Yoojun did not wake up.
For the first week he stayed on the bed. The old man did what Yoojun had been doing all those days. Every time he saw Yoojun he furrowed his eyebrows.
He would cook food, he had no idea how they tasted, but he made them. He kept it beside Yoojun who was sleeping.
The old man knew Yoojun was sleeping. But he wondered if he was in denial.
But Yoojun was warm, yet he was frozen. Yoojun drank water, but never an ounce of food. He was always laying on the floor. Cramped into himself.
The old man would pat his back. Soft and slow assurance he hoped Yoojun felt.
But Yoojun felt like he was under water. Like that one time he fell into the pool and everyone laughed.
Back then he didn't know how to swim.
He never knew anything.
He did not know anything.
He does not know anything.
Everyone said his father adored him, then why was his caress always cold. Why was he always disappointed in Yoojun?
But everyone said he was overreacting.
He does not know anything.
But everyone said his mother loved him the most, even if she used to scream every time she saw him.
But he must have done something wrong, right?
He knew nothing, after all.
Everyone said his sister hated him. She would not talk to him. That he was not worth being loved. Ok standing next to her.
But even if she had long left him, she came back running, her body wet and she huffed as she hugged him.
She was someone who loved him.
Stupid fool.
What do leftover sandwiches have to do with love? What secret candies taste like love? Your sister hated you—never forget that.
And so he believed she did.
Even though she tried to be there, she could have never even liked him, forget love.
But what about his chickens who came around asking for food? His cows who moo-ed everytime he walked by them? Or Katsudon, his pig? Miu, his pretty dog.
They loved him.
He knew that.
Because then not a soul told him otherwise.
He remembers their loving faces waiting for him to come back—more than his sister's.
He missed them.
He missed his farm.
He missed the wheat he harvested with the old men in the village, he did not know their names or faces, but he knew they liked him.
No one had told him otherwise.
If they did, he would probably believe them.
He doesn't know anything. Nothing at all.
Another story he remembers would be the rainy day, the day he saw a girl. Hair as black as the mahogany trees. Her eyes were darker than the ever expanding universe.
She stood in the rain, letting it swallow her. When she saw me staring at her. She pointed to the tree.there was a little kitten stuck there.
He had wondered why kittens often got stuck. He walked over and gave the girl his coat and umbrella.
He climbed the tree with great difficulty, mind you. He was a scrawny student before he became a muscle growing farmer.
He climbed and climbed—the cat jumped down in surprise.
It had ran away. Leaving him stuck on the trees.
The girl laughed.
She laughed so much she cried.
She used to give him cafeteria snacks every time she saw him. Sometimes snacks that were not even available at school.
All from her skipping school.
She took him once. Then never again because he lectured her the whole time.
The person that talked to him the most, in that school for rich people who were thriving.
She had a lot of friends, a naturally popular kid. But she always came to him. But he knew she did not love him. Not like how lovers did at least.
But she loved him like he was her family. Because while she barely listened to him—she was the only person who thought, though that he did know.
Know enough.
That day, or rather night—Park Yoojun had cried. He had cried for hours, and hours, refusing to get out of the room. A shelter he had created for himself
No not because she told him, but because there was blood on his shirt from her stupid ventures. For the first time in all her journey's—she had not come back.
And when she did her hands had deep, deep slits. The shirt was still with him. The only lasting token of remembrance. Of remembering his first friend. Of how she walked away, just to be never seen again. Her hands lead a bloody path.
It was not his lack of closure that disturbed him, it was hers. She should have been alive, breathing, instead of him. When he thinks of her he thinks of his uselessness.
But even when she was gone, it was her memory that gave him solace. She had once told him she would build a farm.
He remembered how she had asked him to come with him. When he had asked why he should come.
She simply said—"I think you'd look much better on a farm!" She laughed.
And he built it in her stead. He rebelled and ran away. He hid that. Because as brave as she was, he realized that she was the biggest coward.
So as scared as he was, he could be brave.
These memories drowned him.
His best friend. His sister. His parents.
His farm, oh how he missed it. How terribly dear it was to him. But now it was gone, for however long he had no idea.
He wanted to go to his farm.
He was lingering over affections that died a decade ago. He woke up. The weight of feelings was a little lighter.
It had been enough days that his death lingered. He woke up.
But the price to solitude is that you get used to it.
When you don't do anything, you keep on doing nothing.
She had told him that once, his precious friend.
Maybe back then it was her way of asking for help.
As Yoojun sat down. Somehow, his legs did not give out in a moment.
He sat down on the ground. He looked at the food the old man had kept beside him.
He took a mouthful of rice. The chewy texture with no flavor was swallowed easily.
But it made him feel sick. The dark room made him feel sick.
His blanket, his body and his life—he was sick of it all.
He slowly stood up. Barely not falling. He opened the sliding door. An effortless action that took all his strength.
The bright sunlight hit him. It blinded him for a minute.
"You woke up son?" The old man asked, he was sweating from the sun's glare. And from the larger than life hoe he was holding.
"No, I'm sleeping right now." Yoojun looked around the garden, the tomatoes were glowing. The rest were buds, he assumed.
"..."
"What are you doing?" Yoojun's legs touched the land for the first time in days.
"Building my farm!" The old man answered, "Because life is longer than mourning."
"I doubt you have much life." Yoojun looked at the tomato.
"I don't but you do," the old man held his ear tightly.
"So as long as you live here, grow this farm."
"Why?"
"Why?"
"Because I think you'd look much better on a farm!" the old man laughed.
Yoojun's eyes glistened.
It was not like he knew nothing at all.
He knew all about farming.
And that was not nothing at all.