📍 Working-Class Mr. Ahn’s Unscheduled Visits to Dr. Yeon’s Clinic continues…
Building a Life in Suho’s House
Hi Asuka,
Before falling into deep sleep, I was reviewing our email exchange as a warm-up, and your email just delivered some happiness that opened right up before bedtime.
I think I’m going to have sweet dreams tonight.
Firefighter Suho? That’s way too sexy.
Let me take advantage of this local bricklayer’s opportunity for a moment.
Suho would naturally have gotten a military exemption due to his medical history.
In my ocean of delusions, they start living together at Suho’s house after his grandmother passes away – let’s set this during Si-eun’s second semester at Seoul National University Medical School.
Suho would have transferred back to Byeoksan High as a first-year second-semester student.
After 6 years of living together, Si-eun gets called to serve his country, and they face an unavoidable separation due to deployment to Iraq.
This setup is pretty far-fetched, but let’s maximize our delusional allowance HAHAHA
Si-eun’s exceptional medical skills start laying their foundation during this time, and somehow, during his military doctor deployment to Iraq, he skips both internship and residency training entirely.
So 5 years pass, and during this time they only manage to meet once a year in Seoul, doing most of their catch-up conversations… with their bodies.
And when Dr Yeon opens his clinic, their romance enters a new phase?
On the surface, it’s a beautiful fairy tale, but when my stress peaks on Thursday, the hidden dark subtexts of this beautiful fairy tale might emerge.
This setup is borrowed from the twisted psychology of Dr Watson, who becomes addicted to dangerous situations and ends up limping in mundane daily life.
Si-eun is also suffering from the same PTSD.
When my work stress reaches its climax, I’ll probably churn out tons of dark fairy tales.
I might end up poisoning your boiling kettle HAHAHA
Hope you have a chill evening!
Your bricklayer Jen
Ah, what I meant was that as a military doctor deployed to Iraq for 5 years serving the country, he would have automatically completed the internship and residency periods that are mandatory prerequisites before becoming a specialist doctor.
And during Si-eun’s undergraduate medical school years, Suho works as a clothing brand advertising model.
Once he becomes an adult and starts exuding that masculine scent, there’s no way the entertainment industry recruiters stationed in Gangnam would leave him alone.
When Suho rides his bike to pick up Si-eun after late-night library study sessions, sharp-eyed female classmates whisper among themselves:
That guy… isn’t he the XXX magazine model? You know, ‘Sangkeumi’? (kinda pure figure)
That’s how Si-eun finds out about Suho’s side gig.
And once, Si-eun follows him to a photoshoot. Stylists, makeup artists… people everywhere touching Suho’s hair and face.
Watching Suho being ‘handled’ by all these other people from a distance, Si-eun’s eyes grow dark.
Si-eun still isn’t used to sorting through his emotions.
He can’t even define them.
Only much, much later does he get the feeling that emotion might have been jealousy.
Well, it doesn’t matter anyway.
Suho quit the magazine modeling job pretty quickly.
They never talked about why he quit.
(This was supposed to be a cruel fairy tale I’d unleash when stress peaks, but I’ve already spoiled it HAHAHA Now I’m really going to hit the pillow.
Hoping to dream of firefighter Suho handling hoses this way and that… hmmm….)
Suho’s grannie’s place
The house is the only inheritance Suho’s grandmother left to her grandson after she passed away.
It’s an old house.
I want to make it the home where the two of them lived together for 6 years during Si-eun’s undergraduate years.
I’m forcibly changing the setting lol so that it couldn’t fit a double bed, they had to sleep on mats spread on the floor.
On energetic weekends, I’ll poetically describe the old scents that emanate from that house.
This is the neighbourhood supermarket that Suho and Si-eun – who were ‘rumoured to be suspicious friends’ in the neighbourhood – used to frequent.
Their secret dating way was buying ‘Melona’ ice cream there and sitting on the bench in front of the supermarket to share it.
from Asuka
I really should print these out and enshrine them somewhere.
I’ve already downloaded them onto my hard drive hahaha
Suho’s grannie’s place is a perfect setting for the blooming of young romance. So is the neighbourhood mart.
I imagine people whispering behind the boys whenever they go out.
But when Suho turns around to look them in the eye, they gulp and scurry away.
