Across Time and Space
Title: Across Time and Space
Pairing: Taehyun/Mino
Rating: G
Word Count: 3.3k
Summary: In 1998, a boy of an age 19 found a stash of an old recorded tapes and a diary up in the rooftop of his newly moved house. Out of curiosity, he listened to it and every night, he would lock himself up and listen to the voice of a boy telling stories of himself. The diary that filled with pictures of him and his acquaintances, with dates written on it, Minho believed that the boy named Taehyun would be dead by then and with every chapter of his life, he realized that Minho had fallen deeper for him.
It was not fine for Minho to be in the house doing nothing. The rain pattering outside and the paint that had been opened for the longest time, Minho just hoped that he would find some interesting things in this new house and that was when he explored and studied every inch of his new home, considering the fact that he would be staying here for the rest of his life.
His backyard was big, to be quite honest. Further back, Minho stared deep into the woods, wondering when he would ever have the courage to check what was beneath the huge trees. It could be some wild animals or creepy crawlies but for that moment of time, he would let the rain pour and convinced himself that the weather prevented him from going into the woods.
It was getting dark and clouds hovered over the sky. The smell of his mother’s cooking invaded his senses and he knew that that night, he would eat some good dishes.
Minho made his way to his room, big enough to fit in two queen-sized beds. Boxes piled up, still unpacked. At one side of the wall, he already put up a few of his favourite bands and pictures of his friends back in his previous hometown. The thought of not seeing them again angered him. He refused and never really much agreed on moving but what choice did he have? Protesting would never change his parents mind.
He stayed on his bed, legs crossed and eyes wandered out the window. Running through almost everything in that house, nothing interests him - with an exception of the woods which he thought maybe never.
Minho heard his mother calling. Voice travelled so far from the first level up to his room.
The voice echoed again. This time, he heard fragmented words of ‘rooftop’, ‘help’ and ‘clean’.
*
The rooftop was dark, dusty, wet and reek with weird pungent smell. At the end of the room, sound of water dripping could be heard and Minho made a mental note to inform his father about the water leakage up here. It was an old house; Minho should have expected all of this coming. Torch in his hand, he tried looking for a switch and after roaming his hand on the wall, the room finally lighted.
Old chair, mirrors and another pile of boxes filled the room. However, when he looked through every box, he found things he never thought he would find. Antiques that hardly seen in stores and maybe these could cost more than those guitars he possessed in his room.
And among all those antiques that awed him, he found a lonesome stack of tapes and a recorder, including a diary. Curiosity hit him and he tried reading the words scribbled on the thin paper attached to the top side of the tape.
May 10, 1945
My name is Nam Taehyun.
Minho took the diary and started flipping every page and with every page, there was a picture assorted with dates. A sepia coloured and crinkled picture showed signs of aging and what attracted him most was the person that was inside the picture. A dark coloured thick coat hung loosely on the thin and lean body, shoes as bright as his toothy smile and hands awkwardly raised with a recorder. Looking back and forth that was inside the box and the one he held in the picture, it was the same recorder.
His hair parted in two, eyebrow slanted downwards and the tip almost met. Minho was surprised at how beautiful his features were. His eyes twinkled. Happiness was what he felt at that moment and Minho felt warmth in the pit of his stomach. When he averted his gaze further down, another wording scrawled on the same page, but it was worse than the one he saw on the tape. It looked more rushed and it was written hastily.
What attracted his attention was the date written. He cross-referenced to the tapes and found out that the dates were in sync and that was when Minho took the box out, sneaked into his room and locked his door, forgetting about his mom’s cooking or cleaning the rooftop.
*
“Hello,” a soft voice cooed in the small speaker, a bit raspy due to the deteriorating tapes. Minho turned the volume a little bit higher, gently pressing the button. “I, I, no…”
He cleared his throat.
“My name is Nam Taehyun.” It started croaky, with jerky sentences but as he spoke more, it became natural to him and Minho leaned in closer to the speaker, just to listen to his voice.
“I am grateful to the people that had cared for me.” There was a silent pause and a hard breathy sound could be heard. And when Minho thought that he would not be talking anymore, he heard hiccups from the other end. “I’m sorry. I was being too emotional. I got this recorder as my birthday present and having Grundig C410 is just a miracle.” Sniffing sounds could be clearly heard. “And they are going to talk bad about me coming from a rich family.”
