♡ A story about learning to love, learning to hurt, learning to 𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘥 ― and most importantly, learning to be human. ♡
𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐃 4x
Marino Hills, California in the mid-2000s is hypersensitive to the idea of change. It clings desperately t...
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THE SUMMER OF 2006 Chris' House Party
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Life, for Jisung, is similar to being confined within the steel bars of a prison.
He's a bird in a cage. His wings have been cruelly clipped eons ago, rendering him incapable of flying and soaring through the boundless skies.
He can do nothing but stare at the endless abyss that is the empty expanse of his future. Graduate high-school, go to college, take on the fruitful wealths of the family business, marry a woman. The only freedom he has is his thoughts, but even then they are tainted by the constant reminder of the fact that he is a mere puppet.
Escape is futile — the door is locked — the windows are barricaded up thick. Impenetrable.
Until now.
Perhaps it's the teenage hormones that are influencing this reckless behavior, but Jisung would prefer to call it "becoming a man".
Or, at least, that's what Felix Lee (his best friend of all time) calls it.
It starts on a typical, average night: a Wednesday night sat in the middle of an average Calfiornian summer vacation.
Felix Lee — spitfire in human form — somehow managed to drag Jisung from his "Rapunzel's Tower" of a home on Aurelia Drive. They'd slipped out the window, running on nothing but half a bag of Sour Patch Kids and pure adrenaline.
"It'll only be for an hour or two," Felix had assured him. "Good 'ol Daddy Han won't even know you're out."
The words had eased Jisung into the idea. The graspable prospect of freedom that was right there was so appealing that it was impossible for him to decline.
Now, the two are confined in the bathroom of Pepper's Pie Shop, run by Felix's mom, Pepper.
Pepper's is a hole-in-the-wall type of joint, tucked away in the back alleys of a sketchy neighborhood.
The bathroom's not the cleanest, similar to how the store isn't the cleanest, but Jisung's gotten used to the odd stench and walls in need of a new paint job. The walls are tinged yellow with age, the tile chipping away with age. It smells of cheap air freshener and the occasional waft of freshly cooked pizza. It's no concern that there are more cracks in the linoleum dining floors than the concrete outside. It's just how this side of town is.
A few times when they were little, Jisung and Felix had sat on the cracked tiles of the floor, giggling and joking with one another. It's always when the diner's closed, the chairs propped up on the tables and the lights turned off.
