come back home (someone's been missing you) pt. 2 [reposted from washboarddino]
(Part 1.)
At times, he dreams of two boys, lanky things with too much energy but not enough passion.
“Come on, let’s escape,” Sungmin says, holding out a hand, and he can see the white-knuckled grip the boys have on each other.
“No, come home, Sungmin,” the more delicate boy says, and licks his lips.
“Come home,” the other boy repeats, and Sungmin’s ready to say, I am home.
But he wakes up, and the words die on his lips.
Sometimes, Sungmin longs for the bittersweet scent of the ocean air, the tang of the salt and the soft sea breeze. It isn’t much to ask for in his opinion, but in the middle of the city, it apparently is.
It feels so natural for him to simply close his eyes and see a beach laid out before him, sand soft between his toes and sun burning his skin. For him to close his eyes and see the town he has grown up in, the post office that Donghae works at and the bookshop Sunny’s now taken over. For him to cast his mind back to the school that he loves, where he had spent so much time studying and memorising notes, and the lush green grass that saturated the playground.
The city was never home; Goyang was never home, and Sungmin can feel it in his bones, in his very soul that he belongs on that island and not Ilsang.
Send me an email telling me how you’re going, Heechul texts him when Sungmin sets foot in Japan.
Idiot, Sungmin thinks affectionately, and then laughs at the reversed roles.
Just to spite him, Sungmin sits down and composes a three page letter on how the cats here are prettier than at home. He attaches a photo of one of the strays in the neighbourhood, and seals the envelope.
He starts another letter to his family, trying to make Japan sound more exciting than it is. In so many ways, Japan reminds Sungmin of Korea, and he doesn’t know if it’s good or not.
This envelope gets a special kiss, and he slips some good luck charms inside.
The final letter he starts writing in the darkened café remains unaddressed, but Sungmin writes diligently, filling pages and pages with his cramped writing.
At the end, he signs off with a flourish and a I miss you two.
He doesn’t end up sending that one, but he does seal it and puts it away in his diary.
Hyukjae’s sister gets married to Jinki when leaves are already golden but the air hasn’t quite achieved the sharp, cold bite. She’s beautiful as she walks down the aisle, resplendent in the white dress Yuri and her mother made. Jungsu’s sister is the maid of honour while Jonghyun is the best man.
The wedding is beautiful, and Hyukjae’s called up to give a speech. Donghae smiles at him encouragingly from his seat.
“Years ago, when Sora told me she wanted to marry Jinki, I thought it was a joke,” Hyukjae starts off, hands shaking as he reads off the sheet. He takes a breath to steel himself, looks out at the crowd and gives a grin. “Look where they are now.”
He fans out his left arm towards the table where they’re seated, Sora smiling bashfully like she never does and Jinki grinning.
“It’s my job, probably, as Sora’s younger brother to embarrass her and tell everyone how she once wet herself in second grade, or sucked on a pen until her tongue was blue.” Sora glares at him, and he cowers. “BUT. Not today. Today is one of the happiest days of her life, getting married to Jinki, and I’m not going to ruin it like that. Instead, I’ll you of how I once got lost when I was seven, and Sora was nine.”
Hyukjae clears his throat again, feeling the weight of everyone’s eyes on him. He knows he isn’t a speaker, but he has to do this for his sister, because she’s done so much for him, and this speech will probably only measure up to around 1% of what she’s done.
They’re seated in the town hall, the only space large enough to fit the whole town. Large tables have been brought out and covered in white cloth, cutlery and plates stacked on top of each other and candles lit to provide a peaceful atmosphere. There are flowers in large vases in the middle of each table; the one in the middle of the main party’s table is heaped with pink roses, beautiful and fragrant. Hyukjae stares at it, remembering what Sungmin had told him about having courage in himself because he’s strong and not weak, and he’s strong enough to do this.
“I got lost in the forest behind near the school. It was probably the scariest moment of my life.” Everyone laughs politely. “I couldn’t see anything, just trees and branches and leaves and bushes. I didn’t recognise where I was, I thought I was in another world and I started crying, screaming and sobbing and would you know, that’s how Sora found me, following the sound of me crying, she gave me a piggyback ride out of the forest back to school.”
Hyukjae takes another breath, and Donghae gives him a thumbs-up. He smiles, a bit watery at the memory of the fear that had left him shaking and curled up into a ball on the forest floor.
“That’s what I’ll remember Sora as. Not as Jinki’s wife or my older sister or as the person who always throws the alarm clock at me when I try to wake her up in the morning.” More laughter, and it encourages him. “I’ll remember her as my saviour and as corny as it might sound, the light to light the way. Sora is amazing and wonderful, smart, kind and honest, and I know that Jinki is the same. They’re perfect for each other, and I wish your marriage all the best.” Hyukjae clears his throat, raising a glass.
“A toast, to the newlyweds.”
Clinks are heard all over the hall, delicate glassware tapping against each other, and Hyukjae clinks his champagne flute with Youngwoon, the temporary MC.
“To the newlyweds!”
They drink. Hyukjae and Youngwoon trade smiles over their glasses before Hyukjae walks off the stage, back to his seat. Donghae wraps him in a hug, and Hyukjae misses the warmth of another body pressed against his in a group hug.
“You did well,” Donghae tells him, and Hyukjae smiles shyly back.
“Thanks.”
Japan changes Sungmin.
When he returns, he can still smell the cherry blossoms and the ever present smell of new. The sky is still the same, and the oxygen he breathes in and the carbon dioxide he breathes out aren’t any different, but he feels changed as a person.
He understands that sometimes, society needs a kick up its ass to know that words printed on paper mean nothing, and individuals are what make up an institution, that people are what make these official ‘documents.’
He takes it in his stride, because the real is only what you tell your brain is real, so believe in yourself enough and it’ll turn true.
Donghae starts origami again when he’s in the post office, hours passing by with no one coming in and no packages arriving.
“What’re you making?” Hyukjae asks when he comes in to drop of an order for a bunch of screws and pipes.
Donghae presses a crease flat and sharp, opening it up and forming a crane. He throws it in an open cardboard box behind him, already a hundred other cranes lying amongst the paper scraps.
“You know what if you make a thousand paper cranes and you wish on them, it comes true?”
Hyukjae snorts, though he won’t admit he wants to believe that.
“What a load of bull, wishing on a thousand pieces of paper folded pretty? Really?”
Donghae folds a square in half diagonally, and then half again. The he presses the triangle, opening it up into a square rotated forty-five degrees.
“It doesn’t hurt to try.”
The paper gets folded into something like a kite, before the seam is traced and Donghae rotates the arms so that a crane is born. He tosses it in the box and takes out another square of paper.
Hyukjae knows what he’s wishing for, but it doesn’t make it any better, and doesn’t make the outcome anymore possible. The only thing he could do now was take the matter into his own hands.
“Where were you born?” the doctor asks, and Sungmin rolls his eyes. It’s Heechul’s fault he’s in this office anyway.
“Ilsan, Goyang.”
“Did you grow up there?”
“Yes, my entire life, I’ve lived there.”
“When is your birthday?”
“First of January.”
“Your family?”
“Mother, father, brother. Look, is there a point to this?”
The doctor sits back, closing the folder.
“Not at all, Sungmin.”
Sungmin clenches his hands, willing them to stop shaking even as he feels his tongue shrivelling from the lies. He’s not stupid, he knows what’s expected of him, but he still feels guilty - documents shouldn’t tell him where he grew up. He knows it.
“Great,” he practically spits out. “Then can I go? This is wasting my time.”
