An Encounter in their high school locker room changed Jimin's view, it leaves him unsettled. He is infected by troubling thoughts and dreams. Who will provide him peace now?
The apartment is sweltering. I check the thermostat. It's set to 70 degrees, but it feels more like 90 degrees here, hotter than outside.
I throw the beer into the fridge and unwrap my sandwich on the small counter separating the kitchen from the living room. I strip off my shirt, soaked with sweat from the walk. The only window in the apartment that opens is over the sink in the kitchen, and I crack it open the measly five inches that I can, hoping for some relief from the heat and fetid air.
Sitting on a stool at the counter, I chew my sandwich, slowly. It's nine PM. A wave of sadness and self-pity crashes over me.
What the fuck am I doing? I am here in this strange city, a city I should be out exploring, living in. But instead, I'm working myself ragged in a lab and rotting, alone, in this apartment. It is an odd feeling, to see my career spreading out before me, ever more defined and tangible, ever more illustrious, potentially -- my team here at the company has been impressed with me, I can tell; they've hinted strongly that they would like to hire me back next summer for a well-paid associate position, something next to unheard of for someone at my stage -- but everything else, my personal life, whatever that means, feels rotted, wasted.
I chew my sandwich, jaw moving up and down, beads of sweat trickling down my torso. It's time, Jimin.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The thought comes into my head violently, as though pounded into me from outside my skull. Despite the heat, a cold weight descends on me. I look around.
Is someone else here? There's nobody except me and my sandwich. The blond is looking at me now with half-lidded eyes, a caricature of seduction plastered on his face. He moves in to kiss me.
I feel his lips and his tongue on my mouth and I relax my jaw to let him push in. The oddness and remoteness I'm feeling about being here, in this club, is more immediate than the feeling of his sloppy wet kiss, and strangely, the fact that this is a guy, a dude, sticking his tongue in my mouth, doesn't seem to register with alarm at all. It's just... weird.
I feel his hands on me, on my chest, and I put my hands on him, too. I can feel his ribs and shoulder blades through the material of his shirt. He feels light and angular, like a bird.
A slobbery, moaning bird. I lurch over to the refrigerator to get a bottle of beer. The cool, carbonated liquid helps to subdue the uneasy feeling I have after the odd, jagged thought comes crashing into my head.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I down the entire bottle in a few long gulps, then open another to drink as I finish eating. I'm not a beer person. I'm not much of a drinker at all, honestly, at least compared with some of my buddies from school.
This summer, though, I've gotten into the bad habit of drinking beer on the weekends. It's something to do in the evening, drink some beers, and work on programming or watch DVDs. Beer is what I can get, from the deli, since the city's official liquor stores would surely card me.
I've come to appreciate the nuanced differences between Schlitz, Coor's Light, and Rolling Rock. You can't avoid me, Jimin. It's time. This time the thought comes with the sensation of a sharp pain in my temple, as though I've been struck by something right above my ear.
