About Taejoon – Ep.03: Dreamcatcher
Other Episodes: 01 02
Word Count: 2.6K+
i.
It’s September, and university classes are starting up again. At the back of his mind, he knows he is supposed to be a part of those young adults getting ready to head back to school, but it still knocks the wind out of him when his former roommate sends him text messages on a warm afternoon.
okay fine i wish u were here tae sucks not being able to come home to your ugly mug on the daily esp since classes suck too jfc hope you’ve been well since the last time we talked over pizza i’m treating the next time we meet up though -- u promised!!!
He doesn’t reply right away, instead choosing to throw his phone at the edge of his bed. Then, he’s lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling of this room he’s sharing with three other boys, and he’s not sure whether he’s happy or sad that he’s made arguably little progress towards his dream of going back to school again.
ii.
He remembers the first time he brings it up with his parents so vividly, he wonders if the words had somehow managed to brand themselves into his consciousness.
It’s a chilly November evening, and Taejoon is outside his dorm to take his weekly phone call with his parents. It isn’t as if he’s failing all of his classes; far from it, in fact, as he’s in the top 5% of his class and major. However, his ambition is wavering, and he wonders if it wouldn’t be all right to take a chance with a hobby he loves and believes in.
It’s a chilly November evening, but the weather doesn’t even compare to the cold tone of his father’s voice across the line. “Don’t be ridiculous. Your mother and I never thought you were all that great at art anyway.”
iii.
When Taejoon was in middle school, back in New York, his entire grade went on a field trip to the American Museum of Natural History. There was one exhibition titled, Totems to Turquoise, that he had found especially fascinating. There was something about seeing art and jewelry infused with history that caught his attention more than any of the other exhibitions they had seen.
He was so enamored by both his field trip and that exhibit that he stopped by the museum gift shop, eager to find a representative souvenir to take home. His parents gave him a weekly allowance to use for groceries and other necessities, but he reasoned it would be okay to buy just the smallest souvenir for himself. If all else failed, he could conveniently forget to cook his portion of dinners for the week when preparing food for his family.
In the corner of the brightly lit store, there were small dreamcatchers hanging for display. There were various shades of red, purple, blue -- in the end, he picked a black dreamcatcher that had a few vibrantly colored beads and even more vibrant feathers. When he hung it on his bedpost that night, one of his sisters asked, “What’s that?”
“It’s a dreamcatcher.”
“So it catches dreams? That’s pretty cool. I’ve always had trouble remembering my dreams sometimes.”
“It’s not as simple as its namesake, I’m afraid.” He laughed, ruffling the younger’s hair just as her twin sister also walked into the room, curiosity evident on her features. “A dreamcatcher is actually meant to act as a filter of sorts. It’s meant to catch all impending bad dreams, so that you end up only having good dreams at night.”
“Wow, not fair! Nightmares are scary. I want a dreamcatcher too, oppa.”
Staring at the object of their conversation with eyes full of mirth, Taejoon turned back around to give both his sisters a peck on their foreheads. “We can share, okay?”
iv.
Art, for Kang Taejoon, was a welcome escape from the hustle and bustle of being the eldest sibling of not three, but five. Two younger brothers become a welcome addition to his family after the family’s move from New York to Daegu. Honestly, he would pluck the stars right out of the night sky and give them to his four younger siblings if he were physically able to; he loved them with all of his heart and made sure to show them through hugs and tickles every day (to the two older girls’ dismay).
But still, sometimes, he needed his alone time; drawing became something he did more and more often once he started high school. He even took the art electives offered there and joined the art club after a teacher’s insistence.
In his second year of high school, he won a competition that was held between secondary schools all throughout Daegu. The decision was announced via snail mail, and he kept that red envelope folded in his back pocket until his parents returned home from their work shifts.
The first thing his mother did when she returned home was sigh in frustration. “Is it someone’s birthday? Did we forget, Taejoon-ah? That’d be a first. We’ve never forgotten a birthday.”
“Wait, what?” Taejoon shook his head left and right, furiously, before helping his mother hang up her winter coat.
