It was a warm morning, one of those that hadn’t been around for a very long time. The streets were covered with a cloudy scorching heat, forming a shaky scenery where the horizon laid and the air kept poking his nostrils with a subtlety vehemence of something like inconvenient yet invisible hot feathers. He felt like sneezing but decided to turn his eyes from the summer combusting star, holding back the pressure that seemed determined to ride up his lungs and find the way out of his ribcage somehow. 

Gazing at the pavement under his feet, Seo Joon allowed himself to feel the fevered embrace of the day on his covered shoulders, which left nothing but sweat prints on the bluish fabric covering his torso and all of his skin underneath. 

Summers could be sticky but he wouldn't be able to deny that it made him feel sort of glad and more alive. Seo Joon could sense his cells blooming under the impact of so much light, as a sunflower would certainly and happily do once it catched the sun’s pace. 

He kept moving, watching different kinds of footsteps and footwear all the way ahead, voices of life muffled under the turbulent traffic symphony of what would soon become afternoon hours and that messy commotion, willingly or not, felt so much like home that he couldn't contain the beam slowly looming from his lips. After almost clashing with some stranger’s shoulder, it didn’t seem so wise to walk around with his eyes glued to the floor anymore and Seo Joon looked for shelter under the shadows of the sidewalk trees. A safe harbor of light breeze and poor sunshade, that's how it felt like, but the teenage boy wasn’t complaining at all. Now he was able to at least keep his eye level at the proper high and his pupils felt secure enough to watch the old architecture that would surround his sweaty self within a few more squares. 

There was something about those imponent stony buildings and their pointy roofing, something that was known but at the same time pretty intimidating. Looking at them, sometimes, could feel even too intimate to bear and, at some moments, not being able to look at them made him feel distressed. It was confusing, to say the least, but nothing heavy enough to force him to turn his back and go away. 

It was a matter of fact that the 'ancient thrill' was more than a 'walk by' situation in his life. Every memory that Baek Seo Joon ever holded was inlaid into it, since his home felt like a cultural worshiping wing itself. It was his father’s work, of course, but it never stopped him from feeling trapped in a past that didn't belong to him. Bygone books, archaic portraits and war paintings, rooms with mold eaten corners and a lot of creaking wood all night long. Walking by the corridor felt like time travelling with no Delorean to be spotted anywhere and altogether it felt too suffocating to stay around. His sisters didn't seem to care, but he would snap if he granted himself to care an inch more.  

That’s why going around the nook of that street would often make him feel so relieved. It was like turning a page just to arrive in a whole new book and his recent address almost smelled like freshly opened paper wrapping. It wasn’t as peaceful as his old neighborhood, but at least it wasn’t the place where he had grown up and that meant a home that could actually have some space for him and not only for a past that he was tired of hearing about or of sharing territory with. It was his, his flat with his belongings that were not at all filled with dreadful fates, losses and mistakes of men who didn’t age enough to understand their lives were too short to actually be counted as such. 

Seo Joon honestly couldn't understand how his father would not get sick of the morbidity of the past. At times it even felt like the man holded some pride over the misfortune of the departed ones, even though he knew his dad was too good of a man to be held accountable for suchlike behaviour. It was a sterling passion, a work related one and regardless of his own superficial judgement, it was a blessing to see someone with a job that could fulfill their soul as much as their pockets and, in that aspect, the son could see himself following his old man’s footsteps. 

Baek Seo Joon was a Conservation Scientist and he couldn’t see himself doing anything else in his life, at least not in the near future. He had a fondness for life as big as his father’s devotion to the dead and sometimes it was funny to think how much of the same person they seemed to be. He could easily remember the large smile on his dad’s face while unfolding a new old piece of parchment on the living room floor, calling all his kids to “come and see it” with an enthusiasm capable of easily ripping the corners of his lips. That prospect was amusing only because, once Seo Joon had a new Forestry Map to explore with his crew he would do the exact same thing and vent out ideas to bring life back to the place. His dad would rant about the past with the same energy and the younger man wasn’t able to help the shake of his head while unlocking his apartment door. A shake that denied the thought but not the facts surrounding their similarities. 

The apple never falls too far from its tree, they say. 

His new house was warm. Not as the sudden summer like day yet humid and bright enough for the summertide to peek around the edge. The plants and his large tall windows did the trick, gifting vitality to the few rooms on the loft and making Seo Joon feel immersed in nature as he loved to be. 

The cat greeted him by intertwining itself to his legs for a few moments, leaving traits of his black fur on his old jeans. There were brown specs of dirt on the white spots of his back and Baek knew exactly what it meant. He exhaled, not really into dealing with the situation and trying his best to hang his backpack on the wall without stepping on his pet’s tail by accident. 