That was the first recording he heard and from what he learnt, his entry was on his birthday and Taehyun got his favourite recorder as a present. Minho could almost jump for guessing right about his rich background. But it ended abruptly. Too sudden that he had to continue to the next tape.
*
With his notepad jotting down notes, the thin voice that seemed too familiar filled his room. “Seungyoon came over to my house today.” Minho stopped writing and looked up, staring at the recorder. “This might be the first time I’m saying his name here.” Even though it was just his voice being recorded, Minho could sense that Taehyun was grinning. He just could feel it and Minho could not lie for the fact that jealousy raised at how that person’s name escaped perfectly from his lips, or in this case the speaker.
“Seungyoon, he confessed to me. And I said yes. I know, I know that it was irrational to accept him but he was good to me these days. I have to keep this a secret and the only people that knew about us is him and…” Taehyun made a pause.
“you…”
Minho’s heart was put to a halt. For a moment, his hair stood at its end and eyes bulged out like it never did. Did he talk to me?
“I don’t know who would be listening to this but I guess if you found this, congratulation to you. I have to warn you that I will reveal everything here. I don’t know when it will end. Maybe until I die? Or maybe after I’m married? I don’t know. But if you do, please hold onto my story. I beg you.”
Minho pressed the pause button and stared back at the diary that coincide with the date on the tape. It was a shy Taehyun with someone he assumed to be Seungyoon. Those wrinkles at the side of his eyes and that smile he had seen so many times through the journey of his diary. Seungyoon was handsome and he could not agree more to their relationship because he realized that they were a cute couple. Grazing his thumb over Taehyun’s face, he wondered why he could not meet him earlier.
“Whoever your name is, keep this a secret. I don’t want my dad to know about this. He is against heterosexual and I might taint his reputation.”
The recording tape suddenly played by itself and it took Minho by surprise. Quickly punching the pause button, Minho inspected his room but he found no one, just himself. The cold seeped into his flesh to his bones. The rain had not stopped yet. It was getting even darker, the woods across his window could not be seen and birds flew across his vision. He took a glance at the clock that was propped on his table.
1.45AM
He needed sleep and get ready for his first day of school. He couldn’t let his dark circles ruin his first day.
*
“I’m home.” Minho greeted and made his way to his room almost immediately until his mother called him out from the living room. “Sweetheart, how was your first day of school?” The woman that aged so much looked at him with a bulky phone in her left hand. Minho shrugged and mumbled fine. He was agitated and his legs couldn’t stop fidgeting. He needed to be in his room and listen to his voice again - Taehyun’s voice that had lingered for too long ever since he woke up for school. He left when his mom did not react to anything. “I’ll be down for dinner,” informing before a loud thud was heard.
“My room look so perfect from where I sit. The mirror with gold ornaments and bed bigger than what I needed, I feel like it would be better to sell them off and donate them to someone less fortunate. I told father about this matter but he said those people in the street are none of our concern. And somehow, anger was bottling up inside of me. They are human too and they get hungry just like us. Sometimes, money can ruin all of us. Destroy both sides. We take money in gluttony and never leave a single cent for the one who sweat more than others.”
Taehyun went silent for a while and spoke again. “Hey, you.”
Heart raced, breath hitched. Minho’s gaze landed on the speaker. “I really want to know your name. It would be rude to talk to you without knowing. How should I address you? Sir or Madam? Are you married or single? What is your supposed age? It is fine then. I shall call you, You. It would be nice to see You in real life.” Taehyun chuckled at the other end. The soft voice sounded melodious in Minho’s ear. He could imagine the tip of his lips turned upwards and the eyebrow that dropped so elegantly, he wanted to meet him so badly.
He flipped to the supposed page to see Taehyun posing for the camera with a boy in the street; another scribbles written at the bottom of the page.
Lee Min Jun and I. He was abandoned by his parents at the age of 10.
Photographed by Kang Seungyoon
There was a pang in his heart at the sight of Seungyoon’s name. Minho started to write something in his notebook. Humble and deeply in love were written somewhere in the book. There was a list of what character Taehyun possessed - kind, pretty, handsome, generous, shy and sensitive had written neatly in point form.
“I will be meeting Seungyoon tomorrow.” Minho played it. Hand on his chin, resting. “He sounded serious when he said it. I wonder what is wrong. Till then, see You soon.”