The doctor inclines his head, looks at Sungmin, then gestures.
“If you’d like.”
Sungmin’s exit isn’t as dramatic as he’d like, but it gets him out of the oppressive office, and he breathes in the city air. Still, he wishes for the slight tang the sea air gives him, and shuts his eyes.
Heechul thinks Sungmin is crazy, and Heechul apparently throws things at crazy people. Sungmin’s amused because he’s not the insane one.
“You’ve lived in Goyang your whole life,” Heechul says, and Sungmin looks up from his place on the couch. He smiles, slow and easy, as if placating a small child.
“Okay, sure, I lived in Goyang my whole life.”
Heechul growls and throws a pillow, then crosses his arms, fury evident.
“Your birth certificate doesn’t lie, and neither do your friends. Come on Sungmin, is your head screwed on wrong or something?”
Sungmin laughs, almost entertained. Now, it’s just a game of who will back down first; he already knows his identity, loud and clear.
“Its fine, thanks. I grew up on an island and moved to Seoul when I was eighteen, nineteen, to go to university. Simple as.”
Heechul stares at him, and Sungmin’s smile shrinks. There’s something in Heechul’s look, the judging and the feeling that Heechul doesn’t know Sungmin.
“God, Sungmin. You have friends in Goyang, friends who grew up with you and went to the same school as you. You grew up there, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
The seriousness of the argument suddenly strikes Sungmin, and his smile disappears completely.
“There’s nothing wrong with me, fuck you,” Sungmin says softly before grabbing his keys and leaving the apartment.
“I’m sorry for leaving like that the other day,” Sungmin says softly three days later, feet twitching on the welcome mat.
Heechul’s voice is quiet. “It’s okay, I’m sorry for yelling at you.”
There’s a brief silence before Heechul jerks his head, opening the door wider.
“Come on, come in. Why’re you just standing there?”
Sungmin gives him an unsure smile before he steps in, holding his arm out.
“I knew that, that this might be a bit weird. But I want you to see that I didn’t make it up, that the records have it wrong.” Heechul’s breath freezes.
“What?”
“So. So I brought a friend; his name is Lee Hyukjae. He grew up on the island with me.”
Heechul’s movements are tentative as he rests his hand on Sungmin’s forearm.
“Sungmin?”
Sungmin smiles brightly. “Come in, Hyukjae. This is Heechul, my roommate. Heechul, this is Hyukjae, my childhood friend.”
Hyukjae steps in, his eyes bright and his smile wide and nervous.
“Hello,” he says, bowing slightly, and Heechul shifts his head, shaking it a tenth of an inch.
“Sungmin?” Heechul asks again, barely audible, and Sungmin looks at him, smiling still.
“Come on Heechul, Hyukjae isn’t going to hurt you or anything. Say hello!”
Heechul starts shaking his head, slow and his eyes never leaving the space Hyukjae occupies.
“Sungmin, no one’s there, what’re you talking about?”
Hyukjae’s smile dims and Sungmin reaches out, taking his hand before turning to Heechul, scowling.
“He’s right here, Heechul.”
Heechul’s eyes are wide, staring at Sungmin’s outstretched hand.
“No, there’s no one here Sungmin, you’re just, there’s-“
“God Heechul, just because you think I don’t have other friends, you have to be so mean to Hyukjae. Don’t you know respect or something?”
“It’s not me, what the fuck Sungmin, there’s no one there, you’ve made this Lee Hyukjae up, you’re holding thin air -- listen to me.”
Hyukjae’s voice is quiet to Sungmin’s ears, and invisible to Heechul’s.
“I’ll, um, I think I’ll go now. See you later, Sungmin.”
Sungmin’s head whips around to see Hyukjae leaving, his hand suddenly empty, and he turns back.
“Look what you did you asshole, you made Hyukjae leave, why can’t you just be a normal person and just accept that you’re not right all the time, that maybe, just maybe you’re wrong this time and that-“
Heechul slaps him, his teeth biting down into his bottom lip in case he says something stupid, something hurtful.
“No, Sungmin, there is no one there and you, you.” He takes a deep breath, and Sungmin can feel the heat from the slap, spreading to behind his eyes and he blinks, fast, to keep the tears in check.
“There is no one there. Learn to fucking grow up.”
Heechul walks away, slams the door to his bedroom and Sungmin stands there, hands empty and suddenly feeling so, so alone.
Sungmin is most proud of his ability to put the past behind him and to be able to work his ass off without break. When push comes to shove, nothing is of any importance to him except his one goal.
That’s what he does after he had introduced Hyukjae; Sungmin works.
He avoids Heechul, who is nowhere to be found anyway, and starts visiting the library, acquainting himself with the geography section.
“How many islands are part of South Korea?” he asks the librarian, who gives him a smile and pushes her glasses up.
“3 579,” she says promptly, and he feels his heart sinking.
“Are you looking for one in particular?” she asks curiously, peering at the stack in his arms.
He opens his mouth and then snaps it closed. Help couldn’t hurt.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Okay.” She smiles, small and pretty, and Sungmin lets an own smile creep onto his face. “Do you have any parameters to narrow it down? Size would probably help the most.”
“Er, yeah. I remember it taking around two hours to walk around its circumference?”
She flips to the back of one of the larger atlases, licking her finger to turn the page delicately.
“Two hours? That’d be around eight to ten kilometres or so, maybe twelve max. Do you remember the shape?”
Sungmin closes his eyes, envisioning the shape of the trek, the toughness near the cliffs where the rock offered some help but was treacherous and not at all smooth, and then the smoothness near the town.
“Like a…” He draws a shape in the air; like a key but more curved.
“Like…” She repeats the shape he had drawn, and he nods. She sighs, propping her chin in her hand. “Sorry, that isn’t really that helpful. A lot of the islands are shaped similar to that, and the terrain you described isn’t all that unique to any one island. We can keep looking, if you’d like, but your best bet is to look online, putting in parameters as you search, like any animals you remember and maybe the name of the town?”
The girl blows her bangs out of her eyes, and smiles, tight-lipped.
“I’m really sorry I couldn’t be of more help, but I’m sure you’ll find that island of yours soon with enough determination.”
Sungmin doesn’t let the distress show, and instead nods, determined.
“Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome, at least. Do you want to check these out? We’ll mark what we know and you can take them home, maybe see if you can do anything else.”
“Yeah.” Sungmin hesitates, wondering if Hyukjae will be able to help. “Yeah, that sounds good. Thanks.”
“No problem. Come back anytime and we’ll see what we can do.”
Heechul’s waiting for Sungmin when he comes back from the library, right hand clutching a coffee and backpack filled with atlases of Korea.
“Sungmin,” Heechul says, lips pursed together and greeting only accompanied by a stiff nod.
The sight of Heechul still causes Sungmin’s chest to tighten a bit, his jaw to lock into a scowl and his eyes to narrow. He can’t forget how Heechul had treated Hyukjae. Which reminds him that he has to call Hyukjae later and see if he’s settled into his hotel yet, and if Donghae’s doing well back home.
“Heechul,” Sungmin greets stiffly, before turning away, deliberately taking the long way around the kitchen island where Heechul’s seated, and going into his room.
“Wait,” Heechul calls out, but Sungmin’s already closed his door, lock sliding into place neatly.
Sungmin falls face down onto his bed, backpack still on and coffee on his bedside table. The covers are soft under him, comforting and reminiscent of home.
“Sungmin.”
Sungmin pulls his pillow over his ears as he hears Heechul’s voice creep through the crack under his door, soft and pleading.
