memory travel!au

*

***

Zwap! Brian blinks, and he's somewhere he just barely recognizes, somewhere that gives him the feeling like when his eomma used to feed him a spoonful of honey before he went to sleep: on the verge of sleep, eyes droopy, only the sweet tang of liquidy thickness on his tongue amid his fuzzy surroundings. He's standing at the edge of the lake, the tall grass tickling his legs. Younghyun raises his hand to swat at a mosquito perched on his arm and hisses when he knows it's too late. The insect has already gotten what it desires. Too bad it's making him suffer...

His hand moves away from the bump forming below the sparse hair lining his arm, and he finally acknowledges that a stranger is standing before him, staring at his camera.

"Uwah...So you came here because of... that?" The man is pointing at his camera, the one he's holding in the crease between his inner elbow and his swollen forearm, and his mouth is open wide in shock.

"How did you know?"

"I just saw a boy taking a picture of the lake, and he disappeared. You're in his place, now, holding the same exact camera... How can that be?!"

Brian sighs out in annoyance. Why does this kind of bullshit have to happen to him, of all people?! "It's an analogue, seemingly."

The brunette shuffles his feet and gives his signature crooked smile, the one in which his teeth seem to bend the light around his frame in a way that brightens his entire form. "I like analogues... I like analogues very much."

Younghyun's hand rises to encompass the side of his childhood camera, and he feels his brows raise in contemplation. "Well, as for me... They make me confused. So confused that I might just lose my mind."

And the young man struts off, his steps hastily bringing him further and further away from the brunette, whose voice calls out to him in a desperate spiral of "Wait!"s and "You dropped something!"s...

*

Two hours ago...

Younghyun sits beside his mother on the faint, periwinkle-shade couch he misses so much from his early childhood.

He's finally come back from Canada to visit Korea after twelve years of being away. The money is flowing into his bank account smoothly enough for him to finally think about taking a plane to see his beloved eomma, so it's time to stop relying on her to visit him in his crappy Toronto apartment once or twice a year. Time to take some responsibility. He's always liked flying, anyway... A trip should help him shake off his lifestyle of loneliness and replace it with the nostalgic flavor of revisiting childhood memories.

A photo album sits on his lap as his eomma happily points out pictures which spark both their interests with her gracefully thin fingers. "And this is you when we went on that fishing trip with your appa when you were four!" The young man looks at himself on the faded print, smiling down at the dopey boy with the foxy eyes and impish grin. The four-year-old Younghyun stands beside a lake, his bare feet resting in the plushy grass growing in clumps on the shore. He wears a panama to keep the sun away from his dark locks and sports a vest with various pins all over it — his late father's prized collection. It hangs down to his little self's ankles, and the 23-year-old stifles a laugh as he and his mother gaze down at the monstrosity that is his younger self.

"Is that... What's that in my hands?" Brian asks his eomma, who giggles and carefully stands up from the sagging couch.

"Let me go get your memory box, dear, then you'll see. Put on some tea, would you?" And with this, she's heading in the direction of the stairs.

"What kind?" Younghyun yells after her with a chuckle.

"Early morning herbal, honey!"

"But eomma," the young man laughs out, already heading in the direction of the kitchen. "It's evening!"

Barely a minute of silence goes by before his eomma's voice rings through the house once more. "Where we're going tonight, it's early morning, dear! The sun is still rising, the moon is barely out of the sky, and the water is cold. So I want you to put on some nice, hot tea, got it young man?" he hears descending down the staircase, then peeks his head out to watch his mother carry a small box down the stairs. He shakes his head with a low chuckle, and then his hands find the kettle and fill it up with filtered water.

"Sugar, eomma?"

"Why not, my sweet baby, why not..."

Younghyun can't seem to keep back his chuckles today. They come out of him like feathers flying out of a pillow being used to hit in a pillow fight, the soft material fluttering around his rib cage. They leave a pleasant tickling sensation wherever they land. "There's no honey..."

"Ran out," his mother affirmatively calls, and Brian hears her fall back onto the couch with a satisfied exhale.

"Okay."

As the teaspoon he holds in between the most calloused fingers of his right hand measures out five portions of sugar from the little blue-and-white jar his mother has had since he was three years old (his father got it for her at a flea market when he went to Canada, and she refused to throw it away even after its flower print faded and its cap chipped from the time their cat tipped it over the table and onto the floor), Younghyun hums to himself a melody full of wildflowers and morning sunlight. He carefully clangs the tea leaf holder into its place above the sugar piled up in the center of the glass teapot, he fills it with a palm-full of tea, a little jig in his shuffling feet, and then the kettle is boiling over and he's gasping and reaching for it with frantic fingers and a sputtering mouth. He forgot to put the cap over the kettle's neck! But then he hears his mother's laughter echo in from the living room and his heart grows warm, so he ignores his burning fingers, the searing liquid melting over the kettle no longer affecting him, and quickly pours the hot water over and into the teapot. It sits there, sloshing a bit, while he tilts the pot from side to side and watches the concoction form its green tint with the little yellow specks and purple undertones reflecting in from the speckled countertop. The man smiles. This is what I've been missing for twelve years, isn't it? he thinks to himself as he brings the pot into the living area and sets it on the small stand beside the couch.

