Breakfast Buddies

A NineStar Press Publication

www.ninestarpress.com

Breakfast Buddies

ISBN: 978-1-64890-570-4

© 2022 Ildar Daminov

Cover Art © 2022 Jaycee DeLorenzo

Published in November 2022 by NineStar Press, New Mexico, USA.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact NineStar Press at Contact@ninestarpress.com.

CONTENT WARNING:

This book contains depictions of internalized homophobia.

Breakfast Buddies

Ildar Daminov

Table of Contents

Dedication

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Acknowledgements

About the Author

I dedicate this story to my good friend George, my beloved mother, and my close friends, who have accepted me for who I am.

Part One

The Diary

Prologue

AUGUST 16, 2019

Sunny

We humans are spectacularly bad at understanding our own emotions.

I rummaged through a pile of books, trying to find it. Where could it be? I thought it had to be somewhere in between these dusty old tomes. Yet my attempts to find it seemed futile, and I got increasingly angry—my short-tempered nature did not help either. I pushed aside a pile of books standing in my way, mumbling in great annoyance. Some of them fell on the floor with loud thumps. After the idea came to me, I simply could not forget about it. I had to find it. There was just no other way. It must have been somewhere among all these heavy monographs on Korean politics, East Asian history, and countless language textbooks—the scholarly legacy of my former studies.

In my hectic search, I accidentally toppled one of the piles and cursed quietly. That was when I saw an old, laminated picture gracefully land on top of the scattered books. It looked familiar, so I picked it up. It was a photo of me and my academy friends—Jean Luc, Aja, Negasi, and… Jürgen. I felt a funny prickle in my heart. The picture made me slightly nostalgic about my student days. Ah, the academy, that international, scholarly melting pot. That was the place where it all started… Then I came back to my senses and shook my head, as if trying to free myself from some magical slumber. I had to concentrate, so I hid the photo in my coat pocket and resumed my search.

Where could it be? I clearly remembered leaving it here after my trip to Seoul, at least I thought I did. As the evening progressed, so did my desperation. I had come all the way back home to retrieve it—all this could not have been in vain! I sneezed. A cloud of dust exploded right in front of me, and I closed my eyes, grunting yet again in a mix of annoyance and desperation. Still, I persisted. After an extra hour of extensive searching that involved tired puffing, desperate muttering, and other forms of noiseless complaints, I finally found the precious object that I had been so obsessively looking for.

There it was. A rather unremarkable battered notebook with a brown leather cover that had almost lost its color. The binding had two numbers engraved on it—2016/2018. Inconspicuous though it looked, there was something mysteriously magical and enticing about it. Why did I need it so badly in the first place? I asked myself. I certainly knew the uncomfortable answer. It was a part of me, a part that I wanted to forget. Its semi-magical importance was reflected in the story that it told—a long-forgotten story of internal struggle, love, cowardice, and personal growth.

I smiled to myself furtively. It had taken a lot of courage to get back home, find it, and embark on a new adventure. So I had to make sure that I did everything properly. After all, diaries are simple but powerful tools: these mighty artifacts of the past that can bring back unnecessary memories and reopen old wounds. A phenomenon truly curious and somewhat egocentric in nature. Why do we even write diaries? We share our hopes and dreams, vent out anger and frustration in their pages. There are people who do not even have a clear aim when they first put pen to paper. There are people who want to organize their thoughts properly. There are people who do not know to whom they could entrust their secrets and so choose a silent paper friend. There are people who like to self-reflect and want to better understand themselves. There are people…

So many people and so many diaries. Some are full of trite details of daily routines, while others diligently guard what our past selves thought to be our dearest and most important memories. Some become deeply cherished heirlooms passed down from generation to generation, while others are consumed by the insatiable quicksand of history, the names of those who wrote them vanishing like the final gentle whisper of the early autumn wind. Yet every diary—no matter how boring or gripping it is—tells a story and creates meaning where there was none. If used wisely, that meaning helps us to better understand this ridiculously complicated world through the stories of ourselves and others.

My furtive smile became brighter as I carefully studied the dusty notebook in my hands. I was full of triumph and determination—and yet felt a tiny droplet of melancholy and wistfulness. As I kept looking at it, I wondered whether I was ready to finish the last entry. Perhaps, this was the right time to revisit the diary and do it.

Part Two

The Academy

September 25, 2016

Cloudy

The suitcases were already unpacked in my room, so I woke in a chaos of clothes, books, and household appliances scattered all over the place. Stretching and yawning, I observed for a while this small domestic pandemonium of mine as my brain slowly booted up. The screen on my phone lit up, and the white numbers showed 6:55 a.m. I was not in the mood to put all my things in their proper place, having moved into the dormitory just the day before. After a refreshing shower, I realized how hungry I felt and decided to go have breakfast.

As I ran down the stairs, my steps echoed loudly in the building. Its acoustics were truly wonderful. A marvelous piece of baroque architecture from the outside, the academy had a very simple interior: snow-white walls, high ceilings, wide staircases, and empty corridors. Without anyone around, the place felt like a well-kept ghost house. I only managed to catch a quick glimpse of a cleaning lady before she disappeared, entering the director’s reception room and closing the door after herself. Countless portraits of former students and professors were watching me closely as I passed through the last corridor leading to the kitchen.

I had arrived at the academy to devote myself to an