[ys] Go Now (I'm Right Behind You) [1/5]
A/N: The song which inspired this fic and is mentioned in the fic, "Drive It Like You Stole It", is credited to the movie, Sing Street.
More updates to come over the next few days ;)
In the meantime, Happy Valentine's Day to all gogumas out there. :)
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She slides back the sleeve of her hoodie to look at the wristwatch on her arm. Its hands show the time - 10:22 pm, on a Monday night.
"Did you have to take the latest bus out of Jin-hae just to be dramatic, oppa?" Seo Joo-hyun chides gently, sliding her hoodie sleeve back into place. Not only is it late by her standards, it's also freezing here in the somewhat deserted bus station.
"Did you have to dress in all black just to send me off, Hyun?" Jung Yong-hwa counters. Even under the dim lights, his eyes are bright with excitement, anticipation, and he switches his weight from his right to his left foot from where he's standing opposite her, leaning by the exit to the bus bays. Too excited to sit down even, Joo-hyun thinks, with some mixture of sadness and resigned gladness. Yong-hwa continues his teasing. "You're dressing like this is my funeral."
It might as well be, Joo-hyun bites the words back, even while she cracks a smile for his benefit.
She's been biting back a great deal since Yong-hwa announced this.
"Well," Joo-hyun points out sensibly, "It's definitely something that calls for secrecy, right?" With that, she yanks up the hood on her jacket to shield her face, casting another wary eye around the bus station. Thankfully, for a small town like Jin-hae, there aren't many people waiting for a bus at 10.23 pm; most of the working people who need to return to Seoul would have taken the 8.20 pm bus and so it is only a few homeless people who toss restlessly on nearby benches and the last lone stragglers waiting for the last bus.
She sighs deeply. "I still think you should have told your mother beforehand though. She's never going to talk to me again after this."
Yong-hwa's brow creases for a bit, but it clears just as quickly. "Omma'll be mad for a while sure, but she knows that it's always been my dream to go to Seoul and make music. She'll be mad for a little while, that's for sure," he says ruefully, "But I left her and Appa a letter, and I'll write and call often once I'm settled. That means you too, Hyun."
This last part should be enough to cheer her up, to draw a smile out of her, but frankly, it's something that's a little beyond Joo-hyun at this time. My best friend, Yong-hwa oppa is leaving town to go to Seoul to make music, she tries out in her head.
The thought, well worn in her head by now, doesn't go down any easier, and Joo-hyun looks down at her hands in her lap.
She is suddenly afraid that if she looks up, even as so much looks at Yong-hwa, she'll do the one thing that she promised herself she would never do since he told her of his plans - break down.
Yong-hwa must pick up on her darkening mood, because a few seconds later, she feels the dip of the bench next to her, and the accompanying weight of his arm, sliding comfortingly around her shoulders. "You okay there, Hyun?"
Her stupid throat is actually tight now, the way it gets before she starts bawling like a baby, and so, she shrugs off his arm roughly, tilting her face away to the side to let a single tear slide down quickly. She blots it away in the next breath, thankful for the dark material of her hoodie, which betrays nothing of her sudden bout of tears. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she scolds herself quietly. Pull it together, Seo Joo-hyun. You can do this.
"I'm fine." She says abruptly, keeping her face averted for an extra second longer, praying that there is no high color in her face, the way her face usually flushes when she cries. Joo-hyun turns to give Yong-hwa a little nudge, still not meeting his eye; the only way to deflect him is to respond with a joke of some sort. "You better write like you promised if not I'll hunt you down in Seoul personally. And I promise you it won’t be pretty."
Unable to further delay the inevitable, she lifts her eyes to his. While there is responding humor in Yong-hwa’s eyes at her mock threat as she expects, there is also something unfamiliar reflected there - something she cannot place in the way he looks at her in that moment. Almost as if there is something he wants to say, but doesn’t.
But then Joo-hyun remembers to breathe and in that moment that she does, that unknown emotion bleeds into something tenderer, something fond as Yong-hwa oppa reaches out to tweak her nose lightly. “Far be it from me to incite those flaring nostrils,” he says easily, referring to an old joke between the pair of them that comes up each time he incurs Joo-hyun’s wrath. This time, when Joo-hyun nudges him, it doesn’t feel as forced as the first time.
