Chapter Text
Palm Springs, 1983.
The California desert offered no respite, pushing a dry and relentless heat against the walls of the room. That heat managed to seep even through the cracks of the half-closed shutters, cutting the air thick with fine dust into long strips of golden and blinding light, which settled like luminous ribbons on the furniture and the floor. In that suspended microcosm, the record player was the only engine of time: the needle scratched the grooves of the vinyl with precision, releasing the notes of Every Breath You Take by The Police. Sting’s voice, low and almost obsessive, spread through the room like an electric heartbeat, marking the lazy rhythm of that motionless afternoon with a hypnotic cadence.
The smell in the room was an unmistakable mixture of those years: the chemical and sweetish aroma of freshly sprayed hairspray blended with the pungent scent of printed paper and the ink of Marvel comics, which lay scattered on the carpet in a colorful mess of heroes and space battles.
Euijoo was lying down, motionless, with his gaze lost beyond the ABBA poster hanging on the wall. They were Jo’s favorite group, his greatest obsession; he always claimed, with a sort of almost scientific fervor, that their harmonies were "perfect mathematics applied to feeling," a magic formula capable of explaining the human heart. And yet, in that moment, Euijoo’s eyes did not really see the Swedish quartet in their iconic shimmering satin outfits and plasticized cover-girl smiles.
As the music continued to spin, the outlines of the singers' faces began to blur and distort in his mind. The human silhouettes elongated, the colors darkened, and the features slowly transformed into the knotted and familiar structure of a tree. It was an image that did not belong to that room, a tree he had already seen elsewhere, in a place and time that emerged from his memories like a persistent echo.
—1973, 10 years earlier.
The kindergarten courtyard was flooded with sunlight. Euijoo, a 6 year old boy, with his white canvas shoes already marked by soil, had his neck strained and his small fingers scratching the air. Above him, the kite, a modest rhombus of orange tissue paper, looked like a wounded bird, entangled among the knotty branches of an old Brazilian pepper tree.
Euijoo wasn't crying, but his eyes, large and sweet like those of a deer, were glassy with a silent frustration. He stood on his tiptoes, his breath short from the effort, until a shadow enveloped him.
It wasn't a threatening shadow, but it carried a heavy silence with it. Without saying a word, the new boy from Taiwan, the one everyone avoided because of his intimidating appearance, stepped forward.
Nicholas. Nicholas Wang — he too, like Euijoo, was 6 years old.
He had sharp eyes, cut like precious stones that seemed to peer into anyone's secrets. With an agile leap, he climbed onto the first fork of the trunk. His hand snapped upward and, with surgical precision, freed the tissue paper from the branches without tearing it.
He landed on the ground with a dull thud and handed the object to Euijoo. For a moment, time stood still. Nicholas kept his gaze low, his shoulders rigid, accustomed to seeing the other children shrink back from his intimidating frown.
«Here.» Nicholas whispered. His voice was rough, still uncertain with English. Euijoo did not recoil. On the contrary, he took a step toward him, his fingers brushing against Nicholas's as he took the kite. A slow, purest smile spread across the little boy's face.
«Thank you. You were very good at climbing up there. I’m Euijoo.» Nicholas looked up, surprised. There was no trace of fear, only genuine gratitude. «Nicholas.» he replied firmly, and for the first time since he had arrived in California, his eyes seemed less sharp.
The friendship between the two had grown in silence, made of glances and afternoons spent exchanging stickers without talking too much. But the outside world was not as kind. Euijoo was too much. Too cute, too polite, with that soft voice and gentle ways that less open minds interpreted as weakness.
«Hey, loser! Why don't you go play with dolls instead of being here?»
A group of three older children had surrounded Euijoo near the fence. One of them gave him a shove on the shoulder, making him drop the book of fairy tales that he was holding tight in his hands.
«You look like a girl with those eyes. You're just one of those...a faggot, that's what you are.»