“Sometimes…” Heechul’s voice hesitates. “Sometimes, we make things up because we’re not completely happy with how life’s going. It’s perfectly natural and people do it all the time. But the first step-“
Heechul stops there as the door rattles violently in its frame, pillow slumped in front of it like it’s curling around itself, hiding away.
“SHUT UP,” Sungmin screams, glaring at the door. “SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.”
Sungmin breathes heavily through his mouth before he counts to twenty, watching the door, scrutinising it.
“Sungmin, I’m not lying. Just have a think about it. I’m not your enemy; I’m on your side, and the only enemy here is yourself. There are no sides in this. Please think about it.”
Sungmin continues counting, to thirty, forty, fifty, and finally, only at sixty-seven does he hear Heechul’s footsteps, and then the click of their front door.
Sungmin pores over each atlas carefully, going through all the maps of the tiny islands of Korea and then some.
They all look exactly the same - the same shaped mass surrounded by an ocean of blue with a nice gradient. Purple to red gradients, red to green gradients and maps with just different shades of browns.
It bores him before he picks up his phone and he and Hyukjae agree to meet in the park in front of Hyukjae’s hotel, yesterday’s rain long forgotten.
“Sungmin,” Hyukjae greets happily and tugs him into a hug. Already, Sungmin can feel his day brightening and the pressure of his past lifting from his shoulders, the burden of finding the truth, gone.
“How’re you? How’s the hotel? You hungry? How’s Donghae? Mum, Dad, Sungjin?”
It suddenly strikes him, as the questions come pouring out, that this is what he’s been missing all this time without realising it; the comfort of a part of home being at his fingertips. Forget the scent of the sea or the sudden ache for his mother’s hug when he walked past a bakery; Hyukjae is all of it, rolled into one glorious person.
But Hyukjae doesn’t take heed in that fact, or at least doesn’t realise it as he laughs and claps Sungmin in a hug.
“Good! Everything’s good, everyone’s good, but man, I’m starving. Feeeeeed meeeeeeeee.”
The afternoon Sungmin that shares with Hyukjae is like nothing he’s ever done. That is, until he casts his mind back to the island, and he remembers that this simple happiness and feeling of things being right was ever-present and never ending.
Sungmin returns home with a grin stretching across his face and a piece of paper with an address on it.
“Send a letter to him, or just let him know you’re alright. I don’t know if I’ll be heading back soon, but I’ll get in touch with you, alright? I think I might go to Mokpo or something,” Hyukjae had said cheerfully before disappearing into his hotel room.
Now, as Sungmin kicks open his apartment door and hangs his keys up, the sound of Heechul’s voice makes him start.
“Hey,” Heechul says, eyes a bit red rimmed and hands around a cup of something warm. Sungmin sniffs. The apartment smells like they’ve been growing a tea farm for years.
“Hey,” Sungmin says guardedly, smile dropping and hoping that Heechul just likes watching the empty wall.
“Listen,” he says, and Sungmin curses the universe and the manners ingrained in him. He stops and turns, schooling his expression into one of polite disinterest.
“What I did said was inappropriate and rude, and also stupid. I’m sorry I hurt you, but I want you to know that I am on your side and that I’m not wrong.”
Sungmin carefully folds his arms, the movements precise and contained. The body language is all too clear, but Heechul continues, his smile unsure.
“But that isn’t it. Just talk to your parents, or even Sungjin. Give them a call. I asked Sooyoung, and this is your old home number, which probably hasn’t changed since. Just… call, talk to them, and see how it goes. You don’t have to do it now, but talk to them and you’ll see what I mean.”
Heechul pushes a slip of paper across the table, numbers intelligible from where Sungmin’s standing. He gives it a long look before he turns and enters his room, the door shutting with a soft click.
The slip is almost offensive, the rejection from Sungmin practically imprinted on it. Heechul ignores it as he drains his tea and places the mug in the sink before going into his own room.
Sungmin creeps out of his room at around 1am, his thirst stronger than his anger. The slip of paper is still on the table, and he wonders if it’s some hoax, a trick by Heechul to screw him over and get him to believe something stupid.
He picks it up anyway on the way back to bed with a cup of warm water, the piece of paper lying crumpled in his fist.
Insomnia is his best friend as he lies in bed and stares at the ceiling, the streetlights casting long shadows. It isn’t that he can’t sleep, rather than he isn’t sleepy and that sleep is just out of reach anyway.
He sits up, rubbing his eyes and spotting the paper on his desk. In a moment of clarity and passivity, he keys the numbers into his phone and lies back down, staring at his screen.
Sleepiness suddenly takes hold and he closes his eyes, mobile still held loosely in his hand as he falls asleep.
The next day is Monday, which means he has a class at eleven, and usually, Donghae would bike to the post office at seven to organise the mail of the day and Hyukjae would just lie in bed before his father called him out on a job. Sungmin used to hate Mondays, because everyone hated Mondays without any real reason besides the fact that that day was a Monday. It made sense to him.
On a Monday, his mother would be in the bakery by five and his father out on the sea by dawn. So he’s relatively sure that no one will pick up, since Sungjin will probably be out with Yunho, learning how to read powerlines.
He calls the number Heechul had so carefully written, his fingers following his eyes faster than his brain can translate the digits.
It rings once, twice, and as soon as Sungmin starts to relax, the phone is picked up.
“Hello?”
The voice is startlingly familiar to Sungmin, rich to his ears and warm. He could pick it in a crowd if he had to.
“Mum?”
“Oh Sungmin,” she gushes, her voice growing warmer by the second and filling with affection. Sungmin’s grip tightens.
“How are you? Have you been eating? Take care of yourself and get plenty of sleep! Eat healthy - don’t just eat junk, but eat fruit as well. Make sure you have plenty of meat and vegetables. How is it there? Is it getting cold yet? Make sure to take a scarf, you know you catch a cold easily-“
“Mum.” Sungmin closes his eyes and presses his free hand against them.
This feels too real, too close to home.
“Mum, where do you live?”
“…honey, we haven’t moved since you went to university, we’re still in Ilsan-“
No, this isn’t real, this isn’t the reality he wanted. This isn’t true, his mother, she must’ve been called by Heechul, and Heechul told her what to say.
He swallows.
“Shouldn’t you be at the bakery, baking a cake or something? Is Dad there? Did he go out in his boat today? What about Sungjin, is he with Yunho? Or Donghae, can you put Donghae on? Hyukjae’s here with me and he said you’re all doing well, but can I speak to Donghae?”
Millions of questions whirl, clouding all rational thought as he grasps at seams.
“Oh sweetie, are you still playing that game? You know, you lived in Ilsan, and grew up here. Donghae and Hyukjae were only dolls and you kept them both at home because you said they’d get lonely without each other. I don’t work at a bakery, remember? Your father doesn’t fish for a living, Sungmin. Are you still imagining that?”
He’s not imagining that because that’s real, and that’s the truth, not something Heechul says, or Sooyoung says, or his mother says.
“Sungmin, honey?”
Sungmin removes his hand from his face, taking a deep breath.
“I’ll call you back. Love you, Mum.”
“I love you too, honey. Take care of yourself.”
Sungmin flips his cellphone closed, looking up to see Heechul in the doorway, watching him carefully.
“I was right,” Heechul says flatly, voice devoid of the usual glee associated with that phrase. “You can’t hate me for being right, Sungmin. Will you open your eyes now, finally see that whatever bullshit you’ve been sprouting about some island and not living in Ilsan. Your own mother said it. Sooyoung said it. Did you know Sooyoung came over the other day because you worried her? She’s known you since you were like, five or something, and she knows you inside out. Don’t you get it? This is reality, this is the present and you’re living in a past that never existed, can’t you-“
Sungmin stares at him, lips in a thin line and eyes hard. He wants to say that he’s right anyway, but he could never lie, and his wet eyes are answer enough.