Is this sort of BL still quite taboo or even forbidden in Korea?
Or are there distinct attitudes towards this from different social strata or different generations?
One curious head nurse
I simply can’t get this slice of life out of my head.
Work ends around 4 AM.
When he punches in their shared door code, Si-eun wakes up from studying himself to sleep.
Seeing Si-eun’s messy hair with a few strands sticking up from static electricity, Suho smiles faintly.
Si-eun opens his half-closed eyes and shuffles to the entrance, where Suho’s taking off his shoes, wrapping his arms tight around Suho’s waist.
Suho’s windbreaker is saturated with Seoul’s crisp autumn dawn air from the seasonal transition.
Si-eun hugs that windbreaker – and all that air it holds – as tight as he can.
It’s so loving and so real. It has been humming in my mind the whole morning.
I’m going to incorporate what I can into the soup.
Thanks for cooking, as always.
Head Nurse, pretending to work.
Hi, Asuka!
I was doing all that groundwork lol, because I wanted to capture that windbreaker saturated with the chilly transitional autumn air lol
I’m glad you liked it!
About my delusion of Suho doing magazine modelling as a side gig – I said Si-eun felt ‘jealous’ but that doesn’t really seem like a fitting emotion for Si-eun.
I’m thinking of revising it to Si-eun feeling ‘slightly uncomfortable’ when I post it on my blog later.
Maybe to satisfy my lol oil money sources lol audience who might cover my blog maintenance costs (I’m kidding) – just trying to make you laugh!
If Suho had actually been keen on the entertainment industry (really, there’s no way those Gangnam recruiters would’ve left that face alone… they’re not blind after all), Si-eun would’ve been his most enthusiastic supporter.
I got tomorrow off.
I’m making a video right now – it’s a DP and Weak Hero crossover analysis.
The quality is still not very good, but I feel like I finally poured out everything I’ve been wanting to say.
🔗 The main topic of this video is ‘windbreaker’, which will probably make you chuckle.
Your bricklayer Jen
Guardian Deities and September Scents
Hi Jennie,
I will definitely catch the vid when it comes out.
Here’s a small bowl to keep you warm first:
Although he feigned being exasperated with his most persistently ill patient, the truth was that Dr Yeon very much looked forward to Mr Ahn disrupting his routines.
On days when he did not visit because of work demands, Dr Yeon felt the time crawl by. Such days were random, and he always feared Mr Ahn had been injured at his work site.
He remembered the ice-cold days of Suho’s coma.
Days of numbness and sadness that stretched into weeks and then months.
Dr Yeon could endure medical school and military service, including a little-known stint in Iraq that had lasted for five years; even before that, he already had the grit to weather the ruthless bullying of his high school days.
But if anything ever happened to Suho again, Dr Yeon knew he would fall apart. This was the one thing he could not bear.
The trauma of years ago had not been expunged, only buried with work and kept out of the waking world.
But it lived on in Dr Yeon’s dreams.
Whenever it visited in the silence of tired nights, he became Si-eun the high schooler again, the boy who gained the world and lost it.
During the six halcyon years living with Suho after Eunjang High, he sometimes woke up shivering with sharp breaths, damp with sweat.
He would then lurch to the desk, weak from the weight of bad dreams, and memorize anatomical notes as a way back to sleep while he waited for Suho to return from his delivery runs.
When Suho punched in their shared door code, Si-eun would open his half-closed eyes and shuffle to the entrance, where Suho took his shoes off.
He loved early autumn in particular, when his hair stood up from the static (that never failed to draw a smile from Suho).
Suho’s windbreaker would be saturated with the crisp air of dawn.
Si-eun would hold him tight and breathe in the scents of September, of Seoul, and of Suho.
It chased all the boogeymen away.
On days when Suho stayed home, the terrors weakened, as if out of respect for the presence of a guardian deity, though they still persisted.
But with Suho around, when an attack came, Si-eun would awake to find himself in Suho’s arms.
In summer, this could be uncomfortably warm, but the nightmares chilled Si-eun from within, so he was always deeply grateful for the snuggle, and sweated out the remainder of his sleep with a light smile.
The comforting embraces happened because Suho, who slept in class like a log, would rouse instinctively upon hearing Si-eun’s soft whimpers and half-formed sleep words.
