Bridges

There are two problems in my life. There are only two small problems, because of which all my life can be swept in the grave. The first one – I am unstable. The second one – I am in love with my best friend. And all I can say about it – nothing. Yes, exactly. I guess, I just cannot say anything. I do not think, there is any sense to begin to remember the days when we have met. I prefer to think, that the past is just the past and we do not need to mention it if we have something now. But now everything is too confusing and ugly. It is so disgusting that I just do not know where to put myself and how to hide it. I have no place to hide. My best friend and I live together in a small flat on the fourth floor of an old house. I hate this number. Jiwon wanted to live above and I did not want to argue. If only it is a place, where we can live, there is no difference. We have two rooms, small balcony, which seems to fall apart soon and bathroom, which is my favorite place. Jiwon spends lots of time in the balcony; I do it in the bathroom. It is like a little space, where we can put a barrier from everything including one another. I do not know about what Jiwon thinks when he is standing in the balcony in a thin T-shirt, which puts out all his bones. But I always think once again about this T-shirt. I think about it already a year and try to understand if I really have so much strength to do it in so… simple way? I am broken into many pieces and I am not sure someone can save me. The main problem in my life is that I do not know where I am. Actually, I am in the bathroom now, but sometimes I am lost. Although, is there anyone who is not?
“Can you go out? I'm going to wash myself.” disheveled head appears in the doorway.
“Sure.” I leave the bathroom, smile to Jiwon and when I pass by him, I feel familiar scent of cigarettes. It spreads from him like a train. I would like to soak up this smell through his touch.
“Are you here?” Jiwon snaps in front of me and grins.
“Yeah, sorry” the door slams and the roles are reversed. The main thing I want to do is to go to the balcony and breathe in cold air. Jiwon go out after twenty minutes, brushing drops of water from wet hair. Some of them fall down on his back and chest and I want to look away. However, it is too hard. Jiwon has broad shoulders and strong arms. His wet skin is lighting and finally I have enough strength not to touch it.
“Have you gone a gym again?” it is my favorite excuse in response to questioning glance from under the wet bangs.
“Why do you think so?”
“Well… your muscles are just overly tensed. Therefore, I thought that you worked out or did something indecent in the bathroom.”
Jiwon is almost choking me with the towel by which he has just wiped his head. It is wet and smells his shampoo. And I hate to think about it every time. Maybe it would be better, if he finally strangle me. In this case, I have never explain anything to anyone. However, in reality, my only one hope is that the balcony fall apart when I am there. Somehow, it seems to me that nothing like this will happen. I am a loser.
“Where will you sleep today? Not in the bathroom I hope” Jiwon has already put on one of his impossible stretched T-shirts with a significant OBEY red on black and try to turn a harmless question into a jest. Nevertheless, in fact, every attempt to turn all of it into another joke makes me feel like something is dying inside of me. I even can hear the sound of it. It sounds like a body falls from some of the fourth floor. And of course Jiwon shouldn’t know about it.
“You know that it’s difficult for me to answer this question” I try not to look at his rib that is rising above from the deep armhole of shirt and curse the manner of Jiwon to wear things like this one.
“That’s why I don’t understand what the problem is if you sleep for a while in my room. I don’t bite.” Yes, he does not, but my confusion can mess to too much wrong things. “In the end, I will come to you, seriously. We are always argue about it and then you ...” Jiwon pauses and I know that he is biting his tongue. “And then what?” Perhaps, he wanted to say “and then I start to make strange things, thinking that I’m still asleep”. There is a thin wall between my dreams and reality. If you can imagine, that a dream is a pool full of water and the reality is the fresh air, when you go out of the water, I can describe it in one way – I have no air. My dream spreads and sinks the entire flat. It draws another, absolutely identical life. There is the same tea in the kitchen and the same reflection in the mirror. I wake up in the dream and confuse everything. I lose myself and the only thing I am really afraid of is never find the way out and stay there. I am afraid to realize that the reality, where I touch Jiwon’s wet hair, is fake. I am afraid to stay there where I can never find the exit. Moreover, my problem is not just realistic dreams. Sometimes reality and dreams are mixed up and everything goes vice versa. I wake up, like in a dream, but actually it is the place where I exist. Confusing? But I’m really scared. I am afraid to sleep.
“Hanbin, if it has started again why do you hold a circus? I still have to shake you out of there… or shake in, if you want.” I still cannot understand why this man keeps pull me out this tangle of different lives.
