[Jinki / Minho] In Me; (3/7)
Rating: NC-17
Warning: PTSD, character deaths
Genre: broken!ship
Length: ~4023 (this chapter)
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
The jjimjilbang wasn’t bursting to its full capacity but Lee Jinki still felt exposed.
The other boy’s fingers around his wrist were unyielding. “Come on,” he said, but in a very concerned manner. Everything about Choi Minho seemed fretful-from the way he kept turning around to look at and check up on his friend to the way he insistently pulled them along between the bubbling pools.
"Have you been to a bathhouse before?" he chirped. Lee Jinki shook his head. After they went in through a door that said changing rooms, the younger let their hands separate and immediately set about stripping. When he was about to drop his pants he turned to the other and pouted. “Don’t stare… look away.”
Lee Jinki watched anyway, eyes following the movements of graceful wrists and ankles. He imagined what Choi Minho would look like dripping wet from the pools or when his body shone with a soft light after a warm massage in one of the private rooms. His insides stirred with uncontained want. He walked forward until their hips bumped together. “What’re we doing here?” he inquired in a raspy voice that didn’t seem like his own.
“Washing up,” Choi Minho replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And in a way, it was. Even so, Lee Jinki stood there-fully clothed and yet shivering a little until the younger clicked his tongue and went to find them towels.
The Choi family came from wealth. It was clear that their son could afford this establishment and that he had enough to pay for the two of them. The other plopped onto a bench and wiped the back of his neck, noticing oppressing heat and steam issue from the saunas. Jjimjilbangs had always seemed like an otherworldly fantasy to him ever since he first saw advertisements in the newspaper. Of course, that was before Park sunim ordered that all such undignified ads be cut out before making said newspapers available for reading in their library.
Everything held the fragrance of oils and soaps, their rich and extravagant scents effervescing through the very walls and floors. He clipped open a nearby storage cabinet to find a soft, fluffy robe awaiting him inside. He looked around the room, wishing dearly now that he hadn't allowed his friend to leave him alone. He wasn't sure what he was meant to do in the meantime so he decided to simply shrug on the alluring robe and walk out. After all, wasn’t that why they were there? To get into that hot steamy water? He could hear the sounds of splashing and gushing puddles on the other side of these walls.
Park sunim cannot know of this, Lee Jinki thought as he stripped of his shirt and pulled his pants off. Sitting in his underwear, he folded the rest of his clothes like he’d been ordered to do every time before bath and bed. He looked around at other patrons in various stages of undress and gulped. Sliding one leg then the other out of his shorts, he added them to the pile of his clothing.
“Oh…” he heard behind him, making him jump.
Choi Minho had a large grin to offer. “Those are for the women,” he pointed to the robe on Lee Jinki’s shoulders. There was awaiting laughter in that information, but then the boy suddenly straightened his expression and looked around for another robe, tying it to his waist before reaching in and pulling off his towel. “There,” he declared with a flourish. “Now we’re both alike.”
“I…” Lee Jinki tried to say, distracted by the sight of the other's collarbones. “I shouldn’t be here.”
Choi Minho frowned. “But you are now, so come on,” he pointed out, nudging his head in the direction of the baths.
The elder remained in his place, shaking his head. “I… I cannot. It’s not right.” His friend blinked for a few clueless seconds, hoping an elaborate explanation would follow. But Lee Jinki felt pained, as if what he was about to share with the other was so sacred, that to utter the words out loud would be to sully it. So instead, after a lot of weighing and measuring of words, he settled for a, “It is a bad thing.”
“Did they teach you that where you live?” Choi Minho raised his eyebrows.
“Y-yes.”
A smile and a tilt of the head regarded him. “Didn’t they also tell you cleanliness is next to godliness?”
Lee Jinki frowned and opened his mouth in protest. “Yes, but…!” But, no. A short, amused laugh bubbled at him, hitting him straight in the centre of his chest. He was so struck by the other’s beauty in the midst of all that soapy steam that he lost his argument without even a chance to start it. His stuttering mouth was clamped shut when an arm linked with his and walked him to the showers.
“Go, I’ll be in the next stall.”
Perhaps Lee Jinki escaped when he saw his chance. Perhaps he remained entranced by hazy reflections of the other though the dimpled glass separating them. Perhaps he was bolder still, joining the other boy under the stream of a shared shower; roving his hands over that poetic body and feeling its muscles ripple to his touch. Perhaps they later entered a pool and explored each other’s figures with shy grazes. Or perhaps the outcome of that meeting was something else altogether... we as onlookers to the past can never know for sure.
