𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐓𝐨 𝐌𝐲 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 || 𝐉𝐢𝐇𝐲𝐮𝐜𝐤

1

November 2014

“There shouldn’t be any delay on the release. We are coming out next month right on schedule.” Mark explains. They are in a meeting for an hour now, discussing the details of his debut book. There’s nothing big to discuss, really, as he is a newbie and this book is just something he wants to tick off his bucket list before he, perhaps, die. He isn’t even sure if there’s gonna be a next one after this.

“Are you listening, Donghyuck?” His agent calls his attention. Donghyuck likes Mark but the latter isn’t that nice when it comes to working. He had learned it the hard way during the submission of his first draft.

They’ve been friends for a while. They met in college, in a club gathering for all department paper presidents in the university. Mark was from the Creative Writing department and was head of the committee while Donghyuck was from the Department of Medicine. Ten years later, they still kept in touch. It was also Mark who had convinced Donghyuck to try writing a book.

Donghyuck nods, pretending that he is listing down the things Mark has discussed with him. It has been a habit he had developed to not get on the bad side of his friend, especially at crunch times like this. There was a time during the submission of his first draft when Mark unleashed the hidden bitch in him. Donghyuck was still not whole-heartedly into writing his first book at that time and he knew he wouldn’t be able to turn in a decent work exactly on the given schedule. Mark had stormed into his apartment after three days of not receiving any calls or e-mails from him. There was a lot of screaming and cursing. Knowing him as a calm and soft-spoken person, Donghyuck couldn’t believe Mark was capable of saying such profanities at him without holding back. He had learned his lesson and vowed that he would abide by Mark’s long from then on.

“I am listening,” Donghyuck affirms. Even though his mind is somewhere, he understood what Mark had explained to him. It’s more about commission and circulation matters. Financial stuff mostly. Donghyuck doesn’t really care about the numbers at this point. He is just relieved that, after two excruciating years, this is all over.

Mark closes his leather planner and smiles at him. “So, I will see you in two weeks for the launch?”

“Sure,” Donghyuck says.

“Are you excited? Your fairytale is now going public.”

Donghyuck grimaces. “It’s not my fairytale.”

It’s not even a love story, to begin with. It is a mere narration of how a boy figured himself out during his 20s. Donghyuck had fought with himself if this was the kind of topic he would want to write for his first book. First, because, even though we are in modern times now, it’s a kind of theme that is still looked down upon by society. Second, his parents are still sensitive about him coming out to them a few years back. And third, he wasn’t ready to tell the story about himself that no one knew about. It’s a story that he kept to himself.

“It’s still a fairytale to me,” Mark says, a smirk on his face.

“You are the only one who thinks that.” Donghyuck counters.

“It’s about you and a boy meeting 15 years ago. It’s a fairytale!”

“Fairy Tales have happy endings.”

Mark sighs but he is still smiling. He usually becomes like this whenever they talk about this topic, how Donghyuck let go of something he shouldn’t have that summer back in 1999 during his trip to Changwon. Mark always teases him that he wouldn’t be single at 35 and jumped from one relationship to another if he wasn’t such a coward back then.

“The book isn’t a love story.” Donghyuck reiterates. It is. Both of them know it is. It is finding love at a young age, a kind of love a boy in his twenties never expects to find in another person.

Mark stands up after putting his things inside his messenger bag. He still has a lot of things to do, other writers to meet, deadlines to beat at the end of the day. Despite his busy schedule, he still looks fresh and put-together every time Donghyuck sees him.

“But we both know you wish it was,” Mark says before he walks out the door.

Donghyuck is left speechless. Fifteen years ago, he was twenty, never fallen in love, never had a concrete idea what he wanted. Never sure about his true identity. But a boy came and he suddenly changed all that. Donghyuck would never admit that to anyone until he has to write a book about himself.