“Thank you for this, but I’ll not sleep in your room.” It is so ironic. If I really wake up and think it is a dream, the end can be such a bad end. Can it be more dramatic? Only the devil knows. All the same, it would be better if the balcony falls apart with me. Then I have never think about where I find myself next morning and about Kim’s T-shirts. Let’s go back to that, yes, I’m a loser.
Today is one of the days of November, or maybe December. It was said in the morning weather forecast, but I was looking at Jiwon, who pulled on skinny jeans, actually mine, and at the same time held a sandwich in the teeth. Interestingly, does he suspect that, even if he is just pulling on jeans, it looks like there is a shooting of advertisement for something like Calvin Klein? Even if he chewing this sandwich. Probably no, because he puts on a gray T-shirt puts his feet in sneakers and hides bare hands into warm jacket. It seems to be from Calvin Klein. I am chewing my breakfast, watching Jiwon makes some mess on his hair getting his hands there. Likely, in a minute, he will smell cigarettes.
“Are you going to go anywhere today?” he asks when he is almost outside the door.
“Nope.”
“I’ll be late. Don’t lose me.” Such a great advice. I would better try not to lose myself. Thousands thoughts, stretching from that stupid association with advertising this popular brand, start to break into my mind. Jiwon, leather sofa and skinny jeans. Brand underwear and his unzip pants. Skin is glistening because of sweat and the only one thing that comes into my mind is go on it with my tongue. Jiwon would put his head back to substitute me his neck. Bangs would sweep on his wet forehead and his lips would parted in a silent exhale. Or maybe it is better just imagine how he would pass his hand over his torso and down… What the hell? I’ve tried to stop thinking about too obscene pictures but that was not that easy. Why can’t I just stop on the thought that I am mad about this person without mixing my feels with all the dirty mess? It looks like there is no another way. Because of Kim Jiwon. All of him is the reason of cramps and willies. If I were him, I would have noticed that something was wrong and broke up with the boy-sleepwalker who loved to wake up in his best friend’s bed. It is funny to think that I mix realities by myself just because I want to weave our feet again and feel the warmth. It is the only way, in which there will be no problems at the morning. Jiwon understands. And it would be better if he doesn’t. He came back lately and thoughts about where he was is some kind of my personal headache. He was tired and in a blue mood and I was trying to find an explanation of it. Jiwon sees that something is worrying me and show me his tired smile.
“These children are a catastrophe. Looks like I’m going to lose my feet if there’re groups like this one.” It means that today Jiwon taught a group of children. Now I can see why this morning he took a simple T-shirt but not the low one. Even Jiwon understands that dancing with children when you are seminude is a bit overmuch.
“They did everything but didn’t dance again?” I laugh at him remembering that time when Jiwon took me to look at the class. There were about ten children, everyone with sloppy but small jeans, bagged T-shirts and too cool sneakers for their ages. And they liked to run after Kim sunseng-nim much more than repeat some difficult movements.
“Today there was a play ‘clime-up-to-Kim-Jiwon’”. My back is broken I guess.” Jiwon almost falls onto the chair near by the dinner table and lays his head down his arms.
“Do you want to eat? I’ve bought some Chinese food.”
“Food…” Jiwon funnily croaks and corrugates the nose. I want to rumble his hair but everything I can afford is just clap on the shoulder. If I clean up all this beastliness, which has begun because of sex drive, I fell in love with Jiwon at that evening at that class. All children, without exceptions, were influenced by something like holy powers and went crazy. Jiwon was too kind and let the children to ride on his back. Children squalled aloud, seized him by the arms, and rumbled his hair. I looked at them and thought that children might do much more than the best friend might. Jiwon smiled too genuinely and laughed, but I set down and understood that that was it – the precipice. That was the beginning of the end and idiocy. There were children around Jiwon and Jiwon with children. And I do not know why in thunder just then. Maybe it was than just because I understood that this man could take care about someone. His smile could be genuine but not chivied.
“What about coming back to the Earth?” Jiwon is chewing noodle while pokes me with the chopstick.
“Let’s play on where I’ll wake up tomorrow?” I laugh and clean a piece of sous at his cheek. Actually there was nothing. Jiwon is angry and I laugh harder. I clean empty boxes with noodle and think that actually there is nothing funny. Once I woke up in the balcony when one of my feet where thrown over the barrier. Truthfully, Jiwon woke me up. He caught me and pulled me back. We fell down in the warm flat. I felt warmth from Jiwon and his heart beating. It is one of small details, which I remember except his hard breath near to my neck and his fingers clinging to my shirt. I would like to believe that people held others that way only if they did not want to let them go. I would like to believe but I remembered that I was just lost.
