The One Moon Chapter 1

A little boy about the age of 3 was walking around a small living room looking for food to eat. He was starving. His dad was sitting on the brown table near the fridge he was walking to. The little boy who observed his father knew that food always came out of the big white machine. As he walked towards the fridge, his soles started bleeding.

“Ugh…”

A boy 16 years of age started moaning.

“Why did these memories come back to haunt me today out of all days? I worked a lot and studied so much yesterday. I want to sleep!” He said aloud.

Every once in a while, Han Moonhan gets dreams like this that wake him up. It interrupts his sleep cycle and he never gets enough sleep. Since he was already woken up, he decided to go roam the streets of Hongdae to distract his mind from his nightmare.

Moonhan lives in a goshiwon about 3 meters big. The dorm was cheap so he lived there. Coincidentally, it’s also close to Hongdae. The neighborhood of music arts.

Wearing his black fabric mask, he roamed the noisy streets. While he was roaming, a loud boom startled him. He turned around and saw a chaotic band of boys singing and dancing along to a rock band. The way they managed to dance and move their feet to keep up with the beat looked interesting to him so walked closer to observe the scene.

When he got there, a boy a little shorter than him and looked about his age, grabbed a microphone and started singing. Unexpectedly, his voice was angelic but it was still strong enough to match the theme and rhythm of the rock band. Along with that, the boy, who Moonhan noticed had dyed his hair light brown was moving his feet quite swiftly to match his team members’ dance after he finished his line. Like a marching band that was all uniform, the dancing boys though all look different all danced synchronized together like they had the same mind and he was intrigued at how every one of them somehow connected to one another…

“Sigh…” Moonhan was impressed but his emotions started to overwhelm him. The speakers started getting louder as the boys were finishing up their dance and it allowed for his emotions to get louder too. Moonhan started to breathe heavily and his hearbeat was getting faster. His heart burned. It wasn’t his first panic attack so he knew calming down wouldn’t be too hard but it still scared and embarrassed him that his attack had to be in front of a big crowd and the talented dancers and singers.

“I can’t… No!!” He started hyperventilating and fell to his knees clutching his chest. The people around asked if he was okay but he couldn’t respond. He just kneeled there continuing to breathe heavy trying to control it.

This caused people to yell out for help and for anyone who was a doctor. Then, a man in dark hair with tints of blue started to walk toward the people yelling for help at the scene of Moondae. He crouched down and started talking in a soothing voice.

“It’s okay, if something happens, I’ll help you out. For now, try to relax and get calm.”

As he was saying this, he tried to take off Moonhan’s mask. But was rejected… Moonhan picked up his hands and open his five fingers to motion him not to. Moonhan took the mask off himself instead. Seeing this, his hands backed away. Knowing that the boy was not in immediate danger and didn’t really want help, he started telling others that he was okay and that the best thing to do was to go back to their everyday life.

This group of people didn’t listen and was yelling at him that the boy was dying and doing nothing would kill him.

“Everyone staring at him won’t help him calm down.” He says.

“He’ll be fine, panic attacks are quite common at my company and I know more than you.”

The group glared at the rich-looking know-it-all. Gossiping about him loudly as they walked away.

“Damn, if he wasn’t wealthy, I’d probably be on his ass right now…”

“Rich people think they can boss us around!” “Fucker…”

Moonhan also heard this and felt bad for the man but was thankful since he did not want attention and eyes looking at him wouldn’t be comfortable for him.

The tall man who noticed Moonhan was already trying to calm down guessed that he probably had panic attacks before and that he would be okay soon. That was why he decided to distance him from other people and the attention because it was a normal mishap and didn’t want to create a bigger scene near his trainee’s stage. The worse that can happen is police and ambulance cars interrupting the recording.

As the situation died down, Moonhan’s breathing was better and he moved to the side in a corner sitting on a public bench.

“I shouldn’t have done that.” He said quietly closing his eyes and looking up. Moonhan felt that his body was stupid. He had to go into a panic in the middle of the crowd of people. “What an embarrassment”, he thought to himself.

“Oh, and why shouldn’t you?” Said the man who helped him. He had heard the quiet mumbles.

Moonhan didn’t notice he was following him.

Moonhan was surprised. He stood up and bowed down 90 degrees.

“Thank you for helping me! What can I do to repay you? If you would like, I can clean your shoes!”

Moonhan who panicked said the words he remembered saying to bullies. They were not the right choice of words but he figured it was okay since it was still a repayment method.

The man didn’t expect the boy to offer to clean his shoes.

“What an interesting idea to repay someone”, he thought. He started chuckling to himself and stopped and told the boy to stand straight.

*A Goshiwon is a small and economical living quarters. It is inexpensive and doesn't require a deposit. Also, some Goshiwons have private showers and are fully furnished.