HOME - Taejoon

2. Turning

They couldn't hold hands because the world was strange. That is the explanation with which they consoled each other mentally, always before going out together anywhere, where the people who knew them only assumed that they were two friends living in the same apartment.

Nor could they kiss, touch, or look at each other for long; because the fucking school would punish them both. It was written in the regulations, they knew it.

The world had changed everywhere except in this city, in this country. They, undecided, knew that there were people outside making a change once a year, in that beautiful month. They admired them, for not being afraid to protest for one week a year, being able to go out and admit to an entire nation what they reserved for the interior. They wanted to be the same, but they didn't have the privilege: they were just two students, one from architecture, the other from administration. Both at a major university in the capital.

The eldest, Kim Namjoon, with a well-known reputation: the genius of his neighborhood and the pride of his father. Since childhood it was known that he was smarter than the others, and although he never managed to be the president of the classroom, he always maintained excellent grades, a facility for languages and exciting interests. In high school, he was the typical guy with many friends who didn't think much about the future beyond what was convenient for what kept him awake at night: he used to think about some parallel universe, where it wasn't the way it was; It was fascinating for him to ramble at dawn about what his life would have been like if he wasn't so interested in business, what it would be like if he wasn't Korean, or a man; and it is that these last two were the most important to him because he, a 21st century Korean man, was gay.

He was never surprised. When he was very young, it seemed strange to him that he wasn't interested in any of the girls that crushed on him, nor had he a genuine need to engage in romantic conversations with any woman. Actually, the way he realized that he was gay was quite a natural process: a crush on a professor, much older than him. He remembered him by the last name 'Woo', something weird that made him smile like crazy when he was in high school.

Woo taught chemistry, and Namjoon remembered him with the white coat and his deep features, as he was helping him clean flasks or count the tubes when it was his turn to review after some practice. He remembered his smile, somewhat square, and his scent: chamomile. Namjoon imagined hugging him many times, thinking that that was all that could be done between two men; likewise, he spent every afternoon hoping to find him in the halls, so he could say good morning to him or, hopefully, get a little of his scent.

It wasn't until the second week that he, driven by curiosity, began to search for more information about whether all this was normal. In the afternoons, when he used to go to an internet cafe to 'do homework' he would also look for articles on homosexuality and recommendations. He soon realized that everything he felt seemed to be normal, and he got excited for a chance. However, one fine day in late autumn, the news came that Woo was leaving because his wife had been offered something better near Sokcho.

Namjoon didn't stop crying for a week, and on the last day he refused to go to school to see him.

Many years later, he would look for another person to be able to be together, stuck in the need for understanding, he got to the point where his dream became to find someone more than alike: someone like the dream he once allowed himself to have with Woo. However, finding it was more difficult than he imagined: his city was not a metropolis, it was impossible to find a safe place for people like him to interact. His friends had made it clear how "disgusting" it was once jokingly commented on it, and his parents just said it was "not a topic for the dinner table."

Maybe it was a bit dramatic in being so radical, but it was that even though it hadn't been a long time, Taehyung already seemed to him the most precious thing in his life. Because Taehyung surprisingly loved him.