There is a sound of a bus rumbling up to the curb, an exhale of exhaust, and out of the corner of her eye, Joo-hyun can see the few people in the bus station start to gather their things. No, she thinks, sudden panic rising in her chest, hot and fast, not so fast. Please.
Yong-hwa looks over her shoulder, at the bus idling at the kerb, and already Joo-hyun can sense his heart drawing away, flying out of the small town of Jin-hae where they’ve lived forever, into the capital - the illusive Seoul, where everyone can chase their dreams. Where a small town boy can live out his dream of being a rockstar.
Her heart lodges itself in her throat painfully.
But even as Joo-hyun looks at Yong-hwa oppa, deep in her heart of hearts, she knows that if anyone from Jin-hae could make their dreams come true, it would be Yong-hwa. There’s no one quite as determined, as passionate as our Yong-hwa oppa, she thinks sadly.
He’s chasing his dreams. I should be happy for him. I am happy for him.
Already Yong-hwa is standing up, gathering his things and so Joo-hyun stands too, quietly, holding on to his guitar even as he slings on the huge rucksack of his personal belongings and picks up a worn duffle bag.
He turns to her, and she holds out his guitar.
She can feel her smile wobbling, but she forces herself to smile wider, futilely orders the tears in her eyes to stop forming, and she is indeterminably glad when her voice comes out somewhat breezy, just as she hoped. “Wouldn’t want to forget the most important thing now.”
Now, Joo-hyun can see some of the same sadness that she’s felt tonight reflected plainly in Yong-hwa’s face and she only has time to think, oh no, not now, before she feels a liquid warmth on her cheeks and Yong-hwa pulls her into a hug which she is ridiculously thankful for because in his jacket, her tears are hidden.
She’s not sure who’s clinging on to whom in that hug; all Joo-hyun knows is that she wants to hold on, wants to not let Yong-hwa go, and it takes everything inside her to swallow back the words that are threatening on the tip of her tongue. Don’t go.
Instead, she gives herself 5 whole seconds to pull herself together, before sniffing fiercely and breaking away. “Make sure you call and write.” She says sternly. “Make sure you stay warm especially when it’s snowing. And no coffee!”
Yong-hwa’s eyes look unusually shiny as well, but before Joo-hyun can get a closer look, her attention is captured once again by his lopsided smile, complete with snaggletooth. “Now, Hyun,” He tells her somewhat shakily but with a hint of his usual manner. “You know I don’t go making promises I can’t keep, especially where it comes to coffee.”
That is enough to provoke a laugh from her, but her laugher dies in her throat when Yong-hwa lifts a warm hand to her cold cheek, holding her in place. And there it is again - that same look, something fierce and indecipherable that makes Joo-hyun tremble a little even as his fingers flutter over her right cheek.
What is it? She wonders. What does he want to say?
But Yong-hwa only bites his lip, and Joo-hyun feels the loss of his fingers as they fall away from her face. “I’ll miss you, Hyun,” is what he tells her instead, and the look on his face - the way he looks at her with such tenderness, such warmth - is enough to make the waterworks start again. No. I will not cry. I’m not going to, even if it kills me.
Which is why she shoves him with slightly more force than necessary in the direction of the boarding bay. “If you don’t get a move on, the bus is going to leave without you,” She points out with a sensibility she absolutely, completely doesn’t feel. “Go on! It’s not like I won’t ever hear from you again.”
Yong-hwa finally, finally smiles, a grin that is so like him, that unconsciously it warms Joo-hyun’s heart. “I’ll call when I reach,” he promises, and she follows him out the sliding doors, watching as he lopes up the steps of the bus, watching until he seats himself by the window. And then, this is it - farewell - even as the both of them wave at each other until all Joo-hyun can see is the red brake lights of the bus, small red dots against the darkness of the winter night.
Joo-hyun thought that she would cry as she walks home that night, but she doesn’t shed a single tear.