“Are you happy?” he hisses before flinging his phone at Heechul, burying under his covers for some pretend fantasy. Like a kid living out his dream.
Heechul invites Sooyoung over an hour later, making polite conversation before Sungmin emerges from his room, rumpled and worse for wear.
“Are you here to say you were right as well?” he says dully, tiredness and hopelessness robbing him of social conventions.
She shakes her head and gestures towards the seat opposite her, taking a sip of her tea.
“I talked to your mum,” she starts off hesitantly as Sungmin sits opposite, automatically curling up and hugging a pillow to his chest.
“And?”
He talked to his mum too, and it broke him.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there before,” she says, looking at her cup. Heechul leaves the apartment quietly.
“She told me about Hyukjae and Donghae, and how she was a baker and how your father was a fisherman. She told me about how you took Yunho, Leeteuk and Kangin from TV and moulded them to your world, as well as the island you made.”
It’s not a world he made; it’s the past that shaped him. History shapes societies and shapes individuals; you are the product of your past. Sungmin is aware of that, just as he’s aware of his past on the island, and Hyukjae and Donghae. He’s also equally aware of the uncertainty he has right now about it.
“And?”
He has no energy left to fight this fight.
“That world isn’t real, Sungmin. Remember that I know you, and I know everything about you. I grew up with you, and we learned how to ride bikes together-“ not true, that was with Hyukjae and Donghae “-and we used to do our homework together after school-“ again with Hyukjae and Donghae “-and we even got our acceptance letters to university and opened them over the phone at the same time.”
That’s the lie. He can clearly see it in his mind, the moment when he had taken the letter from Donghae’s hands and seen the words you have been accepted into, and how he’d felt unsurpassable joy at that moment. That has to be real. There is no way that that had been untrue.
“Sungmin.” She waits until he responds and looks at her, how earnest she is. “Please believe me when I say this. I’ve spoken to your mum about it, and I was there for your whole childhood. I grew up with you, and I know what you’re like. I’m sorry I never realised that you were so unsatisfied with it that you had to make up this alternate reality, but you can’t let it affect you now. Hyukjae and Donghae aren’t real - they’re just dolls you got when you were small that you loved. They’re not people and you can’t go on believing that, Sungmin.”
He wants to. It was so much safer knowing where he had come from so definitely and defiantly in opposition to everyone else. It was him against the world, and as simple as black and white.
“Come on.” Sooyoung smiles encouragingly at him even though he can’t muster up the strength to return it. “I’ll show you.”
Sooyoung drives him for an hour to his hometown, where it looks the same as Seoul. She drives through the suburban areas before she pulls up in front of a nondescript home with the curtains and windows open.
She strides up while Sungmin trails after her uncomfortably, the déjà vu returning. He knows this place, but he doesn’t know how intimate it might be.
“Mrs. Lee,” Sooyoung greets and bows, and she’s smothered in a loving hug.
“Hello Sooyoung, my, you’ve grown! Such a young, beautiful woman now, maybe marry my idiot son someday, hah?”
Sungmin’s mother is different from how he imagines her to be; she’s a bit more weathered and a bit wider, healthier in some respects. Her hair’s shorter and carefully styled, and her ears are pierced.
“Sungmin,” she says and greets him in a similar manner, hugging him tight. It’s warm and comforting; there’s no doubt that this is his mother.
“Come,” she prompts them, and leads them through the house. Everywhere, he can see memorabilia that he grew up here; photo frames and scuff marks on the walls, a guitar with a broken string lying in the corner and some of his achievements.
The room they come into is neat and tidy, though small. There’s a bed on one side and the desk in the corner, the floor clear and everything organised in stacks. His soft toys are lined up like an army against the wall, just in front of his bedside table with his clock and stack of post its.
He looks on the walls that are empty, and his desk that’s organised and neat. The bookshelf in the corner houses all his books, carefully ordered, and he knows that yes, this is his home and his room. He remembers it all.
His mother sits on the bed and reaches her hand over to the bedside, taking out two small figurines.
“You made these when you were six at school, two little dolls.”
He takes them from her hands gingerly, feeling their slight weight and tracing their shapes. The recognition is too sudden and too real as he traces the slighter one, Donghae’s name embroidered on the back. The other one, slightly shorter but sturdier, is a bit dirtied and has Hyukjae sewed in the same place. Clumsily labelled by a child’s hand, but they’re both a part of him.
“I think Sen got to that one, and I found it just this morning near your door,” Sungmin’s mother says as she points to Hyukjae, before she makes a clicking sound and leaves to feed Sen.
Sooyoung watches as Sungmin stares at his best friends, his soulmates, both treasured in the palm of his hands.
It’s quiet for a long time, and Sooyoung enjoys this peace. She doesn’t dare disturb it, because she knows that Sungmin is suffering an epiphany of some kind.
“I think I need to let go,” Sungmin says quietly as he looks at the dolls, and then up to her.
He curls his fingers around them protectively, before he moves towards the doorway and then down the hall, the layout of the house coming to him.
Sooyoung follows him to the garden where he’s already kneeling in the grass, a shovel on the ground beside him.
“What’re you-“
“I have to let go,” he says gruffly as he clears a spot of grass near the fence and uses the shovel to loosen the roots. “This is holding me back.”
He raises his left hand, where Donghae and Hyukjae are smooshed together.
“And how are you going to do that?”
Sungmin looks up for a moment before using the shovel is resolutely stuck into the ground, and he takes out a small bit of dirt.
He continues digging as Sooyoung watches, feeling as if she’s intruding on some rite of passage. He digs, and keeps digging until a shallow grave is formed, maybe twenty centimetres deep.
“I remember,” Sungmin says softly as he looks at the dolls. “Do you remember Lee Sunkyu, the girl who killed herself the summer after high school?”
Sooyoung watches as Sungmin caresses Hyukjae, looking at them.
“Yeah, Sunny? What about her?”
Sungmin’s voice is quiet, barely audible.
“I used to like her. She was so sweet and pretty. You know, on the island, she was alive. I went out with her, and she gave me a book. She told me to open my eyes and see the truth, and I think she wanted me to move on, but I can’t. I couldn’t. I used to really like her.”
The memory of Sunny’s sweet smile is haunting, but he’s moved on. He’s moving on.
First, he holds Donghae up and looks at him, before giving him a tender kiss on the head and placing him in the grave. Then, he does the same to Hyukjae, giving him a fond stroke as well before placing him on top of Donghae.
It occurs to him that if he views these dolls as people, then this is the equivalent of burying them alive. But he needs to do this to move on, and he can’t move on in life without saying a goodbye to his past. Sunkyu, Sunny, wanted him to do that, even if he can’t let go.
He shifts, his left foot falling asleep as he brushes the dirt on top of them, patting the mound that forms. Sooyoung offers him a hand up, smiling at him pitifully, but he doesn’t feel anger at the sympathy. He’d been stupid and naive to continue the fantasy just because of Sunny, and because he was safe with Hyukjae and Donghae.
“I’m sorry,” he tells them, feeling like a murderer. Killed his two best friends.
“It had to be done,” Sooyoung says, and he knows she’s right. But it doesn’t hurt any less.
There goes a bit of his soul.
Hyperreality: an image, sign or representation of reality that has reached the critical threshold where it has superseded the real or represented; signalling the end of authenticity.
