sleepy towns | #tac ficmix
kaistal for shida kirakirashahida, a mix of another time, another place
2370 words (of incoherence from soojung's pov)
The last time Soojung was in town, the carnival wasn’t around. But then again, Soojung hadn’t been back since she was four, and it’s been over a decade. A long time for somebody who isn’t even a legal adult yet. She is back now, and the carnival is on. There are ragged posters on every third electricity pole in town, and according to her aunt, everyone hangs out there on the weekends. It's a small town. What else is there to do.
So Soojung goes alone the first weekend of her stay.
The first stall is one of the ones where you shoot prizes to keep. There is a boy holding down the metaphorical fort, and he doesn't seem much older than Soojung. Definitely still a high schooler earning minimum wage to fund whatever inane hobby teenage boys have. He has nice hair though, and a slight tan. Soojung kind of appreciates that, reminds her of the boys on the east coast.
She steps up to play the game, and blesses American gun laws when the giraffe topples over, yellow neck dropping out of view. Then the scuffle about the money. All trivial things, but she gets angry anyway. It’s easy to get angry.
Like she’s been looking for reasons to get angry. She thinks about this as she walks away, hands in pockets, boots hitting unfamiliar sidewalks. She’s not used to these small towns, where every kid owns a bicycle, and the landscape includes farmland. Soojung wants San Francisco back, with the endless streets, and the busy roads, and that beautiful bridge she can catch a glimpse of from the apartment bedroom. She stops before her aunt and uncle’s house, and just holds the keys for a moment. None of it makes sense.
It just seems so unfair, that she is bogged down with adolescent woes, that are somehow invalid in the grand scheme of things. Yet how miserable she feels in the confines of this country town in a country so far from home is so real.
She finds that goddamned 500 won later, and she makes her way back to the stall. To be honest, Soojung doesn’t really know what she’s expecting. She’s paying because that’s what you do when you purchase a good or a service. She knows this from high school economics. It’s just a fair exchange. So it makes sense that she gets the giraffe, with its soft acrylic fibres between her fingers and the faint smell of wood and dust that comes with things that are stored away for a bit too long. It makes sense, because this is what she’s paid for with 500 won, but it feels like it’s worth a lot more. She tries to hold back a smile, because what is she doing in this town, in this country, this summer holidays - she should be sour and sulking about this whole situation.
But instead, this boy working weekend shifts at the local carnival, with the hair that falls in his eyes, and a really great smile - he’s given her a plush toy and there is this embarrassing feeling of happiness bubbling up inside her.
Goddamn it, Soojung thinks, I wear punk rock T-shirts but I’m still weak to plush toys and cute boys. Fuck.
She takes the giraffe home though, and she gives it a hug before she goes to bed. She doesn’t sleep with it though, god forbid.
He turns up on her doorstep the next morning. Turns out it’s a small neighbourhood. A part of her feels indignant that he would feel the need to warn her about the woods. She’s heard enough of that patronising kind of thing in America. Don’t walk alone through that part of town alone. Text your friends where you’re going. Here’s a pocket knife for your sixteenth birthday. It’s a small town, Soojung thinks, as she watches him wheel his bicycle away and head further down the street. She’ll see him again.
What the hell is his name anyway.
“And what is your Korean name?”
“It’s Soojung. But everyone calls me Krystal.”
He elects to call her Soojung. Who is ‘everybody’ in this town anyway? Nobody calls her Krystal here. Soojung’s everybody isn’t in this dusty town in the unknown places of South Korea. And yet as she insists this, a part of her that likes this boy who works at the carnival and delivers the milk (they still deliver milk around here, she can’t believe it), says that now there might be somebody here.
Here of all places.
He tells her about that beach, and the scenery, and the 40 minute walk, and admittedly, Soojung thinks it’s okay. It’s nice. It’s nice that when she talks to him, she doesn’t feel so weighed down. She doesn’t feel like she is trapped in a place she wants nothing more to leave. She starts to wonder about what life is like in this part of the world, away from busy streets and a jagged city skyline. Jongin is a whole other world, and it’s tantalising to be with him. Like he is reaching out and beckoning for Soojung to join him in this kind of life.
