I was feeling homesick again. It would come and go and I became fairly good at fighting back tears sometimes. Other times maybe one or two would slip by my own ego and find its way across my cheek. Of course in the rare occasion someone would notice I would say it was sweat and change the subject. Maybe homesick isn’t what I felt. You see, I have lived in Korea most of my life, but I speak very little Korean. I look Korean though, so in the United States I get this feeling of being a sort of grey swan on alien waters.

Here I was, an American (by nationality) and a Korean (by race) living amongst the Korean punks. I consider myself an extrovert but I rarely spoke; the little Korean I knew might be held against me as evidence of being stupid. Having someone to talk to was an event I looked forward to. Most of my English-speaking friends at the time were in high school so I had to wait until the weekend to see them. I had so many stories to tell them. Penis/fart jokes rolled past my lips when I was not quick enough to catch them. At least I had people to talk to, at the price of acting immature and stupid.

One day outside Hongdae Park, the homesick feeling came back again. It spread though me like a gnawing, unwholesome cold beating back the warm summer night. With my parents I had spent all my time trying to get them to understand me, and out here it was even worse. But was I accepted out here as one of them? Did they view me as a chimera, with some attributes wholly recognizable and some parts that might as well come from Mars?

It was an after-show party at a restaurant. Everyone sat around joking and telling stories. I had my own jokes and stories I wanted to share with them. It was too much, so I left, bought a beer from the supermart, and went into an alley. Someone must have noticed that I was, at the very least, agitated when I left. I had not wept since my dog Joy ran away a few years ago. I fought it back in that purely masculine stupidity that a show of extreme emotion, save aggressiveness, was a sign of weakness. I couldn’t fight it anymore. I cried like a little girl that skinned her knee. I drank my beer in a huge painful gulp; maybe I wanted to numb myself. It seemed like all the tears I had been holding back for months—if not years—had rallied for a massive counter-offensive and I was laid bare with my cover blown. I hugged my knees and buried my face in myself. I got the feeling I was not alone.

I saw Joo-Hyun standing there looking down at me, though the blur created by my own tears which played with light and drew it out into long web-like strands. I couldn’t see his face and I don’t think I wanted to, I didn’t want him to think any less of me. I knew that if I saw his face I would see a mixture of pity and disgust, mostly the later. I couldn’t look up at him. He spoke to me but I did not understand the words. He might have been saying “Get up you pussy ass piece of shit,” for all I knew, but something inside told me that’s not at all what he said. I wanted more than ever to know what someone was saying to me. I picked out each sound and tried to ascibe a meaning to it. Every word I actually did understand I strung in my mind like pearls on a strand, but they did not make sense or follow one another in a pattern I could conprehend. Then one word stuck out more than anything else he said. One word in Korean: “dongsang.” It means “little brother.” I looked up and saw not pity, not disgust, but a smile,

the one he always has. No one had ever or has since made me feel so much better by uttering a single word. He put his arm around me and talked some more. We were more than friends, more than bandmates. We were brothers. We shared what was left of that beer and went back to join the others in the restaurant.

I don’t know if he ever told anyone what happened or even really remembers if it did in fact happen at all. It doesn’t matter. I will carry that with me for the rest of my life. They say that family is forever, but does that family have to only include those that you share and immediate and common bloodline with? I don’t think so and again, it’s immaterial. I have a brother, my Hyung-ah.

Even though that took place several years ago, if I think about it I can feel my eyes well up a little but my face always cracks into a smile. I think it’s the same smile some of the more unrepentant adulterous men get when they think about their hedonistic extra-marital flings. It’s not supposed to happen but it did and fuck all if it wasn’t good. Your brother is supposed to have the same mother as you. Not for me though. I have always found myself to be the exception from the rule and this was no exception.

I also suck at math. Go figure.

Read part 1 of Paul's story.