At times, he dreams of two boys, lanky things with too much energy but not enough passion.
“Come on, let’s escape,” Sungmin says, holding out a hand, and he can see the white-knuckled grip the boys have on each other.
“No, come home, Sungmin,” the more delicate boy says, and licks his lips.
“Come home,” the other boy repeats, and Sungmin’s ready to say, I am home.
But he wakes up, and the words die on his lips.
Sometimes, Sungmin longs for the bittersweet scent of the ocean air, the tang of the salt and the soft sea breeze. It isn’t much to ask for in his opinion, but in the middle of the city, it apparently is.
It feels so natural for him to simply close his eyes and see a beach laid out before him, sand soft between his toes and sun burning his skin. For him to close his eyes and see the town he has grown up in, the post office that Donghae works at and the bookshop Sunny’s now taken over. For him to cast his mind back to the school that he loves, where he had spent so much time studying and memorising notes, and the lush green grass that saturated the playground.
The city was never home; Goyang was never home, and Sungmin can feel it in his bones, in his very soul that he belongs on that island and not Ilsang.
Send me an email telling me how you’re going, Heechul texts him when Sungmin sets foot in Japan.
Idiot, Sungmin thinks affectionately, and then laughs at the reversed roles.
Just to spite him, Sungmin sits down and composes a three page letter on how the cats here are prettier than at home. He attaches a photo of one of the strays in the neighbourhood, and seals the envelope.
He starts another letter to his family, trying to make Japan sound more exciting than it is. In so many ways, Japan reminds Sungmin of Korea, and he doesn’t know if it’s good or not.
This envelope gets a special kiss, and he slips some good luck charms inside.
The final letter he starts writing in the darkened café remains unaddressed, but Sungmin writes diligently, filling pages and pages with his cramped writing.
At the end, he signs off with a flourish and a I miss you two.
He doesn’t end up sending that one, but he does seal it and puts it away in his diary.
Hyukjae’s sister gets married to Jinki when leaves are already golden but the air hasn’t quite achieved the sharp, cold bite. She’s beautiful as she walks down the aisle, resplendent in the white dress Yuri and her mother made. Jungsu’s sister is the maid of honour while Jonghyun is the best man.
The wedding is beautiful, and Hyukjae’s called up to give a speech. Donghae smiles at him encouragingly from his seat.
“Years ago, when Sora told me she wanted to marry Jinki, I thought it was a joke,” Hyukjae starts off, hands shaking as he reads off the sheet. He takes a breath to steel himself, looks out at the crowd and gives a grin. “Look where they are now.”
He fans out his left arm towards the table where they’re seated, Sora smiling bashfully like she never does and Jinki grinning.
“It’s my job, probably, as Sora’s younger brother to embarrass her and tell everyone how she once wet herself in second grade, or sucked on a pen until her tongue was blue.” Sora glares at him, and he cowers. “BUT. Not today. Today is one of the happiest days of her life, getting married to Jinki, and I’m not going to ruin it like that. Instead, I’ll you of how I once got lost when I was seven, and Sora was nine.”
Hyukjae clears his throat again, feeling the weight of everyone’s eyes on him. He knows he isn’t a speaker, but he has to do this for his sister, because she’s done so much for him, and this speech will probably only measure up to around 1% of what she’s done.
They’re seated in the town hall, the only space large enough to fit the whole town. Large tables have been brought out and covered in white cloth, cutlery and plates stacked on top of each other and candles lit to provide a peaceful atmosphere. There are flowers in large vases in the middle of each table; the one in the middle of the main party’s table is heaped with pink roses, beautiful and fragrant. Hyukjae stares at it, remembering what Sungmin had told him about having courage in himself because he’s strong and not weak, and he’s strong enough to do this.
“I got lost in the forest behind near the school. It was probably the scariest moment of my life.” Everyone laughs politely. “I couldn’t see anything, just trees and branches and leaves and bushes. I didn’t recognise where I was, I thought I was in another world and I started crying, screaming and sobbing and would you know, that’s how Sora found me, following the sound of me crying, she gave me a piggyback ride out of the forest back to school.”
Hyukjae takes another breath, and Donghae gives him a thumbs-up. He smiles, a bit watery at the memory of the fear that had left him shaking and curled up into a ball on the forest floor.
“That’s what I’ll remember Sora as. Not as Jinki’s wife or my older sister or as the person who always throws the alarm clock at me when I try to wake her up in the morning.” More laughter, and it encourages him. “I’ll remember her as my saviour and as corny as it might sound, the light to light the way. Sora is amazing and wonderful, smart, kind and honest, and I know that Jinki is the same. They’re perfect for each other, and I wish your marriage all the best.” Hyukjae clears his throat, raising a glass.
“A toast, to the newlyweds.”
Clinks are heard all over the hall, delicate glassware tapping against each other, and Hyukjae clinks his champagne flute with Youngwoon, the temporary MC.
“To the newlyweds!”
They drink. Hyukjae and Youngwoon trade smiles over their glasses before Hyukjae walks off the stage, back to his seat. Donghae wraps him in a hug, and Hyukjae misses the warmth of another body pressed against his in a group hug.
“You did well,” Donghae tells him, and Hyukjae smiles shyly back.
“Thanks.”
Japan changes Sungmin.
When he returns, he can still smell the cherry blossoms and the ever present smell of new. The sky is still the same, and the oxygen he breathes in and the carbon dioxide he breathes out aren’t any different, but he feels changed as a person.
He understands that sometimes, society needs a kick up its ass to know that words printed on paper mean nothing, and individuals are what make up an institution, that people are what make these official ‘documents.’
He takes it in his stride, because the real is only what you tell your brain is real, so believe in yourself enough and it’ll turn true.
Donghae starts origami again when he’s in the post office, hours passing by with no one coming in and no packages arriving.
“What’re you making?” Hyukjae asks when he comes in to drop of an order for a bunch of screws and pipes.
Donghae presses a crease flat and sharp, opening it up and forming a crane. He throws it in an open cardboard box behind him, already a hundred other cranes lying amongst the paper scraps.
“You know what if you make a thousand paper cranes and you wish on them, it comes true?”
Hyukjae snorts, though he won’t admit he wants to believe that.
“What a load of bull, wishing on a thousand pieces of paper folded pretty? Really?”
Donghae folds a square in half diagonally, and then half again. The he presses the triangle, opening it up into a square rotated forty-five degrees.
“It doesn’t hurt to try.”
The paper gets folded into something like a kite, before the seam is traced and Donghae rotates the arms so that a crane is born. He tosses it in the box and takes out another square of paper.
Hyukjae knows what he’s wishing for, but it doesn’t make it any better, and doesn’t make the outcome anymore possible. The only thing he could do now was take the matter into his own hands.
“Where were you born?” the doctor asks, and Sungmin rolls his eyes. It’s Heechul’s fault he’s in this office anyway.
“Ilsan, Goyang.”
“Did you grow up there?”
“Yes, my entire life, I’ve lived there.”
“When is your birthday?”
“First of January.”
“Your family?”
“Mother, father, brother. Look, is there a point to this?”
The doctor sits back, closing the folder.
“Not at all, Sungmin.”
Sungmin clenches his hands, willing them to stop shaking even as he feels his tongue shrivelling from the lies. He’s not stupid, he knows what’s expected of him, but he still feels guilty - documents shouldn’t tell him where he grew up. He knows it.
“Great,” he practically spits out. “Then can I go? This is wasting my time.”
The doctor inclines his head, looks at Sungmin, then gestures.
