|JAKEHOON| Unique in All the World

13

Thoughts of Jaeyoon circled 5-year-old Sunghoon's mind as he sat in his class on Tuesday. Ever since his encounter with Jaeyoon, he had felt something bothering him. At first, he had thought it was indigestion, but it was worse than that. When he told his mom yesterday, she had smiled and called it heartsickness, but Sunghoon knew better. Even at that age, he knew that the heart was just an internal organ that pumped blood. He had read about it in one of his non-fiction reading assignments. Besides, the discomfort wasn't coming from his chest, it felt more like something was weighing him down. 

Sunghoon sighed as he tried to shake these thoughts out of his mind and tried to focus on the board. The teacher was explaining the opening scene to 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. The play did not interest Sunghoon in the slightest, but still, he was motivated to pay attention. If Saturday's events had taught him anything it was that when Sunghoon strayed from the path that was set for him, the result was catastrophic.

"Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind," Sunghoon's teacher read from the script. "Who can tell me what Shakespeare was trying to say with this dialogue?"

Sunghoon looked up, transfixed by what his teacher had just said. He felt something click in his brain as lightning jolted up his spine. 

"Anyone?" the teacher said as she looked across the room full of 5-year-olds, clearly not expecting much. So naturally, she raised her eyebrows when Sunghoon raised his hand. 

"Sunghoon!" she exclaimed. "Would you like to give it a shot?"

Sunghoon didn't know why he had raised his hand or what he was going to say, but the words seemed to come out of him as if he had no control over what he was about to say. 

"It means... It means that love doesn't come from reason. The 'eyes' symbolize a kind of rational judgment and the 'mind' is... it's like something you can't control." Sunghoon was amazed at the words coming out of his mind. He had no idea where they had come from, but he believed them full-heartedly.  

When his teacher heard his answer, she was breath-taken as her eyes widened and she gaped at Sunghoon, her mouth wide open.

"Tha... That is exactly right," she said after she managed to recompose herself. "Shakespeare is saying that love is not intended. Rather it comes and goes without any sense of reason which he phrases once more in the next line."

She pressed a button and the next slide appeared on the screen as she continued.

"And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."

When Sunghoon's class ended, he felt an urge to know more about what Shakespeare had written and was thinking about what had caused him to pay so much attention to the lines that he learned that day. 

'Love does not look with the eyes but rather with the mind; and therefore is winged cupid blind' 

Sunghoon had no intention of memorizing the lines, but they stuck with him anyway as he made his way out the main doors and down the stone stairs.

One word, in particular, perplexed Sunghoon as he couldn't figure out what it was.

'Love?' he thought himself. 'What do I know about love?'