By Zephyria 
It was over.
Yi-ho, who had bolted out of the gym, ran frantically for a long time before stopping just as he felt he was about to collapse from lack of breath. Like his exhausted body sinking to the ground, the thoughts in his head came to a halt.
“…….”
Even after catching his breath, he remained curled up for a while before finally forcing himself up. Habits are terrifying; without realizing it, he had run back to the neighborhood where he used to live. The area, where discussions about redevelopment had been postponed for years, hadn’t changed much since he lived there. It was an alleyway where Min-gyu, who had attended high school with him, would often visit while Yi-ho continued to commute from home even after entering college, sometimes stopping by the gym.
Perhaps the “panoramic view of one’s life” really does exist. Seeing his memories flash by in sequence now that their relationship had completely shattered made him believe it.
As if clinging to a lingering regret, his gaze turned back, tracing the entrance of the shopping center where the gym was located. Was Cha Min-gyu still there, or had he left?
But when he realized that even if he went back now, there were no more words left to say, Yi-ho felt the finality of the end once again.
It was greed to expect that their relationship could be restored after throwing a confession—that he had liked him for years—at a friend.
The moment Yi-ho had always feared had manifested in the worst possible form.
Yi-ho already regretted it, yet he felt relieved. A sense of emptiness and liberation washed over him, as if birds crammed into small cages one by one had suddenly flown away all at once. The emotions making his heart flutter resembled misery.
Amidst that, the remnants of emotions that had been crushed into the ground for so long leaked out sluggishly.
He didn’t know what he had been so anxious about all this time.
‘I like you, you bastard.’
The affection he had cherished privately had burst out in such a crude manner.
And his reaction to Min-gyu, who had urgently grabbed his wrist, had been the worst.
‘Wait. Song Yi-ho, calm down and let’s talk.’
‘Let go!’
With a sharp twist of his shoulder, his wrist slipped from Min-gyu’s grip. Instead, the conflicting forces of them pulling in opposite directions caused Yi-ho’s elbow to smack Min-gyu’s lower jaw. With a heavy thud, Min-gyu’s head snapped to the side. Judging by the pain transmitted to his own arm, Min-gyu must have been hurt, but Yi-ho couldn’t confirm it as his vision began to blur. Since Min-gyu reached out again to grab him while covering the spot he’d been hit, Yi-ho was preoccupied with shaking him off.
‘Cha Min-gyu, please protect the last bit of pride of the friend you cherish so much.’
Eventually, tears fell sorrowfully from Yi-ho’s eyes. Not wanting to show that side of himself, he turned and fled, and Min-gyu did not follow.
“Haa….”
His sigh scattered easily into the hot air rising from the asphalt.
Standing on the road in the midday sun, his entire body became drenched. Since sweat was trickling into his mouth with a salty taste, his unsightly tears were likely hidden.
After walking aimlessly for a long time again, the house where his mother lived appeared at the end of the road.
Yi-ho had no intention of returning to the problematic neighbor’s house today. As worries about how to find accommodation slowly surfaced, they were suppressed, and his steps led him in this direction.
There was no voice of his mother, which he expected to hear as soon as he opened the front door. There were only traces that she had gone out to prepare something in the kitchen.
Looking around the house, he stood before a full-length mirror and discovered the state of his blotchy face. On top of being flushed from the heat, his eyes were swollen from rubbing them harshly, and his cheeks were bright red. In hindsight, it was a relief that his mother was absent.
Yi-ho went straight into the bathroom. Cold water poured immediately over his head. The salt on his face washed away, and the areas he had rubbed harshly began to sting.
In dramas or movies, people often hide behind the water and cry sorrowfully in situations like this, but for a man in his thirties, those tears earlier seemed to have been the end of it; his head only grew cold. The residual heat that had caused a riot inside him gradually subsided.
Instead of crying, Yi-ho stayed under the water until his body trembled with cold before stepping out. The heat that had felt like it would steam him to death earlier now felt warm. After slipping into his clothes kept at his mother’s house and lying down on the sofa, a daze brought on by the sudden temperature difference washed over him.
This place was slightly different from where Yi-ho spent his reality. It wasn’t the problematic neighbor’s house, nor was it the company. That escape cleared his mind. He just wished it would stay stopped like this forever, without tomorrow or next week ever coming. So that he, who was slow in both thought and action, could have time to organize himself.
While leaning against the sofa, neither fully asleep nor awake, he heard the sound of the door opening.
“Huh? What’s this? Yi-ho, you’re here?”
“Uh… where were you?”
“I was at church. I went to help prepare for tomorrow’s flea market; if I’d known you were coming, I wouldn’t have gone. What brings you here? There’s nothing at home, and you didn’t even call.”
Despite her words, his mother’s pleasure was evident. The corners of Yi-ho’s mouth, which had been stiff the whole time, curled up slightly.
“I just came. I’ve been struggling with being sick for a few days, so I wanted to see you, Mom….”