But one thing remained constant even though all these years. Lee Jinki’s eyes always glanced up and stared at the now-dusty neon sign of the abandoned bathhouse every time he passed by it. The fabric of its curtains displayed blotchy stains of oil and the metal advertisement board at its front was more rust than information. But it held the secrets of that one afternoon when Lee Jinki decided to cover his ears and only watch as Choi Minho hooked a finger and beckoned him into an inferno.
***
It was as if Park sunim had a sixth sense for it. It was as if he'd followed Lee Jinki around invisibly.
The boy did not know. Of course he didn't. He remained with his back against the transept wall, fully convinced that no one would wander this far up the hill their church sat on. The climb was too steep, and the knoll was overgrown with wild grass. No one had any reason to be there except to hide. And so that was what Lee Jinki used it for. He stood with his fingers in Choi Minho's hair, maintaining a firm grip as the other knelt before him. They hadn't done this before, and they had nowhere else to do it except here. This was the perfect place. No one would see the camber of Lee Jinki's back, the jolting of his hips, the strain in his arms as he kept from pulling the other closer. No one would bear witness to the slide of Choi Minho's lips, to the string of saliva connecting the two of them, to the way his tongue sometimes shot out and licked that string up, saving it from dripping down strong thighs. No one would see anything.
Lee Jinki's voice stayed clutched behind his jaw. He locked his throat even as Choi Minho threw his own wide open. A juddering breath, and muffled choke, a scraping of blunt nails against tender scalp, and then they seperated. Eyes overflowing with wonder at what they'd just done.
Park sunim shambled up to them with his cane. "Vile beasts!" he roared,his face red from the effort of climbing and yelling at the same time. "Filth! Scum!" he continued. "How dare you! In the house of our Lord no less! You've sullied this pious place! How dare you!" he furiously waved his cane around even as his feet carried him forward in a rush. The boys huddled together but one told the other to run and he hesitated. But he obeyed. When Choi Minho's rustling footsteps had disappeared from earshot, Lee Jinki stood with his shoulders squared, ready to face anything at all.
The cane would thrash him, welts burning on his calves and across his arms. These beatings would become a routine in his life for at least the rest of the year or until Park sunim got bored of it. Then the starving would follow. Lee Jinki would be placed on his usual seat in the dining hall, but he wouldn't be given a plate like the rest of the boys. He would only get to watch as other had their meals. He would be locked in the monastery, all his previous freedom revoked. And then the nuns would humiliate him further by having him work in the laundry room on all fours, like a lowly dog. Lee Jinki was prepared for it all.
But it was much worse than he'd imagined.
He was just a boy. He was only a boy. How could he face anything like that on his own? He was nothing more than a young boy, a gentle soul, a kind-hearted child. He meant no harm, and yet harm shadowed his every waking hour. He was only a boy who wanted a friend, who craved affection and attention. He was just a simple boy. How could he ever have borne the punishment that followed?
He couldn't.
***
Lee Jinki carried a lamp of hope all these years in his pocket, a sorry looking excuse of a wick that had nearly burnt itself out. He walked the same pavement blocks every morning, hoping to catch the familiar sound of accompanying footsteps pattering next to him and hooking an arm into his own. He stared up at a moon that changed its face and changed its answers each night. And when he woke up to another meaningless day, he smiled through his tears with equally meaningless faith in his heart-that just around the next corner, just there, under the awnings of the florist’s shop he’d see Choi Minho. His Minho. He’d find the boy tilting his swan neck and offering up a hand to be grasped before they flew away into a world of dreams. He’d find those wax-like hipbones his palms longed to curl around and press into.
Lee Jinki thought of Choi Minho in his every waking hour, and then he dreamt of the other in his sleep. But for all his devotion, the boy was nowhere to be found.
“Where is he?” the ex-soldier asked of everyone he passed from work to home. Some offered him a bow and shuffled away before he could stop them. Some others stood by and watched him create a scene. “Where is he? Where is Minho?” he chanted the question. “Did you see him? Where is he?”
They shook their heads, shook him by the shoulders. “Please, Jinki yah.” They muttered words of pity. “What has become of this poor boy…” They sighed and told him to come to his senses. “Jinki, please! Stop it!” Sometimes, they fabricated lies that would let him live on with slivers of hope tied around his wrists like charms. “I saw him at the departmental just now. You’ll catch him if you run.” Some others told him to call in at the Choi residence. "Maybe he's waiting there for you, all these years. You know where he lives, don't you? Maybe he's still there." They protected him as they could. After all, he was a returned war hero. They owed him at least so much.
But there were a few heartless ones who shot him with the truth.