She stays at home a lot for the next five weeks. She learns how to cook, and at first it’s a mess, and her aunt just makes fun of her, and how she’s never going to land a nice Korean boyfriend one day if she can’t measure out the water for the rice cooker properly. Soojung just says there aren’t many Korean boys in San Francisco who’d care, but really she just thinks about Jongin and his nice eyes and messy hair, and how maybe she should go to the carnival sometime. She mulls this over a lot, over doing morning runs, and having banter with him when he comes around with the milk.
Her mother calls. They ask her aunt - how has she been? Has she been behaving? Soojung is in the next room when the call comes through, and she strains her ears to listen. The whole situation feels like a mess to her, just bad parenting. Parents who don’t know what to do with their child, so they send her halfway across the world.
And yet, even though Soojung wanted so badly to be back in that big city, speaking English and surrounding herself with her old friends, a part of her wanted to stay, and live this version of life that Jongin lives. The kind of world where the scenery is paddocks and boys still deliver the milk in the morning. Soojung is uncertain when her aunt hands her the phone, and she hears her mother ask her - from a million miles away - does she want to come home now? Her next year of high school can’t wait any longer, and does she feel like she can have a fresh start? Soojung knows what to say, things like, yes she’s ready to clean up what she’s doing. She’s going to work hard, and she knows what university she wants to go to, and maybe she’ll even hold down a part-time job while she studies. Soojung knows this answer, because it is the right answer.
It’s funny, how there is a right answer.
So Soojung agrees and she commits thinking about coming back soon and she scrolls through flight times and prices, and she just thinks about it, wondering how long this simple vacation can last. Soon, she can’t see Jongin anymore. Soojung will have to get on a plane and fly back to where she really belongs - she’ll have to be Krystal, and get good grades, and go to American parties, and learn how to drive. And back here, in this small town, Jongin will be delivering milk to a house without Soojung.
Then there is that day, where she claims her leftover bullets and he shoots down the most pathetic thing and puts in on her finger. It’s kind of stupid - actually, very stupid - because who do they think they are? And yet, Soojung goes to bed that night not really wanting to take the ring off, and looking forward to sand between her toes and sore calf muscles from the 40 minute walk.
They don’t go the next day.
Soojung wakes up early in the morning, before the storm clouds roll in. She puts water on to boil to make tea, and starts stacking sandwiches and slicing fruit, and frying meatballs. When it is hours later, and rain is pouring down and the storm clouds blocking out the light, Soojung looks out the window and realises that their day is not happening. She is frozen there, hands resting on the handle of the knife and on the bread of the sandwich she has just sliced. The rain pounds against the window, and over that rhythm, she hears the faint sound of footsteps and glass bottles clanging. She bursts into tears.
When she opens the door for him, she sees Jongin with his hair is wet and stuck against his forehead, wearing an almost comical raincoat. Soojung is holding back sobs while she tries to articulate everything she feels, while trying to give away as little emotion as possible at the same time. He says they can go another day, and that everything is going to be okay.
And as he talks like this, with this ever-present insistence of a tomorrow - a certain tomorrow, a day after today, all Soojung can think is how misguided that assumption is. She thinks about that life across the ocean, and she thinks about the call from her parents, and booking that ticket back. And then she blurts it out - that she’s not going to be here much longer.
There is no forever. They don’t share a future.
She still lets him in and they eat the breakfast that was meant to be a lunch. Jongin is grateful and praises her cooking. He is a good person, Soojung feels that through and through. But still she is upset, those feelings churning and weighing her down inside.
So Soojung ushers him out quickly, and closes the door decisively, with finality. Shuts him out. It’s not like he’s going to stay long anyway.
She stays in bed the next day, and her aunt brings her porridge in the morning. She asks if everything is okay - did something happen in the morning when Jongin came by (Soojung didn’t even know her aunt knew what his name was - but then again it’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone).
Soojung shakes her head and spoons the food into her mouth. She glances accusingly at that ring that now sits on the bedside drawer. Her aunt sighs and tells her that the rain will stop - is there somewhere she wants to go, or is there anything she wants to do? Does she want to go home? Soojung doesn’t answer, apart from the typical statement that she’s fine, and she says thank you, like a good child.
Her aunt leaves her alone for the rest of the day, and Soojung just looks at the ceiling, and the walls, and thinks that maybe she is so upset, because she knows that she can’t stay, and as much as she would like to be with Jongin, she can’t.
Can’t.
