If there was one thing that was misunderstood about you by people that you had the ability to clarify, what would that thing be? How would you explain or defend yourself in an effort to not be misunderstood?
Well, I’d like to clear the air regarding my relationship with my parents. It has come to light that I’ve had many issues with my parents, and many people both personally and in past honesty hours that people seem to have it in their minds that I have come to hate or resent my parents, and that really isn’t the case. I love my parents, I do. And to explain this, I’d really just tell them the truth. My parents, when I was younger, did not have any focus on me whatsoever. They had a child, irresponsibly, and didn’t have the time to take care of me. They were always working, but never once did I hate my parents. Even when I ran away, I never once hated them. Yes, sure I was upset about what they did to me, but I never hated them. And to defend myself, I’d tell them what I have just told you.
(And in other news, my relationship with my parents has gotten better - more specifically with my dad. My mother has made no move to contact me at all since I left, and I know I have hurt her quite a bit.)
iii. measure the hope of a moment and everything else will be measured against it.
The usual sickness fills him as he finishes a Skype call with Dongjin. He hates that he has to pretend to be okay, has to pretend there isn't anything wrong, has to pretend that he's moved on from his beautiful, beautiful boy. But that's all this is: a game of pretend and he hates it. It makes him angrysadangry that he has to lie to Dongjin, but he knows he'd prefer this anger to the sad alternative reality.
And then comes the day that his dad tries to reach out to him. It is terrifyingly awkward, they are standing in the middle of a shopping complex, but his dad is civil, and it makes Changjo feel surprisingly fond when his dad asks him which flowers his mother would enjoy more. He smiles, a mix of sad and that same fondness clear as day, and tells him lilies.
His dad doesn't ask him where he was staying, doesn't beg him to come home, and he appreciates that. He doesn't deserve the civility his dad is giving him, and it makes him feel sick again. But when his dad asks if he'd like to meet up again some time, to talk some more, he answers with a tiny nod before proceeding to go home to the dance studio and stare at the mirrors in silence.
Then, he stumbles along a 'coming out' video. And he cries. He never considered the idea of coming out. But he knew that he couldn't keep living like this. He couldn't keep torturing himself, telling himself that he was wrong. This was something far away from his spectrum. He thinks to himself about whether or not he wants to tell someone.
But he can't.
But then one day: he watches as a kid at his school is shoved into a locker because he was 'gay' and a 'homo' and a 'fag', and Changjo hides in the dance studio and cries from shock.
But as the days pass, and he sees this occur over and over again. Sees that poor kid be shoved into a locker, go through what the nurse supposedly diagnosed as depression. Apparently, he was suicidal.
Changjo knows he needs to do something.
His fears were manifested in that one kid, and he knows that he must help this kid when he hears the shit people are saying: "Oh, people just want to die because it makes them look attractive!" And Changjo knows he must put an end to it.
So he confronts the bullies, mid-torture of the kid who looks at him with surprise. He tells them to leave him alone, and it works. Surprisingly. The bullies just glare and walk away. And relief fills him as the bullies don't come back. The kid thanks him. But Changjo just shakes his head, smiling a tiny bit, and says a "thank you" of his own.
Because he knows now that he must face his own fears.
He decides he can't keep hiding.
He decides to tell someone. And he knows he wants to tell his dad. But the pure thought of it frightens him, paralyzes him. He calls up Min noona and - of course - she comes over to the dance studio, and the words spill from his lips about how he's gay, how he loves his best friend, how he wanted to tell his dad, everything.
And Min noona helps him, tells him everything is going to be okay, and that is when he gathers up the courage.
He calls his dad afterwards.
Tells him that he's sorry it's late.
Asks him if he can come over.
His dad agrees. So he guesses that's how he ends up here.
In his old house, staring at his dad in silence. They're sitting next to each other on the couch, and that's when Changjo speaks.
He starts with how he met Dongjin, how - at first - Dongjin was just this freshman who just so happened to be in so many of his classes. Then, how Dongjin joined the dance team, and then how they became best friends. He speaks of Dongjin with a sad nostalgia.Tears already fill his eyes as he laughs softly, telling his dad about how curious Dongjin always was -- is; how Dongjin would go and pull on his shirt sleeve and ask random questions, how he'd answer them no matter how bizarre it was. His dad just sits and smiles gently, motioning to go on. It's unfamiliar but nice, as he continues telling his dad about Dongjin. It's halfway when he's describing Dongjin's eyes that his dad looks at him with a look that makes him close his mouth, makes his throat constrict. But he knows he can't stop now. So he continues. His dad is looking at him indifferently now, seriously, as he tells him how Dongjin had to leave, left to Mongolia. It is here, he knows that he should tell his dad about how he's in love with Dongjin.