“Minseokkie,” he begged of Minseok the next time he spotted the man slouched against a wall in a dark alleyway. “Please, tell me. Why isn’t anyone telling me? Where’s Minho? Where did he go?” He pulled on a sleeve, folded his fingers in prayer, swallowed his tears so he could continue to implore for a reply. “Please! Where is he?! I can’t live without him! Take me to him! Please, tell me where he is, Minseokkie, I’m begging you…”
“Fuck you, Jin.” For a hyung, Choi Minseok was extremely protective of his dongsaeng. A long time ago, the three had been thick as thieves. They’d play soccer under many an oppressive afternoon sun without a care for which way the world turned. They'd sit on a railing by the canal and watch garbage float by when the water level was close to bursting from the rain. A long time ago they'd help Lee Jinki free himself from his bed and sneak out of the monastery on cold wintery midnights. They'd wrap a warm blanket round his shoulders and stuff him in the back of their car where Minho would rub heat into Lee Jinki's thighs and Minseok would whistle a tune as he adjusted the rearview mirror. A long time ago, Choi Minseok would’ve gathered Lee Jinki in his arms and consoled him, wiping his tears off and leading him away with a clever grin. But now there he stood, blowing a cloud of nicotine between them. “You’re fucked in the head for even asking me that, you asshole, how many times do I have to remind you that Min-”
And then Lee Jinki would disappear for days on end. The sounds of his weeping screaming beating fists filled the night air. He’d run at the walls, trying to break through them with his shoulders. He’d shatter all his belongings against the floor, hoping their pieces would cut deep enough into him that he’d stop hurting. He'd question us over and over and we'd have nothing to say except, "May the Lord save his soul."
***
We remember that year the flood came. Only weeks earlier, the government had announced nation-wide budget cuts due to severe tensions on the border, and as a result all state-funded institutions were being shut down. Institutions like the monastery, which had stood tall in the middle of our town for centuries.
It was raining heavily that night. The canal and all its filth broke onto the streets, all roads leading out of town were closed.
While there was an outraged protest from the priests and nuns, the monastery’s small company of young orphan boys secretly rejoiced when they were shipped off to foster homes. Even the older ones like Lee Jinki, who were closer to eighteen and no longer anyone’s responsibility, breathed sighs of relief for their long-due freedom.
When a kind old lady took the younger boys under her roof until a bus could take them to the city, Lee Jinki sucked in a long deep breath and ran out of the doors of his prison, never to come back. We remember his feet slipping on the footpath from all the rain, but we don’t remember him stopping. We remember Choi Minseok yelling after his little brother, asking if he was crazy, but not doing anything to hold the boy back from dashing out of his own home.
We remember both their paths meeting under a streetlight, in an unnamed bylane. And perhaps their hearts pounded like drumbeats. Perhaps their heads pulsed like soldiers marching to war. Perhaps they'd spent so much time together by then, that they'd devised a way of knowing what the other was thinking, even from the other side of town. Perhaps it was something else, no one can tell us the truth.
But we remember them stopping before each other, breath heaving. We remember them squinting at one another as the rain hit them sideways. We remember them tentatively reach out to hold both hands, lean their heads as if they were going to finally let out a secret between themselves. We remember their jaws hanging open as their exhales still raced madly, as their arms slowly coiled tighter together. We remember when they finally kissed in earnest.
And then we remember looking away.
They never behaved like strangers for a second despite knowing each other for a little over six months. Lee Jinki could run his hands over Choi Minho’s arms and he’d never be brushed off. He could crane up on his tiptoes to kiss that circle of pink candy lips, and the other would never lean away. He could wedge his knee between long legs and they’d always part with ease, only clamping shut when tickled playfully.
One might say that in Choi Minho’s company, Lee Jinki was the melting sun on a golden horizon. That he was mercurial, breathing as loud as a tornado one moment and floating as light as a feather the next. One might assume that his heart was a generator that flashed energy and electricity through every inch of his body, sometimes transmitting it to others he came in contact with.
One might also assume that it was all a dream.
The dream was the same every time. The same fury, the same agonizing lust of bending limbs. The same scraping sound of voices that gave birth to chills even hours after they’d been silenced, quaking and quivering. It is the only scrap of memory we have of the two, and we wish now as we have a thousand times that we recalled nothing at all. For the unwrapped clothes and thrown off sweat-soaked sheets are a testament to Lee Jinki and Choi Minho sitting on the edge of lucidity with their faces in each other’s hands, trying to physically collect affection and drink the madness till their bellies were full.
We remember in our despairing groans, the way Lee Jinki stretched out in the dim light coming through the open bedroom window; the way he crept out of blankets and slunk to the bathroom. The way he didn't switch on any lights and bumped into things on the way there, because he didn’t want to wake his Minho up. But we remember because the streetlights spilling in were spotlights focused on their lives. We remember, and we want to forget.