“If you’d like.”
Sungmin’s exit isn’t as dramatic as he’d like, but it gets him out of the oppressive office, and he breathes in the city air. Still, he wishes for the slight tang the sea air gives him, and shuts his eyes.
Heechul thinks Sungmin is crazy, and Heechul apparently throws things at crazy people. Sungmin’s amused because he’s not the insane one.
“You’ve lived in Goyang your whole life,” Heechul says, and Sungmin looks up from his place on the couch. He smiles, slow and easy, as if placating a small child.
“Okay, sure, I lived in Goyang my whole life.”
Heechul growls and throws a pillow, then crosses his arms, fury evident.
“Your birth certificate doesn’t lie, and neither do your friends. Come on Sungmin, is your head screwed on wrong or something?”
Sungmin laughs, almost entertained. Now, it’s just a game of who will back down first; he already knows his identity, loud and clear.
“Its fine, thanks. I grew up on an island and moved to Seoul when I was eighteen, nineteen, to go to university. Simple as.”
Heechul stares at him, and Sungmin’s smile shrinks. There’s something in Heechul’s look, the judging and the feeling that Heechul doesn’t know Sungmin.
“God, Sungmin. You have friends in Goyang, friends who grew up with you and went to the same school as you. You grew up there, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
The seriousness of the argument suddenly strikes Sungmin, and his smile disappears completely.
“There’s nothing wrong with me, fuck you,” Sungmin says softly before grabbing his keys and leaving the apartment.
“I’m sorry for leaving like that the other day,” Sungmin says softly three days later, feet twitching on the welcome mat.
Heechul’s voice is quiet. “It’s okay, I’m sorry for yelling at you.”
There’s a brief silence before Heechul jerks his head, opening the door wider.
“Come on, come in. Why’re you just standing there?”
Sungmin gives him an unsure smile before he steps in, holding his arm out.
“I knew that, that this might be a bit weird. But I want you to see that I didn’t make it up, that the records have it wrong.” Heechul’s breath freezes.
“What?”
“So. So I brought a friend; his name is Lee Hyukjae. He grew up on the island with me.”
Heechul’s movements are tentative as he rests his hand on Sungmin’s forearm.
“Sungmin?”
Sungmin smiles brightly. “Come in, Hyukjae. This is Heechul, my roommate. Heechul, this is Hyukjae, my childhood friend.”
Hyukjae steps in, his eyes bright and his smile wide and nervous.
“Hello,” he says, bowing slightly, and Heechul shifts his head, shaking it a tenth of an inch.
“Sungmin?” Heechul asks again, barely audible, and Sungmin looks at him, smiling still.
“Come on Heechul, Hyukjae isn’t going to hurt you or anything. Say hello!”
Heechul starts shaking his head, slow and his eyes never leaving the space Hyukjae occupies.
“Sungmin, no one’s there, what’re you talking about?”
Hyukjae’s smile dims and Sungmin reaches out, taking his hand before turning to Heechul, scowling.
“He’s right here, Heechul.”
Heechul’s eyes are wide, staring at Sungmin’s outstretched hand.
“No, there’s no one here Sungmin, you’re just, there’s-“
“God Heechul, just because you think I don’t have other friends, you have to be so mean to Hyukjae. Don’t you know respect or something?”
“It’s not me, what the fuck Sungmin, there’s no one there, you’ve made this Lee Hyukjae up, you’re holding thin air -- listen to me.”
Hyukjae’s voice is quiet to Sungmin’s ears, and invisible to Heechul’s.
“I’ll, um, I think I’ll go now. See you later, Sungmin.”
Sungmin’s head whips around to see Hyukjae leaving, his hand suddenly empty, and he turns back.
“Look what you did you asshole, you made Hyukjae leave, why can’t you just be a normal person and just accept that you’re not right all the time, that maybe, just maybe you’re wrong this time and that-“
Heechul slaps him, his teeth biting down into his bottom lip in case he says something stupid, something hurtful.
“No, Sungmin, there is no one there and you, you.” He takes a deep breath, and Sungmin can feel the heat from the slap, spreading to behind his eyes and he blinks, fast, to keep the tears in check.
“There is no one there. Learn to fucking grow up.”
Heechul walks away, slams the door to his bedroom and Sungmin stands there, hands empty and suddenly feeling so, so alone.
Sungmin is most proud of his ability to put the past behind him and to be able to work his ass off without break. When push comes to shove, nothing is of any importance to him except his one goal.
That’s what he does after he had introduced Hyukjae; Sungmin works.
He avoids Heechul, who is nowhere to be found anyway, and starts visiting the library, acquainting himself with the geography section.
“How many islands are part of South Korea?” he asks the librarian, who gives him a smile and pushes her glasses up.
“3 579,” she says promptly, and he feels his heart sinking.
“Are you looking for one in particular?” she asks curiously, peering at the stack in his arms.
He opens his mouth and then snaps it closed. Help couldn’t hurt.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Okay.” She smiles, small and pretty, and Sungmin lets an own smile creep onto his face. “Do you have any parameters to narrow it down? Size would probably help the most.”
“Er, yeah. I remember it taking around two hours to walk around its circumference?”
She flips to the back of one of the larger atlases, licking her finger to turn the page delicately.
“Two hours? That’d be around eight to ten kilometres or so, maybe twelve max. Do you remember the shape?”
Sungmin closes his eyes, envisioning the shape of the trek, the toughness near the cliffs where the rock offered some help but was treacherous and not at all smooth, and then the smoothness near the town.
“Like a…” He draws a shape in the air; like a key but more curved.
“Like…” She repeats the shape he had drawn, and he nods. She sighs, propping her chin in her hand. “Sorry, that isn’t really that helpful. A lot of the islands are shaped similar to that, and the terrain you described isn’t all that unique to any one island. We can keep looking, if you’d like, but your best bet is to look online, putting in parameters as you search, like any animals you remember and maybe the name of the town?”
The girl blows her bangs out of her eyes, and smiles, tight-lipped.
“I’m really sorry I couldn’t be of more help, but I’m sure you’ll find that island of yours soon with enough determination.”
Sungmin doesn’t let the distress show, and instead nods, determined.
“Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome, at least. Do you want to check these out? We’ll mark what we know and you can take them home, maybe see if you can do anything else.”
“Yeah.” Sungmin hesitates, wondering if Hyukjae will be able to help. “Yeah, that sounds good. Thanks.”
“No problem. Come back anytime and we’ll see what we can do.”
Heechul’s waiting for Sungmin when he comes back from the library, right hand clutching a coffee and backpack filled with atlases of Korea.
“Sungmin,” Heechul says, lips pursed together and greeting only accompanied by a stiff nod.
The sight of Heechul still causes Sungmin’s chest to tighten a bit, his jaw to lock into a scowl and his eyes to narrow. He can’t forget how Heechul had treated Hyukjae. Which reminds him that he has to call Hyukjae later and see if he’s settled into his hotel yet, and if Donghae’s doing well back home.
“Heechul,” Sungmin greets stiffly, before turning away, deliberately taking the long way around the kitchen island where Heechul’s seated, and going into his room.
“Wait,” Heechul calls out, but Sungmin’s already closed his door, lock sliding into place neatly.
Sungmin falls face down onto his bed, backpack still on and coffee on his bedside table. The covers are soft under him, comforting and reminiscent of home.
“Sungmin.”
Sungmin pulls his pillow over his ears as he hears Heechul’s voice creep through the crack under his door, soft and pleading.
