Teens > Summer 2008 Teen Writing Contest
Summer 2008 Teen Writing Contest
Grades 9-12 Prose Winner: "Believe" by Emily Bettencourt
There are many reasons that Yun shouldn't even look twice.
Jae is an upperclassman, for the first, and Yun is a lowly freshman. That alone should rule out any and all contact—the lowerclassmen simply don't associate with the upperclassmen.
Seoul National has different ideas, of course.
Jae is in every mixed-class elective Yun has. He's in Theatre Appreciation. He's in Myth in Human Culture. And by some random twist of fate, he's taking the night course—Human Anatomy in Art—that Yun models for.
The world is definitely out to get him.
Their Theatre Appreciation class is given an assignment—to choose a favorite Shakespeare work and explain why, and by whatever stroke of chance, they're paired up. Jae's reputation precedes him; Yun has already heard long, elaborate stories of the roles that Jae has doJaeated since he started at Seoul National. The assignment is simple enough, but Yun already feels dwarfed by the magnitude of Jae's excellence.
“I'll go first,” Jae says, a grin spreading across his face.
“Alright.” Yun rests his cheekbone on his knee and watches.
“My favorite Shakespeare work is A Funeral Elegy by W.S.” Jae tilts his head back, closes his eyes. “Who herein hast forever happy prov'd/ In life thou liv'dst, in death thou died'st belov'd.”
“I've never heard that one.”
“I hadn't either, until they said it at my best friend's funeral.” A brief smile crosses the redhead's face, and Yun isn't really quite sure how to react to that. It feels much like being suckerpunched in the stomach. “I guess it just has a special place in my heart—though it'd still be beautiful, even if I'd heard it under different circumstances.” He opens his eyes and looks at Yun. “How about yours?”
It seems cliche, all of a sudden. “Romeo and Juliet, actually,” Yun says, blushing. “I think it might just be because I'm a hopeless romantic.”
Jae laughs. “Oh yeah? What about that particular tragic love story is so appealing to you?”
“It's more like the concept,” Yun says. “The idea of a love so powerful that you'd be willing to die for it... I mean, Romeo and Juliet, Alexander and Hephaestion, Odysseus and Penelope. I don't know. It's fascinating to me.” He shrugs, an awkward, compressed motion. “It's kind of silly.”
“It's not silly.” There is more seriousness in his tone than Yun has ever heard. “Hold on to that. The people who fail earliest are the one who get cynical. Don't ever let yourself lose that.”
Yun is taken aback. “Um... okay.”
Jae shakes his head. “Sorry about that. I got a little carried away.”
“It's all right.” It's more than all right. Yun is struck, suddenly, by the realization that this is the most honest that he's ever seen Jae. Before this, it was facades and masks, acting and false identity—now, there's a rawness that emanates from the redhead. Yun wants that, wants to see it again.
Oh, he's screwed.
* * *
Their third partner assignment is simple. Deceptively simple, in fact—it's like a game of Truth or Dare, except minus the dare part and minus the ability to chicken out. Take turns asking your partner questions. They will answer the question honestly, and they only get to cop out of one question. Any more than that loses them participation points. Ready? Break.
“Where are you from?” Jae asks.
“Mokpo. Least favorite vegetable?”
“Cauliflower. My beltloops hold up my belt, but my belt holds up my pants—who's the real winner?”
“You are. Where did you come from?”
“A very small suburb outside Suwon. What are you most afraid of?”
Yun hesitates. “...Death. Not like that, though. I mean... it's like... every time I get on an airplane, I ask myself, if I were to die right now—like if my plane were to go down—would I be okay with how I left my life? And more often than not, the answer is no. So it's not really that I'm afraid of the concept of death, it's more than I'm afraid of dying with regrets.”
Jae nods slowly. “I can understand that.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“Rarely. Do you?”
“Sometimes. When I really need to.” Yun shrugs. “What happened to your best friend?”
Jae frowns. “I'm copping out of that one.”
“Okay. Sorry.” Yun blushes, looks away—until a hand on his shoulder pulls his attention back. Jae is smiling.
“Don't be sorry. It's just—I don't like to talk about it.” A pause. “What do you love most about Mokpo?”
“I don't know. Everything, I guess, and I know that's a crap answer but give me a second to formulate a good one.” Jae chuckled. “I think it's less that I love any one thing about Mokpo, and more like I just love how things were back then. Back when I lived there, I mean—when everything was as simple as what Jung-Su and Min Ki and Jin Ae and I were doing the next day, when I didn't have to worry about real-life problems like how I'm going to pay for my next year at college and where I'm going to get food next week because I don't have any money in my bank account and what I'm going to do about going home for Mother's Day because I can't even turn on the heat let alone buy a plane ticket.” Yun stopped, ashamed. “Sorry.”
“You don't eat?” Jae looks alarmed. “God, no wonder you're so skinny. Yun, seriously, just come over to my place sometime, and me and Tae-Hwa'll—”
Yun shakes his head vehemently. “I need to learn how to be independent.”