Instead, all she feels is an ache deep inside of her, right where she thinks her heart should be.
+++
The next morning, Yong-hwa’s mother calls in hysterics, having found the note that Yong-hwa left for her.
Joo-hyun sits on the steps between the first and second level of her family home, listening to snatches of the telephone conversation on her mother’s end. She already knows the contents of the letter; she had helped Yong-hwa with it. Instead, she closes her eyes, imagining Yong-hwa’s crisp characters filling the page.
Omma, I’m sorry. You wouldn’t have let me go if you’d known beforehand. But you know that this has always been my dream - to make music and Seoul is the place where it’s going to happen.
You kept telling me later, later. After I graduated. After I helped Appa out at the store for the first three months after his surgery. Three months became a year, and I can’t do ‘later’ anymore.
It’s time to go - now.
Joo-hyun exhales heavily, and scrubs roughly at the tears staining her cheeks. This time, she doesn’t have to hide it, but it doesn’t make her feel any better.
She just misses him. Misses her best friend, her next door neighbour. Misses the very life and energy of Yong-hwa that has characterized much of her life growing up in Jin-hae, and it’s not even been a day.
Mrs Jung comes over in the afternoon and her hysterics have tamed somewhat, though she still pelts Joo-hyun with questions. When did they plan this? (Yong-hwa planned this; she only helped). Where did Yong-hwa plan to stay in Seoul? (He didn’t tell her; he knew that his mother would badger the answer out of her and he didn’t want his mother coming up to Seoul to pull him home by his ear). Where did Yong-hwa find the money? (He’d been working during his free time at the construction site in east Jin-hae and he’d been saving up).
But Joo-hyun knows that despite Mrs Jung’s frantic questioning, there lacks a bite to her interrogation. Probably because the older woman knows what she does - that there is legally nothing to help her bring back Yong-hwa. He is now 21, of legal age to do as he pleases. He is not missing or kidnapped or in danger - the note clearly states where he is and that he has left of his own free will, and so Mrs Jung cannot call the police to report her son missing, cannot call on the law to help her bring her son home.
All Mrs Jung can do is to go home and wait for her son’s phone call, which she finally does after an exhausting two hours of questioning on end. But that is not the end for Joo-hyun.
Her parents sit her down, and while they are not as frenzied as Mrs Jung in their words, there is a quiet, stinging disappointment to their admonishments. For the second day in a row, Joo-hyun cries openly; she can count the number of times she has disappointed her parents on a single hand. The taste of their disapproval and bewilderment - that their good girl, Joo-hyun, who rarely lies and defies elders, would abet Yong-hwa’s leaving home - is as unfamiliar a feeling as any to her and Joo-hyun hates every second of it.
Yet, this ordeal is made worthwhile for a short, shining fifteen minutes, when in the evening, her cell phone rings with an unfamiliar out of area code.
“Hello?”
She swears she can almost see his smile in her mind’s eye, can hear it across the crackling line from Seoul to Jin-hae, and Joo-hyun wipes away another tear, as she replies, “Took you long enough to get to a phone.”
Yong-hwa is safely in Seoul, and has already called his mother (“before I called you, Hyun, so don’t nag”). He is in an apartment that he describes as being in “on the edges of central Seoul” and is “totally safe”. She won’t believe it, he tells her excitedly, but he has a roommate that plays the electric guitar; what a coincidence, what fate. He heard some “amazing” riffs coming from his roommate’s room, and he’s going to introduce himself properly tomorrow and maybe this could be the start of his band, the start of his music dreams coming true.
Joo-hyun lies on her bed, closing her eyes as she lets Yong-hwa’s voice wash over her. For that blissful moment, everything - the lies, the silence, the admonishments, the disappointment - is worth it, if only to hear the excitement, the hope in Yong-hwa’s voice.
Yong-hwa puts down a few minutes later, promising that his first letter to her (and his mother) is underway.