But the words won't get out, and he feels a sort of physical locking in his throat. He can feel himself about to go through another panic attack, and his heart is thumping, and he can hear his blood pulsing.
So Changjo forces himself to speak, "I..." and then the words just flow out of him like a coursing river, "I'm in love with Dongjin." Then, he repeats it, louder, tears stinging at his eyes.
His dad doesn't say anything, just kind of bulges his eyes out. But Changjo can see the understanding on his face. Changjo can see the knowing look, and then a boulder feels like it's lifted off his shoulder because Changjo is hit by the realization. His father knew. All this time. All this fucking time...
His dad knew that he was... gay.
He exhales shakily as his dad reaches over and hugs him. He's numb up until he feels the tears betraying him, until he feels the tears falling. He cries into his dad's shoulder. Quietly, as he pulls away, Changjo mumbles, "Dad, do you still love me?"
His dad just smiles a bit, and it shocks Changjo to see tears in his father's own eyes, before nodding, "Of course."
It's only afterwards, when his dad has driven him back to the dance studio that he feels...
Okay.
Because Changjo had fallen in love with hurt.
He let himself be in an abusive relationship with his insecurities and the vicious thoughts of his mind.
But it only took the .7 seconds after seeing the acceptance on his father's face to think, oh.
And in the cold silence of the dance studio, he smiles a bit and says to himself, his voice a soft echo in the empty room:
He figures he should be used to people leaving by now.
Specifically, people he cares about.
--
Alternatively titled, why do I even bother with making friends? an autobiography by Choi Jonghyun, a story about people leaving tracks in his heart.
He thinks of how when he first met Dongjin, he never expected to be this strung up about him.
But now Dongjin is all he thinks about at night and during the day and
He doesn't love Dongjin.
**SIMPLE FACT**
That's a lie.
*****
--
The two became fast friends through the dance team, and - really - that should have been expected.
Changjo doesn't think for one second that he'll fall in love with Dongjin. But it happens. If Changjo freaks out and calls Yerim noona to the dance studio at three in the morning to freak out to her, well... If a tree falls in the forest, and no one was around to hear it fall, did it really fall?
It's only after the denial, after the freak out, after the realization, when he really looks at Dongjin. He isn't the same afterwards. Changjo noticing thinks like, did Dongjin's hair always shine like that from the artificial lamp light? and did Dongjin's laugh always sound that harmonic?
--
Alternatively titled, things never really go his way.
--
When Dongjin tells him the bad news, he knows for a fact that life hates him, that fate is messing with him.
He doesn't hide his tears as he cries into the younger's shoulder.
He should have expected it really, nobody stays.
And unknown to Dongjin, Changjo has been preparing his heart for the younger leaving him. He just clung to the hope that maybe he'd stay.
The first time they talked of leaving went like this:
**FLASHBACK**
"What if I left?"
What?
Changjo looks at him shocked.
"Hypothetically, of course," the younger adds, smiling, but it doesn't reassure Changjo at all.
Changjo swallows the lump in his throat and just quietly kisses the younger's forehead.
"I'd chase you down to the ends of the earth."
*********
--
Alternatively titled, fate is a bitch.
--
So he thinks that's why it's gone to this. With Dongjin at the airport on the plane to study abroad, and Changjo isn't going to stop him because Dongjin was so happy to get this opportunity.
But the footprints Dongjin left on his heart hurts, pulses, aches.
He feels Dongjin leaving, slipping away like the way people fall asleep - various ways.
--
It won't be forever, he knows. But his heart still feels as if a box is closing in on it so it's not like he can really process that thought properly.
They still Skype, call, text, video-chat,
but it isn't the same.
**FACT**
Changjo tries to build up the courage to confess, properly.
Every time.
Never works.
He wounds the courage from straw to gold in the day and unravels it at night.
*******
--
But you were never good enough for Dongjin, he reminds himself. You were always inferior. Then he feels disgust all over again, but thist time at himself, for even thinking for a second that he was worthy of him.