Euijoo shrank, his cheeks burning with shame. He didn't even fully understand the weight of those words, but he felt their poison. He was about to lean down to pick up the book when a body stepped between him and the bullies. It was Nicholas. He said nothing, but his posture had changed. His eyes had become dark, threatening slits, his body tense like a spring ready to snap. He didn't need to strike; he radiated an aura so icy and protective that the leader of the group took a step back, swallowing hard.
«Leave him alone.» Nicholas said, in a voice that allowed no reply. «Now.» The bullies muttered something, but they left quickly, intimidated by that silent fury. Nicholas turned toward Euijoo, whose expression was a mix of shock and admiration. He bent down, picked up the book, and wiped the dust off with his palm before returning it to the younger boy.
«Don't listen to them.» he said softly. «You are just...you.»
Euijoo took his hand and did not let go for the rest of the break.
«Ej? Earth to Ej! You’ve disappeared into your own world again, haven't you?» Jo’s voice, calm but tinged with a fake reproach, cut through the silence of the room like a pin popping a balloon.
Euijoo blinked several times, shaking his head to drive away the fog of memories. The kindergarten garden of 1973, the warmth of Nicholas's presence, and the smell of cut grass faded, were replaced by the familiar decor of the 16 year old's room. He found himself lying on the soft mattress of Jo's bed, his eyes still fixed on the poster of the four musicians, with an issue of X-Men in his hands that hadn't turned a page in at least ten minutes. Jo was staring at him with an indecipherable expression. The bond between them was solid, a brotherhood that asked for nothing in return, which had been born within the walls of Nellie N. Coffman Middle School.
The connection between Euijoo and Jo had been sealed with the naturalness of bonds destined to last, forging itself during that first, fateful hour of class that would mark the beginning of an indissoluble friendship. They had been the first to cross the threshold of the classroom on that morning in 1979, taking their seats at the wooden desks still shiny with wax in an almost solemn silence, typical of those who, at twelve years old, feel the electric weight of a new chapter beginning.
Maki, whose radiant nature was accompanied by an extraordinarily sharp spirit of observation, had entered the classroom immediately after the two of them. He had begun to study his new classmates with a curiosity devoid of malice. His gaze, however, had lingered insistently on a detail peeking out from between the edges of Euijoo's plaid shirt, carelessly left open: a faded print depicting the proud and rebellious faces of The Runaways. Without any hesitation, Maki had broken the ice, complimenting him on that aesthetic choice. With a warmth that seemed to dissipate the dust suspended in the sunbeams, he explained that he knew that group well thanks to the vinyls his older sister played incessantly, turning afternoons at home into sessions of pure rock.
At those words, Euijoo had flinched, seized by a sudden wave of surprise. He had responded with a whispered thank you, almost imperceptible, while instinctively trying to straighten his back in a vain attempt to hide the tension stiffening his shoulders. His fear, rooted in past experiences, was that the shirt could serve as a pretext for yet another discharge of poisonous comments; he could not have tolerated being associated once again with derogatory terms, nor being judged for those passions that represented his only, fragile refuge.
Sensing the subtle uncertainty vibrating in the air, Jo had intervened with a reassuring calmness, admitting with extreme naturalness that he included The Runaways among his daily listens. It was not entirely clear to him why he was, almost without noticing it, taking Euijoo's side. He could not trace that choice back to a precise reason, to a lucid and defined thought; yet he felt within himself a quiet but insistent push, like a calling he did not know how to evade. It seemed to him, after all, that between him and Euijoo there existed something invisible, a fragile and silent bond that, even without manifesting openly, held them together, like a thin thread that does not break.
Maki, having also realized the barely perceptible shift in Euijoo’s body language, did not let that unexpected opening slip away and took advantage of it promptly, almost instinctively, to ease the tension hanging in the air and make the atmosphere lighter and more relaxed. He had added to it with a genuine laugh, confessing that he often found himself eavesdropping behind his sister's bedroom door, inevitably ending up shaking his head to the rhythm, almost hypnotized by those roaring sounds. In that precise moment, Euijoo had felt the weight oppressing his chest vanish like mist in the sun. Realizing he was not immersed in hostility, but surrounded by a rare affinity, he had exhaled a long sigh of relief. Looking at Jo and Maki, he had seen not just two schoolmates, but the first true allies of an entire lifetime.
