The Band and I // j.j.k

1.

How does it feel to be in love?

How does it feel to be cherished?

How does it feel to lay awake dreaming of someone?

How does it feel, as the melody is strumming in your chest, the love song humming on your lips?

How does it feel to fall for you at the gas station?

How does it feel to have those arms secured you more than you secure yourself from the world?

Soo Yena never knew the answers.

The Band And I. An excerpt.

Summer ended like any day in September. The creeks and birds are going to be long forgotten by Yena. The rise of the sun with the meadow on her view will be a memory until next summer. The bus wheeling as she left Yong-In. It feels like she won't come back here again every time she leaves.

It also feels like winter would suddenly come and hit the bus. It would stop their journey and she's back to the hanok of her grandmother. Soo Yena doesn't really enjoy staying there. Lines and receptions are so bad. People her age would not stay in rundown hanok. Yong-In is famous for a lot of things, but her part of Yong-In was full of elderly walking around, policing her attires, drinking cheap soju, and karaoke day on Saturday morning.

Somehow, Soo Yena still comes back.

Somehow too, Soo Yena will still leave.

The Band And I. In the same old boots.

Soo Yena loves music. She just thinks it's hard to remember who the artist is. She will come to the record shop, hearing songs for free at the trial booth, then leave with a new hum. She went to her room, opened up her notebook and wrote the lyrics she heard. Sometimes it's Elvis Presley, sometimes it's Westlife, sometimes it's Backstreet Boys, sometimes it's the Bird and the Bee. It depends on who they are playing.

Albums came late in Yong-In. It took years for them to burst western pop. It took months for them to have Mamamia at shops, recorded from a cinema in Seoul. Soo Yena hated how late they were, but she enjoyed it too.

Korean folk songs are always around this place. Soo Yena sometimes enjoyed the karaoke session with them. She will sing along, clap together with the aunt beside her who sells cakes near the only highschool here. Sometimes it will be the old man who rode his bike to deliver newspapers. Sometimes it will be grandmother Yoo with her poor orphaned grandchildren.

But it is a rare occasion to see a young man beside him, eyes deep set to Uncle Min blasting How Deep Is Your Love with broken English, but still got the rhythm right .

It was even rare to find him turning around to see Soo Yena, eyes watching intently at her before smiling softly.

"Jungkook"

"Yena"

It was the Band and I. Oh. It was shining lights, and rock 'n' roll.

Oh, Yong-In went haywire. No, not the hustle-bustle Seoul city haywire during elections, it's the whispers and whistling from elderly.

"Jungkook ah! Come and help us at the salt area!"

"Jungkook, can you help me arrange some furniture? My children is coming back for Chuseok"

"Jungkook ah, dumplings for Yongshin house"

"Jungkook, my television lost its reception, can you clean the roof for some 10 000 won?"

Soo Yena calls this a hustle-bustle in Yongin for the man named Jungkook. He never refused the villagers, he always smiled and nodded. He doesn't usually get payment, foods are always the exchange for his hard work. Karaoke session will be him for the opening and closing act. When the people from the government came to put a cable box for calls, Jungkook was there to explain to the others in a very simple manner.

No one knew who he was. No one knew where he was from. He had an accent from Busan, but it was heavily coated with Seoul too. His arms have some tattoos here and there, but he covers it well except when he is working under the hot scorching sun. Be it helping in collecting salt, Jayeom they called. It was one of the businesses here in Yong-In, most of the workers are elderly.

That may be the only work Jungkook has that pays him well. But again, even the landlord of the hanok Jungkook stays is very nice to him. Who wouldn't fall in love with a man who will stay to clean the horse and pig poops until late evening?

You see, Korea wasn't that much developed back then. Seoul for sure, but other parts were still slowly developing. Yong-In still has hanoks here and there, a few brick houses. Some mix it. It is a small town, yet there's a handsome man in it. That handsome man seems to be so nice, everyone will love for him to stay for free.

Which is also opening a part for teasing.

"Jungkook ah, do you have a girlfriend?" Aunt Yi will ask whenever they play cards every Monday night. Yena will sit beside her, massaging her sore shoulder from selling rice cake all day long.

The man shook with a polite smile before he put down his card, eyes falling to Yena who was also waiting for him.

"Yena, break up with your boyfriend already. You have Jungkook here"

"I did, ahjumma. Ten years ago. I've been single since ten years ago"

"You did? What did Youngsoo did to you?"

Aunt Yi has some sort of dementia so Yena didn't mind telling her again. Which means a new thing for Jungkook but a lame news for the others. The said Youngsoo is now a lawyer at some famous firm in Busan, while Yena keeps on going back and forth for a job in a city only for her to come back, quitting.

When the night ended, Jungkook and Yena, who had just sent off the last elder, Aunt Hu, to her house, it was when the man asked questions.

"What did you actually do for a living?"

Yena eyes went up to shining stars in Yong-In, you won't get those in Seoul.

"A lot. But I end up coming back here, helping around people here, but mostly I try writing"

"Books?"

"No, songs"

Jungkook stops in his tracks, making Yena do the same too. Their eyes met, even with the lack of lighting back to their Hanok, they both know their eyes are with each other.

"Did anyone buy your songs?"

"No, silly. I just wrote it. What I did at Seoul were some lame jobs before I got bored"

"I see, are you staying for good now?"

"I guess. My last job harassed me. So I'm not going there any sooner. How about you? You appear so suddenly at Yong-In. No one knew where you were from?"

Jungkook bit his lips. 

"I am in a band. I mean, I was"

"Was?"

"I left. I couldn't write songs anymore, so I left"