Because Shin Dongjin always was, and always would be, too good for Choi Jonghyun.
That night he doesn't stop dancing, not until he collapses.
--
Changjo throws himself in dancing.
No surprise really.
He becomes more and more distant.
He dances and dances, the movements in repetition. He doesn't stop even when his body cries out from exhaustion, when it's two am and he's so delusional that he starts making jokes to himself (turning around, expecting Dongjin to be there [... and Dongjin is never there.]).
The dance team think it's just a coping mechanism, think that dancing is Changjo's way out. Changjo danced nonstop when his parents and him fought, and he's back to old habits. And they're right. Partially, though, because that's not it.
Dancing is all he has now because dancing was what brought them together, brought two unlikely people together. Now Dongjin's gone, and Changjo is clinging on the hope that dancing will bring Dongjin back to him once more.
--
He steers clear of his friends, of the people who care about him.
He ignores the concerned looks Taec hyung and Yoona noona give him. He doesn't want pity.
He wants Dongjin back.
--
Alternatively titled, bitterness is a disease -- take care you don't catch it.
--
As Dongjin and he video-chat, Changjo fakes his smiles (so accustomed to it that it's almost second nature) and assures he's okay. After the chat, he disproves that when he cries to himself in the silence of the dance studio.
--
It goes like this:
Once upon a time, Changjo was happy but not anymore.
As an idol, you'll be asked to appear on variety shows, some of which may question you about your home life and relationship with your parents. How do you plan to handle situations like those given your current situation? Lie to keep up a certain kind of image or be brutally honest?
{` freezes, unsettled.}
… I would handle it calmly. I would try to glaze over the heavier details. I wouldn’t even go near my childhood. That’s private and personal, and no one needs to know what it was like to grow up in my home. As for recent events, that’s fair game. As for me running away, I can’t stop information from that like spreading. It’s all I can do to conceal it from my friends already. And still, it’s not like I’m doing a particularly good job of it.
{` sighs.}
I would try to do both. But in the end, being honest… Well, being honest really is the best policy. The truth hurts, the truth makes people wish they heard lies instead. And to be honest, I wish I could lie about my childhood. But I respect that as an idol, my privacy will be invaded. I can’t do anything else but be honest. What kind of image would be kept up when talking about running away from home and never being taken care of by my parents? How can you fake a story like that? How can you fabricate it into a fairytale? Short story is: you can’t. Honesty is really the only way out.
Before we discuss that, I think we should talk about something a little more important. What defines a ‘monster’?
{` pauses before continuing.} The term ‘monster’ sounds almost subjective. Something that one person defines as being a monster is different that what another person defines as being a monster.
But that’s a question to go in depth with at a different time.
So… {` sits there thinking for a few moments. then, he speaks.} Created.
Granted, sometimes people are born into situations that mold them into the monsters they eventually become, but most times - I believe that they are created. People aren’t born evil. Sometimes they just have evil thrust upon them. Other times, their hard lives form them into who they eventually develop into. Monsters are forged, are manufactured, with the painful reality that is life and fate. Most people don’t have a choice in how they become monsters.
{` backtracks.} But then again… Aren’t we all monsters?
Deep inside of us, we always have ugly sides of ourselves that we wish no one to see. Implanted darkness that we were born with, that we had placed into us. Only left to ferment and grow with time. So really…
It depends. I think. We have evilness shoved into us prior of life. But it’s up to us - as people, as humans - to try and decide our own fate. It’s up to us to decide whether or not we act on our vileness.
What are your thoughts on trainees breaking the rules of dating in their contracts? Would you ever consider doing that if you had someone you loved?
{` taps chin.} My thoughts are… breaking the rules are never good. If the person you are in a relationship in loves you enough, then they’ll respect that you want to pursue your career. Besides, after trainee life, most companies allow tentative dating as an idol. That, and either way: trainees must undergo agreements to keep relationships confidential at all times. {` sighs but smiles slightly.} I mean, there are ways to keep the relationship (I assume) without breaking the rules? I guess everything should just be dealt with delicacy.
As for if I would ever consider doing this… Well, that’s not my place to say, honestly. I’m not in that situation, so I can’t even think about doing that. I would assume that (the way things are going now) I would work something out somehow with the person I love. Somehow.