Choi Minho followed quietly and made Lee Jinki jump when he hugged the man from the back. His lips moved to ask "What're you thinking?" before they closed over the other's. A borrowed t-shirt became borrowed taste and breath and touch. The bathroom tiles gleamed, threw out light in fantastical trajectories. They blinded us, but the loss of sight was beautiful. A thing to yearn and hope for. A hundred short stories were told from mouth to mouth, a hundred worlds were explored within the kiss. And in our blindness we did nothing but stare. Point. Gossip.
The roving of hands under a shirt, over a torso. The undulating of a waist against the tiled cubicle. The splash of water from the shower rose, coloring shoulders with heat. A flash of lighting and a roll of thunder. We remember it all as if it were yesterday. And perhaps it was. Perhaps it is still happening somewhere in the folds of muscle that make up Lee Jinki's mind, and perhaps we are narrating the present as it occurs in his head. The storm razing our town to the ground could not stop the tendrils of his desire from latching on and sucking away. Choi Minho was a demon is disguise, a man eater, a heart breaker. But the one person he mattered the most to, never knew.
***
There is a song, a taunt that haunts young lips when they see Lee Jinki walk into that old cul-de-sac where he once played football. Now a place for decadence and crime, it never welcomes visitors to its bounds with anything other than spite. This song is wordless, soundless. It is the very essence of hatred, a personification of ridicule. A pitiful Lee Jinki struggles to keep his mind intact while the song scrabbles to inject its loathing in his brain. He grits his jaw, even as pools of blood blossom in his mind. All eyes stare at him, hissing, jeering, but quietly. Very quietly. And in its silence, the song multiplies in intensity.
Why Lee Jinki visits this old haunt, we can never fathom. When he tilts his head as if listening for a distant call of his name. When he squints at the dark nooks and crannies as if searching for familiar shadows. When he takes a step forward only to retract it as the light changes--when he does these things he is continuing his search. Alone, by himself. But Choi Minho isn't there. Perhaps he isn't anywhere. Perhaps he was a figment of our imaginations from the start, but his smile is as fresh in our memories as the day he arrived in our town. The rest of his face is blurry now when we try to recall it, but the sound of his laugh is deeply engraved between our ears. We are, in a way, just like Lee Jinki. We are looking for someone who was here before, but is now gone.
The song seethes with discouragement. Go back, it says. Go back to where you came from, and never show you face here again. Because the presence of the ex-soldier is unnerving. It rakes through our conscience. It pulls at our morality. It blisters the backs of our actions and sands against our sefishness. It blames us for everything that went wrong here, in this dilapidated neighbourhood. It demands justice even when it's too late to set this aright. It is too late for madness to be fixed, one cannot simply stroll back to their sanity.
The wind flows through abandoned streets like silk. It comes and goes as it pleases, touching everyone even as no one can touch it. It is a messenger. It carries word of war, of pestilence, of sadness. It draws a triptych in our minds--of the past, the present, and the future. It billows our curtains and calls our attention to look outside our windows. It carries the secret we all try to keep from a lonely man and his searching eyes. It is as quiet as the song but less hateful. It mellows the crease between his eyebrows. And it asks the question for him: Choi Minho was a flower bathed in milk. A shy bud that softly flowered only when Lee Jinki stretched his hand out to touch it. Choi Minho was a light. He was pulsing with life. What could've happened to him then, to erase all trace of him like this? Where is Minho and who took him away?
We want to call him names and curse his actions. We want to unravel the restraining thread around our parcels of hate and let the contents fall out. But times like these all we remember is the good that built him. All we can come up with in our lousy minds is happy memories and nice words and pretty smiles. All we can think of is sunlit hair and falcate nails and pillowy cheeks and that song he used to hum while sweeping the church yard.
And that's what aches. The fact that we are incapable of hate. That our parcels are full of nothing more than air. They're empty. We want to call him names, and curse his actions. We want to spurn him. Ostracize him from this society and its principles. We want to spray glass cleaner over the stain that he signifies, and wipe it clean. But we don't. We cannot. There is no hate. We believe that's what hurts. That despite everything, we love him. We still love Lee Jinki. And all we can do is walk away with the thread trailing.
This story began as one about not about love, but despite the war that drove a rent through it, the love sustains. Within us and within him. Lee Jinki found someone to recite the good times to. He found someone who wouldn't judge him or block him out or say they don't care anymore. He found someone who would’ve shielded him even when the attacks came from the inside. And his disappearance is an ache on our soul, too.
When the wind abates, Lee Jinki returns home in silence.
