Breakfast Buddies, page 1
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 advanced degree, having finished my studies in Russia. The journey was long and complicated—not only geographically, but also professionally. The program I had applied for was extremely competitive, and the academy was considered one of the best European institutions of its kind. I remember how nervous I was when I had to wait for the results in the last months of spring. The offer of admission, which I eventually received in the summer, made me absolutely jubilant. When September came, I was excited and nervous at the same time. Moving from Asia to Europe had been unimaginable several years ago, so even when I boarded my transit flight in Moscow, I still could not believe all of it was real. At the same time, being so young and inexperienced, I had very romantic and somewhat unrealistic expectations for my future—perhaps that it would be some sort of never-ending European fairy tale.
The reality turned out to be both a bit more prosaic and way more complicated. Although some time had passed since my arrival, I still felt awkward and a bit out of place. Immersing myself in that international environment full of people whom I had never met before was a mind-blowing experience for someone who originally came from a homogenous town of 100,000 people in the heart of Eurasia. Of course, my experience studying in Russia was helpful, but only to a limited extent.
Unlike in Russia, we had a very diverse student body of more than one hundred people from all over the world. One had to be culturally aware and adapt accordingly. I had to get used to people’s habits and mindsets, which was challenging at first. I was ignorant and narrow-minded. In particular, Western Europeans and Americans seemed the weirdest and most bizarre to me. Many of them were polite and nice at first, always asking about how I was doing or starting small talk in the elevator. This, I soon discovered, did not mean that all of them seriously cared about me or my well-being. In most cases, this thin veneer of politeness did not mean much. In other cases, especially with some particularly well-off students, it was merely a façade for diplomatic pomposity. They really liked to show off whenever they got a chance. I remember how discovering this utterly appalled me at first. I thought our culture to be more straightforward.
One of my very first acquaintances at the academy was a rather peculiar fellow named K., who was a living embodiment of that utterly confusing Western behavior. K. was from Britain and had a posh Southern English accent. He would always greet me and try to start a conversation. At first, I thought he was trying to befriend me. He called out to me all the time in the dormitory corridors. Yet my opinion changed after our first proper conversation. I had barely man
aged to respond to his question about where I studied, when he interrupted me and began to brag about his aristocratic family origin, his fancy Oxbridge degree, and his personal yacht. I did not interrupt him, politely nodding all the way through the conversation and thinking: What was his deal anyway? It was definitely not that he was interested in me, but for some reason, he would not stop babbling about how awesome his life was. I did not care much for his family’s wealth, even though I did feel somewhat envious about his educational background. Studying at a prestigious university had always been somewhat of an obsession for me. When we parted after our first proper conversation, I could not help but wonder how on earth the University of Cambridge accepted such self-obsessed people. Later, I discovered that Cambridge was apparently full of such types. Since our academy was so reputable, we had quite a number of people like K., coming from high-ranking schools to study there (fortunately, not all of them so arrogant, rich, and egocentric). The aforementioned honorable gentleman, however, was certainly a textbook example of a diplobrat. I heard many unpleasant things about him after we had that first conversation. Apparently, he was also implicated in multiple sexual and drug scandals—so much for being aristocratic.
The academy had many people like K., who looked and felt extremely artificial. Yet I thought maybe it was due to my lack of awareness of norms of etiquette that made me dislike those people. It could have partly been due to culture shock. There was a long list of things that I had to accept and understand. Every country was different; every person was special. A confusing kaleidoscope of internationality. All these people with such diverse backgrounds… Some kissed on the cheek, others avoided physical contact, some would greet one another with a bow, or others with a firm handshake. On top of all that, I had to converse in English all the time, which was rather unusual for me. I was quite fluent, but it was my second language, nonetheless. That limited my ability to freely express my thoughts whenever I wanted. No wonder I occasionally came off as somewhat shy.
I was raised in a rather socially conservative environment. While my mother was quite liberal and open-minded, this did not apply to the other members of my family or the society where I grew up. With all the snobbish and rustic traditions of my home region, it was not surprising that some of my acquaintances and family saw Europe as some sort of rotting liberal Sodom full of immoral people unable to restrain themselves. I tried my best not to listen to them, but some concern still penetrated my mind and lay there, writhing like some knot of disgusting worms. Yet pushing myself to become more open-minded helped me to become more socially comfortable with all types of people. It took me a while since I was full of silly stereotypes and pseudo-moralistic attitudes stemming from my Asian heritage. I was young, foolish, and not very experienced. While I have to admit that, even today, I am still all of those things, I feel that after all these years I am a little bit less of a fool than I was back then.
