By Zephyria 
He had lived almost his entire life under the belief that external beauty possessed no beneficial value. Having easily read the inner thoughts behind Eun-ha’s prickly reaction, Yeon-jun’s face now held nothing but amusement. He corrected him.
“Really?”
“Or what?”
Instead of answering, Yeon-jun let out another laugh as he gazed at Eun-ha, then reached out toward him. Grabbing the opposite shoulder, he applied force to his arm and flopped Eun-ha down onto the bed. Casting a shadow over Eun-ha, who collapsed helplessly without a single resistance, he embraced him as if pouncing from above. He entwined his arms around Eun-ha’s torso and buried his face in the crook of his neck.
Eun-ha stared at the ceiling with vacant eyes. The sound of popping laughter echoed in his ears.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because I feel good.”
“Why do you feel good?”
“Because it feels like Hyung likes me so much.”
Eun-ha’s eyebrows twitched. He felt that it wasn’t a particularly appropriate emotion. Since it wasn’t a one-sided love, shouldn’t he not feel good about such a thing…?
“…Do you still like that kind of thing?”
“Yes.”
“….”
“I think I’ll always like it, without ever getting used to it.”
They were already dating, yet he was saying he was happy because it felt like I liked him…
He felt unsettled. He had finally confessed everything, but he was unsettled again by a reaction that seemed to lack even a shred of discomfort, contrary to his expectations.
Yet at the same time, he felt the area around his heart, which had been tightening with anxiety, gradually relax. In that strange state—where the indifferent reaction was uncomfortable yet oddly comforting—Eun-ha, his face clouded with complex thoughts, spoke.
“…Does it not bother you at all?”
“I was a bit surprised because I didn’t expect that part, but, well…”
“….”
“I think it’s fine?”
“…Even though you heard I looked through your phone.”
“I don’t think of things like phones as being very important.”
“….”
“From now on, you can just take it and look whenever you want. I don’t mind if you check it every day.”
“…Why would I do that,” Eun-ha replied, sounding displeased. Checking it? Didn’t that sound like full-blown restraint?
This was especially true for Eun-ha, who had actually practiced such obsession in the past. Constantly peering into phones, questioning meticulously, assigning meaning to trivial things and imagining the worst alone, indulging in delusions… only to receive looks that said they were sick to death of it.
It was the worst kind of behavior… Yet, Yeon-jun’s voice remained consistently flat.
“It’s better than you worrying and stressing over it alone, Hyung.”
“….”
“I’m saying this because it really doesn’t matter to me.”
At the easygoing answer that seemed to truly not care, as he said, Eun-ha finally felt his insides settle. As if the way he had been chewing on his own anxiety like crazy just moments ago had all been a lie.
To the point where the weeks he had spent worrying and suffering silently felt like a dream. His mind became miraculously clear. The worries he had agonized over alone for so long suddenly seemed like nothing—trivial, insignificant problems.
“….”
Thinking back, it had generally been like that. Emotions that had festered and rotted would crawl up from deep within out of habit, only to easily lose their shape and fade away at his indifferent gaze and a single nonchalant word. A feeling of being suppressed and held down by a calm reaction. A feeling of a fragile mind being caught and pulled back into place.
With a momentarily clear head, Eun-ha looked up at the empty air over Yeon-jun’s shoulder, looking somewhat lost. With a face hovering on the borderline of distorting, he toyed with the shoulder of the man pressing down on him and muttered.
“…You’re weird.”
“What is?”
“Why is everything so okay with you?”
“Hmm.”
“Why are you always so unfazed…?”
Yeon-jun laughed lightly at the accusatory tone tinged with self-loathing, as if it were a slightly peculiar question.
“Am I not allowed to be?”
“It’s not that I’m not allowed, but…”
“….”
He felt that if Yeon-jun had shown even a hint of displeasure, he wouldn’t feel this lost. He felt as if he had become a truly wretched human being… though in reality, it probably wasn’t much different.
It was a feeling of wanting to blindly run away somewhere because it was too hard to bear.
The thing he understood least was why he found it so unbearable.
“…I just don’t know what to do whenever you’re like this,” he muttered like a sigh. The immediate response was a firm voice, devoid of hesitation.
“That’s not very difficult.”
“….”
“You just have to be a bit nicer to me, Hyung.”
“….”
“And love me.”
“…I already love you. I’ve told you how many times.”
“I know. Of course.”
“….”
“I meant I want you to love me even more than that.”
The tone was closer to a spoiled plea. It contained a bit of playfulness and affection.
It was likely just a desire for more affection based on love, but to Eun-ha, it felt like a demand with a hidden edge. It was because the days he had spent flashed through his mind like a panorama.
Listening to the soft voice that wrapped around his ears, trapped in an embrace that gave him nothing but constant peace, Eun-ha suddenly steeled his heart and made a resolve. It was right after Yeon-jun had asked tenderly, “Do you feel a bit better?”
