living a lie | park jisung

11 years old

At this time Jisung still didn't know what being gay was. He heard it sometimes thrown around by upperclassmen. It was always used as an insult though. The popular guys would bully others and call them gay. Jisung always wondered what it meant but never asked. He just knew it was bad, he wouldn't want to be called it.

But one day he felt pretty left out for not knowing what it meant. So he asked a girl two grades above him. Her name was Sierra.They both were in the same after school club, along with a couple other kids. "Sierra, what does gay mean?" He asked.

"Okay first of all, it's Noona to you. And second of all, It's when a man is attracted to other men. It's sometimes used for woman but they'll mostly be called lesbians." She explained.

"So boys can like each other...or girls?" he asked confused. He never knew that was a thing. It didn't seem that weird to him though. If guys can like girls, why couldn't they like guys too? "Yep. They can like both genders too, but that's called being bisexual." Sierra said. "What are people called when they like the other gender?"

   "Straight." Sierra answered. "Are a lot of people gay? I never heard of it before." Jisung asked, confused. He'd be surprised if it's a common thing, nobody ever talked about it. "A lot more people are gay than you think."

   "But I've never met anyone who was gay." He said.

"You have, you just didn't know it." Jisung didn't understand her sentence. How would he not know? Shouldn't it be something obvious? He knew everyone was straight in his class, all the trainees at SM were. None of them ever talked about liking the same gender. But he still didn't understand why it was used as an insult, it seemed normal to him.

"Is being gay bad?" Jisung asked. He didn't get why his heart was racing, or why he felt so nervous about her answer. "No, I don't think so. Most people think it's bad in Korea. But I don't get what's so weird about liking the same gender." She said and Jisung nodded.

"What are we talking about?" Sanhee, the kid from his third grade class, interrupted. He was leaning on Sierras shoulder and she looked annoyed. Jisung let out a little laugh. "Gay people." Jisung answered. Jisung felt his heart drop as Sanhees face contorted into disgust. "Ewww! Gay people are so weird. Like how can you wanna have sex with another guy?" he said.

Sierra pushed him off her shoulder. "Gay people aren't weird. Just because you're too stupid to understand their feelings that doesn't make them weird." She said. Sanhee looked offended before putting his attention on Jisung. "Listen Sung, shes an idiot. She's probably a lesbian that's why she's so offended. Just know gay people have STDs and will try to rape little kids like us." He said pointing between him and himself.

"At least that's what my parents told me." Jisungs eyes widened and his mouth fell. He was shocked that this wasn't just Sanhee being an idiot, but his parents said this. But having STD's doesn't make somebody a bad person, and straight people had them too, Jisung thought. And just because you're gay wouldn't make you want to rape little kids. Straight people raped little kids too, but not all straight people do that, why would gay people too? Jisung frowned from being so confused, what Sanhee said was probably not true. But his parents believed it. People say adults are always right. Is this what most believe?

"Adults aren't always right Sanhee." Sierra rolled her eyes.

   He thought of that day with Jackson. When he couldn't stop staring at the guy in that porn video.

No matter how much he tried to convince himself he was grossed out by the man, he knew deep down he wasn't.

Oh god am I gay?