Chapter 4
Warning: PTSD, character deaths
Genre: broken!ship
Length: ~4023 (this chapter)
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
The jjimjilbang wasn’t bursting to its full capacity but Lee Jinki still felt exposed.
The other boy’s fingers around his wrist were unyielding. “Come on,” he said, but in a very concerned manner. Everything about Choi Minho seemed fretful-from the way he kept turning around to look at and check up on his friend to the way he insistently pulled them along between the bubbling pools.
"Have you been to a bathhouse before?" he chirped. Lee Jinki shook his head. After they went in through a door that said changing rooms, the younger let their hands separate and immediately set about stripping. When he was about to drop his pants he turned to the other and pouted. “Don’t stare… look away.”
Lee Jinki watched anyway, eyes following the movements of graceful wrists and ankles. He imagined what Choi Minho would look like dripping wet from the pools or when his body shone with a soft light after a warm massage in one of the private rooms. His insides stirred with uncontained want. He walked forward until their hips bumped together. “What’re we doing here?” he inquired in a raspy voice that didn’t seem like his own.
“Washing up,” Choi Minho replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And in a way, it was. Even so, Lee Jinki stood there-fully clothed and yet shivering a little until the younger clicked his tongue and went to find them towels.
The Choi family came from wealth. It was clear that their son could afford this establishment and that he had enough to pay for the two of them. The other plopped onto a bench and wiped the back of his neck, noticing oppressing heat and steam issue from the saunas. Jjimjilbangs had always seemed like an otherworldly fantasy to him ever since he first saw advertisements in the newspaper. Of course, that was before Park sunim ordered that all such undignified ads be cut out before making said newspapers available for reading in their library.
Everything held the fragrance of oils and soaps, their rich and extravagant scents effervescing through the very walls and floors. He clipped open a nearby storage cabinet to find a soft, fluffy robe awaiting him inside. He looked around the room, wishing dearly now that he hadn't allowed his friend to leave him alone. He wasn't sure what he was meant to do in the meantime so he decided to simply shrug on the alluring robe and walk out. After all, wasn’t that why they were there? To get into that hot steamy water? He could hear the sounds of splashing and gushing puddles on the other side of these walls.
Park sunim cannot know of this, Lee Jinki thought as he stripped of his shirt and pulled his pants off. Sitting in his underwear, he folded the rest of his clothes like he’d been ordered to do every time before bath and bed. He looked around at other patrons in various stages of undress and gulped. Sliding one leg then the other out of his shorts, he added them to the pile of his clothing.
“Oh…” he heard behind him, making him jump.
Choi Minho had a large grin to offer. “Those are for the women,” he pointed to the robe on Lee Jinki’s shoulders. There was awaiting laughter in that information, but then the boy suddenly straightened his expression and looked around for another robe, tying it to his waist before reaching in and pulling off his towel. “There,” he declared with a flourish. “Now we’re both alike.”
“I…” Lee Jinki tried to say, distracted by the sight of the other's collarbones. “I shouldn’t be here.”
Choi Minho frowned. “But you are now, so come on,” he pointed out, nudging his head in the direction of the baths.
The elder remained in his place, shaking his head. “I… I cannot. It’s not right.” His friend blinked for a few clueless seconds, hoping an elaborate explanation would follow. But Lee Jinki felt pained, as if what he was about to share with the other was so sacred, that to utter the words out loud would be to sully it. So instead, after a lot of weighing and measuring of words, he settled for a, “It is a bad thing.”
“Did they teach you that where you live?” Choi Minho raised his eyebrows.
“Y-yes.”
A smile and a tilt of the head regarded him. “Didn’t they also tell you cleanliness is next to godliness?”
Lee Jinki frowned and opened his mouth in protest. “Yes, but…!” But, no. A short, amused laugh bubbled at him, hitting him straight in the centre of his chest. He was so struck by the other’s beauty in the midst of all that soapy steam that he lost his argument without even a chance to start it. His stuttering mouth was clamped shut when an arm linked with his and walked him to the showers.
“Go, I’ll be in the next stall.”
Perhaps Lee Jinki escaped when he saw his chance. Perhaps he remained entranced by hazy reflections of the other though the dimpled glass separating them. Perhaps he was bolder still, joining the other boy under the stream of a shared shower; roving his hands over that poetic body and feeling its muscles ripple to his touch. Perhaps they later entered a pool and explored each other’s figures with shy grazes. Or perhaps the outcome of that meeting was something else altogether... we as onlookers to the past can never know for sure.