Sometimes he heard Beomseok’s name.
Once, he heard “don’t die, Suho, please”, and in the thick darkness where a dreaming Si-eun could not see him, Suho’s toughness broke apart as he cried silently and hugged the precious, wounded soul that had curled into a fetal position.
He wet Si-eun’s hair with his tears as he kissed the top of his head.
“I’m here, I’m here. Si-eun-ah, I’m here,” he had whispered over and over until Si-eun’s breathing eased.
That alone had made him want to quit night delivery work, but when he discussed it with Si-eun the next morning, the boy genius had dismissed the idea.
Day delivery work is more dangerous; it’d give me more nightmares if anything. Plus, they’re just dreams. They can’t do a thing.
They can crush your soul, thought Suho.
But he downplayed his own worries.
Awww, but I just want to hug my favorite bolster.
Don’t think I don’t know you are rubbing yourself on your favorite bolster.
You were awake? Why didn’t you say so? We could have eaten some ice-cream.
Oh, you bought some?
asked Si-eun brightly, hoping Suho had brought back some Melona from the neighborhood mart.
No, but we have popsicles full of fresh cream don’t we?
replied Suho with a twinkle, staring below Si-eun’s waist.
Mine is sea-salt caramel, yours is vanilla.
… … yah… Ahn Suho…you…you must be the healthiest guy in this neighborhood, really.
That morning, they had dessert for breakfast.
It also chased the boogeymen away.
Cross-Cultural Dialogue
Sorry for the weird drama, you can ignore the last three emails including this one.
I just checked the sent mail again, and all the sentences are intact, even from the first sending. I have no idea why…
I feel like I’m being pranked by gmail, like what the heck hahahaha
Glitch in the matrix I tell you.
Asuka! Don’t worry
I’m just happy I got to read what’s sure to be the most thrilling chapter three times!
Just uploaded a new vid and now I’m heading to shower.
Burned the midnight oil for the first time in a while.
Time to get ready for bed while sipping the tea you brewed for me.
Hi Asuka,
I archived everything on my blog before Big Brother Google could collapse our arc lol
I wanted to fit everything in one post, but apparently Google loves giving users drama – couldn’t add any more text to the first post, so I had to split it into part two.
Added some black and white photos while updating too.
Since everything on the blog is a feast of metaphors, allegories, and allusions, I guess I wanted the photos to also have that film photography vibe that oscillates between reality and unreality, haha.
Time to slowly savour the soup you’ve brewed this weekend – with my amateur critique, I’ll put my heart into making your new hot tea come to a boil.
Oh, to answer your question about BL.
Like I mentioned before, it’s like saying, (there’s actually enough food to bend the table) ‘there’s not much prepared, but please eat a lot.’
So basically, this country has tons of euphemisms and double-speak.
I’ve watched many relocated foreign colleagues around me struggle with these Korean linguistic quirks.
People probably love BL as a commercial product but find ‘actual’ BL burdensome.
Especially here, where they hush-hush about checking out, mental health issues, and homosexuality – though for #1, it’s already well-known we’re world champions.
For mental health issues… probably everyone’s suffering but no one talks about it openly. Looking too weak to be responsible for anything at work isn’t a penalty anyone wants.
And the last one? No one’s opening up because that’s just easier for everyone…
Yet it’s ironic that BL content is the hottest-selling thing in the media industry.
Jen
Oh my,
I just saw the picture of that popsicle sticking up in the sun, hahahahahaha, it’s so pretty and so funny at the same time.
Thanks for enhancing the visits to the clinic (and to grannie’s house) with these tasteful pictures.
They do have that summer dream vibe.
So authentic.
I did have a feeling BL as an artistic product is very hot selling in Korea.
I was more curious what the attitude to actual BL relationships is.
I gathered that more than 1/4 of Korea identifies as some sort of Christian (the largest percentage of the East Asian countries), and Christianity is generally disapproving of BL.
But I suspect the true resistance to actual BL is due to a strong cultural conservatism that runs through the country, rather than religious reasons. This might make reading and watching BL kind of like secretly enjoying forbidden fruit, no?
(I could be very wrong here. This is all pure speculation from someone who can’t even speak Korean. I hope I am not being very offensive!)