*
Minho was clicking his pen. Legs propped on the desk, he leaned back a bit. The voice echoed in the room. The tape had been repeated over and over again. Mind sinking beneath his rationality and he had been in his room for too long. His mother had been nagging but interest and attraction were gnawing at the edge of his sanity.
Staring at the last page of the diary, he could not believe that it all ended. The last entry was just a simple thank you with no picture attached. The recording stopped and he reached out to replay it again.
“Thank you for listening. You’ve been nice to me all these while and I appreciate it.”
A minute of silence and a sound of feet shuffling could be heard over the speaker.
“But now, I have to end it all. I’m sorry. I have to go.”
With an abrupt stop, came the dead silence once again and Minho had been thinking for days, asking himself what could have happened that day. Countless of sleepless night, he wondered of the possibility. Was he in trouble? He shouldn’t mind him that much, even if he might not exist.
The thought of him falling with a person over the speaker was impossible but to Minho, he captured his heart. As if he had a reason to live, to look forward to. Delusional, he said to himself while he was trying to keep himself sane.
But it didn’t work. He had fallen too deep with a person that existed in the world of grey and sepia.
*
It was not because of his greed but he was standing in the middle of an antique store, idling there for a moment before an aged man came up to him with a worried expression. “What can I do for you, young boy?” Minho bowed and greeted him politely. The wrinkles on his forehead were visible. His shaky voice was obvious that he was old enough to retire and rest at home.
“I am wondering if I can sell some old stuff here and how much will it cost?”
The old man stood there, stiff, eyes did not waver. “Are you the new family that had just moved in?”
Minho nodded.
“I see. So you found some antiques inside the house and you thought of selling them? The house was left empty ever since the previous family moved out. Seem like their things are still there.”
Choked on his saliva, Minho calmed his self. How did he know about that? He had thought of selling the stuff there but not all of it. He wanted to keep the recorder and some things that he realized that it belonged to Taehyun. Minho composed himself once again.
“Yes, I do. But some of it though. There are things that I want to keep.”
“Most of the things there belong to Taehyun anyway. I think it is time to get rid of it. Sure, just sell them here.”
Ears caught the name he was familiar with. His attention was solely on the old man before him. It was still raining and Minho could only curse on the monsoon season. He took a step forward. “You know about Nam Taehyun?” A question that took the old man caught off guard as he studied the young boy with eyes filled with curiosity. “How did you know Nam Taehyun?”
Shuffling his feet, hands at the back of his neck, he thought of partially lying about this. “I found a few pictures.”
“Come here.” He motioned his hands over.
*
Unexpected event happened back in the antique shop. Over coffee, they talked about Taehyun. The trembling hands of the old man worsen, but the excitement of the topic kept him going. Minho understood his fondness towards him. With every detail of Taehyun, Minho realized how this man made a difference in this town.
“I had a son. We were poor back then. But Taehyun came over to help us. He was attached to my son. Every weekend, he would play with him and sometimes, he brought his friend, Seungyoon. However, when his father knew about us and his relationship with Seungyoon, bad things happened to him. We heard screams across the road. We hadn’t seen him ever since.”
“What happened to him?”
The old man stayed quiet, fore finger ghostly circling his thigh.
“We heard rumours, rumours about him. One said he killed himself, another one said he eloped with Seungyoon. We really thought he eloped but after a few years of missing, Seungyoon came back home with a family, a wife and a daughter. No sign of Taehyun. From that on, we thought that Taehyun committed suicide.”
“Did he kill himself? What did Seungyoon said?”
Minho was too fast to ask question. The lack of time he gave for the old man to catch his breath after much explaining. The untouched coffee had lost heat. The sun had set but the story still went on.
“Seungyoon refused to say anything. He hardly speaks with the neighbours. Even though he came by to visit us sometimes, I didn’t dare to ask him. My son was old enough to not ask question. It was a mutual understanding.”
*
It had been days, weeks and months for Minho. Moving on with his life without Taehyun’s voice that had been resting in the air of his room every single day, it was definitely hard. Taehyun was not forgotten. When Minho was at the verge of slipping Taehyun’s existence off his mind, he had the capability to recollect the parts of him. Maybe it was just him staring into nothing, recalling how every contours of his face perfected his being.
