Daehoon could still remember the red hue of the lockers at his high school. They were bright, obnoxiously so. On his first day there, someone had compared them to lobsters. Daehoon had told him, “Lobsters aren’t actually red, they just turn that colour when they get cooked, so they aren’t like the lockers.” The person who had made the comparison didn’t seem to appreciate that too much and gave Daehoon a look. He got that look a lot, and he thought he knew why, but he didn’t know how to fix it. It was a problem with him, his own existence in the world. He remembered the lockers so well because he had spent hours staring at the doors of them when he was shoved inside. The first time it had happened, he had stared at the metal for hours before they had let him out. Afterwards, he went to find the person who had said they looked like lobsters. Daehoon announced that it was a ladybug, what the lockers were really the colour of. The person glanced away from him quickly and allowed Daehoon to inspect the hairs on the back of his head, from a distance.

            The day Daehoon had met Andy, he smelled like fish. It was a smell that his own nose had gone numb to, but the group of kids wearing athletic shorts and bright backpacks had made sure he was aware of his own scent. Like ocean scum, that was what they said.

            “It’s not ocean scum,” Daehoon had wanted to protest. “It’s from working at the restaurant.” He chose instead to keep his mouth closed; he knew that they would ask the name of the restaurant in order to find Daehoon later. He didn’t want his family to see what they would do to him.

            Andy was wearing clothes like those kids, but he couldn’t have been more different. He didn’t share glances with his friends when Daehoon walked by – instead, he stared straight at him. Daehoon knew well the composition of Andy’s eyes: a sharp grey, but with traces of brown around the pupil, like a deep pothole in a road. Andy had asked Daehoon if he wanted to come to a basketball game.

“Why would I do that?” Daehoon asked, cocking his head. Andy told him that it would be fun. “Well,” Daehoon said, “I probably won’t go, but maybe I will, but I don’t know for sure.” Andy had laughed and answered, “Got it.”

Daehoon did end up going to the basketball game. He sat in the back bleacher, where all the players looked smaller than they really were. He watched Andy as he played, and when Andy shot the ball, Daehoon stood up, like it was him being thrown.

Daehoon grew to appreciate his interactions with Andy, sparse as they were. No matter the day, Andy greeted him with a glance and a smile when they crossed each other’s path. Once, after months, they had found themselves in the same room.

“Andy,” Daehoon said, matter-of-factly.

“Dae,” he replied. He had taken to giving him a nickname. Sometimes, people called Daehoon that because they didn’t know his full name. Yet there was no doubt in his mind that Andy said it as a term of affection, more than anything else.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You already did.” Andy snickered at his own joke. Daehoon was glad, more than anything, that he had realized it was a joke. It was hard for him, hard to know things like that.

“Can I ask you more?” Andy nodded his head in acceptance while packing his bags.

“Do I smell like anything?”

Andy didn’t seem to expect that, and for a moment Daehoon was afraid he had spoken wrong. That he had a mistake, as he always did. The shock, however, was momentary.

“I mean, I guess you do,” Andy mused.

“What?” Daehoon was eager, afraid.

Andy took Daehoon’s shirt sleeve in his hand and brought it close to his nose.

“Fish, I think.”

Daehoon didn’t have a reply. He had been sure that Andy wasn’t able to smell his scent, that for whatever reason it was weaker to him than others.

“You think?” It was all Daehoon could muster. He hoped, by some sort of miracle, that Andy had thought wrong.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” Andy admitted. “But you have a fish smell about you. Do you live near the ocean?”

Daehoon was astonished. Why was it, then, that Andy treated him differently, fish smell and all?

“Yes,” Daehoon lied, “yes, I live near the ocean.” In a way, the tanks of shellfish ready to be cooked were a small type of ocean.

Andy started towards the door. “Gotta go,” he announced. Daehoon only stared. Andy chuckled in response. “You’re so weird,” he laughed. When Andy left, Daehoon smiled. His laughter wasn’t cruel. It sounded like bells.

A few weeks later, Daehoon arrived at school to a group of classmates with their heads down. He didn’t try to ask them what was wrong. He learned by listening to the whispers that circulated the school hallways.

He's dead.

That was it, two simple words. Someone like Andy could be gone, in all but that. A heart attack, people said. An anomaly.

The students at school held a makeshift funeral for Andy that day. Daehoon wasn’t one of the people standing near the front, offering a heartfelt story. His story was for him alone to know, him and whatever remained of Andy.

In a way, it made Daehoon feel taller than ever. Andy had liked him, something only he would know. The students near the front didn’t turn their heads. Perhaps Daehoon’s scent of the ocean, wafting through the air, was secondary to their grief. The leaves on the trees outside shifted in the wind. They were almost singing.