BL is also very hot selling in Japan, where there are entire buildings devoted to selling such literature (to a mostly female clientele).
But as for actual BL relationships, in Japan, no one really cares one way or another. They say Japan is highly homogenized and ‘hive-minded’ rather than individualistic….mmmm….. yes and no, in fact I lean more to ‘no.’
It’s more like, the (city) Japanese try to mind their own business and not care about their neighbors’ preferences.
So reading BL openly in, say, Akihabara or Shinjuku doesn’t have the effect of tasting forbidden fruit.
And real BL dating, or being a person like Nina from DP… city people don’t really care, it’s like ‘you do you’.
Not sure why I wanted to explore this haha
I guess I wanted to ‘feel the milieu’ better, to know what Si-Eun and Suho have chosen to live through (even though it’s happening in deluluverse.)
Oh and soup Part 2 should be boiled within the next two days.
Head nurse, kitchen prepping
Hi Asuka,
Sitting in a cafe before my commute home, waiting for the train and grinning like an idiot reading your email.
That Melona popsicle is probably older than I am – it’s been Korea’s beloved stick treat for decades.
I pictured our two puppies sharing one: Si-eun holding the wooden stick while early-twenties Suho devours more than half.
I imagined them walking home after boxing practice by the Han River, their silhouettes fading into the distance. (Suddenly all my work frustrations just melted away)
Found that photo on Pinterest.
I was envisioning their place – the house Suho’s grandma left him, somewhere in Seoul’s old quarters, shabby and weathered.
Beom-seok’s family obviously lives in some posh villa overlooking the Han from Gangnam or central Seoul.
Si-eun’s parents probably made a strategic move to Gangnam’s most academically competitive district right before he started high school.
For Suho to attend Byeoksan High, assuming school districts go by address, he’d need to be in the Gangnam zone, 🔗 so he and Grandma probably rented space there.
So when I’m dreaming up this house in delululand where college-aged Si-eun and high-schooler-again Suho live together – grandma’s only inheritance in some forgotten, undeveloped corner of Seoul, all rickety and worn,
I’m thinking “this doesn’t quite add up…” but what can we do?
HAHAHA
And if our two puppies are going to bloom their romance in grandma’s old house, there definitely won’t be any fancy keypad locks to punch.
Instead, Suho will come home from his delivery runs in Seoul’s bitter October dawn air, pushing open that paint-chipped jade or blue metal gate.
The screech of metal will reach Si-eun’s ears as he waits with his anatomy books.
(Ah… drowning in the depths of delusion again, lol)
Oh, and Korea’s fortunate to have almost zero religious conflict.
(For a divided nation sandwiched between superpowers like Japan and China, with our geographically cursed location, adding religious strife would just be cruel.)
Being ethnically homogeneous helps… but it’s less about religious influence and more about deep-rooted Confucian culture. We obsess over “face” – how we appear to others.
Si-eun’s mother is exactly that type, I think.
The first thing she did when she brought her son home in S2 was stage loving mother-son photos.
Both gorgeous and smiling tenderly, sure, but her son was actually lying awake with severe depression and guilt.
She doesn’t even know he’s carrying the weight of Suho’s lost youth, something he can’t afford to bear.
The subtitles said “Your friend Suho’s grandmother came looking for you,” but it was actually “That grandmother of your friend named ‘Suho’ came looking for you.”
Si-Eun probably didn’t elaborate, but maybe she lacks the bandwidth to look deeper into her son’s heart, or instinctively senses it might stray from her idea of “normal” and chooses not to know.
Still, Si-eun leaving for Singapore to study, leaving Suho behind for his mother’s sake – that was striking.
He’s such a warm kid.
Wow, I’m all over the place…
Anyway, having many Japanese colleagues gave me lots of cultural insights. Japan is definitely much more open about sexuality and treats it as recreation.
In Korea, we’re too busy worrying about others’ opinions to enjoy things openly. People get uncomfortable when sexual topics come up in groups. This probably won’t change, and honestly, I don’t think it needs to.
I’m a local here too, but honestly I don’t expect much from this country.
I just live here because I was born here, haha
Head nurse, I’ll savor the soup Part 1 you’ve brewed during my train ride home.
Jen
Review, Guardian Deities and September Scents
Your soup kept me warm on the train.