She knows this, but she relents when she checks the weather forecast this time - clear, no chance of rain. If they go together just this once, before they part ways, maybe Soojung will be able to live with the memory. Just one good day during her banishment to her mother’s hometown.
One good day and one version of the future averted.
So they go. She bangs on his door and she’s got energy coursing through her veins right to her fingertips. The rare feeling of excitement that only comes when you are seeing somebody you treasure (love). They walk and talk and laugh, and Soojung feels so good - so incredibly good for a girl who should be homesick and heartbroken. Jongin points out certain things along the way - this tree he climbed as a child, and that ditch where his cousin fell in two summers ago. Jongin waves to some of farmhands who drive past with produce, and Soojung points to a sprawling field. Long stalks gently waving in the wind, and white flowers swaying at their tips. Some buds, some blooming.
“What about there? Did anything happen there?”
Jongin laughs and takes her hand, “Not yet.”
They step off the dusty road and wade into the field of flowers. There are muddy patches underneath their feet and Soojung complains, but she takes it all in anyway. She grasps one stalk, and tries to pull it up, with no avail. It crumples, and folds over, defeated. Ahead of her, Jongin is turning around, stalks in hand.
“You have to pull them up from lower, closer to the roots.”
Soojung tries and succeeds. Just one. Jongin steps back towards her, sunshine on his hair and dirt on his shirt.
“A bouquet for the city girl.”
They start walking again. “What are these flowers?”
Jongin smiles and says nothing.
“Do you even know what they are? Oh my god - what if they’re poisonous.”
He laughs at her again, “They’re not poisonous.”
“What are they then?”
“They’re weeds.”
Soojung wants to complain, and ask him - what is he thinking? What does he mean, that he’s given her an armful of weeds.
“Weeds are just plants that are unwanted. I guess now they’re just flowers.”
They get to the beach now, with the sand and waves sliding in. It’s not a big beach, the waves are gentler. It is more like a bay. The sun is starting to set, and it glitters over the water. Soojung loves it, and she leaves the flowers at her feet in the sand before she runs into the water, shivering as the cold takes hold from the shin down.
They make a mess, splashing, and chasing one another. Soojung lands on her butt at some point, and the sand is all over her shorts. Somewhere amongst it all, Jongin kisses her, Soojung cries, and the flowers blow away.
Unwanted again.
2370 words (of incoherence from soojung's pov)
The last time Soojung was in town, the carnival wasn’t around. But then again, Soojung hadn’t been back since she was four, and it’s been over a decade. A long time for somebody who isn’t even a legal adult yet. She is back now, and the carnival is on. There are ragged posters on every third electricity pole in town, and according to her aunt, everyone hangs out there on the weekends. It's a small town. What else is there to do.
So Soojung goes alone the first weekend of her stay.
The first stall is one of the ones where you shoot prizes to keep. There is a boy holding down the metaphorical fort, and he doesn't seem much older than Soojung. Definitely still a high schooler earning minimum wage to fund whatever inane hobby teenage boys have. He has nice hair though, and a slight tan. Soojung kind of appreciates that, reminds her of the boys on the east coast.
She steps up to play the game, and blesses American gun laws when the giraffe topples over, yellow neck dropping out of view. Then the scuffle about the money. All trivial things, but she gets angry anyway. It’s easy to get angry.
Like she’s been looking for reasons to get angry. She thinks about this as she walks away, hands in pockets, boots hitting unfamiliar sidewalks. She’s not used to these small towns, where every kid owns a bicycle, and the landscape includes farmland. Soojung wants San Francisco back, with the endless streets, and the busy roads, and that beautiful bridge she can catch a glimpse of from the apartment bedroom. She stops before her aunt and uncle’s house, and just holds the keys for a moment. None of it makes sense.
It just seems so unfair, that she is bogged down with adolescent woes, that are somehow invalid in the grand scheme of things. Yet how miserable she feels in the confines of this country town in a country so far from home is so real.
She finds that goddamned 500 won later, and she makes her way back to the stall. To be honest, Soojung doesn’t really know what she’s expecting. She’s paying because that’s what you do when you purchase a good or a service. She knows this from high school economics. It’s just a fair exchange. So it makes sense that she gets the giraffe, with its soft acrylic fibres between her fingers and the faint smell of wood and dust that comes with things that are stored away for a bit too long. It makes sense, because this is what she’s paid for with 500 won, but it feels like it’s worth a lot more. She tries to hold back a smile, because what is she doing in this town, in this country, this summer holidays - she should be sour and sulking about this whole situation.
