Myosotis Arvensis: Forget Me

Life is full of questions. It’s a blissful, finite chase for love but ultimately, in turn, a reprisal of loneliness. Wufan deliberately distanced himself as he tried to understand life’s weathering. He spoke little, and thought heavily.

He roamed the city with his hands shoved deep inside his pockets, strangers bumping into him without so little as an acknowledgement. Wufan had learned to ignore them. He chose to live invisibly; within a matter of days they would be no more than a figure clad in black from a memory anyway. There was only one recurring figure to remain in his thoughts. A figure he needed to be complete, but now existed only in solemn retrospect.

Wufan taught himself to live with heartache. After months, he thought it was a normal void. Some days it would have grounds, and on others it was untraceable. He was marked with feathery emptiness and slumped shoulders. It was a numb sensation that aged him from the inside out, taking with it his health and humor on certain days. As he finally broke free from the crowd of faceless people, one stranger made themselves known.

“You dropped this.” The fair skinned, pale boy held out a wallet in Wufan’s direction. In comparison, the boy appeared years younger than Wufan.

Wufan felt his back pockets and was surprised to find his wallet was missing. He looked up at the boy, this time accidently catching his dark earthy eyes. The boy’s lips drew into a smile and again he nudged the wallet in Wufan’s direction. He wanted to return the grin, but the expression felt all too unnatural. So he simply took the wallet from the stranger, careful not to touch him.

“We know each other, don’t we? WuYifan, right?” He stared at the boy without remembrance. How could this person remember a face, when there was only one that haunted him? “You did business with my mother last summer. The house.”

The last two words kicked up emotion with the grit of a child thrashing in the sandbox and it stiffened his torso. His hands went firm in a way similar to the tight feeling of dried salt water. It was a place tucked in the recesses of his mind, a place hidden for fear of further anguish, even though only sweet memories were put to rest there.

“My mother has left for the weekend. If you would like to come visit, relive some old memories, you’re welcome to.” The boy continued to smile his mysteriously radiant smile.

At first, Wufan immediately rejected the idea. He could never go back, that part of his life had died, but there was something tempting about the way the stranger spoke.

“My name is Yixing. I understand if you don’t remember me.” He extended a hand. Wufan looked at it for a moment. Touch was a sensation he no longer cared for, he was a man half gone. Yet, he was driven to shake Yixing’s hand. His grip was gentle and languid, which bothered Wufan, all of his business handshakes were strong and short. Wufan shuddered and pulled away when the tips of Yixing’s fingers subtly grazed against his wrist.

“I might see you tomorrow, Yixing.” He spoke with fixed affirmation.

“I’m looking forward to it. I will leave first.” With a small bow of his head, Yixing withdrew into the ever moving mob and Wufan recognized a familiar response. It was a smile, granted, an awkward one that sat crookedly in the corner of his mouth, but a smile all the same. Instinctively, something clicked in his mind with the softness of a seatbelt, and he erased the smile and stopped hanging on to the moment.

Wufan ventured to the same bar he spent all of his Friday evenings in. As always, the dense scent of alcohol greeted his senses as his dulled eyes that had already seen too much took in the chipping paint. He sat down on an open barstool and uncomfortably adjusted himself as the ripped vinyl bunched beneath his jeans. Again, in the normal fashion, Jongdae took the stage at seven and began to sing a few measures. Wufan slowly poisoned himself with shot after shot, though it took an endless amount of alcohol to affect him. He had grown an immunity to the liquid’s emotional effects, but it still burned on its way down his throat, a cruel reminder he was still physically alive.

“Why do you drink so much?” Jongdae asked when his set was over in the following hour.

“You know.” Wufan replied, swallowing another drink so hastily he couldn’t have tasted it.

“But still? It’s been a year.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” Agitated, Wufan left his won on the counter, where the bills were gripped by the condensation of his many emptied glasses. He left the bar and returned to his apartment in the heart of Seoul. The rust on the railing of the stairs tinged the air in the building with a metallic fog that furrowed his brow as he trudged to his door.