“Sometimes…” Heechul’s voice hesitates. “Sometimes, we make things up because we’re not completely happy with how life’s going. It’s perfectly natural and people do it all the time. But the first step-“
Heechul stops there as the door rattles violently in its frame, pillow slumped in front of it like it’s curling around itself, hiding away.
“SHUT UP,” Sungmin screams, glaring at the door. “SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.”
Sungmin breathes heavily through his mouth before he counts to twenty, watching the door, scrutinising it.
“Sungmin, I’m not lying. Just have a think about it. I’m not your enemy; I’m on your side, and the only enemy here is yourself. There are no sides in this. Please think about it.”
Sungmin continues counting, to thirty, forty, fifty, and finally, only at sixty-seven does he hear Heechul’s footsteps, and then the click of their front door.
Sungmin pores over each atlas carefully, going through all the maps of the tiny islands of Korea and then some.
They all look exactly the same - the same shaped mass surrounded by an ocean of blue with a nice gradient. Purple to red gradients, red to green gradients and maps with just different shades of browns.
It bores him before he picks up his phone and he and Hyukjae agree to meet in the park in front of Hyukjae’s hotel, yesterday’s rain long forgotten.
“Sungmin,” Hyukjae greets happily and tugs him into a hug. Already, Sungmin can feel his day brightening and the pressure of his past lifting from his shoulders, the burden of finding the truth, gone.
“How’re you? How’s the hotel? You hungry? How’s Donghae? Mum, Dad, Sungjin?”
It suddenly strikes him, as the questions come pouring out, that this is what he’s been missing all this time without realising it; the comfort of a part of home being at his fingertips. Forget the scent of the sea or the sudden ache for his mother’s hug when he walked past a bakery; Hyukjae is all of it, rolled into one glorious person.
But Hyukjae doesn’t take heed in that fact, or at least doesn’t realise it as he laughs and claps Sungmin in a hug.
“Good! Everything’s good, everyone’s good, but man, I’m starving. Feeeeeed meeeeeeeee.”
The afternoon Sungmin that shares with Hyukjae is like nothing he’s ever done. That is, until he casts his mind back to the island, and he remembers that this simple happiness and feeling of things being right was ever-present and never ending.
Sungmin returns home with a grin stretching across his face and a piece of paper with an address on it.
“Send a letter to him, or just let him know you’re alright. I don’t know if I’ll be heading back soon, but I’ll get in touch with you, alright? I think I might go to Mokpo or something,” Hyukjae had said cheerfully before disappearing into his hotel room.
Now, as Sungmin kicks open his apartment door and hangs his keys up, the sound of Heechul’s voice makes him start.
“Hey,” Heechul says, eyes a bit red rimmed and hands around a cup of something warm. Sungmin sniffs. The apartment smells like they’ve been growing a tea farm for years.
“Hey,” Sungmin says guardedly, smile dropping and hoping that Heechul just likes watching the empty wall.
“Listen,” he says, and Sungmin curses the universe and the manners ingrained in him. He stops and turns, schooling his expression into one of polite disinterest.
“What I did said was inappropriate and rude, and also stupid. I’m sorry I hurt you, but I want you to know that I am on your side and that I’m not wrong.”
Sungmin carefully folds his arms, the movements precise and contained. The body language is all too clear, but Heechul continues, his smile unsure.
“But that isn’t it. Just talk to your parents, or even Sungjin. Give them a call. I asked Sooyoung, and this is your old home number, which probably hasn’t changed since. Just… call, talk to them, and see how it goes. You don’t have to do it now, but talk to them and you’ll see what I mean.”
Heechul pushes a slip of paper across the table, numbers intelligible from where Sungmin’s standing. He gives it a long look before he turns and enters his room, the door shutting with a soft click.
The slip is almost offensive, the rejection from Sungmin practically imprinted on it. Heechul ignores it as he drains his tea and places the mug in the sink before going into his own room.
Sungmin creeps out of his room at around 1am, his thirst stronger than his anger. The slip of paper is still on the table, and he wonders if it’s some hoax, a trick by Heechul to screw him over and get him to believe something stupid.
He picks it up anyway on the way back to bed with a cup of warm water, the piece of paper lying crumpled in his fist.
Insomnia is his best friend as he lies in bed and stares at the ceiling, the streetlights casting long shadows. It isn’t that he can’t sleep, rather than he isn’t sleepy and that sleep is just out of reach anyway.
He sits up, rubbing his eyes and spotting the paper on his desk. In a moment of clarity and passivity, he keys the numbers into his phone and lies back down, staring at his screen.
Sleepiness suddenly takes hold and he closes his eyes, mobile still held loosely in his hand as he falls asleep.
The next day is Monday, which means he has a class at eleven, and usually, Donghae would bike to the post office at seven to organise the mail of the day and Hyukjae would just lie in bed before his father called him out on a job. Sungmin used to hate Mondays, because everyone hated Mondays without any real reason besides the fact that that day was a Monday. It made sense to him.
On a Monday, his mother would be in the bakery by five and his father out on the sea by dawn. So he’s relatively sure that no one will pick up, since Sungjin will probably be out with Yunho, learning how to read powerlines.
He calls the number Heechul had so carefully written, his fingers following his eyes faster than his brain can translate the digits.
It rings once, twice, and as soon as Sungmin starts to relax, the phone is picked up.
“Hello?”
The voice is startlingly familiar to Sungmin, rich to his ears and warm. He could pick it in a crowd if he had to.
“Mum?”
“Oh Sungmin,” she gushes, her voice growing warmer by the second and filling with affection. Sungmin’s grip tightens.
“How are you? Have you been eating? Take care of yourself and get plenty of sleep! Eat healthy - don’t just eat junk, but eat fruit as well. Make sure you have plenty of meat and vegetables. How is it there? Is it getting cold yet? Make sure to take a scarf, you know you catch a cold easily-“
“Mum.” Sungmin closes his eyes and presses his free hand against them.
This feels too real, too close to home.
“Mum, where do you live?”
“…honey, we haven’t moved since you went to university, we’re still in Ilsan-“
No, this isn’t real, this isn’t the reality he wanted. This isn’t true, his mother, she must’ve been called by Heechul, and Heechul told her what to say.
He swallows.
“Shouldn’t you be at the bakery, baking a cake or something? Is Dad there? Did he go out in his boat today? What about Sungjin, is he with Yunho? Or Donghae, can you put Donghae on? Hyukjae’s here with me and he said you’re all doing well, but can I speak to Donghae?”
Millions of questions whirl, clouding all rational thought as he grasps at seams.
“Oh sweetie, are you still playing that game? You know, you lived in Ilsan, and grew up here. Donghae and Hyukjae were only dolls and you kept them both at home because you said they’d get lonely without each other. I don’t work at a bakery, remember? Your father doesn’t fish for a living, Sungmin. Are you still imagining that?”
He’s not imagining that because that’s real, and that’s the truth, not something Heechul says, or Sooyoung says, or his mother says.
“Sungmin, honey?”
Sungmin removes his hand from his face, taking a deep breath.
“I’ll call you back. Love you, Mum.”
“I love you too, honey. Take care of yourself.”
Sungmin flips his cellphone closed, looking up to see Heechul in the doorway, watching him carefully.
“I was right,” Heechul says flatly, voice devoid of the usual glee associated with that phrase. “You can’t hate me for being right, Sungmin. Will you open your eyes now, finally see that whatever bullshit you’ve been sprouting about some island and not living in Ilsan. Your own mother said it. Sooyoung said it. Did you know Sooyoung came over the other day because you worried her? She’s known you since you were like, five or something, and she knows you inside out. Don’t you get it? This is reality, this is the present and you’re living in a past that never existed, can’t you-“
Sungmin stares at him, lips in a thin line and eyes hard. He wants to say that he’s right anyway, but he could never lie, and his wet eyes are answer enough.