But one thing remained constant even though all these years. Lee Jinki’s eyes always glanced up and stared at the now-dusty neon sign of the abandoned bathhouse every time he passed by it. The fabric of its curtains displayed blotchy stains of oil and the metal advertisement board at its front was more rust than information. But it held the secrets of that one afternoon when Lee Jinki decided to cover his ears and only watch as Choi Minho hooked a finger and beckoned him into an inferno.
***
It was as if Park sunim had a sixth sense for it. It was as if he'd followed Lee Jinki around invisibly.
The boy did not know. Of course he didn't. He remained with his back against the transept wall, fully convinced that no one would wander this far up the hill their church sat on. The climb was too steep, and the knoll was overgrown with wild grass. No one had any reason to be there except to hide. And so that was what Lee Jinki used it for. He stood with his fingers in Choi Minho's hair, maintaining a firm grip as the other knelt before him. They hadn't done this before, and they had nowhere else to do it except here. This was the perfect place. No one would see the camber of Lee Jinki's back, the jolting of his hips, the strain in his arms as he kept from pulling the other closer. No one would bear witness to the slide of Choi Minho's lips, to the string of saliva connecting the two of them, to the way his tongue sometimes shot out and licked that string up, saving it from dripping down strong thighs. No one would see anything.
Lee Jinki's voice stayed clutched behind his jaw. He locked his throat even as Choi Minho threw his own wide open. A juddering breath, and muffled choke, a scraping of blunt nails against tender scalp, and then they seperated. Eyes overflowing with wonder at what they'd just done.
Park sunim shambled up to them with his cane. "Vile beasts!" he roared,his face red from the effort of climbing and yelling at the same time. "Filth! Scum!" he continued. "How dare you! In the house of our Lord no less! You've sullied this pious place! How dare you!" he furiously waved his cane around even as his feet carried him forward in a rush. The boys huddled together but one told the other to run and he hesitated. But he obeyed. When Choi Minho's rustling footsteps had disappeared from earshot, Lee Jinki stood with his shoulders squared, ready to face anything at all.
The cane would thrash him, welts burning on his calves and across his arms. These beatings would become a routine in his life for at least the rest of the year or until Park sunim got bored of it. Then the starving would follow. Lee Jinki would be placed on his usual seat in the dining hall, but he wouldn't be given a plate like the rest of the boys. He would only get to watch as other had their meals. He would be locked in the monastery, all his previous freedom revoked. And then the nuns would humiliate him further by having him work in the laundry room on all fours, like a lowly dog. Lee Jinki was prepared for it all.
But it was much worse than he'd imagined.
He was just a boy. He was only a boy. How could he face anything like that on his own? He was nothing more than a young boy, a gentle soul, a kind-hearted child. He meant no harm, and yet harm shadowed his every waking hour. He was only a boy who wanted a friend, who craved affection and attention. He was just a simple boy. How could he ever have borne the punishment that followed?
He couldn't.
***
Lee Jinki carried a lamp of hope all these years in his pocket, a sorry looking excuse of a wick that had nearly burnt itself out. He walked the same pavement blocks every morning, hoping to catch the familiar sound of accompanying footsteps pattering next to him and hooking an arm into his own. He stared up at a moon that changed its face and changed its answers each night. And when he woke up to another meaningless day, he smiled through his tears with equally meaningless faith in his heart-that just around the next corner, just there, under the awnings of the florist’s shop he’d see Choi Minho. His Minho. He’d find the boy tilting his swan neck and offering up a hand to be grasped before they flew away into a world of dreams. He’d find those wax-like hipbones his palms longed to curl around and press into.
Lee Jinki thought of Choi Minho in his every waking hour, and then he dreamt of the other in his sleep. But for all his devotion, the boy was nowhere to be found.
“Where is he?” the ex-soldier asked of everyone he passed from work to home. Some offered him a bow and shuffled away before he could stop them. Some others stood by and watched him create a scene. “Where is he? Where is Minho?” he chanted the question. “Did you see him? Where is he?”
They shook their heads, shook him by the shoulders. “Please, Jinki yah.” They muttered words of pity. “What has become of this poor boy…” They sighed and told him to come to his senses. “Jinki, please! Stop it!” Sometimes, they fabricated lies that would let him live on with slivers of hope tied around his wrists like charms. “I saw him at the departmental just now. You’ll catch him if you run.” Some others told him to call in at the Choi residence. "Maybe he's waiting there for you, all these years. You know where he lives, don't you? Maybe he's still there." They protected him as they could. After all, he was a returned war hero. They owed him at least so much.
But there were a few heartless ones who shot him with the truth.