"Come sit, my boy," his eomma chuckles out. The box lies open on her lap, its gentle tissue paper creasing over her legs and mingling with the soft wrinkles of her velvety dress. Brian's smile grows as soft as the material and he sits beside his mother with eyes creased in bliss. "Let me take you back in time to the days when we could all be together as a family. You were so small, then..."

The sympathetic grin following her words shifts her son's heart into a nostalgic blend of coffee and he swiftly turns the subject around before the coffee grinds overflow and the liquid becomes way too bitter. "So what was that in my hands?.."

"Ah!" His eomma's face lightens up. The dark nimbostratus clouds leave her brow almost immediately when she reaches inside the box to pull out a small, box-like object colored a bright yellow, kinda like a taxi. "This was your first (and last) disposable camera!"

Brian looks it over as it passes from his mother's hands into his own. Kodak. Bright yellow like a taxi. Slightly chipped on the side, as if it's been dropped on the pavement. "Why was it my last?"

His eomma shrugs. "You never really took photography up after this roll of film ended."

"Oh." Brian looks it over again, the same thoughts flicking through his mind on repeat. Kodak. Bright yellow like a taxi. Slightly chipped on the side, as if it's been dropped on the pavement. Bright yellow like a taxi. Kodak. Bright yellow like a taxi. Kodak. Kodak. Slightly chipped on the side, as if it's been dropped on the pavement. Bright yellow like a taxi. Kodak—

"Your appa gave it to you." His eomma strokes over something else in the box, her lips creasing into a smile. "You really loved it back then..."

"Hm." He turns it over in his palms, inspecting its back. There's a small box for an eye to look through into the viewing field, and a crappy excuse for a removable film-flap is engraved in the middle. He opens the flap, and the film is inside, already developed, but a bit scratched up. That would make it so troublesome to develop prints... At closer examination, Brian finds that the pictures are blurry as well. Shaky children's hands make blurry photos, especially when a snap is heard chasing after swift running feet.

"They aren't very good, are they?" his eomma comments with a chuckle.

Brian answers with a chuckle of his own and with an amused shake of his head. "No... No they're not. They're actually quite bad."

Then the older Kang is pulling a stack of photographs from the box, her fingers tracing over their edges while a smile tugs at her lips. "Good thing your father took some photographs of his own, then."

She watches as Brian's eyes flare wide with a sparkle and passes him the stack of faded prints. "Eomma..."

"Look through them while I drink my tea. You didn't bring teacups, did you?"

Brian sheepishly shakes his head, laughing. "I'm sorry, eomma. I forgot."

And then he's looking through the photographs with twitching, grinning lips and shaking, excited fingertips.

An hour later, his eomma has grown tired from all the explaining and reminiscing and tea-sipping. Her head rests on a pillow Brian propped up for her, and small snores emit from her snoozing nose and mouth. Brian briefly smiles over at her. Then he places the stack of photographs back inside the box and gently covers it with a shock of protective tissue paper. A yawn escapes him, and his eyes flutter in fatigue, but he grabs his old Kodak, anyway, and looks through the peep-hole in curiosity. His gaze is met with the view of the wall leading to the kitchen. The man closes his other eye and reaches his finger up to press down the shutter button; and as the camera emits an unnecessarily loud "ZWAP!!" the peep-hole grows dark as night.

*

Ten minutes ago...

Wonpil stares at the end of his fishing rod in defeat. It's been an hour since he first started fishing, yet not a single tug has blessed his hands. With a sigh, the 22-year-old pulls the line back in and lays the rod beside him on the grass. His bare feet find the water, and he dips his toes in and out, counting the number of ripples they create until his mind grows dizzy. "I just have no luck, do I?"

He sighs out and rests his hands behind him to clump up the muddy grass and sooth his tired fingers. And then a laugh full of joy and wonder erupts from behind him and his eyes grow wide with What, what, what and his mouth opens a bit while his head tilts to the side. The brunette swivels his gaze around to see a small boy running towards him, a camera in his grasp, as yellow as a taxi, his eyes as bright as headlights, smile as blinding as the 'taxi' sign at the top. "Ahjussi, ahjussi... You look so pretty! Let me take a picture of you, please!" And then a "ZWAP!" emits from the camera, and the boy running towards him is replaced with a man who's standing with his back to him.

The hell?.. Wonpil's mind conjures up, and he finds himself quietly shuffling up and walking towards the confused/annoyed looking guy with black hair and a tall stature to stand beside him. He waits a few moments while the man swats at a mosquito and shifts the camera into the crease beside his elbow, then steps in front of him. "Uwah...So you came here because of... that?" He points at the strange dude's camera, his mouth open wide in shock, because it's not every day he sees a man appear in the place of a boy like that...