“Are you happy?” he hisses before flinging his phone at Heechul, burying under his covers for some pretend fantasy. Like a kid living out his dream.
Heechul invites Sooyoung over an hour later, making polite conversation before Sungmin emerges from his room, rumpled and worse for wear.
“Are you here to say you were right as well?” he says dully, tiredness and hopelessness robbing him of social conventions.
She shakes her head and gestures towards the seat opposite her, taking a sip of her tea.
“I talked to your mum,” she starts off hesitantly as Sungmin sits opposite, automatically curling up and hugging a pillow to his chest.
“And?”
He talked to his mum too, and it broke him.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there before,” she says, looking at her cup. Heechul leaves the apartment quietly.
“She told me about Hyukjae and Donghae, and how she was a baker and how your father was a fisherman. She told me about how you took Yunho, Leeteuk and Kangin from TV and moulded them to your world, as well as the island you made.”
It’s not a world he made; it’s the past that shaped him. History shapes societies and shapes individuals; you are the product of your past. Sungmin is aware of that, just as he’s aware of his past on the island, and Hyukjae and Donghae. He’s also equally aware of the uncertainty he has right now about it.
“And?”
He has no energy left to fight this fight.
“That world isn’t real, Sungmin. Remember that I know you, and I know everything about you. I grew up with you, and we learned how to ride bikes together-“ not true, that was with Hyukjae and Donghae “-and we used to do our homework together after school-“ again with Hyukjae and Donghae “-and we even got our acceptance letters to university and opened them over the phone at the same time.”
That’s the lie. He can clearly see it in his mind, the moment when he had taken the letter from Donghae’s hands and seen the words you have been accepted into, and how he’d felt unsurpassable joy at that moment. That has to be real. There is no way that that had been untrue.
“Sungmin.” She waits until he responds and looks at her, how earnest she is. “Please believe me when I say this. I’ve spoken to your mum about it, and I was there for your whole childhood. I grew up with you, and I know what you’re like. I’m sorry I never realised that you were so unsatisfied with it that you had to make up this alternate reality, but you can’t let it affect you now. Hyukjae and Donghae aren’t real - they’re just dolls you got when you were small that you loved. They’re not people and you can’t go on believing that, Sungmin.”
He wants to. It was so much safer knowing where he had come from so definitely and defiantly in opposition to everyone else. It was him against the world, and as simple as black and white.
“Come on.” Sooyoung smiles encouragingly at him even though he can’t muster up the strength to return it. “I’ll show you.”
Sooyoung drives him for an hour to his hometown, where it looks the same as Seoul. She drives through the suburban areas before she pulls up in front of a nondescript home with the curtains and windows open.
She strides up while Sungmin trails after her uncomfortably, the déjà vu returning. He knows this place, but he doesn’t know how intimate it might be.
“Mrs. Lee,” Sooyoung greets and bows, and she’s smothered in a loving hug.
“Hello Sooyoung, my, you’ve grown! Such a young, beautiful woman now, maybe marry my idiot son someday, hah?”
Sungmin’s mother is different from how he imagines her to be; she’s a bit more weathered and a bit wider, healthier in some respects. Her hair’s shorter and carefully styled, and her ears are pierced.
“Sungmin,” she says and greets him in a similar manner, hugging him tight. It’s warm and comforting; there’s no doubt that this is his mother.
“Come,” she prompts them, and leads them through the house. Everywhere, he can see memorabilia that he grew up here; photo frames and scuff marks on the walls, a guitar with a broken string lying in the corner and some of his achievements.
The room they come into is neat and tidy, though small. There’s a bed on one side and the desk in the corner, the floor clear and everything organised in stacks. His soft toys are lined up like an army against the wall, just in front of his bedside table with his clock and stack of post its.
He looks on the walls that are empty, and his desk that’s organised and neat. The bookshelf in the corner houses all his books, carefully ordered, and he knows that yes, this is his home and his room. He remembers it all.
His mother sits on the bed and reaches her hand over to the bedside, taking out two small figurines.
“You made these when you were six at school, two little dolls.”
He takes them from her hands gingerly, feeling their slight weight and tracing their shapes. The recognition is too sudden and too real as he traces the slighter one, Donghae’s name embroidered on the back. The other one, slightly shorter but sturdier, is a bit dirtied and has Hyukjae sewed in the same place. Clumsily labelled by a child’s hand, but they’re both a part of him.
“I think Sen got to that one, and I found it just this morning near your door,” Sungmin’s mother says as she points to Hyukjae, before she makes a clicking sound and leaves to feed Sen.
Sooyoung watches as Sungmin stares at his best friends, his soulmates, both treasured in the palm of his hands.
It’s quiet for a long time, and Sooyoung enjoys this peace. She doesn’t dare disturb it, because she knows that Sungmin is suffering an epiphany of some kind.
“I think I need to let go,” Sungmin says quietly as he looks at the dolls, and then up to her.
He curls his fingers around them protectively, before he moves towards the doorway and then down the hall, the layout of the house coming to him.
Sooyoung follows him to the garden where he’s already kneeling in the grass, a shovel on the ground beside him.
“What’re you-“
“I have to let go,” he says gruffly as he clears a spot of grass near the fence and uses the shovel to loosen the roots. “This is holding me back.”
He raises his left hand, where Donghae and Hyukjae are smooshed together.
“And how are you going to do that?”
Sungmin looks up for a moment before using the shovel is resolutely stuck into the ground, and he takes out a small bit of dirt.
He continues digging as Sooyoung watches, feeling as if she’s intruding on some rite of passage. He digs, and keeps digging until a shallow grave is formed, maybe twenty centimetres deep.
“I remember,” Sungmin says softly as he looks at the dolls. “Do you remember Lee Sunkyu, the girl who killed herself the summer after high school?”
Sooyoung watches as Sungmin caresses Hyukjae, looking at them.
“Yeah, Sunny? What about her?”
Sungmin’s voice is quiet, barely audible.
“I used to like her. She was so sweet and pretty. You know, on the island, she was alive. I went out with her, and she gave me a book. She told me to open my eyes and see the truth, and I think she wanted me to move on, but I can’t. I couldn’t. I used to really like her.”
The memory of Sunny’s sweet smile is haunting, but he’s moved on. He’s moving on.
First, he holds Donghae up and looks at him, before giving him a tender kiss on the head and placing him in the grave. Then, he does the same to Hyukjae, giving him a fond stroke as well before placing him on top of Donghae.
It occurs to him that if he views these dolls as people, then this is the equivalent of burying them alive. But he needs to do this to move on, and he can’t move on in life without saying a goodbye to his past. Sunkyu, Sunny, wanted him to do that, even if he can’t let go.
He shifts, his left foot falling asleep as he brushes the dirt on top of them, patting the mound that forms. Sooyoung offers him a hand up, smiling at him pitifully, but he doesn’t feel anger at the sympathy. He’d been stupid and naive to continue the fantasy just because of Sunny, and because he was safe with Hyukjae and Donghae.
“I’m sorry,” he tells them, feeling like a murderer. Killed his two best friends.
“It had to be done,” Sooyoung says, and he knows she’s right. But it doesn’t hurt any less.
There goes a bit of his soul.
Hyperreality: an image, sign or representation of reality that has reached the critical threshold where it has superseded the real or represented; signalling the end of authenticity.