Within a few days, the echo of the complicity born between the three youths and their declared devotion to music finally reached Kei's ears. The latter was in a state of quiet desperation: his music club, once vibrant, now risked extinction due to a dangerously low number of members. Driven by an almost vital urgency, Kei had set out to persuade them to cross the threshold of what, in his brightest hopes, would become their favorite refuge.
Kei boasted two more years of experience than the trio; he was in his final year, following a forced repetition due to a complex relocation that had cost him an entire school cycle. Because of his father's profession, which forced him into frequent uprootings, the boy had found his only authentic home in that small room filled with dusty instruments. Within the four walls of that sonic sanctuary, Kei managed to soothe the tumult of his own thoughts; he spent entire afternoons tickling strings or striking keys, waiting with messianic patience for someone, animated by his same sacred flame, to finally walk through the door of that classroom now reduced to a ghost of the past. That trio, with their still raw energy, represented exactly the answer to his prayers. Invested with a protective aura, almost like an older brother, Kei had decided to take them under his wing from their very first meeting.
He had approached their table during the lunch hour, moving with a measured grace and displaying a gaze steeped in an ancient kindness, accompanied by a slight, hospitable smile that served as a tacit invitation. With extreme courtesy, he had offered to guide them on an exploratory tour of the school, illustrating in great detail the various afternoon clubs that every student was required, individually, to choose to attend. However, as if in a plan orchestrated with subtle mastery, among the various options, it was the music club that catalyzed the attention of the three. With a movement of thinly veiled pride, Kei had flung open the doors of his kingdom before their eyes, showing the melancholy beauty of that room and succeeding, with an eloquence steeped in passion, in convincing them to seal their enrollment.
«Bingo, you caught me.» Euijoo admitted in a playful murmur, accompanied by the sound of Jo's light laughter fading into the room.
«Do you remember the first day in the club?» Euijoo murmured, almost to himself. «How could I forget.» Jo replied. «Kei dragged us in there as if we were going to an audition for Queen.»
In that dusty classroom, suspended in time and soaked in the stagnant smell of old wood, metal strings, and forgotten paper, there stood rows of out-of-tune pianos, rickety chairs, and guitar cases leaning carelessly against the peeling walls.
It was there that Euijoo looked up, and in that moment his heart had leaped into his throat with an unexpected violence. Sitting apart, almost merging with the shadow of the corner where he was located, was Nicholas. In his arms he held an electric guitar, its polished surface weakly reflecting the slanted light, while his fingers brushed its body with a familiarity as if it were a natural extension of himself. His face, however, had not lost that sharp and slightly intimidating expression that Euijoo remembered, the same one that already eight years earlier seemed capable of silencing the air around him.
Nicholas had been the first one "recruited" by Kei, the first spark gathered in his stubborn and almost desperate search for kindred souls, ready to be ignited and reunited under a single, fragile creative energy. He was no longer the kindergarten child, the one who moved with uncertain steps between games and silences, but a boy with a silent and magnetic charm, still growing up but already capable of occupying the space with a precise, almost inevitable presence.
His image contrasted with Euijoo’s in a sharp, yet complementary way. The faces of The Runaways almost seemed to move with him, mirroring the darker and more aggressive graphics of Black Sabbath printed on the slightly wrinkled fabric of Nicholas’s shirt, as if it were well-worn and carried the traces of his days. From his neck hung a metal necklace, at the end of which swung a guitar pick turned into a pendant, clinking softly with every minimal movement, helping to define an aesthetic that appeared both spontaneous and consciously provocative.
Despite everything, Euijoo had recognized him instantly. He was the same silent presence that, years before, had protected him without fanfare from bullies, the discreet and reliable shadow, the boy with the orange kite who had etched an indelible memory into his mind.