…Right. I have to do well.
I really have to do well. I must never create such an unpleasant situation again.
Please. I need to get a grip. I need to hold onto my sanity. I have to act more maturely, normally, like an ordinary person…
“Yeah.”
“….”
“…I’m really sorry.”
He constantly repented and repeated it to himself. Thinking, as Yeon-jun said, that it wasn’t a difficult thing at all. And thinking that it was only right.
But if there was one thing he overlooked, it was the human habit of forgetting. That it is a human trait to forget the past and unconsciously repeat similar mistakes. And that there are things that cannot be achieved by mere resolve. That nothing is stronger than the unconscious. That people do not change as easily as one might think.
Especially if it is some kind of pathological flaw.
It was a day less than a month after that. Around the time when the long late-summer weather broke and the temperature gradually turned cool.
Eun-ha ended up declaring a breakup to Yeon-jun for the second time.
Chapter 4
It was a consistent landscape. A ceiling with a rotating ceiling fan and bright greige wallpaper. A room with a generally simple interior, having undergone a major renovation when he was seventeen. A bookshelf filled with old things like reference books and graduation albums from his childhood, and a large window on one side of the room. A well-maintained garden, tended to under his mother’s attentive care, was visible with just a slight lean in that direction.
And Lulu, curled up in his arms.
Yeon-jun, lying familiarly on his back on his bed, fiddled with the cheek of the pet cat he had half-forcibly tucked into the crook of his arm. Lulu, the youngest of the Baek household and a calico cat, purred at the soft touch but squirmed for some unknown reason. As if wanting to escape from the embrace.
Yeon-jun was well aware of the notorious temperaments of cats through the media. Since becoming family with Lulu, he had researched the feline species quite extensively.
Judging by public standards, Lulu fell into the ‘dog-cat’ category. She had never caused trouble, such as damaging furniture or wallpaper or making a mess of the house, and her personality was generally docile. Cat-punches? He had never been hit by one. Even if there was something she disliked, she didn’t act violently and expressed her opinion within reasonable bounds. Her claws were well-trimmed. Although she struggled and wailed loudly during baths, she had never drawn blood.
“Lulu.”
Still, a cat was a cat. The fact that she wouldn’t stay quietly in his arms for even a single moment proved it. When he called Lulu in a heartbroken voice as she made it very clear she was annoyed and disliked it, a ‘mya’ response came back. Because that meow was so cute, Yeon-jun felt even more heartbroken.
“Why do you always push me away when you like your Oppa?”
Myaa—. Lulu meowed again. Yeon-jun, who wanted to hug Lulu and shower her with love, ignored the constant squirming and struggling to escape and tried his best to pet her. With all his love. Picking only the spots Lulu liked.
However, the end was ultimately surrender. Feeling that holding on any longer would only irritate her, he finally let Lulu go. Immediately, she leaped down to the floor with a nimble ‘tada’ sound. As if she had been waiting for that exact moment. Yeon-jun thought to himself: Ah. I’m hurt.
Remaining in his bored, lying-down position, he turned only his head to follow Lulu’s movements with his eyes. Lulu took a spot next to the door and sat primly, licked her front paw a couple of times, and then looked at Yeon-jun. She stared at him very intently.
Somehow, it felt like a criticism, as if asking, ‘Why are you just lying there?’ As if she, the one who had run away, was wondering why he wasn’t following.
It was around the age of fifteen when Lulu, a powerless stray kitten on the street, had been pushed by a territorial fight and hid in the garden of the house, eventually becoming a house cat.
They had lived together for five years already, but Yeon-jun still couldn’t quite understand Lulu’s heart. Whether she liked it or hated it.
Since she likely perceived him as an owner or a subordinate, she couldn’t hate him; no, she definitely liked him. So why wouldn’t she stay quietly in his arms even once?
And after doing that, why did she look at him like that? He really couldn’t tell.
It was then. A knock sounded, and the door swung open immediately.
“Come down and eat.”
The one who appeared through the gap in the door was Baek Ju-hee, the second of the three siblings. After tossing the words to Yeon-jun half-heartedly, she inadvertently shifted her gaze, discovered Lulu sitting by the door, and immediately wore a look of utmost warmth.
“Lulu—! What are you doing here? Come here, let’s go with Unni.”
Her tone had risen by almost an octave. Yeon-jun, accustomed to his sister’s sudden change in attitude when doting on Lulu, pushed himself up from the bed. His room was on the second floor. Following Lulu, who was following his sister, he finally stepped into the hallway and slowly dragged his indoor slippers down the stairs. On the way, he absentmindedly checked his phone.
He hadn’t expected anything, and as expected, there was total silence. Yeon-jun pondered with his usual expressionless face.
Had it already been a week today? Since he received the notification to break up.