Minho slammed his body on the sofa after a long day in school. His mother came in with a paper in her hand. “There is a letter for you. Found it on the doorstep, so I was wondering if this is from your friend.”
At the words said by his mother, he sat up straight with an expression clearly confused. His friends never send letters to him. Even if it was his old friends back in his previous town, it was impossible as he had been living here for months and nothing came to him. He was the forgotten one. He had learnt that fact from the very start.
He took the letter. His name written on the simple brown envelope and his heart started to pace up. Familiarity set on him as he traced the written name on the paper. As he started reading, his grip on the paper tightened.
Dear Song Minho,
Thank you for listening to every word I said. I was taken aback by the actions of yours. You had taken good care of my things and I appreciate it very much. I believe you are holding onto some of my things because I couldn’t seem to find my most precious recorder and diary at the antique store. It is fine if you could not let go some of my things. To this day, it must be precious to have something that is rare to the eyes of the public.
And before I forget, hey, You. Finally I get to see my You. Next time, when the whole town started to talk about me again, please close your ears. They aren’t true. I did not commit suicide. I am still living, still walking, still breathing. If you see Seungyoon, send regards for me.
In life, I learnt that you can never get what you want, the things you have can never stay long in the hands of yours.
Minho, thank you for existing.
Best Regards,
Nam Taehyun
Minho held his breath. Taehyun’s existence left him breathless. His eyes could not believe the reality. The person alone had made his sanity wreck. And the thought of him seeing his condition made him cautious all of the sudden. He wanted to meet him. He wanted to witness the condition of his.
Seungyoon
He needed to find where Seungyoon lived. But at that moment, all he wanted was to see him.
Minho ran towards the kitchen. “Mom, did you see who sent this?” His deep voice startled the petite woman. “Son, I told you that I found the letter at the door step.”
Minho ran out from the house. Eyes roaming, wandering but nothing seemed to be too different. He took a glimpse of the letter and turned over the envelope. There was a small writing at the left corner.
Do not waste your effort searching for me. I am no longer in town once you finish reading this letter. So long, Minho.
And the only thing Minho could do was to stare into space, wondering the possibilities and fate.
“When will I ever see you, Nam Taehyun?”
Pairing: Taehyun/Mino
Rating: G
Word Count: 3.3k
Summary: In 1998, a boy of an age 19 found a stash of an old recorded tapes and a diary up in the rooftop of his newly moved house. Out of curiosity, he listened to it and every night, he would lock himself up and listen to the voice of a boy telling stories of himself. The diary that filled with pictures of him and his acquaintances, with dates written on it, Minho believed that the boy named Taehyun would be dead by then and with every chapter of his life, he realized that Minho had fallen deeper for him.
It was not fine for Minho to be in the house doing nothing. The rain pattering outside and the paint that had been opened for the longest time, Minho just hoped that he would find some interesting things in this new house and that was when he explored and studied every inch of his new home, considering the fact that he would be staying here for the rest of his life.
His backyard was big, to be quite honest. Further back, Minho stared deep into the woods, wondering when he would ever have the courage to check what was beneath the huge trees. It could be some wild animals or creepy crawlies but for that moment of time, he would let the rain pour and convinced himself that the weather prevented him from going into the woods.
It was getting dark and clouds hovered over the sky. The smell of his mother’s cooking invaded his senses and he knew that that night, he would eat some good dishes.
Minho made his way to his room, big enough to fit in two queen-sized beds. Boxes piled up, still unpacked. At one side of the wall, he already put up a few of his favourite bands and pictures of his friends back in his previous hometown. The thought of not seeing them again angered him. He refused and never really much agreed on moving but what choice did he have? Protesting would never change his parents mind.
He stayed on his bed, legs crossed and eyes wandered out the window. Running through almost everything in that house, nothing interests him - with an exception of the woods which he thought maybe never.
Minho heard his mother calling. Voice travelled so far from the first level up to his room.
The voice echoed again. This time, he heard fragmented words of ‘rooftop’, ‘help’ and ‘clean’.
*
The rooftop was dark, dusty, wet and reek with weird pungent smell. At the end of the room, sound of water dripping could be heard and Minho made a mental note to inform his father about the water leakage up here. It was an old house; Minho should have expected all of this coming. Torch in his hand, he tried looking for a switch and after roaming his hand on the wall, the room finally lighted.
