They said I’m reserved. I know I don’t usually speak up to people; it’s as if I’m always trying to walk the safe route.
When I was younger I believed them, thus I tried to oppress it and acted extravagantly sociable around people. But growing up I slowly began to realize it wasn’t shyness or lack of confidence that’s blocking my self-actualization… I was only quiet because I liked to be… I felt comfortable that way and it was part of my personality. There was nothing I could do about it. I often chose sitting alone with myself at school, over being surrounded by a large group of friends. Sure, they were nice, but conversations… it was always the same old song. People talk about homework, tests, sports, their hobbies… or just superficial stuff in their surroundings. And always it starts with “hey, how are you?” The way people talk with everybody just to be speaking didn’t appeal to me like the way it seemed to appeal to others. It’s like they act as If they are interested in each other’s lives, but they are not.
So… I didn’t like to talk… Maybe I really was different from everyone else.
I admit that often I didn’t have much confidence to speak up because as every teenager, I did care about what other people thought about me, though that didn’t really had anything to do with a lack of self-confidence. I just cared… because I was considerate enough to care for their feelings…
I didn’t realize back then, that I secretly wished for someone to be considerate enough to care for mine… Just someone who would, without using too many words, reveal to understand me. Somebody who’d take the time to get to know me for who I really was, and somebody who could approach me like that.
I rested my head in the snow and let out a deep sigh in frustration.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing Jimmy, I’m just tired…”
I closed my eyes and almost fell asleep laying in the snow. When suddenly a snow ball hit my face and woke me up from my little nap. I brushed the snow away to look straight into the face of a smiling Minho and quite a good looking guy I’d never seen before.
“ARE YOU MAKING SNOW FIGURES?” Minho laughed at me.
The other guy grinned inaudibly with his shoulders going up and down.
Hastily I struggled to my feet and glared at Minho without knowing what to say back from the embarrassment.
I shot a quick glance at the other guy but didn’t dare to look him in the eyes.
“Is this your poem?!” Minho let out when he picked a piece of paper out of my bag that had stuck out, in the split second I wasn’t watching him.
“Y-yah! Give it back!” I shouted hesitantly.
“Puha! I’m so going to win!” He waved with his hand and let it fly away “HAHA!” They ran.
Jerks…
I picked up my poem and wiped the few snowflakes off. I reread the lines I had written last morning and felt unhappy all of a sudden. Was it really worthless? I took a pen out of my pocket and scratched the words.
I rewrote: “Without words…”
A poem is better if it’s about yourself and your experiences, it would have a greater impact and mean so much more.
After I had written down everything, I headed my way to Seoul Solaris.
Jimmy stayed at my side all along. If it didn’t look downright weird, I would’ve wrapped an arm around him. He was my companion, my best friend, my boyfriend if I daresay. I loved him and he loved me back, but I was the only witness to that.
In fact, I was the only one who knew of his existence, because I invented him, but he was real enough for me, so most of the time I forgot where he really came from…
“Sabrina, fighting~!” Jimmy cheered me on and it made a smile break through on my face.
Quickly I found my way to the rooms backstage. Seoul Solaris was huge and there were many talented and not-so-talented artists who awaited their opportunity to make a name.
Although you’d expect for the repeated winner of the monthly Poetry Slamming Championship to be loaded with greetings upon arrival, I wasn’t greeted. Only Minho smirked at me by way of noticing my presence.
“Don’t let them get to you, on stage you’ll be acknowledged.”
“I know…” I whispered when Jimmy reminded me it was better that people left me on my own when I wasn’t performing. A value called: privacy remained untouched.
As I was repeating my poem over and over in my mind, my eyes fell upon the stranger that Minho brought along. He was a lot shorter than Minho, but somehow, in a non-physical way, he was bigger.
I didn’t know the guy had an interest in poetry slamming as well.