"How did you know?" the stranger asks with a look of disbelief.

"I just saw a boy taking a picture of the lake, and he disappeared. You're in his place, now, holding the same exact camera... How can that be?!"

The man sighs. He seems annoyed, and Pil's throat tightens a bit in confusion. "It's an analogue, seemingly."

The thing is... Wonpil's always had a soft spot for analogues. His family owns a piano business, and, though his parents never taught him how to play, he had learned by himself, the ticking of the clock on their wall guiding him through the tiring work of learning to read sheet music and developing muscle memory for the sets of seven keys arraying the musical instrument he had come to adore over the years. Piano is like an analogue for all of the feelings he keeps pent up inside his chest and the thoughts that overflow his mind... Analogues really are his kind of thing, aren't they?.. So the brunette shuffles his feet and gives his signature crooked smile, the one in which his teeth seem to bend the light around his frame in a way that brightens his entire form, before murmuring out, "I like analogues... I like analogues very much."

The black-haired person's hand rises to encompass the side of his yellow camera, and his brows raise until they furrow up on his forehead in a quizzical heap. "Well, as for me... They make me confused. So confused that I might just lose my mind."

And the young man struts off, his steps hastily bringing him further and further away from the brunette. Wonpil notices a pen drop out of his pocket and calls out to him in a desperate spiral of "Wait!"s and "You dropped something!"s... He runs after the man who is walking away from him after he picks up the pen and holds it out. "What's your name?"

There's another deep furrow of the brows before a tentative voice speaks out, "Kang Younghyun..." Some calloused fingers carefully grip the pen, brushing against Pil's quivering hand. "And you are?.."

"Kim Wonpil," he breathes out, holding out his other hand with a little bow of the head. As a slightly rough hand grips his own and brings it into a gentle shake, the brunette grins. "I'm sorry if I upset you or something... It's just that I like analogues, and this is probably just a dream..."

A dark chuckle escapes Younghyun's lips. "I hope it is."

All Wonpil can do in return is nod and swivel his head to the side. "The fish aren't biting, today..."

"I... see." Younghyun finally lets go of his hand and he can breathe freely again. The constricting feeling returns to his chest when the man pinches his cheek though. "You seem too real for this to be a dream... I mean, you're warm, and my dreams are usually cold."

"And you're too pessimistic for this to be my dream, too," Wonpil breathes out, his hands finding the pockets of his ripped canvas shorts. "My cheek stings, please stop..."

The fingers gripping his skin slip away, then return to softly wipe the stinging sensation away. "I'm sorry."

Wonpil's chest constricts and the line in it pulls unlike his fishing pole today. "It's okay."

"Do you suppose I'll go back home if I snap another picture?" Younghyun thinks aloud, and Wonpil turns to him with a questioning gaze. "I mean, the camera seems to be an analogue for my time and location? Seemingly??"

Wonpil shrugs. "I only know clocks and pianos. Not cameras." The black-haired man nods, his teeth nipping at his bottom lip, and his fingers finally slip away from the brunette's cheek. Wonpil misses the contact immediately. "Take me with you."

He covers his mouth immediately when he takes in what he just said, looking down in embarrassment. Then a raspy chuckle meets his ears and calloused fingers meet his hands. "Only if this works..." Then he's gripping Younghyun's hand in his own as the man clicks the shutter. Zwap! And they're gone.

***

"And this is you when we went on that fishing trip with your appa when you were four!" Wonpil looks over to see his boyfriend's eomma pointing at a picture with a smile on her face. "Pil-ah... Isn't he cute, dear?" She smiles over at the brunette, who grins back at her with a nod. Younghyun groans, his hand slipping up his boyfriend's thigh in embarrassment.

They are all sat on the faint, periwinkle-shaded couch they know the saggy feeling of as well as the backs of one others' hands. So many memories are stored in the folds of the ancient canvas, along with a collection of coins and dust. They love it too much to throw it away, though.

"And this is you, Wonpil! My Hyunnie here ran up to you with his camera to take a picture of you that day, and his appa took a picture of you two because you were so funny. My baby nearly fell in the water when you ran at him with your fishing rod, yelling at him for taking a picture of you, but now look at you two!"

Younghyun smiles at Wonpil, whose face is wide-set in a grin, and their fingers lace together in a warm bundle. "I'm glad we met that day," Brian tells his boyfriend. "I would have been lonely without you by my side all these years."

"And without you, I wouldn't have learned how to fish properly," Wonpil chuckles out, leaning into the black-haired man's comfortable side. "But where is the picture hyung took of me, eomma?"

Younghyun's mother brushes his brown hair away from his eyes with a laugh. "He never took the photo; his camera ran out of film!"