📍 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 military exemption due to his coma 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….)
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.
Suho’s grannie’s place
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 neighborhood 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:
1.
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.
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.
fr! 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