Old chair, mirrors and another pile of boxes filled the room. However, when he looked through every box, he found things he never thought he would find. Antiques that hardly seen in stores and maybe these could cost more than those guitars he possessed in his room.
And among all those antiques that awed him, he found a lonesome stack of tapes and a recorder, including a diary. Curiosity hit him and he tried reading the words scribbled on the thin paper attached to the top side of the tape.
May 10, 1945
My name is Nam Taehyun.
Minho took the diary and started flipping every page and with every page, there was a picture assorted with dates. A sepia coloured and crinkled picture showed signs of aging and what attracted him most was the person that was inside the picture. A dark coloured thick coat hung loosely on the thin and lean body, shoes as bright as his toothy smile and hands awkwardly raised with a recorder. Looking back and forth that was inside the box and the one he held in the picture, it was the same recorder.
His hair parted in two, eyebrow slanted downwards and the tip almost met. Minho was surprised at how beautiful his features were. His eyes twinkled. Happiness was what he felt at that moment and Minho felt warmth in the pit of his stomach. When he averted his gaze further down, another wording scrawled on the same page, but it was worse than the one he saw on the tape. It looked more rushed and it was written hastily.
What attracted his attention was the date written. He cross-referenced to the tapes and found out that the dates were in sync and that was when Minho took the box out, sneaked into his room and locked his door, forgetting about his mom’s cooking or cleaning the rooftop.
*
“Hello,” a soft voice cooed in the small speaker, a bit raspy due to the deteriorating tapes. Minho turned the volume a little bit higher, gently pressing the button. “I, I, no…”
He cleared his throat.
“My name is Nam Taehyun.” It started croaky, with jerky sentences but as he spoke more, it became natural to him and Minho leaned in closer to the speaker, just to listen to his voice.
“I am grateful to the people that had cared for me.” There was a silent pause and a hard breathy sound could be heard. And when Minho thought that he would not be talking anymore, he heard hiccups from the other end. “I’m sorry. I was being too emotional. I got this recorder as my birthday present and having Grundig C410 is just a miracle.” Sniffing sounds could be clearly heard. “And they are going to talk bad about me coming from a rich family.”
That was the first recording he heard and from what he learnt, his entry was on his birthday and Taehyun got his favourite recorder as a present. Minho could almost jump for guessing right about his rich background. But it ended abruptly. Too sudden that he had to continue to the next tape.
*
With his notepad jotting down notes, the thin voice that seemed too familiar filled his room. “Seungyoon came over to my house today.” Minho stopped writing and looked up, staring at the recorder. “This might be the first time I’m saying his name here.” Even though it was just his voice being recorded, Minho could sense that Taehyun was grinning. He just could feel it and Minho could not lie for the fact that jealousy raised at how that person’s name escaped perfectly from his lips, or in this case the speaker.
“Seungyoon, he confessed to me. And I said yes. I know, I know that it was irrational to accept him but he was good to me these days. I have to keep this a secret and the only people that knew about us is him and…” Taehyun made a pause.
“you…”
Minho’s heart was put to a halt. For a moment, his hair stood at its end and eyes bulged out like it never did. Did he talk to me?
“I don’t know who would be listening to this but I guess if you found this, congratulation to you. I have to warn you that I will reveal everything here. I don’t know when it will end. Maybe until I die? Or maybe after I’m married? I don’t know. But if you do, please hold onto my story. I beg you.”
Minho pressed the pause button and stared back at the diary that coincide with the date on the tape. It was a shy Taehyun with someone he assumed to be Seungyoon. Those wrinkles at the side of his eyes and that smile he had seen so many times through the journey of his diary. Seungyoon was handsome and he could not agree more to their relationship because he realized that they were a cute couple. Grazing his thumb over Taehyun’s face, he wondered why he could not meet him earlier.
“Whoever your name is, keep this a secret. I don’t want my dad to know about this. He is against heterosexual and I might taint his reputation.”
The recording tape suddenly played by itself and it took Minho by surprise. Quickly punching the pause button, Minho inspected his room but he found no one, just himself. The cold seeped into his flesh to his bones. The rain had not stopped yet. It was getting even darker, the woods across his window could not be seen and birds flew across his vision. He took a glance at the clock that was propped on his table.
