Deja Vu

{2} the enchanted april

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June 1922, South Korea

The boy had been trying his very best to get past the crowd of hundreds. Failing to do so, he could do nothing but simply wait at a further end.

Living in a colonised country was not a joke. People were scared to breathe, yearning for freedom and had no right to be opinionated. It was frightening and unpredictable, no one knowing what the future awaited.

There had been a bunch of protests going on lately, the roads never seeming empty. There was quite a lot of economic disbalance among people and it called for protests, coming out in the voices of the common people.

There was a huge commotion.

None of that was much of a bother to him though. He took another route, quite longer than this one. Swiftly and smarty, passing his way through numerous alleys and streets, he reached his desired stop. It was an extremely busy street, people mapping their distances throughout the day. Now was the real challenge.

It was an elite bookstore/library. His curious reading mind wanted his hands on a book which was the talk of the whole university right now. He had heard the wealthier kids talk about it a lot, saying how it was a huge deal across the world. The boy had started collecting money by taking part in small jobs and saving the allowances given by his parents.

However, there was a problem.

An economic policy known as the cadastral survey had been introduced by their Japanese colonial rulers, dividing the entire country on the basis of land. Korean landowners soon turned to become the elites in the society while the landless people living as tenants simply lived as the sufferers of this divide and rule policy.

Now this big store was labelled Elites Only. There was no way he could get an entry inside, considering the fact that two bulky and intimidating cops stood there guarding it. To top it up, there was no other place where this book could be found.

His expression dejected as he stared at the shop from a distance for a while. He was losing hope slowly as he saw how no one dared to roam around that place. Maybe, he was just unfortunate.

"Wanna go in there?"

The boy was startled, letting out a small gasp when he heard the deep and husky voice of a complete stranger who stood next to him. He turned to him to have a look and was finally assured to have witnessed a person and not a ghost.

His looks were surprising; in the best way possible. He was slightly taller than him and in all honesty, possessed the most gorgeous smile ever. Such a pretty face, beautiful eyes, soft looking lips and the black curly hair. He looked so classy and elegant for this world, definitely an elite.

"You seem...lost?" He asked yet again, snapping the actually lost boy out of his thoughts.

"Uh, I'm sorry. I was just surprised." He uttered embarrassingly, an awkward smile forming onto his lips as he looked around, avoiding the stranger's gaze.

"You wanna go in there but you're not a landlord, right?"

He snapped his head towards the unknown boy who seemed to be confident in his claim. Any word to express his astonishment or surprise would be less.