In Case of Fire, Burn This First

Drowning and Drowning

Kyungsoo exited the village, carrying an umbrella and wearing a black windbreaker over his PE shirt. He stretched his arm out, and a jeepney stopped for him in the pale downpour. He closed his umbrella and climbed in the back of the vehicle.

Last night, he dreamed about their house. It was a marble monstrosity designed by his dad. Kyungsoo remembered various things about it: the garden, with its manicured lawn and orchard of persimmon trees; the gesso on the canvases drying in his dad's vaporous studio; his dad's voice reverberating throughout the house's spacious rooms like a pebble down a canyon.

Kyungsoo said a Filipino phrase to pass his payment to the driver. He noticed the other passengers glancing at him curiously due to his accent. He tried to get used to it.

The view outside was a drunken watercolor, blocked by the clear vinyl roller shades. He sat up straight and held on to the metal railing attached to the jeep's ceiling. There were no seatbelts, and he had to rely on it and his core stability whenever the jeep made the sudden stops that made the passengers topple like felled trees into one another.

After travailing the winding ways of the campus, the jeep reached Kyungsoo's destination. He pulled on the long string fitted on the ceiling, which signalled the driver that one wanted to disembark. Kyungsoo hopped off, opened his umbrella, and walked the rock-strewn way to the gymnasium.

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After going through a repetitive and grueling tap dance routine, he rode a jeepney again for his English 13 class in CAL. The ride took a long time, and the jeepney was packed with passengers, thighs pushing against thighs. Kyungsoo didn't like how his personal space was disregarded so rashly, but he would stick out obnoxiously if he kept his distance. The person beside him kept coughing into his handkerchief. Some of the other passengers had colds, and their shoulders were adjacent to healthy people. It was unbearable and Kyungsoo couldn't wait to get away from it.

He soon got off and went down the wet, uneven steps that led to the building, which was built in a downhill drainage area and almost concealed by the surrounding trees. The sky over him was a blurry pipe dream.

His classroom was on the second floor. When he opened the door, a bunch of his classmates were already loitering about. Jongin was seated in the far corner of the room, eyes obscured by a black cap with a pierced visor. His elaborately-patterned Gucci jersey was mercilessly hacked apart by a pair of shears. He was listening to music on his headphones and sketching in his Moleskine journal. Kyungsoo took a seat beside him.

"Good morning, Kyungsoo-hyung," Jongin said. He lowered his headphones to the base of his neck. "Did you read the assigned articles?"

"Yeah." Kyungsoo unzipped his bag and brought out his printouts of the articles for rereading.

"No offense," Jongin began. Kyungsoo knew at once that "no offense" was almost always said right before extremely offensive declarations. "Even if you're too good to us, I didn't expect you to go as far as letting Baekhyun-hyung live with you. He wrecked your plate and sort of power-tripped you by being our life drawing subject. He also threw up on you, so..."

Kyungsoo drummed his fingers on the wooden armchair table. "So you think I'm a pushover?" He was also beginning to think that that's the case, so he wouldn't put it past Jongin to assume that of him.

Jongin shook his head. "What you did was honorable. I mean, the circumstances of your meetings were far from ideal." Kyungsoo couldn't guess why being easy pickings was praiseworthy to Jongin.

"I don't know why he's still there. Him vomiting on me should've been the last straw," Kyungsoo said.

"This sounds weird but his interaction with everyone is sort of fraught with sexual tension. He's quite charming, don't you think? It's almost criminal," Jongin said, without a hint of irony in his perfectly modulated voice.