ɦ օ օ ժ ҽ ժ ★ 김태형 ✔

【２】

I see him everywhere after that.

And I never see people. Ever. Not when my eyes are transfixed on the shins of strangers, focusing on the direction their toes point towards to ensure a swift pass-by without any accidental brushing or bumping. I am good at that - looking down.

But something told me to look up.

So I do.

And there he is, hunched over a cup of ramyeon, slurping it up expertly while his hood swallowed his head so all you see is a faceless black hole with noodles dangling from the bottom.

There he is again, walking to class in swaggering strides, hands in his pockets, nodding along to his music. Sometimes he mouths the lyrics, acts out the lyrics. And I am sure, from where I stand, I can hear the lyrics.

항상(hangsang=always) alone, but he sang aloud.

He does not shrink away from the world as I do. He fully occupies it, a booming presence that you cannot help but acknowledge, and wonder about.

I wonder what he thinks about.

Despite his dark clothes and mysterious demeanour, he seems so bright.

I wonder why he's like that.

He is so comfortable by himself, or at least it seems that way. He hums, he whistles, he skips. I saw him approach a couple of guys, so eager and almost naive, but they soon walked away after exchanging a few words.

I wonder if he's lonely.

Now I see him on the bus, tucked into the back corner, no trace of positivity, no trace of the humming, hyperactive boy who smiled for no reason, his face changing like a season.

It's as if someone flicks a switch, and his real self is revealed.

I wonder who he is.

★

He's in my media class.

I didn't notice him at first. How could I, when I enter every room like I am a ghost. Blink, and you might miss me. Breathe, and you won't hear me.

I can't hear anything but the blood swooshing through my veins as I stare at him, sitting on the adjacent table, hoodie obscuring everything but that choppy caramel brow fringe that hangs over his eyes.

I realize that I am sitting alone on this table, while everyone else is crowded together, five or six per table, automatic friendship groups forming to exclude me. It always ends up this way.

Suddenly the room vibrates with chatter. I inspect my hands, wondering if I should bother to join another table or if I could get away with not introducing myself to anyone for this entire semester when I feel the table shake beneath me.

"Hey, Hoodie, are you ignoring me?"

I didn't realize someone was talking to me, or at least trying to, for my hands are that interesting. But the voice is deep and dark, like timbre, or some kind of wood, but also thick and humid, like a forest...?

"Hellooo! I'm talking to youuu," I feel a tug at my hood, and I immediately react, reflexes kicking in with super sharp speed as I slap the invader's hand away. How dare he touch my -

Suddenly, with a sweep, cold air envelopes my head and I gasp as I am exposed. I turn to glare at my perpetrator, but the glare is replaced with shock.

It's him.

He must've glided over to join me in my blatant solitude, bursting through the bubble that I so deliberately fabricated.

He grins, large dark eyes folding into crescents as his lips stretch into a rectangular shape around his teeth. He's adorable.

"That's better. Now I can see you!"

I then notice that his hood is also down, and it takes a moment for me to get used to seeing his full head of hair, clearly dyed a caramel brown colour with dark root growth already evident. His hair is like a shaggy mop on his perfectly round head, and it occurs to me in that moment that he looks like a puppy.

You look like a puppy. I imagine myself blurting this out, and I let out an involuntary giggle. The puppy boy smiles harder, also giggling with me, a goofy kind of giggle that you wouldn't expect.

"So, what's your name? I'm Kim Taehyung," he giggles out, resting his head in his palms, elbows on the table as he blinks those large almond shaped eyes at me.

"I am Do Ah-Ri, but I go by Aria here," I reply quietly, my gaze faltering as I look down. How can he just stare at me so openly like that? I feel exposed enough without my hood up.

"Aria?" Taehyung repeats it to himself, as if confiding with his inner voice. "So we are friends now?"

"What?"

Tae grins at my startled expression. "Friends. 친구야 (chingu-ya). Because I can call you Ari-Yah, like we're friends," he finishes the sentence with a bouncy eyebrow raise.

It then occurs to me that he is Korean. Like me.

"Oh," I laugh, almost in relief. "You are Korean too," I say in Korean.

His eyes light up. "I knew it as soon as I saw you. I can spot my people anywhere," he replies proudly in Korean.

As the teacher seizes control of the class once again, we fall quiet, and my heartbeat quickens as I think.

He's Korean. That means you're not the only Korean person you know anymore, other than your own family.

Perhaps I am just incredibly antisocial, but I never once in my whole entire schooling here in Melbourne came across a Korean. I don't know why it's so rare to encounter one, but all my East Asian friends were predominantly Vietnamese or Chinese, and maybe one Japanese girl, but she was only half.

All this time.

It took fourteen years of education to finally find my people.

I sneak glances at him throughout the teacher's speech, taking in the high slope of his nose, the shape of his lips, the creases under his eyes. Of course he is Korean.

But...

The dark, anxious thoughts weave a constricting web through my gut, injecting dark, poisonous, thoughts as I realize what this all means, to find someone like me.

So we are friends now.

His words echo in the hollow hall between my ears and I gulp, retreating back into my hood, my warm safe hood that shields me from the world. An invasive, prying world full of invasive, prying people that want to get to know me, expect things from me, do things for me, things I cannot reciprocate because I'm afraid to commit, afraid all my efforts will be for nothing, afraid that I will regret exposing myself too much...

But this boy has already exposed me. And I was afraid that he was going to do more than just that.

    【★】    

They finally met! 😄

I live in Australia, so I wanted to write about a place that's familiar to me, without stripping away their culture, which I will be referencing plenty throughout the story! I like the idea of them being from the same country and culture so they have something in common, other than their love for hoodies 😆

I hope you're enjoying the story so far, I promise it gets more interesting!