But instead, this boy working weekend shifts at the local carnival, with the hair that falls in his eyes, and a really great smile - he’s given her a plush toy and there is this embarrassing feeling of happiness bubbling up inside her.
Goddamn it, Soojung thinks, I wear punk rock T-shirts but I’m still weak to plush toys and cute boys. Fuck.
She takes the giraffe home though, and she gives it a hug before she goes to bed. She doesn’t sleep with it though, god forbid.
He turns up on her doorstep the next morning. Turns out it’s a small neighbourhood. A part of her feels indignant that he would feel the need to warn her about the woods. She’s heard enough of that patronising kind of thing in America. Don’t walk alone through that part of town alone. Text your friends where you’re going. Here’s a pocket knife for your sixteenth birthday. It’s a small town, Soojung thinks, as she watches him wheel his bicycle away and head further down the street. She’ll see him again.
What the hell is his name anyway.
“And what is your Korean name?”
“It’s Soojung. But everyone calls me Krystal.”
He elects to call her Soojung. Who is ‘everybody’ in this town anyway? Nobody calls her Krystal here. Soojung’s everybody isn’t in this dusty town in the unknown places of South Korea. And yet as she insists this, a part of her that likes this boy who works at the carnival and delivers the milk (they still deliver milk around here, she can’t believe it), says that now there might be somebody here.
Here of all places.
He tells her about that beach, and the scenery, and the 40 minute walk, and admittedly, Soojung thinks it’s okay. It’s nice. It’s nice that when she talks to him, she doesn’t feel so weighed down. She doesn’t feel like she is trapped in a place she wants nothing more to leave. She starts to wonder about what life is like in this part of the world, away from busy streets and a jagged city skyline. Jongin is a whole other world, and it’s tantalising to be with him. Like he is reaching out and beckoning for Soojung to join him in this kind of life.
She stays at home a lot for the next five weeks. She learns how to cook, and at first it’s a mess, and her aunt just makes fun of her, and how she’s never going to land a nice Korean boyfriend one day if she can’t measure out the water for the rice cooker properly. Soojung just says there aren’t many Korean boys in San Francisco who’d care, but really she just thinks about Jongin and his nice eyes and messy hair, and how maybe she should go to the carnival sometime. She mulls this over a lot, over doing morning runs, and having banter with him when he comes around with the milk.
Her mother calls. They ask her aunt - how has she been? Has she been behaving? Soojung is in the next room when the call comes through, and she strains her ears to listen. The whole situation feels like a mess to her, just bad parenting. Parents who don’t know what to do with their child, so they send her halfway across the world.
And yet, even though Soojung wanted so badly to be back in that big city, speaking English and surrounding herself with her old friends, a part of her wanted to stay, and live this version of life that Jongin lives. The kind of world where the scenery is paddocks and boys still deliver the milk in the morning. Soojung is uncertain when her aunt hands her the phone, and she hears her mother ask her - from a million miles away - does she want to come home now? Her next year of high school can’t wait any longer, and does she feel like she can have a fresh start? Soojung knows what to say, things like, yes she’s ready to clean up what she’s doing. She’s going to work hard, and she knows what university she wants to go to, and maybe she’ll even hold down a part-time job while she studies. Soojung knows this answer, because it is the right answer.
It’s funny, how there is a right answer.
So Soojung agrees and she commits thinking about coming back soon and she scrolls through flight times and prices, and she just thinks about it, wondering how long this simple vacation can last. Soon, she can’t see Jongin anymore. Soojung will have to get on a plane and fly back to where she really belongs - she’ll have to be Krystal, and get good grades, and go to American parties, and learn how to drive. And back here, in this small town, Jongin will be delivering milk to a house without Soojung.
Then there is that day, where she claims her leftover bullets and he shoots down the most pathetic thing and puts in on her finger. It’s kind of stupid - actually, very stupid - because who do they think they are? And yet, Soojung goes to bed that night not really wanting to take the ring off, and looking forward to sand between her toes and sore calf muscles from the 40 minute walk.
They don’t go the next day.
