#82

The two of them worked tirelessly. The man was so dedicated that Tae-heun, unable to help it, found himself working hard as well, and before they knew it, the sun was high in the sky. Where all those people had gone, no one knew; the surroundings were eerily quiet. The machines scattered about, abandoned without an owner, looked forlorn.

“Let’s take a break.”

Tae-heun said this to the man, who was sweating profusely, as he stood up. Thanks to their hard work, the desolate field of the persimmon tree house was now filled with rows covered in black plastic.

The man got up. He walked along the edge of the field, wiping his sweat with a towel draped around his neck. Tae-heun followed him, wiping his own face and body. Every place the towel touched stung. It was obvious he was red all over, and some parts of his skin might have even been scraped.

The sky was heavily overcast. While it blocked the blazing sun, it couldn’t push away the heat. The humidity made it feel as if they were in a sauna.

The man picked up a barley tea kettle left by the old lady and poured himself some water. He poured some into a paper cup for Tae-heun as well. They sat side by side on the edge of the field.

Tae-heun’s gaze was fixed on the man. When it came to him, he didn’t want to miss a single moment. The man turned to look back. Their eyes met. The face that often turned red from shyness was calm. Instead, curiosity sparked in the man’s eyes as he looked at Tae-heun.

“Do you really like me that much, Tae-heun?”

The man asked, in his characteristic blunt tone.

“Yes!”

Tae-heun replied emphatically.

“Why?”

The man was usually one to avoid asking for reasons.

Tae-heun chuckled at the man’s question, which seemed so obvious. Why? Well…

He couldn’t come up with a suitable answer.

“I was just curious. Have you always been like this?”

Tae-heun was slightly taken aback by the man’s directness, but soon felt upset as thoughts of Kwon Yong-jun crossed his mind.

“If that were the case, I would have already been with Ki-beom.”

He answered bluntly on purpose.

“Then is there another reason?”

The man asked again, with an innocent expression.

“Of course there is.”

There must be.

“What is it? Why do you like me?”

The man kept throwing questions like a child. Tae-heun couldn’t help but smile. The man, with his brown eyes that had darkened in the sunlight, waited for an answer.

“Why, you ask….”

He was confident he could answer clearly, but when it came time to do so, he couldn’t think of a reason.

Why was that?

It wasn’t love at first sight.

He wasn’t the type to have such romantic thoughts.

Was it because he felt sorry for the man with the leg disability?

That thought wasn’t even worth considering.

Was it because he was a good father?

That was one of the reasons he liked him, but it wasn’t the reason for his arousal.

Damn it. Why?

The women he dated around the time of Lee Seon-jae all had their reasons. Some were incredibly beautiful, some had lovely breasts, and some had amazing butts. He had once fallen for a woman who was smarter than him during his college days, but aside from her, he had mostly been attracted to physical appearances and went straight to bed. If the sexual chemistry was good, he continued seeing them.

The man was handsome, but he wasn’t so stunningly good-looking that it made his head spin. He had seen countless guys like that but felt no emotions towards them. If someone were to ask if the man’s appearance was his type, he would have to say it was uncertain. Tae-heun preferred flashy types with a Western appearance like his own. Moreover, he didn’t even look at women with dark skin like the man’s. They felt rustic to him. So it wasn’t about looks.

Personality? He did like the man’s blunt and sturdy character. But no matter how good a personality was, how could someone get aroused in front of the same gender? And was the man even interesting? Not really. He might have been cute, but they hadn’t really had a proper conversation.

The more he tried to find a reason, the more lost he became.

One day, while trapped in a safe house, he ate the cold noodle dish the man had made and fell ill with a fever. After that, he gradually fell for the man, like clothes getting wet in a light rain. Before he knew it, he liked him, that feeling of liking turned into love, and naturally led to desire.

So was it the cold noodles that were the answer?

Damn it. It couldn’t possibly be just that.

Seeing Tae-heun lost in thought, the man smiled faintly, as if he had expected this.

“Or is it something similar to Yong-jun?”

The man asked in a somewhat light tone.