True enough, when Joo-hyun sees Mrs Jung run in through the gates of their family home a week later, waving something white in her hand, some of the guilt over the pain and worry she has caused Mrs Jung lifts. Surely, this is good for Yong-hwa. Surely, his own mother can see it. She’ll come round to it, Yong-hwa had promised, and it seems that he truly knows his own mother, because Mrs Jung soon forgets any lingering resentment she has towards Joo-hyun, coming over as and when there is a letter from Yong-hwa, sharing its contents excitedly with the Seos. She even seems somewhat proud of Yong-hwa, telling others in their town about her son in big city Seoul, following his dreams.
Joo-hyun receives her own set of letters faithfully from Yong-hwa, along with occasional texts that she’s sure his mother doesn’t receive. The texts come at random intervals at the day, from as early as 6 am (Heading to an audition now! Fingers crossed!) or as late as 2 am (I’m up writing a new song. And no, I’m not drinking coffee. I’ll drink some tomorrow.) But Joo-hyun loves these texts almost as much as she loves the letters; it is almost as if she is getting a glimpse at the thoughts Yong-hwa is thinking in that exact moment, and it makes her feel less far away from her best friend than she thought possible.
The letters, though fewer and further between than the texts, are also welcome. They are longer than the texts, detailing Yong-hwa’s new life in Seoul. His new roommate, who can play the electric guitar, is called Lee Jong-hyun and he comes from Busan. Jong-hyun knows a drummer called Min-hyuk and they are looking for a bass player now. When Yong-hwa is not up in the wee hours of morning attending auditions, nor up late at night writing songs, he divides his time between working at a convenience store and a call centre. Seoul is big; they have 13 subway lines (I still keep getting lost after two months here, he writes, much to her amusement), and way too many people.
I feel like I could get lost in this city, his last letter reads, Like if I’m not careful, I could get lost and no one would ever find me. But I don’t intend on fading away. Just as my idol, Bon Jovi writes, I’m not going to be just a face in the crowd. He’s right. I didn’t come all this way to be another person in this city.
And occasionally, his letters are a little more sentimental. I wish you were here, one letter reads. The other day, I walked into the Seoul National Library and the amount of books here would amaze even you. I think you could take years and years and never finish all the books in here. Is this what you consider heaven, you nerd?
Joo-hyun loves these letters, lives for when they come.
It simply doesn’t occur to her that one day, they will stop coming, until they actually do.
More updates to come over the next few days ;)
In the meantime, Happy Valentine's Day to all gogumas out there. :)
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She slides back the sleeve of her hoodie to look at the wristwatch on her arm. Its hands show the time - 10:22 pm, on a Monday night.
"Did you have to take the latest bus out of Jin-hae just to be dramatic, oppa?" Seo Joo-hyun chides gently, sliding her hoodie sleeve back into place. Not only is it late by her standards, it's also freezing here in the somewhat deserted bus station.
"Did you have to dress in all black just to send me off, Hyun?" Jung Yong-hwa counters. Even under the dim lights, his eyes are bright with excitement, anticipation, and he switches his weight from his right to his left foot from where he's standing opposite her, leaning by the exit to the bus bays. Too excited to sit down even, Joo-hyun thinks, with some mixture of sadness and resigned gladness. Yong-hwa continues his teasing. "You're dressing like this is my funeral."
It might as well be, Joo-hyun bites the words back, even while she cracks a smile for his benefit.
She's been biting back a great deal since Yong-hwa announced this.
"Well," Joo-hyun points out sensibly, "It's definitely something that calls for secrecy, right?" With that, she yanks up the hood on her jacket to shield her face, casting another wary eye around the bus station. Thankfully, for a small town like Jin-hae, there aren't many people waiting for a bus at 10.23 pm; most of the working people who need to return to Seoul would have taken the 8.20 pm bus and so it is only a few homeless people who toss restlessly on nearby benches and the last lone stragglers waiting for the last bus.
She sighs deeply. "I still think you should have told your mother beforehand though. She's never going to talk to me again after this."
Yong-hwa's brow creases for a bit, but it clears just as quickly. "Omma'll be mad for a while sure, but she knows that it's always been my dream to go to Seoul and make music. She'll be mad for a little while, that's for sure," he says ruefully, "But I left her and Appa a letter, and I'll write and call often once I'm settled. That means you too, Hyun."