Jae pauses. “...You can still be independent, even if people help you out a little.”
“No.” Yun curls up even tighter. “What do you love most about theatre?”
Heaving a sigh, Jae sits back in his chair. “The chance to drop who I am and become someone else, even if it's only for a few hours.”
“But I like who you are.”
The words slip out before Yun can stop them, and the confused look on Jae's face makes him want to evaporate. “You—but you don't even know me, Yun. How can you like who I am?” The redhead laughs, but it sounds uncomfortable.
“I guess... I don't know. Sometimes... It seems like you're opening up. And I like that.” Yun shrugs, turns his face away. “Nevermind.”
Jae sighs and runs a hand over his face. “Do you ever feel like you have a purpose in life? Like you were born to do something, and that thing alone?”
“I think it's my turn.”
“This is outside of our activity,” Jae says. “Ever since I was born, basically, my purpose in life has been to entertain. And I'm good at it. You've seen me act, it's second-nature to me—like breathing, except more fun and less necessary for survival. But after a while, it's like I'm so good at putting on faces and identities and changing who I am, that I forget who I really am. That's why I don't think it's possible for you to like who I am, Yun. I don't even know who I am. How could you?”
Yun is watching him now, the corners of his lips turned down. “Maybe I can like who you are because you don't know who you are. Just because you don't know your real self doesn't mean it doesn't exist—it just means you lost track of it for a while.”
Jae smiles wryly. “Good try, Yun,” he says.
And that's infuriating, because it's not a try, it's him giving his absolute most to convince Jae that he's a person worth knowing. “I'm serious, Jae,” Yun says, leaning towards the redhead. “I'm good at telling when people are lying, and I can tell the difference between your actor-self and your real self. I don't know why you're so keen on not letting anyone get to know you—because I can see it, you're one of those people who everyone loves and no one knows—but I don't understand why you don't want to let anyone in!”
“Yeah?” The redhead stares him down. “Why are you so afraid to rely on anyone?”
And then, of course, the class ends.
“Your assignment for next week is to compose your own monologue. Tell us about something that you've never told anyone—ever.” Their professor stands on the stage and claps his hands. “Good work today.”
When Yun looks back, Jae is gone.
* * *
Yun isn't really sure what it is that inspires him to volunteer to give his monologue first, but he does. He climbs right up onto the stage, stands for a second with his head down, then shoves his hands in his pockets and begins.
“When I was fourteen years old, my mother told me she didn't want me,” he says, staring at an audience that he can't see. “I don't think she meant for it to come out like that, really. But we were talking, and she looks me right in the eye and says Yun, I never wanted to have children. I only had them because your father wanted them. Well, my dad's been dead since I was seven, so it wasn't exactly a stretch to figure out, you know?” He shrugs, smiles a little. “If anything, it made me stronger. There's no use in leaning on someone who refuses to hold you up, so I learned to support myself.
“But,” he adds, “there's something to be said for cynicism. In making myself independent, I made myself unreachable. I destroyed my ability to rely on others, even when I need to. It's a personality flaw, I guess, but it keeps me from getting hurt. I'm working on it, like I'm working on everything wrong with me—trust me, there's plenty—and it's a long road, but I'm getting there.”
Yun laughs, a dry, bitter sound. “Maybe one day I can write a memoir. I'll call it Park Yun: The Lost Years—subtitle, How I Got a Clue.”
No one applauds when he steps off the stage, but then again, he wasn't really expecting any. He can see Jae watching him from the corner of his eye, but he refuses to meet the bright green gaze—Jae knows that the monologue was directed at him, he has to know. And if he doesn't, well... Maybe he was never the person Yun thought him to be, anyway.
He's barely twenty yards from the door of the auditorium when Jae's voice rings out across the campus. “Yun!” he calls, jogging up behind the blonde and turning him bodily. “Yun, listen...”
“I didn't do it for your sympathy or concern,” Yun says, though his voice isn't quite as hard as he'd like it to be.
“I know.” Jae pauses, looks at him, catches his breath. “I think... I think we should try this again, okay?” He releases Yun, steps back, and runs a hand through vibrant red spikes.
“Hi. I'm Shim Jae. I'm twenty-one years old, I come from a tiny town to the east that may as well be the town that never was, I'm a drama student, and I can be a huge douche sometimes but I'm working on it.” He sticks his hand out. “Nice to meet you.”
Yun stares for a split second, then takes it. “Park Yun. I'm nineteen, and I'm from Mokpo. I'm actually an art student, but drama is my vice. I can be a cold bastard sometimes, but I'm working on it.” He shakes Jae's hand. “Nice to meet you, too.”
Jae smiles, green eyes lighting up. “So, round two?”
Yun rolls his eyes. “Of course, you idiot. After all, isn't there a saying—take advantage of your second chances?” He shrugs. “Cliche, though...”
“It wouldn't be cliche if it wasn't true,” Jae says. And you know what? Yun thinks. He's right.