“No, it’s not that. I’m not gay.”

Tae-heun snapped back.

“That’s not what I meant.”

The man gently countered, as if to soothe him.

“Yong-jun said he liked my looks. Then he liked that I was quiet, and though it’s awkward for me to say this, he said my ‘thing’ was big, and that I was his ideal type.”

He spoke nonchalantly, but his face turned bright red at the mention of ‘thing.’

“No matter how much Kwon Yong-jun talks, the conclusion is that he likes Ki-beom’s big dick.”

Tae-heun found himself getting agitated without realizing it. There were things to compare, but to lump himself together with that guy who had been sucking dick in the living room while everyone else was asleep was infuriating.

The man openly showed his dislike for Tae-heun’s words.

“Yong-jun isn’t like that.”

“How can you say that? If Ki-beom liked him, wouldn’t they have dated? Wouldn’t he have married a woman and gotten her pregnant? Am I wrong?”

“That’s because I…”

“Whether it’s that or not, in the end, that’s how it is. Did you two ever go on a date before meeting me? A kiss? A hug?”

Tae-heun pressed on. He was just as angry as the one who had farted. He had never even hugged anyone sober.

“See? There was nothing. So how many times has Ki-beom sucked Yong-jun’s dick? There must be so many times that you can’t even count. That’s the difference between Kwon Yong-jun and me. I have no interest in Ki-beom’s dick. Well, it’s not that I have no interest, but that… Damn it!”

He roughly swept his bangs back.

“Yong-jun is just a coward.”

The man defended Yong-jun.

“Just like you were scared yesterday.”

There was a hint of pity in the man’s tone.

Tae-heun was about to ask how that was the same, but he kept his mouth shut. He wondered what the difference was. Both he and Kwon Yong-jun liked the man. The reasons for their fear might differ, but they were both scared.

So what? What does it matter? Right now, the important thing wasn’t Kwon Yong-jun. It was the man and himself, Yoon Ki-beom and Kim Tae-heun. But the conversation kept veering off course. It was Tae-heun’s fault for getting overly excited.

Why couldn’t this guy’s head work properly at such an important time? When it came to numbers, he was clear and smart about everything. He was so cunning that he often marveled at himself. Even though he had recently been struggling with insomnia and lethargy, he had never felt this depleted before.

Tae-heun clenched his fists. His feelings for the man were beyond doubt. They were very clear. He liked the man. No, he loved him. Setting aside the fact that he got hard at any time, he always wanted to be together and constantly envisioned a future for the two of them. Even if the man had a grown child, it didn’t matter. He was confident he could treat them well, just like his own.

“Do you remember what I said earlier? That I want to grow old like the old man and the old lady at the persimmon tree house?”

Tae-heun said, casting his gaze toward the clouds.

“I never had a dream. At school, they often asked, ‘What are your future aspirations?’ You know, right? At that time, other kids would raise their hands and say all sorts of things. Teacher, firefighter, police officer, soldier, soccer player, and so on. Some even said they wanted to be good parents, but I couldn’t think of anything. I had never thought about such things. From that time, I was already the head of a household.”

He continued slowly, reminiscing about the past.

Tae-heun realized he was a lonely person after meeting the man. For the first time, he dreamed of happiness and could promise a future. He had thought such things had nothing to do with him, but that wasn’t true. He had just grown up that way.

Looking back, Lee Seon-jae had been raised with all desires except for sexual desire suppressed. It all started with being made to accept the burden of being the head of a household at a young age. The ambitions, desires for fame, and the need for achievement that everyone is born with were not permitted for Lee Seon-jae.

His uncle taught Seon-jae that what was wrong was right. He would bow and scrape in front of others while secretly mocking and looking down on them, rejoicing in their misfortunes, and ignoring injustices. Guilt was a nuisance, and morality was simply boring, and he said the world was a place where violence worked much better than words.

“Seon-jae, you have to show the traitor what’s what. You must take revenge. How do you take revenge? Right. With usury! An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and not just that, but an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a nose for a nose. Do you understand what I mean?”