This last part should be enough to cheer her up, to draw a smile out of her, but frankly, it's something that's a little beyond Joo-hyun at this time. My best friend, Yong-hwa oppa is leaving town to go to Seoul to make music, she tries out in her head.
The thought, well worn in her head by now, doesn't go down any easier, and Joo-hyun looks down at her hands in her lap.
She is suddenly afraid that if she looks up, even as so much looks at Yong-hwa, she'll do the one thing that she promised herself she would never do since he told her of his plans - break down.
Yong-hwa must pick up on her darkening mood, because a few seconds later, she feels the dip of the bench next to her, and the accompanying weight of his arm, sliding comfortingly around her shoulders. "You okay there, Hyun?"
Her stupid throat is actually tight now, the way it gets before she starts bawling like a baby, and so, she shrugs off his arm roughly, tilting her face away to the side to let a single tear slide down quickly. She blots it away in the next breath, thankful for the dark material of her hoodie, which betrays nothing of her sudden bout of tears. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she scolds herself quietly. Pull it together, Seo Joo-hyun. You can do this.
"I'm fine." She says abruptly, keeping her face averted for an extra second longer, praying that there is no high color in her face, the way her face usually flushes when she cries. Joo-hyun turns to give Yong-hwa a little nudge, still not meeting his eye; the only way to deflect him is to respond with a joke of some sort. "You better write like you promised if not I'll hunt you down in Seoul personally. And I promise you it won’t be pretty."
Unable to further delay the inevitable, she lifts her eyes to his. While there is responding humor in Yong-hwa’s eyes at her mock threat as she expects, there is also something unfamiliar reflected there - something she cannot place in the way he looks at her in that moment. Almost as if there is something he wants to say, but doesn’t.
But then Joo-hyun remembers to breathe and in that moment that she does, that unknown emotion bleeds into something tenderer, something fond as Yong-hwa oppa reaches out to tweak her nose lightly. “Far be it from me to incite those flaring nostrils,” he says easily, referring to an old joke between the pair of them that comes up each time he incurs Joo-hyun’s wrath. This time, when Joo-hyun nudges him, it doesn’t feel as forced as the first time.
There is a sound of a bus rumbling up to the curb, an exhale of exhaust, and out of the corner of her eye, Joo-hyun can see the few people in the bus station start to gather their things. No, she thinks, sudden panic rising in her chest, hot and fast, not so fast. Please.
Yong-hwa looks over her shoulder, at the bus idling at the kerb, and already Joo-hyun can sense his heart drawing away, flying out of the small town of Jin-hae where they’ve lived forever, into the capital - the illusive Seoul, where everyone can chase their dreams. Where a small town boy can live out his dream of being a rockstar.
Her heart lodges itself in her throat painfully.
But even as Joo-hyun looks at Yong-hwa oppa, deep in her heart of hearts, she knows that if anyone from Jin-hae could make their dreams come true, it would be Yong-hwa. There’s no one quite as determined, as passionate as our Yong-hwa oppa, she thinks sadly.
He’s chasing his dreams. I should be happy for him. I am happy for him.
Already Yong-hwa is standing up, gathering his things and so Joo-hyun stands too, quietly, holding on to his guitar even as he slings on the huge rucksack of his personal belongings and picks up a worn duffle bag.
He turns to her, and she holds out his guitar.
She can feel her smile wobbling, but she forces herself to smile wider, futilely orders the tears in her eyes to stop forming, and she is indeterminably glad when her voice comes out somewhat breezy, just as she hoped. “Wouldn’t want to forget the most important thing now.”
Now, Joo-hyun can see some of the same sadness that she’s felt tonight reflected plainly in Yong-hwa’s face and she only has time to think, oh no, not now, before she feels a liquid warmth on her cheeks and Yong-hwa pulls her into a hug which she is ridiculously thankful for because in his jacket, her tears are hidden.
She’s not sure who’s clinging on to whom in that hug; all Joo-hyun knows is that she wants to hold on, wants to not let Yong-hwa go, and it takes everything inside her to swallow back the words that are threatening on the tip of her tongue. Don’t go.