Back at the beginning of my first academic year there, however, it was very hard to make friends with so much confusion in my head. There was something else too. Being up with the lark was not something that helped me meet new people and fight my social awkwardness. Of course, I did not wake up so early on purpose. Being jet lagged after moving from Central Russia to Central Europe took its toll. After the third day of early wake-ups, I became used to the empty morning corridors of our academy.
On the first two days, I had my breakfasts in the magnificent solitude of the academy’s sumptuous dining room. The room itself was spacious, perhaps a hundred square meters or so—with a dozen dining tables and one buffet table. Designs of fruit and flowers were carved into the wooden panels covering the ceiling. The walls were also decorated with portraits of former directors. Their strict eyes followed us wherever we went, a reminder of how one should behave in such a distinguished institution. What I really liked about that room was how bright it always was in the morning. It had an elegant glass door that led to the academy garden, and the early sunshine would always go through that door as if it were a giant window.
When I entered the dining room on that particular morning, to my surprise, someone was already sitting at the table in front of a portrait of one of the former directors. It was a friendly looking young man with curly brown hair and dark-blue eyes with a cup of some hot beverage in his hands. Rather tall and slim, he was wearing an Adidas T-shirt and blue shorts. His face was still a bit red, so I guessed he had gone jogging before coming to the dorm for breakfast. He was definitely one of the students but did not look like someone I knew from my year. As soon as he noticed me, the young man smiled politely and stood, apparently intending to shake my hand.
…a rather pleasant young man that I met today. Quite a contrast to K., really. There’s still hope for the British nation after all.
“Good morning!” He approached me and extended his hand. His voice was pleasantly sonorous. I hesitated a bit and smiled back with uncertainty.
“Hi,” I said very quietly. After an awkward pause, in which I stared at his hand for a second, hesitating, I finally shook it. It must have looked extremely weird, but I did not realize it at the time.
“I don’t think I know you. My name is Jürgen. I’m a second-year student. Are you a freshman?”
“Nice to meet you, Jürgen. You’re right. I have just started my first year here.” I introduced myself briefly and then took a small glass bowl from the buffet table. Having put some muesli into it, I added some milk and headed for one of the dining tables. Jürgen followed me.
“It’s nice to see new faces. So where are you from?” he said. I could clearly tell he was British from his pleasantly round accent that stressed every vowel. I looked up at him with disbelief, trying to figure out whether this was one of those instances of small talk that Europeans were so fond of. I was not sure what to make of him.
However, the young man turned out to be a very pleasant conversationalist. We started talking about our backgrounds, what we did, and where we came from. I was not entirely wrong about his origins. Jürgen was half British, half Belgian. He was in the second year of our program, and prior to enrolling at the academy, he had studied languages back home. The guy seemed to be genuinely interested in me and my country, asking lots of questions, and so we kept talking for fifteen more minutes, while I slowly sipped my coffee. There was something pleasant and inviting about that young man’s nature. His politeness, ability to maintain conversation, and drink tea were so stereotypically British that it felt like he had jumped straight out of an English textbook.
“Oh well… Sorry, buddy, I have to go now. It was very nice to meet you though,” Jürgen said and stood from the table.
“The pleasure’s all mine!” I said, trying not to choke on a piece of bread while I waved to him.
“Take care and see you around later.”
“Thank you. Have a good day!”
October 15, 2016
Windy
Living in Europe feels like being Alice in Wonderland—preposterously confusing and very far away from home, but with no Cheshire Cat to help me figure out all the puzzles.
Fearing that I would end up with no friends whatsoever, I committed to fighting my social awkwardness at any cost. Good manners and approachability were highly valued in both my family and my country (at times too much, perhaps). So, I chose them as my main conversational weapons. Apart from that, there was my defensively sarcastic and somewhat cynical Eastern European wit that I had picked up while living in Russia. This weird combination apparently made some people like me.
At first, I tried to stick to the herd. In early October, I discovered that there was a rather large Russian-speaking diaspora at the academy. It was a great relief. I was not, of course, Russian, yet I spoke the language fluently and had some cultural connections with the country. I immediately established very close contact with this Russian minority since the language factor was no longer an issue in approaching and getting to know a person. I could be more talkative and frivolous with them, as it was more comfortable back then, for me to express thoughts in their language rather than in English. (To my great shame and pride, my Russian is, at this point, so anglicized that I can barely communicate to my family without occasional pauses to build sentences properly.)
