Wings Sparkling Like Jewels
While Lee Jun had been unconscious, Kwak Suho had kept vigil at his side nearly every day. Only once Jun woke did Suho finally feel easy enough in his heart to go home.
On the way back, he found himself turning over the words Jun had spoken at the hospital.
He said he's doing well, so don't worry. So you eat well too, and live a long, long life.
Whether those words had been nothing more than Jun's dream, or whether they had been something else entirely...
Whatever the truth of it, it didn't matter to Suho.
To him, they were no different from words Geumdal-i himself had spoken, back when the two of them had still been together.
Come to think of it... when did I first meet Geumdal-i?
Suho let himself drift, for a moment, into the past that was welling up, memory by memory.
As a child, Kwak Suho had loved lions.
To be more precise, he had loved Simba from The Lion King.
He had loved Simba so much that Simba's face was stamped on everything he owned — his backpack, his pencil case, even his water bottle. He had a Simba blanket, too. He would fall asleep clutching a Simba plush, pulled up under that Simba blanket, wishing that when he woke he might find himself in Africa, where Simba lived.
But every morning he woke in his own house, not Africa.
And so, at that tender age, Suho made a plan: when he grew up, he would go to Africa. He would. He would go to Africa and meet Simba, and they would become friends.
Day after day, watching the animation in which Simba appeared, Suho nurtured that dream.
Then one day his classmate Lee Jun came up to him, looking at Suho's backpack, and said:
"I saw a kid who looks just like this guy."
"Simba?"
"Yeah, he's exactly the same. He's even got that tufty little bit of fur on his forehead, just like that. And his paws are huge."
Listening to Jun, Suho thought, You punk. He only just watched the cartoon. I saw it ages ago.
It had only been about a year earlier, but to a second-grader a year was an eternity. Knowing Simba a whole year before Jun was, as far as Suho was concerned, something well worth bragging about. So he looked at Jun with the full disdain of a seasoned expert and said exactly what he was thinking.
"You brat, you only just saw it? I've known Simba for ages and ages."
"Pffft — Simba's a cartoon character. I said I saw a kid who looks like Simba. He's super fluffy and cute."
What? He'd actually seen Simba?
Suho's eyes went wide. Something began to bubble and boil inside him. No. No way. Simba's MY friend! Why are YOU touching my friend? Why are you acting all buddy-buddy with him?
It was a thoroughly strange thought, but Suho found himself hating the Jun standing in front of him all the same. It felt as though his friend had been stolen.
And yet what came tumbling out of his mouth was this:
"I... I wanna see him too..."
"Yeah? Then let's go after school."
"O-okay."
He didn't know why, but at the thought of getting to see Simba, Suho nodded. And after school he trotted after Jun, little steps hurrying to keep up.
But Suho wasn't the only one following Jun that day. A boy from the next class named Choi Woo-jin came along too — with a splendid bird of yellow and green feathers perched on his shoulder.
The place the two of them followed Jun to was Lee Seokwon Animal Hospital.
There, Suho met Jun's grandfather, the veterinarian Lee Seokwon, for the first time. And he met Simba. Or rather — not Simba, but a cat who looked exactly like him. Geumdal-i.
A round, generous face. Round eyes tilted ever so slightly upward. Ears that were round and pointed all at once. He was a yellow cat with orange stripes etched across his forehead and faint stripes along his back — but in Suho's eyes, he was Simba. And just as Jun had said, those big, padded paws were exactly like Simba's.
A few days later, Geumdal-i became part of Suho's family.
He would later learn that Geumdal-i was a cat, not Simba. But Suho loved him all the same. He wanted to show him off to his friends. He wanted them to see how handsome, how dashing, how unbearably cute Geumdal-i was.
So he started bringing him to school. And Geumdal-i got sick.
When the ailing Geumdal-i was admitted to the animal hospital, Jun's grandfather spoke to Suho. He mustn't bring Geumdal-i to school, the old veterinarian said. Cats needed to sleep a great many hours a day, and at school he couldn't sleep, so of course he would fall ill. And the other children had been petting him far too much, which had made him unwell besides.
Suho suddenly remembered that Simba — that lions, the kings of the jungle — slept a great deal. So our Geumdal-i needs to sleep a lot too.
He understood, then, what he had done wrong. Looking through the little glass door at Geumdal-i lying there, limp and spent, Suho spoke, teardrops hanging from his eyes.
"I won't bring Geumdal-i to school anymore."