Driven by my curiosity I stood watching Minho’s friend from a distance. He seemed to be rehearsing a poem with Minho, but instead of putting the sheet of paper away in his own pocket, he gave it to Minho, who started reciting it after him. What was going on? Did Minho just got himself a poem?
Discretely I moved myself closer to Minho and his friend.
“Yah, Sabrina! I’m so going to defeat you!” Minho suddenly turned and addressed me.
Caught in the visor of a hunter, like a deer on the highway, that’s how I felt and I directly flashed a rather uncertain grin at him.
‘Ignore’ is the word that rang through my mind, as I decided not to react on him, hoping he would leave me alone, but there wasn’t such luck…
“Yah! You hear me? Jonghyun and I will beat you this month!” Minho said, no scratch that, he yelled it at me.
My head perked up. Jonghyun? His friend was named Jonghyun? Something in my mind told me the guy was friends with Minho thus had to be some type of jerk, but I was definitely pleased with the fact I now knew his name.
“Hi.” I was dragged out of my thought bubble by the greeting of the very same person I was just thinking about. Jonghyun had extended his hand and was expecting me to shake it. I think Minho was just as much, or even more surprised by his friend’s mannerism as I was.
Hesitantly I shook his hand, flashing him a still uncertain, but genuine smile.
“Minho didn’t properly introduce me, so I thought I’d introduce myself. I’m Kim Jonghyun.”
Who was this Kim Jonghyun?
“I’m Sabrina Kwon.” I said, trying to give Jonghyun the impression that I was, in fact, a social being that liked to be talked to.
“Well, Sabrina, good luck on your performance!” Jonghyun said and smiled as Minho pulled him away by his arm because it was probably embarrassing when your friend was talking to someone as insignificant as me.
The small conversation was nice, but I was convinced such a conversation wouldn’t occur anymore. I was sure Minho and Jonghyun would talk about me and Minho would tell him not to care about me.
“What do you think I should do, Jimmy?” I asked without using my organ of speech.
The answer came late. “Nothing, just talk to him and get to know him.” Jimmy said, without appearing in physical form.
I decided then that I should forget it, I didn’t know Jonghyun, but he was a friend of Minho… He was nice, but who knew what other side there was to him? He even wished me good luck! Good luck!! That was stage superstition number 1, which was sure to bring bad luck, if you believed in superstitions. Of course he could just be a newbie to the stage, but wasn’t this common knowledge?
When it was finally time for me to do my poetry slamming, I climbed the stairs to the stage and approached the microphone in the middle. I took it from the holder and walked a little to the right side, then the left and I halted back in the middle of the stage. Then I let my eyes wander over the people who held their breathes in anticipation of my poem. While waiting a little longer than expected, I started my poem.
“Without words…” I slowly said into the microphone and I let a silence fall, which was heavy of the public’s curiosity.
Then I proceeded with my poem about an orphanage girl who didn’t speak, ending it with the two core words. “Without words.”
A big applause reassured me I had done it right again.
When I passed the next contestant I felt a hand squeeze my arm lightly. I looked up and noticed the next contestant was Jonghyun. “You did well!” He said and then stepped on stage, before I could wish him a broken leg.
I watched from the side as he was doing his performance. He wasn’t bad for a beginner, he wasn’t bad at all. He was terribly good, as if he’d been born and brought up on stage. He captured the audience with his poses, entertained them with his pleasant speech, baffled them with his smile, but most of all, he had me enchanted with the most beautiful poem I had ever heard. And I have heard plenty, but none of them put me under a spell quite as much as his did.
Apparently the public was just as overwhelmed as I was, as they stayed quiet for a second after the performance and then they gave him the loudest standing ovation I’d ever witnessed.
“Jimmy, is he beating me, do you think?” I asked my loved one.
No answer. “Where are you?” I turned to see behind me, although I didn’t talk to Jimmy out loud, I had expected him to be around for me to see him.
Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Did you see me do well?” Jonghyun asked, glowing with pride. If it wasn’t so endearing to see him all excited about something I do every month, I would have been annoyed with him. People who ask for compliments annoy me in general.