“Minseokkie,” he begged of Minseok the next time he spotted the man slouched against a wall in a dark alleyway. “Please, tell me. Why isn’t anyone telling me? Where’s Minho? Where did he go?” He pulled on a sleeve, folded his fingers in prayer, swallowed his tears so he could continue to implore for a reply. “Please! Where is he?! I can’t live without him! Take me to him! Please, tell me where he is, Minseokkie, I’m begging you…”
“Fuck you, Jin.” For a hyung, Choi Minseok was extremely protective of his dongsaeng. A long time ago, the three had been thick as thieves. They’d play soccer under many an oppressive afternoon sun without a care for which way the world turned. They'd sit on a railing by the canal and watch garbage float by when the water level was close to bursting from the rain. A long time ago they'd help Lee Jinki free himself from his bed and sneak out of the monastery on cold wintery midnights. They'd wrap a warm blanket round his shoulders and stuff him in the back of their car where Minho would rub heat into Lee Jinki's thighs and Minseok would whistle a tune as he adjusted the rearview mirror. A long time ago, Choi Minseok would’ve gathered Lee Jinki in his arms and consoled him, wiping his tears off and leading him away with a clever grin. But now there he stood, blowing a cloud of nicotine between them. “You’re fucked in the head for even asking me that, you asshole, how many times do I have to remind you that Min-”
And then Lee Jinki would disappear for days on end. The sounds of his weeping screaming beating fists filled the night air. He’d run at the walls, trying to break through them with his shoulders. He’d shatter all his belongings against the floor, hoping their pieces would cut deep enough into him that he’d stop hurting. He'd question us over and over and we'd have nothing to say except, "May the Lord save his soul."
***
We remember that year the flood came. Only weeks earlier, the government had announced nation-wide budget cuts due to severe tensions on the border, and as a result all state-funded institutions were being shut down. Institutions like the monastery, which had stood tall in the middle of our town for centuries.
It was raining heavily that night. The canal and all its filth broke onto the streets, all roads leading out of town were closed.
While there was an outraged protest from the priests and nuns, the monastery’s small company of young orphan boys secretly rejoiced when they were shipped off to foster homes. Even the older ones like Lee Jinki, who were closer to eighteen and no longer anyone’s responsibility, breathed sighs of relief for their long-due freedom.
When a kind old lady took the younger boys under her roof until a bus could take them to the city, Lee Jinki sucked in a long deep breath and ran out of the doors of his prison, never to come back. We remember his feet slipping on the footpath from all the rain, but we don’t remember him stopping. We remember Choi Minseok yelling after his little brother, asking if he was crazy, but not doing anything to hold the boy back from dashing out of his own home.
We remember both their paths meeting under a streetlight, in an unnamed bylane. And perhaps their hearts pounded like drumbeats. Perhaps their heads pulsed like soldiers marching to war. Perhaps they'd spent so much time together by then, that they'd devised a way of knowing what the other was thinking, even from the other side of town. Perhaps it was something else, no one can tell us the truth.
But we remember them stopping before each other, breath heaving. We remember them squinting at one another as the rain hit them sideways. We remember them tentatively reach out to hold both hands, lean their heads as if they were going to finally let out a secret between themselves. We remember their jaws hanging open as their exhales still raced madly, as their arms slowly coiled tighter together. We remember when they finally kissed in earnest.
And then we remember looking away.
They never behaved like strangers for a second despite knowing each other for a little over six months. Lee Jinki could run his hands over Choi Minho’s arms and he’d never be brushed off. He could crane up on his tiptoes to kiss that circle of pink candy lips, and the other would never lean away. He could wedge his knee between long legs and they’d always part with ease, only clamping shut when tickled playfully.
One might say that in Choi Minho’s company, Lee Jinki was the melting sun on a golden horizon. That he was mercurial, breathing as loud as a tornado one moment and floating as light as a feather the next. One might assume that his heart was a generator that flashed energy and electricity through every inch of his body, sometimes transmitting it to others he came in contact with.
One might also assume that it was all a dream.
The dream was the same every time. The same fury, the same agonizing lust of bending limbs. The same scraping sound of voices that gave birth to chills even hours after they’d been silenced, quaking and quivering. It is the only scrap of memory we have of the two, and we wish now as we have a thousand times that we recalled nothing at all. For the unwrapped clothes and thrown off sweat-soaked sheets are a testament to Lee Jinki and Choi Minho sitting on the edge of lucidity with their faces in each other’s hands, trying to physically collect affection and drink the madness till their bellies were full.
We remember in our despairing groans, the way Lee Jinki stretched out in the dim light coming through the open bedroom window; the way he crept out of blankets and slunk to the bathroom. The way he didn't switch on any lights and bumped into things on the way there, because he didn’t want to wake his Minho up. But we remember because the streetlights spilling in were spotlights focused on their lives. We remember, and we want to forget.
