I don’t know if this is a smart idea.”
Seungmin halts his steps, pauses to turn to face Hyunjin. “What isn’t a smart idea?”
Hyunjin feels his eyes burning. “This,” he chokes out, nearing the point of tears at an embarrassing rate. “I— I miss my plushies…”
It’s the thought of his own bed, of Jiniret and PuppyM that he abandoned like some twisted mirror of his own father, it’s the treehouse at Seungmin’s backyard, and, oddly enough, the thought of his mother all alone with his father that makes anxiety and dread pile up at the back of Hyunjin’s throat.
They say the hard part about running away is leaving, but Hyunjin would like to argue.
Seungmin; consoling, caring and sweet Seungmin, grabs his hand with a soft smile. “I know. Wanna go back?”
Hyunjin draws in a shaky inhale. His lower lip is quivering. “I do but I don’t. I just wanna get away, I want it more than anything— But why is it so hard?”
“Because we’re thirteen, Hyunjinnie,” Seungmin huffs a sweet laugh through his nose. He always understands, probably saw this coming from the moment Hyunjin showed up behind his doorstep. “We’ll escape this place eventually, yeah? Together.”
“Promise me?”
“I promise.”
“And we’ll go everywhere? We won’t end up like my mom, will we? Not stuck in an unhappy marriage in a town that eats us alive, right?”
Seungmin shakes his head. “No, we won’t. We’ll go see Manhattan. We’ll travel the world. See everything. But before we can do that, we have to go home.”
Clinging onto Seungmin’s arm, Hyunjin nods his head. He ignores the stray tear escaping his eye, and is happy to follow as Seungmin leads them back to their shitty home street.
Maybe his plan was too ambitious. Maybe he isn’t living the movie he desperately craves to star in. And maybe it’ll take some more years, some growing up and getting through puberty to escape, but Hyunjin swears he won’t stay here. He’ll get away. He’ll conquer the world with Seungmin. One day.
They arrive at Seungmin’s house well into the night. Hyunjin isn’t sure what the time is, but he doesn’t bother to care. He happily crawls under a blanket next to Seungmin on his bed that’s wide enough to fit the two.
If his parents yell at him tomorrow, Hyunjin won’t care. He’ll deal with it later.
“Min?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Just… thank you.”
When Hyunjin crawls back home the next morning, almost defeated, he tries to sneak in unnoticed to push off the inevitable.
Only he gets greeted by his mother when he’s taken two steps on the staircase.
“Hyunjin-ah! Going somewhere so early?” her voice is soft, surprisingly brisk.
Hyunjin gulps, turns around. “Going somewhere..? What do you mean?”
“You have your backpack on. Do you have some plans with the boys?”
What? Hyunjin is dumbfounded, so he blinks. “No, I— I just got home. From Seungmin’s. I spent the night there.”
“Oh,” her eyebrows shoot up slightly. “I didn’t even notice you were gone. Did you have a fun sleepover?”
A lump grows in size at the back of Hyunjin’s throat at a record pace. She didn’t even notice?
Who is Hyunjin kidding, of course she didn’t notice. “Uh, yeah. It was fun.”
She offers him a tight-lipped smile and ruffles his hair before disappearing to her study. Hyunjin flies up the stairs and hugs his stuffed animals tight. Maybe his parents wouldn’t miss him if he disappeared, but his babies surely would.