Instead, she gives herself 5 whole seconds to pull herself together, before sniffing fiercely and breaking away. “Make sure you call and write.” She says sternly. “Make sure you stay warm especially when it’s snowing. And no coffee!”
Yong-hwa’s eyes look unusually shiny as well, but before Joo-hyun can get a closer look, her attention is captured once again by his lopsided smile, complete with snaggletooth. “Now, Hyun,” He tells her somewhat shakily but with a hint of his usual manner. “You know I don’t go making promises I can’t keep, especially where it comes to coffee.”
That is enough to provoke a laugh from her, but her laugher dies in her throat when Yong-hwa lifts a warm hand to her cold cheek, holding her in place. And there it is again - that same look, something fierce and indecipherable that makes Joo-hyun tremble a little even as his fingers flutter over her right cheek.
What is it? She wonders. What does he want to say?
But Yong-hwa only bites his lip, and Joo-hyun feels the loss of his fingers as they fall away from her face. “I’ll miss you, Hyun,” is what he tells her instead, and the look on his face - the way he looks at her with such tenderness, such warmth - is enough to make the waterworks start again. No. I will not cry. I’m not going to, even if it kills me.
Which is why she shoves him with slightly more force than necessary in the direction of the boarding bay. “If you don’t get a move on, the bus is going to leave without you,” She points out with a sensibility she absolutely, completely doesn’t feel. “Go on! It’s not like I won’t ever hear from you again.”
Yong-hwa finally, finally smiles, a grin that is so like him, that unconsciously it warms Joo-hyun’s heart. “I’ll call when I reach,” he promises, and she follows him out the sliding doors, watching as he lopes up the steps of the bus, watching until he seats himself by the window. And then, this is it - farewell - even as the both of them wave at each other until all Joo-hyun can see is the red brake lights of the bus, small red dots against the darkness of the winter night.
Joo-hyun thought that she would cry as she walks home that night, but she doesn’t shed a single tear.
Instead, all she feels is an ache deep inside of her, right where she thinks her heart should be.
+++
The next morning, Yong-hwa’s mother calls in hysterics, having found the note that Yong-hwa left for her.
Joo-hyun sits on the steps between the first and second level of her family home, listening to snatches of the telephone conversation on her mother’s end. She already knows the contents of the letter; she had helped Yong-hwa with it. Instead, she closes her eyes, imagining Yong-hwa’s crisp characters filling the page.
Omma, I’m sorry. You wouldn’t have let me go if you’d known beforehand. But you know that this has always been my dream - to make music and Seoul is the place where it’s going to happen.
You kept telling me later, later. After I graduated. After I helped Appa out at the store for the first three months after his surgery. Three months became a year, and I can’t do ‘later’ anymore.
It’s time to go - now.
Joo-hyun exhales heavily, and scrubs roughly at the tears staining her cheeks. This time, she doesn’t have to hide it, but it doesn’t make her feel any better.
She just misses him. Misses her best friend, her next door neighbour. Misses the very life and energy of Yong-hwa that has characterized much of her life growing up in Jin-hae, and it’s not even been a day.
Mrs Jung comes over in the afternoon and her hysterics have tamed somewhat, though she still pelts Joo-hyun with questions. When did they plan this? (Yong-hwa planned this; she only helped). Where did Yong-hwa plan to stay in Seoul? (He didn’t tell her; he knew that his mother would badger the answer out of her and he didn’t want his mother coming up to Seoul to pull him home by his ear). Where did Yong-hwa find the money? (He’d been working during his free time at the construction site in east Jin-hae and he’d been saving up).
But Joo-hyun knows that despite Mrs Jung’s frantic questioning, there lacks a bite to her interrogation. Probably because the older woman knows what she does - that there is legally nothing to help her bring back Yong-hwa. He is now 21, of legal age to do as he pleases. He is not missing or kidnapped or in danger - the note clearly states where he is and that he has left of his own free will, and so Mrs Jung cannot call the police to report her son missing, cannot call on the law to help her bring her son home.
All Mrs Jung can do is to go home and wait for her son’s phone call, which she finally does after an exhausting two hours of questioning on end. But that is not the end for Joo-hyun.