I was grinning so hard that the grandma across from me kept staring lol
Here’s my amateur take on your soup – as always, humour me
Hope your busy weekend tastes like sea-salt caramel.
Although he feigned being exasperated with his most persistently ill patient…
J: Dr Yeon secretly wants his patient to never get better. What a terrible doctor, right?
On days when he did not visit… Dr Yeon felt the time crawl by.
J: This scheming doctor… time “crawling” by…
Will he ever get needy enough to pout at Mr Ahn?
I read this viral tweet about all those texts Si-eun sent to comatose Suho… perfect spelling, every single one… felt like he was being needy.
Broke my heart reading it.
Makes me wonder – did Suho read them all after waking up?
How did that feel?
He remembered the ice-cold days of Suho’s coma.
J: Clinging to life support.
barely hanging on by a thread, the adults pieced together, my chest hurts again.
Days of numbness and sadness that stretched into weeks and then months
J: That puffy face from too many sleeping pills.
Arms that wouldn’t sync with his steps.
Empty expression.
except when he’d spot traces of Suho in Baku, Gotak, Jun-tae…
(I’m covering my face)
Dr Yeon could endure medical school and military service, including a little-known stint in Iraq…
J: Med school girls swooning, med school guys seething with jealousy… then Iraq, where his surgical skills made him untouchable… (getting hot just imagining it)
The trauma of years ago had not been expunged, only buried…
J: Si-eun will never experience anything more intense again (and “intense” feels deliberately loaded here)
So in his mundane daily life, he’s not physically limping like Dr. Watson, but mentally he’s pushing it all down into the dark depths.
During the six halcyon years living with Suho after Eunjang High…
J: “Halcyon years” breaks and mends my heart. Is this all just a dream?
I imagine Si-eun sometimes gently tracing Suho’s eyebrows while he sleeps, just to prove it’s real.
When Suho punched in their shared door code…
J: In that shabby house – grandma’s only inheritance – there’d be no fancy keypad, just Suho pushing through that paint-chipped jade metal gate.
But still, Si-eun shuffling toward his returning Suho?
Heart-wrenching and adorable. (Melting again)
It chased all the boogeymen away.
J: I knew you’d love Suho’s windbreaker soaked in Seoul autumn air.
Thank you for that.
They say smell is the sense that never lets you go.
But with Suho around… Si-eun would awake to find himself in Suho’s arms.
J: You can’t see while sleeping, but in dreams, the boogeymen keep tormenting him.
So, reading it as a sleeping child, calming down to familiar scents? Pure romance.
Once, he heard ‘don’t die, Suho, please’
J: (Eyes getting misty) Does Si-eun know that Suho hears his sleep talk…?
No way…
Don’t think I don’t know you are rubbing yourself on your favorite bolster.
J: He doesn’t know Suho hears his sleep talk, but somehow knows perfectly well that Suho uses him as a pillow and sometimes rubs against him pretty hard??
No, but we have popsicles full of fresh cream, don’t we?
J: Si-eun could never make jokes like this to Suho, but Suho can throw out these cheeky lines… makes me tingle with joy.
Mine is sea-salt caramel, yours is vanilla.
J: I understood this metaphor instantly and need to confess this sin at church this Sunday.
…yah… Ahn Suho… you must be the healthiest guy in this neighborhood, really.
J: Guess they won’t need milk delivery service. (Monthly/yearly milk subscriptions delivered at dawn are common here – I still use one)
It also chased the boogeymen away.
J: Even the boogeymen fled from watching these two puppies do their morning mouth exercises 😂
GPT could never match the sweetness, wit, and romance of your secret notes.
With respect,
Jen
Curious. Did both puppies work their mouths at the same time?
Or was one puppy busy with his tongue while the other had tears in his eyes, mouth open? If the former, then one spoon was facing south while the other faced north. While Si-eun was distracted, Suho snatched his popsicle and went to work – all lips and tongue, very thorough about cleanup.
Si-eun trembled, helpless against those fighter hands that could crack walnuts. Once caught in that grip, game over. Face burning with embarrassment as things got messy, Si-eun begged for mercy.
The victorious fighter just smirked, “Let it go.”
(They’ll definitely need to time-travel for that towel from Dr Yeon’s clinic)
Cheeky Jen