Soojung wakes up early in the morning, before the storm clouds roll in. She puts water on to boil to make tea, and starts stacking sandwiches and slicing fruit, and frying meatballs. When it is hours later, and rain is pouring down and the storm clouds blocking out the light, Soojung looks out the window and realises that their day is not happening. She is frozen there, hands resting on the handle of the knife and on the bread of the sandwich she has just sliced. The rain pounds against the window, and over that rhythm, she hears the faint sound of footsteps and glass bottles clanging. She bursts into tears.
When she opens the door for him, she sees Jongin with his hair is wet and stuck against his forehead, wearing an almost comical raincoat. Soojung is holding back sobs while she tries to articulate everything she feels, while trying to give away as little emotion as possible at the same time. He says they can go another day, and that everything is going to be okay.
And as he talks like this, with this ever-present insistence of a tomorrow - a certain tomorrow, a day after today, all Soojung can think is how misguided that assumption is. She thinks about that life across the ocean, and she thinks about the call from her parents, and booking that ticket back. And then she blurts it out - that she’s not going to be here much longer.
There is no forever. They don’t share a future.
She still lets him in and they eat the breakfast that was meant to be a lunch. Jongin is grateful and praises her cooking. He is a good person, Soojung feels that through and through. But still she is upset, those feelings churning and weighing her down inside.
So Soojung ushers him out quickly, and closes the door decisively, with finality. Shuts him out. It’s not like he’s going to stay long anyway.
She stays in bed the next day, and her aunt brings her porridge in the morning. She asks if everything is okay - did something happen in the morning when Jongin came by (Soojung didn’t even know her aunt knew what his name was - but then again it’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone).
Soojung shakes her head and spoons the food into her mouth. She glances accusingly at that ring that now sits on the bedside drawer. Her aunt sighs and tells her that the rain will stop - is there somewhere she wants to go, or is there anything she wants to do? Does she want to go home? Soojung doesn’t answer, apart from the typical statement that she’s fine, and she says thank you, like a good child.
Her aunt leaves her alone for the rest of the day, and Soojung just looks at the ceiling, and the walls, and thinks that maybe she is so upset, because she knows that she can’t stay, and as much as she would like to be with Jongin, she can’t.
Can’t.
She knows this, but she relents when she checks the weather forecast this time - clear, no chance of rain. If they go together just this once, before they part ways, maybe Soojung will be able to live with the memory. Just one good day during her banishment to her mother’s hometown.
One good day and one version of the future averted.
So they go. She bangs on his door and she’s got energy coursing through her veins right to her fingertips. The rare feeling of excitement that only comes when you are seeing somebody you treasure (love). They walk and talk and laugh, and Soojung feels so good - so incredibly good for a girl who should be homesick and heartbroken. Jongin points out certain things along the way - this tree he climbed as a child, and that ditch where his cousin fell in two summers ago. Jongin waves to some of farmhands who drive past with produce, and Soojung points to a sprawling field. Long stalks gently waving in the wind, and white flowers swaying at their tips. Some buds, some blooming.
“What about there? Did anything happen there?”
Jongin laughs and takes her hand, “Not yet.”
They step off the dusty road and wade into the field of flowers. There are muddy patches underneath their feet and Soojung complains, but she takes it all in anyway. She grasps one stalk, and tries to pull it up, with no avail. It crumples, and folds over, defeated. Ahead of her, Jongin is turning around, stalks in hand.
“You have to pull them up from lower, closer to the roots.”
Soojung tries and succeeds. Just one. Jongin steps back towards her, sunshine on his hair and dirt on his shirt.
“A bouquet for the city girl.”
They start walking again. “What are these flowers?”
Jongin smiles and says nothing.
“Do you even know what they are? Oh my god - what if they’re poisonous.”
He laughs at her again, “They’re not poisonous.”
“What are they then?”
“They’re weeds.”
Soojung wants to complain, and ask him - what is he thinking? What does he mean, that he’s given her an armful of weeds.
“Weeds are just plants that are unwanted. I guess now they’re just flowers.”
They get to the beach now, with the sand and waves sliding in. It’s not a big beach, the waves are gentler. It is more like a bay. The sun is starting to set, and it glitters over the water. Soojung loves it, and she leaves the flowers at her feet in the sand before she runs into the water, shivering as the cold takes hold from the shin down.
They make a mess, splashing, and chasing one another. Soojung lands on her butt at some point, and the sand is all over her shorts. Somewhere amongst it all, Jongin kisses her, Soojung cries, and the flowers blow away.
Unwanted again.