From that day on, Suho never brought Geumdal-i to school again. Instead, he drew pictures and showed those off to his friends. Look how cool Geumdal-i is, he would say.
The drawing, the photography — it had all begun because Suho wanted to show Geumdal-i off to his friends. And that beginning had led, in time, to a profession.
Suho wasn't the only one who loved Geumdal-i. Jun loved him too. So did Woo-jin. And so, on Jun's grandfather's advice, they started going to Suho's house to visit him — Jun and Woo-jin both.
When Woo-jin went over, he often brought Cha-cha along, hoping the two of them might become friends. To Geumdal-i, a kitten at the peak of his curiosity, Cha-cha was the most fascinating friend imaginable. Even sitting still, Cha-cha was so handsome and so pretty that you wanted to go over and make friends — and on top of that, he moved.
Geumdal-i wanted to play with Cha-cha. Cha-cha liked playing with Geumdal-i too. The two of them tumbled and tussled and got along wonderfully.
Geumdal-i grew and grew. Cha-cha stayed small. Bit by bit, the difference in their sizes widened.
Then came a certain day. That day, as usual, the three boys had gathered at Suho's house.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
Geumdal-i hopped up onto the desk and bounced, batting lightly at the tail of Cha-cha, who was perched on the lamp. Cha-cha fluttered his wings, tapping back at Geumdal-i's front paw. Geumdal-i swatted the tail a little harder. Naturally Cha-cha's wingbeats grew stronger too, and before long Geumdal-i's face was catching those wings. The play grew rougher and rougher, until it looked for all the world like a fight.
A big cat and a little bird tangled up and tussling — if you didn't look carefully, it looked as though Cha-cha was being pinned under Geumdal-i. Woo-jin saw it and shouted.
"Geumdal-i, don't hit Cha-cha!"
In a panic, Woo-jin grabbed Geumdal-i's tail and yanked. Naturally, Geumdal-i hissed and lunged at him.
That was when Jun shouted.
"Geumdal-i! Don't!"
The claws that had been fully unsheathed, the paw that had been flying toward Woo-jin's face — they slid back in with a soft hush. And then, tap: a velvet paw batted Woo-jin's cheek.
But Suho hadn't seen that. He threw himself at Woo-jin — and Cha-cha, seeing Suho go after Woo-jin, attacked Suho.
Jun shouted again.
"Cha-cha, that'll hurt!"
Cha-cha, who had been flying at Suho, settled instead on Jun's shoulder. But by then Suho and Woo-jin were already tangled up, punching and grabbing. In the end, both boys came away wounded. Suho's lip split. Woo-jin's leg bloomed with a dark bruise.
From that day on, Geumdal-i hissed at Woo-jin the moment he laid eyes on him. Jun guessed it was because Woo-jin had gone after Suho and hurt him. To Geumdal-i, Suho was family — precious beyond measure.
Cha-cha was the same. He had a grudge against Suho, and that grudge turned toward Geumdal-i. Geumdal-i felt the same in reverse. And so the two of them fought every time they met.
It was around then that Kongdol-i joined them. Kongdol-i, who went hehe this way and hehe that way, always in a good mood, bound the two of them together. Cha-cha liked Kongdol-i. Geumdal-i liked playing with Kongdol-i too. And so, whether they liked it or not, the three of them started playing together.
One day the three boys were playing at Golmokjib when Suho said, as if something had just struck him as odd:
"You know what's weird? Our Geumdal-i really likes it here. He hated school, and he got sick there."
"That's 'cause it's Grandpa's house. It's an animal hospital."
Golmokjib was a house, not an animal hospital. But to children, it sounded perfectly reasonable.
"That so?"
"Yep. Our Cha-cha really likes it here too. He hates everywhere else."
"Huh?"
Don't lie. You brought Cha-cha the first time you came to see Geumdal-i, Suho was about to say — and then he shut his mouth. Because he remembered: the first place he'd seen Geumdal-i had been Jun's grandfather's animal hospital.
"Oh. Yeah."
Suho was thoroughly convinced. And another thought occurred to him. Wait. That Cha-cha came over to our house all the time. So he liked our house too, then?
In a better mood, Suho found Cha-cha looking rather cute.
From that day on, whenever they had a spare moment, the three of them gathered at Jun's house. Cha-cha, Geumdal-i, and Kongdol-i came along, of course. Spending day after day together, the three animals couldn't help but grow close.