His father grunted before handing over his jacket as well, which Taejoon took without question. “Then why does it smell like baked goods? You never bake unless there’s a special occasion.”
Beaming, Taejoon reached into the back pocket of his jeans and handed over the red envelope. “It is a special occasion. Look.” Expectantly, he rocked on the balls of his feet while waiting for praise.
Instead, his father muttered something under his breath before handing the envelope and its letter to his mother. “You have more than cookies waiting for us, right?”
“O-Of course,” Taejoon stammered out, watching as his dad stalked off to the kitchen. He was confused, but he wasn’t insensitive; he had prepared seven portions of dinner as per usual, saving two for his parents to heat up whenever they returned home. “I-It’s in the fridge --”
“Well, good job in winning this art contest, Taejoon-ah,” his mother interrupted. There was a tired smile on her face that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“So can I go to the museum where my medal’s gonna be awarded? Can I? Maybe you or dad could take the day off and come with?”
“But we can’t take time off of work for something like this. Maybe next time.” His mother looked away before returning the envelope and its contents to Taejoon, following her husband into the kitchen. “Join your school’s robotics club, or its math bowl. Something like that. Then, we’ll talk.”
Nodding slowly and wordlessly, Taejoon walked off to his room afterwards. The red envelope is crumpled in one of his fists, while the letter of announcement’s been ripped in half.
(And for a while, he cannot stand to paint with the color red. At least, not until the date of the awards ceremony has passed.
The gold medal gets mailed to his home address, but it isn’t the same. He ends up avoiding the color yellow, too, for a while.)
v.
Yonsei is a whole new world for Taejoon. He learns that pansexuality is a thing, that it’s possible to stay friends with a friends-with-benefit partner-in-crime, that his siblings can survive without him calling to check up on them every night... And that there are some students who are determined to follow their dreams, even if their majors confirm nothing more than an unstable future.
“Why,” he asks a senior in the art club. She has long hair that cascades down her back, and it makes him want to paint her like the sirens of lore. “Like, no offense, but really. Why? Why would you risk your future like that?”
She’s one of the few visual arts majors on campus, with a fondness for photography, and she’s already done a few shoots for famous online shopping malls. He supposes she might not be the right person to talk to about unstable futures, because she does seem to have a high chance of making it in the future. “I don’t see it as a risk, really,” she begins quietly. “Besides, it’s my life. Shouldn’t I have a say in how it should be lived? For better or for worse, I want to be able to say I’m the one who’s responsible for my actions.”
“Oh, so, like... YOLO, or whatever.”
“Please don’t say that ever again.” She rolls her eyes before a sly smile crosses her lips. “I’d prefer to think of it as living without regrets, okay? Geez.”
“Okay, okay.”
“And I don’t want to be called a bad role model, but really, Tae. You’ve got talent. If you’re concerned about making it in the art industry, I’d say you’re one of the few in the club who’s got a decent chance.”
“Thanks,” he smiles weakly at his upperclassman. “Appreciate the compliment.”
“Just don’t tell the others.”
vi.
But of course, it’s not that easy to walk away from the heavy expectations of your parents.
After the first phone call, Taejoon stops going to art club for a month, and the seasons change. Winter break comes sooner than expected, and he goes home with a heavy heart sans art supplies by his side. His siblings are surprised when he shows up with charcoal-free hands and paint-free clothes; his parents, however, simply nod their approval before bombarding him with questions about university life.
The rest of winter break isn’t particularly memorable, and -- looking back on it -- he wonders if it was because he couldn’t keep a visual record of it all through his art.
vii.
The second time he brings it up is when he’s just returned to university for its spring semester. After more than a month without a sketchbook by his side, all he needed to do was touch a piece of charcoal, and his fingers were running across numbers he knew by heart.
“Dad, please. It’s not as if all artists are starving and homeless. Can’t you let me make my own decisions and my own mistakes?”
“I said this before, and I’ll say it again. Your mother and I never thought you were all that talented when it came to art anyway. We weren’t even entirely supportive of you picking it up as a hobby, but we turned a blind eye to it since you did so much as the eldest son.”