Her parents sit her down, and while they are not as frenzied as Mrs Jung in their words, there is a quiet, stinging disappointment to their admonishments. For the second day in a row, Joo-hyun cries openly; she can count the number of times she has disappointed her parents on a single hand. The taste of their disapproval and bewilderment - that their good girl, Joo-hyun, who rarely lies and defies elders, would abet Yong-hwa’s leaving home - is as unfamiliar a feeling as any to her and Joo-hyun hates every second of it.
Yet, this ordeal is made worthwhile for a short, shining fifteen minutes, when in the evening, her cell phone rings with an unfamiliar out of area code.
“Hello?”
She swears she can almost see his smile in her mind’s eye, can hear it across the crackling line from Seoul to Jin-hae, and Joo-hyun wipes away another tear, as she replies, “Took you long enough to get to a phone.”
Yong-hwa is safely in Seoul, and has already called his mother (“before I called you, Hyun, so don’t nag”). He is in an apartment that he describes as being in “on the edges of central Seoul” and is “totally safe”. She won’t believe it, he tells her excitedly, but he has a roommate that plays the electric guitar; what a coincidence, what fate. He heard some “amazing” riffs coming from his roommate’s room, and he’s going to introduce himself properly tomorrow and maybe this could be the start of his band, the start of his music dreams coming true.
Joo-hyun lies on her bed, closing her eyes as she lets Yong-hwa’s voice wash over her. For that blissful moment, everything - the lies, the silence, the admonishments, the disappointment - is worth it, if only to hear the excitement, the hope in Yong-hwa’s voice.
Yong-hwa puts down a few minutes later, promising that his first letter to her (and his mother) is underway.
True enough, when Joo-hyun sees Mrs Jung run in through the gates of their family home a week later, waving something white in her hand, some of the guilt over the pain and worry she has caused Mrs Jung lifts. Surely, this is good for Yong-hwa. Surely, his own mother can see it. She’ll come round to it, Yong-hwa had promised, and it seems that he truly knows his own mother, because Mrs Jung soon forgets any lingering resentment she has towards Joo-hyun, coming over as and when there is a letter from Yong-hwa, sharing its contents excitedly with the Seos. She even seems somewhat proud of Yong-hwa, telling others in their town about her son in big city Seoul, following his dreams.
Joo-hyun receives her own set of letters faithfully from Yong-hwa, along with occasional texts that she’s sure his mother doesn’t receive. The texts come at random intervals at the day, from as early as 6 am (Heading to an audition now! Fingers crossed!) or as late as 2 am (I’m up writing a new song. And no, I’m not drinking coffee. I’ll drink some tomorrow.) But Joo-hyun loves these texts almost as much as she loves the letters; it is almost as if she is getting a glimpse at the thoughts Yong-hwa is thinking in that exact moment, and it makes her feel less far away from her best friend than she thought possible.
The letters, though fewer and further between than the texts, are also welcome. They are longer than the texts, detailing Yong-hwa’s new life in Seoul. His new roommate, who can play the electric guitar, is called Lee Jong-hyun and he comes from Busan. Jong-hyun knows a drummer called Min-hyuk and they are looking for a bass player now. When Yong-hwa is not up in the wee hours of morning attending auditions, nor up late at night writing songs, he divides his time between working at a convenience store and a call centre. Seoul is big; they have 13 subway lines (I still keep getting lost after two months here, he writes, much to her amusement), and way too many people.
I feel like I could get lost in this city, his last letter reads, Like if I’m not careful, I could get lost and no one would ever find me. But I don’t intend on fading away. Just as my idol, Bon Jovi writes, I’m not going to be just a face in the crowd. He’s right. I didn’t come all this way to be another person in this city.
And occasionally, his letters are a little more sentimental. I wish you were here, one letter reads. The other day, I walked into the Seoul National Library and the amount of books here would amaze even you. I think you could take years and years and never finish all the books in here. Is this what you consider heaven, you nerd?
Joo-hyun loves these letters, lives for when they come.
It simply doesn’t occur to her that one day, they will stop coming, until they actually do.