Though if Woo-jin tried to touch Geumdal-i, Geumdal-i still hissed. And if Suho tried to touch Cha-cha, Cha-cha still flared his wings and put out his claws. And so Woo-jin, who was easily frightened, stopped trying to touch Geumdal-i. Suho, who was not easily frightened, kept petting Cha-cha. In the early days he was scratched now and then, and pecked — but in the end he overcame it. No matter how much Cha-cha pecked, Suho still found him adorable.
Woo-jin never did overcome it — just as Cha-cha had called him a scaredy-cat.
Ah... our Geumdal-i...
Remembering him, Suho's face filled with longing. If he could go back just once more — no, if he could spend even a single day, just one day, with Geumdal-i...
If only I could meet a healthy Geumdal-i in a dream, the way Jun did. I'd hold him tight, that soft, warm Geumdal-i of ours... and I'd tell him how much this hyung loves him.
The wish deepened as he held it. If I could see our Geumdal-i ambling across a meadow even once. Climbing trees, too. No — even if he'd just gotten to play in the playground at Mongmong Animal Hospital, that would have been enough.
Whenever he watched the cats wandering and resting at their ease in the 2nd Floor Cat Playground, he had looked on with something like envy. And yet Jun had said Geumdal-i had run and played across a vast plain. To his heart's content.
Back home from the hospital, Suho's mind was still nothing but Geumdal-i. So he pulled out every drawing, every photograph of him, and looked at them. And then, suddenly, a thought:
"He said they flew through the sky with the others, didn't he? I'm jealous. That means he had wings, then?"
At some point Suho found himself sitting before his easel, drawing on a blank white canvas.
"Haennim-i was there too, he said, right?"
Suho remembered Haennim-i, who had always gone hehe. Who had always smiled, even through the pain.
"Our Geumdal-i would have liked Haennim-i."
The way he had liked Kongdol-i.
Suho's hand moved without hesitation. Lines were drawn. Forms appeared. Time passed, and the day brightened. More time passed, and color was laid on. And the day darkened, and around the hour the sun rose again...
On the canvas that had been blank and white, the faces Suho knew were smiling, wide and bright.
When Suho arrived at Mongmong Animal Hospital, the first thing he got was a scolding from Woo-jin.
"Kwak Suho, I was about to go to your house if you didn't pick up again today. What on earth were you doing?"
"Me? I was at home."
"What kind of nonsense is that? Do you know how many times I called?"
"Yeah, I saw this morning you'd called a bunch. Hey, but you're not even my boyfriend. Why'd you call so much?"
At that, Woo-jin's face crumpled as he stared at him.
"Ugh. What a horrifying thing to say!"
"It's horrifying for me to say it too, you know?"
Jun watched Suho fire back and smiled.
"Woo-jin here was really worried. He thought you might've collapsed from overwork too."
"What, he did?"
Suho scratched his head, and Woo-jin answered gruffly.
"I just thought you'd taken off somewhere again without a word, that's all."
Embarrassed, apparently, to admit he'd been worried, Woo-jin said something else instead. Whenever Suho went incommunicado, strange videos would appear on Myeotube — Africa, or South America, or some remote corner of Asia. There had been a time when Jun and Woo-jin had gotten their news of Suho from Myeotube.
"Anyway, we were pretty worried about you."
At Jun's words, Suho gave a short laugh.
"You're not the one who should be saying that. Considering how much you worried us."
"Aish! Okay, fair. Jun, this is the second time for you. So from now on you take at least one day off a week, got it? And hire more people!"
"Yeah. We've invested a lot in you, you know? If you die, that's it. It's over."
"That's right. I have to see the CLK Sanctuary built before I die."
"What's CLK? Wait — is that Choi from Choi Woo-jin, Lee from Lee Jun, Kwak from Kwak Suho?"
"Yeah, that's it."
"You're kidding me! Why does C come first? If you're going by initials it should be KLC Sanctuary."
"What are you talking about? C comes first."
"Oh, shut up."
Listening to his two friends, Jun let out a quiet laugh. It overlapped, in his mind, with Cha-cha and Geumdal-i squabbling over who was the older brother.
"Anyway, put my name first. I'm going to make a killing and keep investing and investing."
"Listen to this guy! Getting all high and mighty just because he's rich?"
"That's capitalism for you. Anyway, Jun — this is a present. A discharge gift."
Suho held something out to him.
"This is a painting, isn't it?"
"Open it."
Jun smiled and tore the white wrapping paper. And then his eyes went wide.
Beloved, longed-for faces were flying, their wings fluttering, sparkling like jewels.
With Lee Jun at the center.