1.45AM
He needed sleep and get ready for his first day of school. He couldn’t let his dark circles ruin his first day.
*
“I’m home.” Minho greeted and made his way to his room almost immediately until his mother called him out from the living room. “Sweetheart, how was your first day of school?” The woman that aged so much looked at him with a bulky phone in her left hand. Minho shrugged and mumbled fine. He was agitated and his legs couldn’t stop fidgeting. He needed to be in his room and listen to his voice again - Taehyun’s voice that had lingered for too long ever since he woke up for school. He left when his mom did not react to anything. “I’ll be down for dinner,” informing before a loud thud was heard.
“My room look so perfect from where I sit. The mirror with gold ornaments and bed bigger than what I needed, I feel like it would be better to sell them off and donate them to someone less fortunate. I told father about this matter but he said those people in the street are none of our concern. And somehow, anger was bottling up inside of me. They are human too and they get hungry just like us. Sometimes, money can ruin all of us. Destroy both sides. We take money in gluttony and never leave a single cent for the one who sweat more than others.”
Taehyun went silent for a while and spoke again. “Hey, you.”
Heart raced, breath hitched. Minho’s gaze landed on the speaker. “I really want to know your name. It would be rude to talk to you without knowing. How should I address you? Sir or Madam? Are you married or single? What is your supposed age? It is fine then. I shall call you, You. It would be nice to see You in real life.” Taehyun chuckled at the other end. The soft voice sounded melodious in Minho’s ear. He could imagine the tip of his lips turned upwards and the eyebrow that dropped so elegantly, he wanted to meet him so badly.
He flipped to the supposed page to see Taehyun posing for the camera with a boy in the street; another scribbles written at the bottom of the page.
Lee Min Jun and I. He was abandoned by his parents at the age of 10.
Photographed by Kang Seungyoon
There was a pang in his heart at the sight of Seungyoon’s name. Minho started to write something in his notebook. Humble and deeply in love were written somewhere in the book. There was a list of what character Taehyun possessed - kind, pretty, handsome, generous, shy and sensitive had written neatly in point form.
“I will be meeting Seungyoon tomorrow.” Minho played it. Hand on his chin, resting. “He sounded serious when he said it. I wonder what is wrong. Till then, see You soon.”
*
Minho was clicking his pen. Legs propped on the desk, he leaned back a bit. The voice echoed in the room. The tape had been repeated over and over again. Mind sinking beneath his rationality and he had been in his room for too long. His mother had been nagging but interest and attraction were gnawing at the edge of his sanity.
Staring at the last page of the diary, he could not believe that it all ended. The last entry was just a simple thank you with no picture attached. The recording stopped and he reached out to replay it again.
“Thank you for listening. You’ve been nice to me all these while and I appreciate it.”
A minute of silence and a sound of feet shuffling could be heard over the speaker.
“But now, I have to end it all. I’m sorry. I have to go.”
With an abrupt stop, came the dead silence once again and Minho had been thinking for days, asking himself what could have happened that day. Countless of sleepless night, he wondered of the possibility. Was he in trouble? He shouldn’t mind him that much, even if he might not exist.
The thought of him falling with a person over the speaker was impossible but to Minho, he captured his heart. As if he had a reason to live, to look forward to. Delusional, he said to himself while he was trying to keep himself sane.
But it didn’t work. He had fallen too deep with a person that existed in the world of grey and sepia.
*
It was not because of his greed but he was standing in the middle of an antique store, idling there for a moment before an aged man came up to him with a worried expression. “What can I do for you, young boy?” Minho bowed and greeted him politely. The wrinkles on his forehead were visible. His shaky voice was obvious that he was old enough to retire and rest at home.
“I am wondering if I can sell some old stuff here and how much will it cost?”
The old man stood there, stiff, eyes did not waver. “Are you the new family that had just moved in?”
Minho nodded.
“I see. So you found some antiques inside the house and you thought of selling them? The house was left empty ever since the previous family moved out. Seem like their things are still there.”
Choked on his saliva, Minho calmed his self. How did he know about that? He had thought of selling the stuff there but not all of it. He wanted to keep the recorder and some things that he realized that it belonged to Taehyun. Minho composed himself once again.
“Yes, I do. But some of it though. There are things that I want to keep.”
“Most of the things there belong to Taehyun anyway. I think it is time to get rid of it. Sure, just sell them here.”
