Somebody To Love

Chapter 2

When Jeongguk was eleven years old, he heard the word 'queer' for the worst time.

Being sprayed around like a dirt, being thrown into little boys' eyes who got confused and blinded by the sudden abruptness of a word they'd never heard of. Suddenly, it became the biggest insult there could be.

See, Jeongguk didn't know what it meant. No, not until he was thirteen. But he knew it was something bad. He knew it was something one should be ashamed of, something one should laugh at, and something one should get beat up for being.

Jeongguk got called a faggot once. Just once, when he was thirteen.

He remembers it clear as day. He remembers sitting under a big tree and reading a book. It was called 'Darlings and Girls'. He remembers the word 'acceptance' and 'pride' in the book, and he remembers reading about the woman in the book kissing the man in the book and getting butterflies. He remembers the ending being unclear to him, because the man and woman didn't end up together, instead the woman lived with her woman best friend. He doesn't remember why that happened, but he remembers never asking.

Jeongguk remembers the book being snatched out of his hand, rough fingers imprinting the thin paper and chucking it to the side. He remembers looking up and seeing 3 boys who were all older, all on the track team, where they ran every morning for half an hour in tight shirts and shorts around the field.

Jeongguk doesn't remember exactly what happened. They punched him in the face is what he does remember. Punched him in the face and called him a faggot.

Jeongguk went home later in tears, hugging his mother tightly while she consoled him. When he told her why he got punched, the reaction was a little different.

She got mad at Jeongguk for provoking them. Grabbed him by the arm, took him to the church, and made him pray for two hours. She said if he didn't, he wouldn't get dinner. So Jeongguk did. Didn't know what he was praying for exactly, but he did.

Jeongguk likes to think of destiny as the enemy.

Something so idealized might be something Jeongguk fears of the most.

His entire life is in the palm of someone else, a higher being, he supposes. The higher being can meaninglessly card its gentle nimble fingers through his life and cause it to be burnt to ruins. That's what destiny is.

Every single thing that happens, happens for a reason.

That is terrifying.

Every action, every word spoke, every thought, every motive for an expression- all of it, it means something. Something which ties together for the grander scheme of things. Something which will come together in the long term, and goddamnit- Jeongguk doesn't want to wait for the long term. He wants those actions to piece together and have it's impact now.

Though sometimes, just sometimes, things happen which don't have any meaning. Which are just for the fulfillment of the current moment.

See, over the course of a week since he'd met Kim Taehyung, all his mind could think of was Kim Taehyung. Taehyung Taehyung Taehyung Taehyung. With his broad shoulders and soft smile, sharp yet warm eyes. It's fragments and pieces of the night they met Jeongguk remembers, and frankly, all of it feels like a dream.

Probably because Jeongguk has been dreaming about him since that night.

That probably didn't mean anything, right?

The dreams were different each time. He wonders if his subconscious has anything to do with that. Jeongguk likes that word. Subconscious. It gives him a feeling that he is not one person, but two. Two individual people conjoined to one, one trapped inside.