one | reminiscing

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sometimes i reminisce.

actually, scratch that...i think about the past all the time, and maybe that's why i consider myself to be lost in it. there's just such a romance to memories that are unchangeable and forever set in time.

i tend to go back to one summer in particular though, when i'm laden with extra time and the heat of the day is too much to consider being productive. i could lay on my bed for hours if i was allowed...just thinking.

anyway, this one summer was recorded a lot and the tapes were all thrown into a box under my bed labelled 'our first'. i sadly can't watch most of them anymore after moving damage and age...but they still sit in my mind like movies anyway, so that wasn't really too depressing just yet — at least not until i go senile or get old.

i entitled this box as such purely because i was stupid when i was seventeen, and creativity flowed through a paintbrush and pen for me, not through words. i thought i was being romantic then, scrawling 'our first' onto a label and smothering it into the cardboard material with a grin. the boy who had stood behind me at the time simply scoffed at it, claiming it sounded like we recorded the loss of our virginities — that it was a sex tape name. that really crushed my dreams of being a novelist, i would admit.

anyways, sometimes i sort through all the memories of when i was seventeen and living across the road from the said boy. the summers were hot as hell, and society was pretty nasty then. well, where we lived it was. you see, i'm as gay as it gets, and out in the city where modernity was plentiful, that didn't matter at all. but i'm talking about rural wasteland korea where homophobia and close-mindedness were rampant. my own family would've died had they known back then...but they didn't.

so, the guy who moved across the road from me into the same estate was called lee donghyuck. he was pretty chill as far as i was concerned when i was sixteen. he was late to the party, no doubt, yet made friends faster than i could sprint down our lane — which was damnably fast.

i initially wanted to talk to him since we were neighbours and all, but he sort of intimidated me. he had this look about him of someone who'd crush me in their palm like a tin can, and toss me to the side for some apparent weakness. in fairness, i was built like a fairy and had the attitude of a frustrated squirrel, so i wouldn't have approached me either.

so, i (not creepily) studied him for a while. he was right in my line of vision after all, just over the estate's cul de sac from me where we both lived at the edge of it all. his front lawn was beige with wilted grass at the start, and i could vaguely see the edge of his back yard from over the wooden gate protecting it to the side if i craned my neck enough while staring out my window. yeah, a little desperate, i'm aware. but there wasn't a lot to do in my area, bear in mind.

now, donghyuck was always leaving. he would wander off down the street into town on his own near enough to mid-morning. why? i wasn't really sure then. he was gone for hours and hours, only to return in the evening either alone again, or with a friend. sometimes these visitors were girls, some of them boys.

at first i didn't really care, since we weren't friends and had hardly acknowledged each other's existences. at school we used to pass each other in the dingy, stuffy halls and share this odd look that even i couldn't describe. it was like we both wanted to say 'hi' and crack the ice that had unintentionally formed, yet weren't brave enough to do so. it was a little funny though, since he was confident enough to take down a king if he needed to. he just wasn't man enough to spout one word in my direction.

well, to defend him, neither was i. but i had never been the star type to begin with; the one everyone surrounded in the halls to admire. hyuck was that person, and he slotted into our backwards society so well.

maybe i was a little bitter...perhaps a tad bit jealous. i'd known these people we attended school with for years, and yet he single-handedly wooed them without an ounce of effort while i still holed up in my room, wondering where the boat i had missed went.

this didn't hinder my curiosity for him though. i still found him stupidly fascinating and attractive. his tanned skin looked so soft to me, and my silly teenage hormones were messed up to begin with, not needing an angel in disguise to move across the road to add to the stress. he was the definition of perfect to everyone, and yet...i was always the only one who sensed a bit of a dark side to him.

well, not a dark side really. more-so a secretive streak. yes, he was always putting on the same show for everyone everyday, and i immediately wondered how he wasn't exhausted from the constant acting. as it turned out, he was. i was able to see him through his bedroom window when the lights were on at night, quietly sobbing to himself or pacing around while listening to music through his headphones.

he was interesting, i'd give him that. and after a few months passed from the time he moved in, it felt like it was all too late to introduce myself. he already knew my name from the class register, but we had never even said two words to one another. never that 'hi' we were both withholding.

my eyes scoured his window from afar every now and then, and a small pain in my heart would arise every time i saw him cry alone. i didn't care about him yet, obviously, but i still had the humanity inside me that cried out to a falling soldier. was he depressed? lonely? simply upset after a rough day? i hadn't known the answer to that yet, but i hated him for it later on.

one of those many nights i'd spend up later than i should've, i finally felt like i'd landed on the moon. i was perched in my window's alcove, i can remember, with my legs pulled to my chest and my head back against the painted white wood of the wall's sill. i hadn't realised that my 'hyuck watching' session had turned into a daydream until i blinked myself out of it and found another set of ochre-dashed sienna eyes staring back at mine. he was so far away, yet could see me as clear as day.

i messed up, i immediately thought, squeaking and falling back off my sill and onto my ass. the bones didn't make for a comfortable landing, but that wasn't what was on my list of priorities at the time. i sheepishly blinked and bit at my lip, a little embarrassed that i'd been found out. all the same, i pulled myself up onto the small ledge and peeped over the window to check if he was still there.

to my relief and a little bit of disappointment...he was gone, leaving me thinking i had scared him off.

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