Choi Minho followed quietly and made Lee Jinki jump when he hugged the man from the back. His lips moved to ask "What're you thinking?" before they closed over the other's. A borrowed t-shirt became borrowed taste and breath and touch. The bathroom tiles gleamed, threw out light in fantastical trajectories. They blinded us, but the loss of sight was beautiful. A thing to yearn and hope for. A hundred short stories were told from mouth to mouth, a hundred worlds were explored within the kiss. And in our blindness we did nothing but stare. Point. Gossip.
The roving of hands under a shirt, over a torso. The undulating of a waist against the tiled cubicle. The splash of water from the shower rose, coloring shoulders with heat. A flash of lighting and a roll of thunder. We remember it all as if it were yesterday. And perhaps it was. Perhaps it is still happening somewhere in the folds of muscle that make up Lee Jinki's mind, and perhaps we are narrating the present as it occurs in his head. The storm razing our town to the ground could not stop the tendrils of his desire from latching on and sucking away. Choi Minho was a demon is disguise, a man eater, a heart breaker. But the one person he mattered the most to, never knew.
***
There is a song, a taunt that haunts young lips when they see Lee Jinki walk into that old cul-de-sac where he once played football. Now a place for decadence and crime, it never welcomes visitors to its bounds with anything other than spite. This song is wordless, soundless. It is the very essence of hatred, a personification of ridicule. A pitiful Lee Jinki struggles to keep his mind intact while the song scrabbles to inject its loathing in his brain. He grits his jaw, even as pools of blood blossom in his mind. All eyes stare at him, hissing, jeering, but quietly. Very quietly. And in its silence, the song multiplies in intensity.
Why Lee Jinki visits this old haunt, we can never fathom. When he tilts his head as if listening for a distant call of his name. When he squints at the dark nooks and crannies as if searching for familiar shadows. When he takes a step forward only to retract it as the light changes--when he does these things he is continuing his search. Alone, by himself. But Choi Minho isn't there. Perhaps he isn't anywhere. Perhaps he was a figment of our imaginations from the start, but his smile is as fresh in our memories as the day he arrived in our town. The rest of his face is blurry now when we try to recall it, but the sound of his laugh is deeply engraved between our ears. We are, in a way, just like Lee Jinki. We are looking for someone who was here before, but is now gone.
The song seethes with discouragement. Go back, it says. Go back to where you came from, and never show you face here again. Because the presence of the ex-soldier is unnerving. It rakes through our conscience. It pulls at our morality. It blisters the backs of our actions and sands against our sefishness. It blames us for everything that went wrong here, in this dilapidated neighbourhood. It demands justice even when it's too late to set this aright. It is too late for madness to be fixed, one cannot simply stroll back to their sanity.
The wind flows through abandoned streets like silk. It comes and goes as it pleases, touching everyone even as no one can touch it. It is a messenger. It carries word of war, of pestilence, of sadness. It draws a triptych in our minds--of the past, the present, and the future. It billows our curtains and calls our attention to look outside our windows. It carries the secret we all try to keep from a lonely man and his searching eyes. It is as quiet as the song but less hateful. It mellows the crease between his eyebrows. And it asks the question for him: Choi Minho was a flower bathed in milk. A shy bud that softly flowered only when Lee Jinki stretched his hand out to touch it. Choi Minho was a light. He was pulsing with life. What could've happened to him then, to erase all trace of him like this? Where is Minho and who took him away?
We want to call him names and curse his actions. We want to unravel the restraining thread around our parcels of hate and let the contents fall out. But times like these all we remember is the good that built him. All we can come up with in our lousy minds is happy memories and nice words and pretty smiles. All we can think of is sunlit hair and falcate nails and pillowy cheeks and that song he used to hum while sweeping the church yard.
And that's what aches. The fact that we are incapable of hate. That our parcels are full of nothing more than air. They're empty. We want to call him names, and curse his actions. We want to spurn him. Ostracize him from this society and its principles. We want to spray glass cleaner over the stain that he signifies, and wipe it clean. But we don't. We cannot. There is no hate. We believe that's what hurts. That despite everything, we love him. We still love Lee Jinki. And all we can do is walk away with the thread trailing.
This story began as one about not about love, but despite the war that drove a rent through it, the love sustains. Within us and within him. Lee Jinki found someone to recite the good times to. He found someone who wouldn't judge him or block him out or say they don't care anymore. He found someone who would’ve shielded him even when the attacks came from the inside. And his disappearance is an ache on our soul, too.
When the wind abates, Lee Jinki returns home in silence.
Chapter 4