But it was Nicholas who moved first. While Euijoo remained motionless on the threshold, as if suspended between hesitation and surprise, Nicholas had calmly placed the guitar down beside him. His eyes looked up, lighting up in a flash of immediate recognition, and for a moment his expression softened. He gave a hint of a half-smile, barely perceptible but heavy with meaning, one of those that seemed to belong only to a shared bond and to no one else.
«It took you long enough to find me, Euijoo.»
«Why’d you ask? You seem really nostalgic.» Jo resumed, gently bringing him back to the concreteness of the present. He accompanied the words with a barely hinted smile, one of those complicit and quiet expressions capable of creeping into the soul without making the slightest noise. Euijoo distractedly ran a hand through his hair, a gesture both spontaneous and treacherous; it seemed almost as if he intended to tidy not so much his disheveled locks, as the turmoil of thoughts that had crowded his mind in that moment of vulnerability. He still felt, like a distant but tenacious echo, a memory with indistinct outlines that continued to elude him, yet exerted a magnetic fascination over him, a strange sensation.
«It’s nothing important, Jo. But I have to admit that I kinda miss those days.» he finally began, letting a smile veiled by a shade of melancholy appear on his lips. His eyes, however, betrayed much more than his voice was willing to concede: they were already projected elsewhere, lost among the faded slides of a simpler time. An era in which everything seemed to possess sharp outlines, devoid of questions, when they were only twelve year olds unaware of the complications that growing up would bring with it.
Jo looked up slightly from the album he was leafing through, appearing amused and incredulous at the same time.
«You talk about it as if we’re dead. We’re all still here, you know?» he chuckled, with his innate lightness, as he returned to immersing himself in his reading. His tone was steeped in irony, but not devoid of a certain affectionate firmness, as if he wanted to act as an anchor for his friend. Then, almost inadvertently, he lowered the volume of his voice, letting the words slide into a barely perceptible whisper, like a private thought that had escaped the control of reason:
«I miss them too, though.»
The silence that followed was neither sudden nor abrupt; it stretched between them with a disarming naturalness, like a familiar presence that needs no introduction. His ears yielded once again to the enveloping notes of Every Breath You Take, which spread through the room with a hypnotic cadence, cradling the suspended rhythm of that shared moment.
Since you've gone, I've been lost without a trace
I dream at night, I can only see your face
I look around, but it's you I can't replace
I feel so cold, and I long for your embrace
Barely a few seconds passed, but in the perception of both, time seemed to dilate, assuming the slow and rarefied consistency of minutes. There was no trace of embarrassment, nor of unease: on the contrary, that silence possessed an intimate and almost protective quality, as if it were acting as a guardian for something unsaid.
It was Euijoo who broke the spell, moving with extreme caution. His fingers toyed distractedly with the corner of the comic book he held in his hands, folding and straightening it in a ritual and repetitive gesture that betrayed an inner restlessness.
«Jo, I was reflecting…on what it would be like to have a truly special person by your side. Someone who is able to see you for who you really are, you understand, right?»
«You know…someone who is capable of reading your soul, even when you try to hide it.»
Jo slowly placed the volume on his knees, a deliberate movement that seemed to mark the transition to a conversation of an entirely different gravity. He lifted his gaze again toward the figure of his friend, lingering on his smaller silhouette. He observed him with a quiet intensity, a fixedness devoid of judgment but charged with a disarming sweetness. In that look resided a silent security, a warmth that made Euijoo feel suddenly exposed, yet simultaneously protected in a way he would not have known how to articulate in words.
«Euijoo.» Jo began, chasing the invisible thread of the other’s thoughts with a naturalness that made his speech even more incisive.
«Love isn’t something you have to chase. When your ideal person crosses your path, you’ll know. It will be like suddenly recognizing a song you didn’t even know you knew by heart. You’ll feel an internal 'click,' and all the noise around you will silence instantly.»
He allowed himself a brief pause, not out of uncertainty, but as if he wanted to let those words find their space, to settle with the right weight. Then he added, with an inflection that vibrated with an unexpected depth.
«In fact, I’ll tell you more… you might even have met them already. One can never know what life has in store for us.»