Ears caught the name he was familiar with. His attention was solely on the old man before him. It was still raining and Minho could only curse on the monsoon season. He took a step forward. “You know about Nam Taehyun?” A question that took the old man caught off guard as he studied the young boy with eyes filled with curiosity. “How did you know Nam Taehyun?”
Shuffling his feet, hands at the back of his neck, he thought of partially lying about this. “I found a few pictures.”
“Come here.” He motioned his hands over.
*
Unexpected event happened back in the antique shop. Over coffee, they talked about Taehyun. The trembling hands of the old man worsen, but the excitement of the topic kept him going. Minho understood his fondness towards him. With every detail of Taehyun, Minho realized how this man made a difference in this town.
“I had a son. We were poor back then. But Taehyun came over to help us. He was attached to my son. Every weekend, he would play with him and sometimes, he brought his friend, Seungyoon. However, when his father knew about us and his relationship with Seungyoon, bad things happened to him. We heard screams across the road. We hadn’t seen him ever since.”
“What happened to him?”
The old man stayed quiet, fore finger ghostly circling his thigh.
“We heard rumours, rumours about him. One said he killed himself, another one said he eloped with Seungyoon. We really thought he eloped but after a few years of missing, Seungyoon came back home with a family, a wife and a daughter. No sign of Taehyun. From that on, we thought that Taehyun committed suicide.”
“Did he kill himself? What did Seungyoon said?”
Minho was too fast to ask question. The lack of time he gave for the old man to catch his breath after much explaining. The untouched coffee had lost heat. The sun had set but the story still went on.
“Seungyoon refused to say anything. He hardly speaks with the neighbours. Even though he came by to visit us sometimes, I didn’t dare to ask him. My son was old enough to not ask question. It was a mutual understanding.”
*
It had been days, weeks and months for Minho. Moving on with his life without Taehyun’s voice that had been resting in the air of his room every single day, it was definitely hard. Taehyun was not forgotten. When Minho was at the verge of slipping Taehyun’s existence off his mind, he had the capability to recollect the parts of him. Maybe it was just him staring into nothing, recalling how every contours of his face perfected his being.
Minho slammed his body on the sofa after a long day in school. His mother came in with a paper in her hand. “There is a letter for you. Found it on the doorstep, so I was wondering if this is from your friend.”
At the words said by his mother, he sat up straight with an expression clearly confused. His friends never send letters to him. Even if it was his old friends back in his previous town, it was impossible as he had been living here for months and nothing came to him. He was the forgotten one. He had learnt that fact from the very start.
He took the letter. His name written on the simple brown envelope and his heart started to pace up. Familiarity set on him as he traced the written name on the paper. As he started reading, his grip on the paper tightened.
Dear Song Minho,
Thank you for listening to every word I said. I was taken aback by the actions of yours. You had taken good care of my things and I appreciate it very much. I believe you are holding onto some of my things because I couldn’t seem to find my most precious recorder and diary at the antique store. It is fine if you could not let go some of my things. To this day, it must be precious to have something that is rare to the eyes of the public.
And before I forget, hey, You. Finally I get to see my You. Next time, when the whole town started to talk about me again, please close your ears. They aren’t true. I did not commit suicide. I am still living, still walking, still breathing. If you see Seungyoon, send regards for me.
In life, I learnt that you can never get what you want, the things you have can never stay long in the hands of yours.
Minho, thank you for existing.
Best Regards,
Nam Taehyun
Minho held his breath. Taehyun’s existence left him breathless. His eyes could not believe the reality. The person alone had made his sanity wreck. And the thought of him seeing his condition made him cautious all of the sudden. He wanted to meet him. He wanted to witness the condition of his.
Seungyoon
He needed to find where Seungyoon lived. But at that moment, all he wanted was to see him.
Minho ran towards the kitchen. “Mom, did you see who sent this?” His deep voice startled the petite woman. “Son, I told you that I found the letter at the door step.”
Minho ran out from the house. Eyes roaming, wandering but nothing seemed to be too different. He took a glimpse of the letter and turned over the envelope. There was a small writing at the left corner.
Do not waste your effort searching for me. I am no longer in town once you finish reading this letter. So long, Minho.
And the only thing Minho could do was to stare into space, wondering the possibilities and fate.
“When will I ever see you, Nam Taehyun?”