“Yeah, you did great!” I answered, giving him the thumbs up. He grinned and I felt my heart make a back flip. What was happening to me?
Until it was time to announce the winner on stage, Jonghyun kept his arm around my shoulder as we watched the other contestants. I didn’t know whether he had just forgotten about his arm or how else this gesture was meant. I only knew I was feeling weirdly excited and it was suffocating at the same time. Unconsciously I thought of Jimmy.
“Should I say something to Jonghyun?” I asked him.
“Why are you asking me?” Jimmy answered, still non-appearing. This was new, he always gave me advice… Before I could address my surprise to him, he continued.
“Maybe it’s time for you to forget about my opinion…”
“Why?” I asked, shocked and a bit sad.
“It’s time I should leave… You need real friends, people that you can communicate with, so you don’t rely so much on my ever-present persona…” Jimmy said and I listened to him.
Deep down I knew he was right and I had been feeling a little puzzled about life lately too. It seemed like everyone knew how to handle social stuff and I didn’t. It was easier to protest against Jimmy and claim that I needed him, but I knew it wouldn’t change the path that was laid out before me and on which the first steps had already been taken. I was going to leave Jimmy behind on the round-about in my life and walk the social path in front of me…
“First place is Kim Jonghyun!” the announcement woke me up out of my thoughts. Jonghyun hugged me, making me even more dazed than I already was. Then he stepped onto the stage, received his prize and gave a little speech.
While I was watching him on stage, Minho nudged me in the side. “I told you. We’d win…”
Just as I was thinking about something to say back to him, Jonghyun approached us and put his arms around our shoulders.
The three of us walked out like that and Jonghyun lead us into the little lunchroom across Seoul Solaris. “So I won… I want to celebrate it with you two!”
I couldn’t help wondering why it sounded like Minho and I were a ‘we’ before, not that I wanted it to be like that, Jonghyun just made it sound like we were actually friends, before he tagged along.
Since it was almost Christmas, he ordered us all a large hot chocolate.
I noticed Minho was more silent than I’d ever seen him be. Normally he would just say something to tease or even bully me, but I guess his friend’s attitude silenced him. Didn’t he have nice words in his vocabulary?
“What are you going to do with Christmas?” Jonghyun asked as both Minho and I were sipping our hot chocolates in total silence.
“I’m going to Paris with my parents.” Minho answered, as if it was something they’d do every Christmas. Well, they probably did something like that every year anyway.
“Cool, you’re going to celebrate Christmas the European way?” Jonghyun asked, impressed and a little envious. I wasn’t sure the European and Korean way of celebrating Christmas were very different from each other…
“I guess…” Minho laughed, amused with Jonghyun’s enthusiasm.
“And you?” He turned to me. The jerk, Minho, was speaking to me like I was a human being, interested and kind… What was happening here? Was it Jonghyun’s presence or Minho’s character change?
“I-I’m going to my hometown to celebrate with my family.” I answered and smiled wryly at Minho, still not sure of his intention. To my surprise, he smiled genuinely and asked where my hometown was.
“Don’t tell me it’s Daegu!” Jonghyun said and pointed to me full of energy.
“It is!” I shouted enthusiastically, then I realized it was nothing like my character to shout.
“We’re closing in 5 minutes…” the owner of the lunchroom commented in passing.
When we were outside Minho said goodbye fairly quickly, but Jonghyun and I didn’t seem too eager to leave.
Hanging around each other, Jonghyun suddenly turned to me, grabbed both of my arms and gave me a small kiss on my forehead. “Then I’ll see you in Daegu… It so happens to be the place I’m staying this Christmas as well.”
Smiling I looked as Jonghyun walked away, his hands in his pockets, whistling.
Something told me this was going to be a good Christmas.
Extra credit goes to my sister for writing the first quarter of the story! =] [She wrote up to where the main character gets up to go to Seoul Solaris]
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