- Could you please leave my flowers alone, Bona-ah? - The cat did nothing but round him once more, this time without keeping itself between his owners legs and rapidly getting out of sight. - I wonder what did they ever do to you… 

As Seo Joon spotted his pet once again, he didn't get surprised to see that the cat only kept giving its back to him, bouncing its hips while walking towards the synthetic leather sofa that it had claimed as his. 

Bona was great at pretending not to care and, to be honest, Seo Joon was okay with the fact that the fat blotchy black cat would move a little even if that meant it was going to make a wreck out of his plants. If destroying things could be an exercise for his buddy, then be it. He could replant the flowers during the weekend and Bona was getting chubbier by the months, so better some movement than nothing at all - which was usually what the cat would do all day, be inert. 

Once he got rid of the sneakers without even untying his shoelaces, the young man walked towards the bathroom right by the corner and gazed at the long mirror over his porcelain sink. Heavy perspiration tears were still running down his temples, casually hiding under his shoulder-long hair. He didn't like to tie it up since he felt that hairstyle didn't quite look good on him, but the weather couldn't care less about his aspect and he decided that pin it up would be for the best. He reached for a beaten black and browned by age hairband abandoned on the sink and quickly caged the nut-brown strands away. His reflex seemed younger than his mind would care to remember and he couldn't hold the sickly feeling of looking like a child. His childhood was quite nice to be fair, yet his younger self reminded him so much of a bun-like appearance that the thought gave him the chills.

He was a twenty six years old man yet his beard refused to look more than a breath of downiness that would, occasionally, lurk out of his pores once a week. It was a shared issue he had with most of his peers, but there would always be one or two men he knew to be gifted with so much facial hair that they could actually donate some of it to him. Envy wasn’t the greatest feeling but sometimes he conceded it to get to him as some petty moment to share with himself only.

Running his slender fingers over his chin, he wondered how a heavy beard would look on him only to feel ludicrous about his own thoughts. He lowered his head, one hand turning the tap and another one cupping some water on the palm just so he could refresh his face with a generous dash. It was a bracing feeling, to say the least, and he did it again just to balance his heat with the almost neutral atmosphere of the place. After drying himself, he went for a glass of water, the white vintage fridge kind of glowing in front of the bister bricked wall that he loved so much. His plants looked even greenish against it and even though he wasn't a fan of stonewalls, bricks were a whole different thing. He felt safe there, not ghostly watched as before. Sitting on the third of his high chairs, he contemplated the new environment even though he was living there for almost six months now. Anyway, the view never did get old for him and being there, silently sipping cold water from his glass while watching his chubby cat lick the dirt out his own fur was peaceful enough to make him smile to himself. 

The ding and vibration coming from his pocket caught his attention, breaking the moment but not enough to be upsetting. Seo Joon reached for his phone and wondered as the e-mail icon showed himself on the screen. He left his glass on the side, cold sweat rolling down till it reached the counter and formed a small pool around itself and then he unlocked the screen, jumping right to the received message. 

Dear Baek Seo Joon, 

It’s with joy that the board of Master’s Degree from Yonsei University informs that your project has been approved. Further documentation is needed only for final registration matters, but you can submit it on your first day in the Institution by the secretary of your course. Your classes are scheduled to begin on March 15 this year (2019) and we are eager to assist and witness your effectiveness during the sixteen months to come. Feel free to email any doubts to the address down below and don’t forget to gather the requested documentation in time so we can prevent unwanted delays.

Kind regards, 

Professor Min Young Gi.

Wide eyes opened the path to a gigantic grin that turned into a loud laugh. The cat turned his crumpled flat face towards him, unamused and Seo Joon grinned even more, laughing again but not much as a mad man and more like a really pleased healthy person, as he currently felt. He had been waiting for those news for weeks and here were they, out in the air as bright fireworks announcing a whole new time. 

- Daddy is getting a scholarship, Bona-ah! Isn’t dad amazing?

Bona looked at him once more before turning his attention back to his own fur, silently discarding his owner's too-joyful-to-bear presence and high-pitched-by-excitement voice. Seo Joon couldn’t be bothered by the animal's attitude. He was too used to that and, besides, he felt way too happy to even care. 

With a brief “i’m in'' he messaged one of his friends and walked away from the phone, leaving it to make company to his forgotten glass over the stand. On the way to his bedroom, the desperate ‘dings’ from his cell phone gave him a low access of giggles and he kept walking, amused with the idea of letting the other man in the dark for a few more minutes.  

Yoon Jae would be thrilled if he wasn’t already.