Namjoon read on. He knew Breeze was waiting for him at his mother’s kitchen table. That she was probably being gently interrogated by his eomma. But he just couldn’t tear himself away from her compelling letters to him. This one was dated a week or so after her nineteenth birthday, just about eight months ago.
“Dear Joonie.
“I’m a college freshman. Yippie! (I say that sarcastically). All my friends have abandoned me as they chase their dreams across the country. They’ve all left me in our hometown. I’m the only one left. Their careless words have become the walls of this fortress that I hide behind. I stare at these lonely, stone walls lined with impressionistic paintings. My old ‘ideals,’ all the dreams I’ve been pursuing since I was a child. But someone just set fire to all my old dreams. I can smell the acrid stench of paint burning. The ashes reveal how false those old hopes were. What dream am I to pursue now? Where am I to go? Who am I to follow? Do you know?
“The paintings are gone. The dreams burned. Nought but ashes now. I realize how flimsy they all were. All those things I built my future upon. One errant flame burned them all to the ground in a matter of moments. Yet the stone walls of this fortress survived unscathed by those elsewise destructive flames. So now I stand alone staring at these empty walls, and loneliness fills my soul. I don’t even have the colorful dreams to fill the walls anymore. Nothing bright to lift my soul from the abyss I’m falling into.
“I started college with dreams of being a doctor, at the very least, a nurse. But these dreams have turned to ashes in my mouth. They hold a bitter aftertaste now, and I find them very hard to swallow. I struggled through the first semester, hating every moment of it. And hating myself for having chosen such a difficult path. This is not me. I am not the person I believed myself to be for over a decade. So, who am I? What am I to do with my life? Does anyone have a new dream to sell me? For all my old ones are dead and buried. Or else they’ve become dust in the wind. There is no one to resurrect them for me. I do not care. I don’t want them anymore, anyways.
“Oh, how I identify with your song, Whalien 52! Your words are in my mouth now, Joonie: ‘Loneliness is the only thing that stays by my side. I’ve become completely alone. It’s a lock that fills sadness…Nobody remains by my side.’ (But, Joonie, I’m not fine on my own. I am, at least, honest enough to admit this much). ‘These words that are easily said towards me quickly become a wall. Even loneliness turns into something you can see. Lonely, lonely, lonely whale. Like this, try calling once again. Until this song that doesn’t have a response reaches tomorrow. No more, no more, baby…An endless signal will reach someday everywhere, even to the other side of the earth.’
“Will it? Will this book of mine, will these words of mine, reach the other side of the earth someday? Will they land in your lap? Will these letters that have no answer reach tomorrow and find your heart? And if they do, will having found you answer my loneliness? Will this song finally have a response?
“I’m praying that someday it will have an answer. That when it reaches tomorrow, it will finally find you. I know it’s a wild dream. But it’s mine.”
Namjoon sighed. He could feel her angst twisting like a knife in his own gut. What answers did he have for her?
He had captured his dreams. Four years after he had written Whalien 52, he and the boys had hit the big time, becoming the biggest band in all the world, including the world of those who spoke English as their native tongue. Ha! They were, in fact, learning to sing in Korean! It was mind-blowing! His song had touched tomorrow. A brighter, more beautiful, richer tomorrow. His endless signal had reached the other side of the earth. All his dreams had come true. Yet, having finally reached the top, he had discovered just how empty success was. And how very lonely it was. Fortress walls, indeed. He often stared at those walls himself, wondering if anyone would ever scale them to come visit him inside where the real Namjoon was hidden.