Euijoo remained motionless, as if struck by his sudden intuition. Those words resonated within him with an almost painful clarity, as if Jo had touched an exact spot in his heart that he himself had not yet had the courage to name.
«Do you really mean it?» he murmured, with a slight tremor in his voice, as if he feared the weight of the answer.
«Certainly.» Jo replied in a whisper, allowing himself one last moment of suspense before smiling again. «But for now, settle for me. We have some comics to finish.» he added finally, earning a soft laugh that slipped from Euijoo's lips.
From that moment, the two allowed themselves the rare privilege of abandoning themselves completely to the experience of reading, concentrating every fiber of their being on the illustrated book they held with care in their hands.
The pages, rich with vibrant colors and dynamic lines, unfolded before Euijoo’s eyes like windows onto another universe, in which the figures of the superheroes, imposing and tragic, managed to drag him into the narrative with an irresistible force. The flow of time, in that almost unreal suspension, ceased to have relevance, letting the minutes slip by undisturbed, like silent water along a riverbed.
The boy’s expressions changed imperceptibly, revealing, without the need for words, the whirlwind of emotions stirring in his soul. Surprise and wonder alternated on his face with a disarming naturalness. His favorite character, Cyclops, had just left the X-Men, and the narrative delved into a moment of profound solitude for the hero. The volume described with intensity Scott Summers’ retreat into the remote lands of Alaska, painting a picture charged with emotional tension. That narrative choice seemed to pour into the room itself, insinuating a suspended pause, a dense silence, almost palpable.
In the meantime, the final notes of the song that shortly before filled the environment had by now dissolved into the air for a few minutes. The tension, subtle but persistent, seemed to be the only element capable of filling that sudden void, creeping between the two boys and wrapping them in a stillness charged with anticipation.
Just as Jo was about to turn toward Euijoo, probably ready to break that silence with one of his usual comments, light and spontaneous, an unexpected sound interrupted that fragile balance: the light knocking of a pair of knuckles against the wooden surface of the door. It was not a brusque blow, but rather a delicate touch, almost hesitant, yet sufficient to bring them both back to reality.
The door creaked open discreetly, and Toshiko, Jo’s mother, timidly peeked through it, appearing in the space with a natural grace. Her smile, sweet and reassuring, was the same one that characterized her son’s face, as if it had been handed down along with something deeper and invisible. The light from the hallway outlined her petite figure, while one hand rested lightly on the doorframe, as if not wanting to disturb more than necessary.
«Kids...am I interrupting?» she asked sweetly, with that kind of tone that only a mother could use.
Jo responded with a simple gesture of his head, shaking it just slightly in denial, while his smile widened in a spontaneous expression of affection.
With a fluid movement devoid of haste, he put down the comic book, as if he did not want to abruptly break the bond with the story he had just experienced.
Euijoo imitated him almost unconsciously, closing his own volume and leaving it beside him, while he lifted his gaze toward the figure of the woman. His eyes settled on her with a respectful curiosity, observing her delicate features and composed posture, catching in that instant a sensation of quiet familiarity.
«I just wanted to let you know that the others are waiting for you in the living room, I let them in just a while ago.»
After uttering those words, Toshiko withdrew with the same discretion with which she had appeared, leaving the door ajar behind her.
At that point, the two boys exchanged a knowing look, charged with tacit understanding, and with an almost solemn gesture, they placed the comics back on the desk, as if they were temporarily taking leave of a parallel world that had just welcomed them.
«We will definitely find the time to finish this volume, don't worry.» Jo said in a reassuring tone, catching without difficulty the hesitation in Euijoo's gaze as he set the object down. It was evident how much he desired to continue reading, driven by a vivid and pulsing curiosity to discover the developments of Cyclops's story.
But, as much as Euijoo knew how to recognize and even appreciate his friend's attempt at reassurance, the comic was not at the center of his thoughts at all in that moment. It was as if an extraneous and silent force had taken possession of his body, guiding its movements with an autonomous and irresistible will.
A sort of indefinable call was pushing him toward the lower floor, or, more precisely, toward the presence of someone who, without the need for words, seemed to exert an inevitable attraction over him.