“Well, I’m going to sleep.” There are the most frightful words I have to hear from day to day. Especially now. I turn all the lights off, hide under the wrap and sigh hardly. I feel shaking under my slats, near by the diaphragm, like a chute-the-chute. It is very frightful to close my eyes. What if no one catch and drag me up? What if Jiwon doesn’t wake up?
I have a dream. I walk around dark passes of my town. I see dirty corners of houses, which look like they are coming apart. I see old graffiti on the walls and feel smoke in the air. I skulk in collar of my jacket and keep silent like if I am afraid of someone to see me. I see an old car ahead me and there is a movement nearby it. Someone is dragged out the car and lugged into a pass between two houses. I go a bit slower and try to hear something but there is nothing. In the moment, I can see a girl and a knife in her chest. I hear an awful sound of tearing up body and see sticky warm blood. I try not to breathe and go away quicker but the last thing I see is that man, who killed the girl, is turning back and…. It was me. I feel blood on my hands and feel a knife, which is still warm. It turns round in my side and I breathe in hoarsely. I am flat out to catch air with my mouth. Everything around me is mudded with the red slime and I fall on my knees, smudging asphalt with this slime. I cough and see a new blot of blood in front of me. Everything is running in my eyes and pain makes me feel my body like it does not exist. I see my own steps but at the same time, I feel my death. I scream, my voice is broken because it is too painful. Then I hear the voice, which rips space around me into pieces. I hear, but I cannot understand from where it is.
“DAMN, HANBIN, WAKE UP!” Someone jogs me and I squint when white light screams. I feel that arms around me are slimy and sticky because of my own blood. My side pains and I can see nothing around me. Spat and head pain and the only one thing, which looks like the real one, is Jiwon’s voice.
“Shit, don’t shake me so hard” I whine tiredly and want to cuddle because I still feel the knife in my side.
“NO, I SAID WAKE UP!” Jiwon catches my neck and tries to catch my look. Nothing comes out.
“Jiwon, I’m here, I’ve woken. Stop tighten me up so hard, it’s painful.” Feeling of wet and bloody sheet goes away and I can see my room. Jiwon seats in front of me and his face is dark. I guess everything is not very good.
“Finally, I’m not in the balcony, don’t worry.”
“You scream like you’re going to die, you’re an idiot. It looks like I cut you into the pieces.”
“It’s not the first time. I’m sure I call for you, isn’t it?” the only way I have is to joke. Jiwon should not know that I wanted to see him one more time before I died. I feel Jiwon’s tension. He seats nearby me, on my bed. He is so close and his eyes are so scared. Only now, I understand that all this time I hold his T-shirt in my hands. I feel guilt and look away. I unhand his shirt but he continues to hold me and does not back off.
“God, why do I care about you?” Jiwon breathe out tiredly but I do not hear rebuke in his words. Actually he compassions me again. He moves me away and falls down the next pillow. His hands are not on my shoulders and I feel emptiness.
“Why are you so adverse? Why do not you sleep with me for several nights? We spent a half of our childhood on a small sofa with a cat, game box and a plate with cookies ahead. I just cannot understand you.” I would like to tell ‘sorry, Jiwon, but if I have to lay with you to sleep in this reality it doesn’t means that everything ends as harmless as you imagine’, but I just try to show disinterest and fatigue and turn to the wall. We lay about ten minutes. I regard the wall, which is ahead, and Jiwon looks at the ceiling.
“Should I stay?” he asks carefully. He understands that it looks a bit foolish when he talks it aloud.
“If you want. I don’t think that I’ll fall asleep again.” He gets up and go away in silent. Maybe he does it because he knows that no one of us can sleep today. Next morning I see dark circles under my eyes. Jiwon is already gathering for practice and deciding which sneakers to wear.
“Wear yellow ones” I say and put them under Jiwon’s feet.
“Why?” he is surprised but put feet into shoes.
“I don’t know. There’re not so many bright colors in our life, I want them to be at least in your shoes.”
“What are you talking about….”Jiwon haws, putting keys into his pockets. “Please, try not to sleep. I will come not too lately. The main thing, if you feel that you fall asleep close all windows and doors and write me. Ok?”
“Go away,” I laugh, pumping him out the door, “Nothing will happen.”

Notes