Namjoon
17 December YEAR 21
The people waiting for the bus rubbed their hands together in the cold. I looked down at the dirt, clutching the strap of my bag. I was trying to not make eye contact with anyone. It was a countryside village where only two buses stopped per day. From a distance, I saw the first bus approaching.
I boarded the bus behind everyone else. I didn’t look back. When I was passionate about something, when I barely had something in my grasp, when I had nothing left but things to escape- I had conditions. I wasn’t to look back. The moment I looked back the efforts I’d made until now became little more than seafoam. Looking back, that was a kind of suspicion, a kind of lingering attachment, and a kind of fear. Only when I had overcome these things could I finally escape.
The bus started off. I had no plans. I had nothing I was passionate about, nothing in my group, no particular reason to escape. It was closer to thoughtlessly running away from my mother’s tired face, my wandering sibling, my father’s illness. Starting with the situation in our house that grew more difficult with every passing day, from my family, who enforced sacrifice and tranquility, and from me who pretended to know nothing and restrained myself from trying to adjust and grow resigned. But most of all it was closer to running from poverty.
If anyone asked if it’s a crime to be poor, everyone would say it’s not. But is that really the truth? Poverty gnaws on so many things. Things that were precious become meaningless. You give up things you can’t give up. You grow suspicious and fearful and resigned.
The bus would arrive at a familiar stop in a few hours. When I left from that place a year ago I had left no message behind. And now I was returning with no sign or warning. I tried to recall my friend’s faces. I had cut off contact with all of them. What were they all doing these days? Would they be glad to see me? Would we be able to get together and laugh the way we had back then? There was frost on the windows and I couldn’t see the scenery outside. On top of the frost, I slowly moved my finger.
“I have to survive.”
Hoseok
4 July YEAR 22
I stood in the hallway the whole time she was receiving first aid. Even though it was night, the hospital hallway was bustling with people. Moisture dripped from my hair, wet with sweat and rain. I dropped the bag I had taken off of her. A variety of things tumbled out of it. A few coins rolled away, and a ball pen and a towel. In the middle of it all was an airplane e-ticket. I picked it up and scanned it.
At that moment, the doctor called me. He said it was a mild concussion and nothing to worry about, and after a moment, she came out as well. “Are you okay?” She said that her head just hurt a little, and she took her bag from me. Then she spotted the e-ticket peeking out, and looked up at my face. I shifted my bag to my other shoulder and said that we should go, pretending that it was nothing. As we left the hospital it was raining as hard as ever. We stood side by side outside the door.
“Hoseok-ah” she said. It looked like she had something to say. “Wait a second. I’ll get an umbrella.” I ran off thoughtlessly into the rain. There was a convenience store in the distance. I knew that she had auditioned for an overseas dance team some time ago. The plane ticket meant that she had made it. I didn’t want to hear her say it. I didn’t have the confidence to congratulate her.
Hoseok
23 July YEAR 10
When I counted to three, I heard the sound of laughter like a hallucination. The next moment the young me passed by holding someone’s hand. I looked back quickly, but there was no one there except my classmates staring at me. “Hoseok-ah,” the teacher called my name. Only then did I realize where I was. It was a class field trip. I was counting the fruits that were drawn in the textbook. Five. Six. I kept counting, but as I did my voice trembled and my hands grew sweaty. The memory of that time kept surfacing.