“Dad --”
“You’re great at school. You have the potential to be a great, great lawyer. Just... Just ‘art’ on the side. Make money to support your hobbies. Don’t turn your hobbies into your work.”
viii.
He knew others may call him ungrateful, but it wasn’t as if Taejoon completely disregarded where his parents came from. He knew that they had his best interests at heart, and who was he to fault someone for good intentions?
But he has also seen how weary his parents are when they come home from jobs that they neither like nor dislike, jobs that keep them overtime for little to no extra pay.
But he has also always been a dreamer, a boy with his head permanently fixed to a cloud in the heavens above. And -- despite his parents’ criticisms -- he thinks maybe he could have a chance, and he’d like to grab that chance before it disappears forever.
(He starts going through the motions to transfer to Sungkyunkwan University within a week of the phone call.)
ix.
Spring semester ends in late June, and Taejoon returns to Daegu with a letter of acceptance to Sungkyunkwan’s arts program in his back pocket.
Spring semester ends in late June, and Taejoon returns to Daegu only to be welcomed by a slap to the face by his father.
“How could you,” his father begins. His face is red, and it’s a red Taejoon never, never wants to see expressed on any of his canvases.
(It has, unfortunately, been seared into his memory regardless.)
“How could you go behind our backs and do this? Despite all we’ve told you? All we’ve done for you?”
His mother had made a sound -- a shriek, a yelp -- when the slap had happened. Otherwise, she had stayed at the kitchen table with her face resting in her palms. However, it is when Taejoon opens his mouth to try and explain himself that his mother finally says a sentence. They’re no words of comfort, only an ultimatum.
“If you want to become an artist so badly, then you are no longer a son of this household.”
He isn’t sure what possesses him, but whatever it is possesses him to choose a choice even he knows may be a very, very wrong one. That is, he turns down a hallway and enters his room with gritted teeth and clenched fists.
It’s while he’s throwing things into his Adidas duffel bag, a sort of haze having settled around him, that he notices the glint of the beads on his dreamcatcher. That dreamcatcher that he had bought so long ago and left behind in this home full of people against his dreams. Just the name of the item made him throw his head back, a wry laugh escaping his throat as he walked closer to the item. “Dreamcatcher,” he murmured, pulling it off the hook in the wall and holding it up against the window. The sun had almost completely set, and he stared at the darkening sky through the threads of the dreamcatcher. With a sigh, he tossed the object into a trash can before glancing back out the window. Stars now decorated the night sky, and he pressed his hand against the glass as if he could touch them.
He didn’t need a childhood memento to filter his dreams anymore, not after everything that had happened. He would be the one to decide what dreams were meant to be saved, and right now? He was going to chase after his dream of becoming an artist with everything he had.
x.
Merriam-Webster defines family as:
family | noun | fam·i·ly
1) a group of individuals living under one roof and usually under one head
2) a group of persons of common ancestry
3) a group of people united by certain convictions or a common affiliation
If Taejoon had to define his own family, then they certainly fit the first two definitions. However, his blood relations were not fitting of the third, but maybe the Kang family could reunite in the future.
Kang Taejoon views himself as an optimist, a male who wouldn’t only call a glass half-full but also vow that it was half-full as a result of sharing his glass with another. So why wouldn’t he hope for the best? Maybe, once he was able to raise enough for himself to return to school, and once he was able to graduate from Sungkyunkwan... Maybe, once he managed to solidify a decent source of income post-graduation, and once he learned enough to hold his head high...
Maybe then, he could return home to his parents in Daegu and ask for forgiveness. Hey, I’m sorry I was such an unfilial brat, but I had to try. Is that okay?
And maybe, really, things could be okay.
(Maybe even more than okay.)
xi.
i’ll let that insult slide since you so kindly admitted to missing me... all right, fine, and then we’ll call it even. ┐(￣ヘ￣)┌ also, while we’re eating, i’ll definitely have my sketchbook along, so get ready to be my model again, dude. \\\٩(•́⌄•́๑)و///