His apartment was well kept. Clean and white. There was a large pane of glass that looked out on Myeongdong, but the blinds had stayed drawn for the past twelve months. Fully clothed in the day’s shirt and jeans he crawled into bed and flipped out the light of his table lamp with the click of a seatbelt. The darkness consumed the room and his head rested like a rock on his pillow. If only sleep consumed him with the same quickness, maybe for a moment he could forget.

-

The incessant cry of sirens through the city’s streets jolted Wufan awake, raising both him and the pale blonde hairs on his arms. The timid blue of a mockingly interminable sky disappeared in the shutter of his lashes. The wooden seat of a timeworn fishing boat vanished from beneath and formed into a stale mattress. The blending horizon of ocean and sky was rudely replaced with the cold reality of a white washed wall. Struck with the essence of veracity, Wufan started his day by leaning over the stove top. Warmth rose into his pores as he scraped burned eggs from the griddle. They sat on his plate, but he lost interest and above all, his appetite. They slipped into the trash and he left the apartment without a plan.

Wufan dragged the toes of his black leather shoes down the grey and gritty sidewalk. When he looked up from his feet he found himself at a familiar bus stop. Checking his watch he chose to let time pass, he had too much anyway. He took a seat on the plastic bench and watched the golden arms travel around in a strange representation of time, a strange representation of something that was said to heal all wounds. He boarded the long, green bus and took a place near a window.

As the engine roared up, a boy came running to the doors skipping numerous steps to make it on in time. His long neck was hidden by a scarf and he greeted every passenger with an embarrassed grin. Awkwardly, he stumbled through the aisle to an open seat in the back, but was thrown off balance into the seat beside Wufan. It wasn’t the first time a stranger had fallen on him on the bus, but his immediate reaction was still to pull away and press his shoulders up against the window. This action, however, just put them face to face; noses no more than an inch apart with the stranger propping himself up with hands dangerously close to Wufan’s leg. Both separated immediately, and the scarfed boy retreated to the seat he originally had in mind where he nervously fingered an earring. For the remainder of the ride, Wufan glued his gaze to the objects passing by outside.

The grinding squeal of the breaks marked Wufan’s stop and he wanted nothing more than to depart without any further interactions. He left out the doors with closed off posture and hurried down the street.

“Wait!” the scarfed boy shouted from behind. Wufan did not look back, but instead continued forward at a slower pace. When the boy caught up, he apologized for the incident and formally introduced himself as Zitao.

His features were soft and sweet with almond eyes and an angled jaw.

“I would have apologized earlier, but we were in an awkward position. I’m usually more balanced and articulate.” His voice was as pure and sincere as his intentions. His heart had fallen to his stomach with nothing more than the thought of ruining someone’s daily commute.

Wufan remained quiet, but Zitao refused to be pushed aside by his silence. He wanted to prove his sincerity and not come off as a shadow of mendacity. Zitao was all too aware of the thousands of wasted apologies that were strewn through the world with the same brief flicker of a meteor; beginning strong and fading into ethereal oblivion in a matter of passing seconds.

“I could get you a coffee and paper.” He offered.

“I don’t need that.”

“Then what do you need?”

Wufan looked into the window of the business to his left. The glass reflected a translucent image in which he recognized his figure beside Zitao’s. He needed someone like this light hearted boy.

Zitao took note of the action, but looked beyond the reflection in through the office. Inside, sat a beautiful girl. She had a phone pressed against her ear and shoulder as she vigorously tapped away on her computer’s keyboard. He took the bus all that way only to see her?

The two may have been walking side by side, but they were on entirely different pages.

As they ambled, Wufan did not object to Zitao’s presence, so Zitao did not object to Wufan’s silence. Instead, Wufan was conflicted with thoughts of getting him to stay or leave. He decided to leave it to fate.

“Where were you going this morning?” Wufan inquired. Zitao’s heart lifted with the conversation.

“Martial arts, but that started half an hour ago. I was running late.”

“Shouldn’t you at least try to make it there?”

“I haven’t made up for my mistake yet.”

“You’ll make up for it later.”

“But-”

“We take the same bus.” Zitao gave a small bow and a content smile.