His uncle had said this with a laugh, as if it were a joke.

The only person who had given love to young Seon-jae, his aunt, had also died without being able to tell him that it was wrong. She had been too unhappy to have the luxury of caring about others’ misfortunes.

Lee Seon-jae naturally grew up to be cynical and twisted.

“I did eventually get a dream, but it’s a bit awkward to tell Ki-beom.”

He glanced at the man and smiled. He couldn’t say that even after meeting him, he had continued to dream of death for a while. For Tae-heun, death was a natural thing, but for the man, it might be a painful thing.

There was too much death around Lee Seon-jae. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he saw death every day, something that ordinary people might experience once or twice in their lifetime. Death was so commonplace that he couldn’t think it strange, and after his aunt committed suicide, he even developed a longing for death in his heart. Just as ordinary people dream of happiness and envision a future, Lee Seon-jae only dreamed of death.

The future was.

He let out a laugh that sounded like air escaping from a tire.

To Lee Seon-jae, the future was darkness. It never existed in the first place. Perhaps until the day he died, whether by suicide, homicide, or accident, he would continue to live in darkness under his uncle’s influence.

The reason Seon-jae made this decision was very simple. It wasn’t a manifestation of burning righteousness or morality.

It was a deeply personal reason, a desire for revenge against his uncle, who had thoroughly deceived him, the adopted son Lee Seon-jae, who had been made to work to the bone since he was very young, for over ten years. He had deeply engraved his uncle’s advice to repay traitors with usury into his bones, so it was a natural outcome.

He felt no pangs of conscience. He felt no remorse for anyone except for that family in the two-story house. Perhaps if he hadn’t had nightmares, he might not have felt sorry for that family either.

That was Lee Seon-jae. A soulless bastard, a vile and despicable bastard. A man who had been preparing for revenge step by step while dreaming of death, which he had longed for all along.

“It’s strange, isn’t it? Everything changed after I met Ki-beom. So quickly that I wondered if it was even possible.”

However, the past Lee Seon-jae was no longer there. The young man who had lived with suppressed desires, carrying the burden of family without realizing how hard it was, had completely died.

“I also got a future aspiration. Not a dream, but a future aspiration.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

The man asked.

“Is it? But dreams feel hard to achieve, right? Future aspirations feel like they will be realized soon.”

“Oh. Now that you mention it, that’s true.”

The man nodded.

“So what my future aspiration is….”

Tae-heun wanted to live a new life. He wanted to live until he became a bent old man, alongside the man in front of him, that solid man. Before meeting this man, Tae-heun had never once imagined himself as a middle-aged person. Let alone in old age. Yet, he found himself looking forward to aging together with the man, just like that old man and woman from the persimmon tree house.

“You asked me why I like you, and suddenly you start talking about future hopes?”

The man laughed in disbelief.

“You can’t think of a reason, can you? That’s okay. You don’t have to say those things.”

The man tried to shake off the dust and get up. Tae-heun grabbed the man’s wrist to prevent him from leaving. The man awkwardly stood up and then sat back down. He turned to look at Tae-heun.

“I thought there would be a ton of reasons why I was drawn to you, but I can’t think of a single one. But I really do like you.”

The two faced each other.

“And my future hope is to grow old with you, Ki-beom.”

Tae-heun spoke each word as if savoring them.

“I like you. I want to grow old together with you for a long, long time.”

He looked slowly into the man’s eyes. The man’s pupils were steady. Those deep, dark eyes that often made Tae-heun anxious now sparkled with warmth. A faint smile spread across his previously stoic face.

Tae-heun raised his arms and hugged the man tightly. It was a gentle embrace, far from impulsive. Their sweaty bodies met, slick against each other. The white and black intertwined, creating a perfect balance. The sound of the vigorous heartbeat of a man in his prime resonated.

“But what about you, Ki-beom? What do you like about me?”

He whispered into the man’s ear. This time, it was Tae-heun who turned red, not the man. He wanted to hear the answer, but he also didn’t want to. Feeling shy, he hugged the man even tighter. The man chuckled softly.