“Shouldn’t you go to a big hospital and get a proper check-up?”
His mother, who was heading into the master bedroom, stopped and leaned her upper body back out with a serious expression.
“You know, right? Cancer is hereditary.”
“The company provides annual health screenings, so I’m doing fine…. It was just the hot weather and a lot of work here and there.”
“When has there ever not been a lot of work?”
“Yeah…. I guess I’m just a bit exhausted.”
He rambled through his words in response to his mother’s worry, and the last phrase slipped out. Exhausted. Fortunately, his mother, who had come out after changing into comfortable clothes in the bedroom, didn’t seem to hear his lowered voice.
However, the moment he uttered the words “exhausted,” he felt something that had been tightly wound in his head suddenly slacken. It wasn’t that the knot had loosened gently; it had snapped after enduring until its limit.
“If it’s hard, just rest, regardless of work. I absolutely cannot go to a funeral home for a son who died of overwork, like the ones on the news. If you get cancer, that’s the day I’ll tear out my own liver and kidneys to give to you. I’ll do it even if the doctor tells me not to.”
“No, that’s too extreme…. I told you I’m healthy.”
“Anyway, if you want to quit, quit. With a PhD from Korea University, what couldn’t you start anew?”
In truth, he felt he had stiffened quite a bit since turning thirty. Yi-ho hugged his knees on the sofa.
“…If I said I wanted to sell rice cakes, would President Kim teach me?”
“Goodness, with your personality, you’d get twice as sick as you do at the company.”
That… was true. His mother, wearing a pajama dress with a flashy floral pattern, sat beside Yi-ho.
“Is something really happening at work? Is someone bullying you?”
“Mom, I’m a Team Leader. Who could possibly bully me?”
“Maybe you don’t even know you’re being bullied?”
“I’m telling you again, I’m a Team Leader, and I’m thirty-three….”
“I don’t know enough to give you advice…. Try opening up to Min-gyu.”
The heart that had been calmed through conversation with his mother began to stir again instantly upon hearing a certain name. It felt as if Cha Min-gyu were standing before him, asking, ‘We’re so deeply entangled like this, what are you going to do now?’
“He’s not family.”
Yes, that was what he wanted to say. To him, as well.
“You’re staying for dinner, right?”
His mother didn’t particularly press the topic that her socially awkward son was hesitating over. Yi-ho nodded, then added.
“No, I’ll sleep over.”
“Alright, it’s hot out. I’ve got the air conditioner on.”
Just by staying in this house for one more day, his heart eased. The turbulent beating slowly subsided. The relief he felt looking at his mother’s back was the ‘affection for family’ that he knew.
Cha Min-gyu, who made his heart race and his face flush, was indeed not family. At least for Yi-ho, from beginning to end.
The phrase “a friend like family” ultimately included the meaning that they could never actually become family.
On Sunday evening, Min-gyu called exactly once. Yi-ho did not answer.
Perhaps because of his plea to protect his pride, Min-gyu fortunately stopped there.
∗ ∗ ∗
Some of the development work could be done from home, but critical deployments and other tasks could only be carried out on the secure company network. It was while Yi-ho, who had inevitably come into the office, was keeping his head buried in the screen at his temporary desk.
“How can someone who works so much with external partners come in with a face like that?”
The loud voice forced Yi-ho to turn his gaze. In front of Department Head Gye, who was shouting in a critical tone, was Min-gyu with a purple bruise on his jaw. From the front, it wasn’t very visible because it was in the shadows, but from the side, the bruise—about the width of a finger—was clearly visible, extending up toward the cheek.
“I’ll make sure it doesn’t interfere with work,” Min-gyu replied with a smile.
Perhaps feeling awkward about scolding someone who was injured, the Department Head fortunately backed off quickly, and Min-gyu returned to the marketing team’s area.
When he asked Deputy Manager Kang, who sat in front of him, something, she stood up and said something to the other team members. Then, an assistant manager took a cushion compact out of her bag and approached Min-gyu.
With an embarrassed expression, Min-gyu bent his knees and leaned his face forward as the makeup was applied to his jaw. The vivid bruise gradually faded. A short laugh spread through the marketing team, who had created this unusual sight, and the surrounding teams who witnessed it.
“But what on earth happened? Did he get into a fight after drinking?”
Yi-ho’s shoulders stiffened.
“Nah, Team Leader Cha isn’t that type. He said he was lying down playing with a relative’s baby, and a toy fell on his jaw.”
“Wow, really… that must have hurt.”
Min-gyu’s excuse was perfect, and the solution was equally perfect. Min-gyu’s low voice pierced Yi-ho’s ears.
“Ji-yeon, that stuff works great. Let’s take a picture of it so I can buy some.”
“I’ll just bring you a few BB cream samples tomorrow.”
Then, Min-gyu’s gaze shifted away from his team members and toward Yi-ho. Meeting his eyes, Yi-ho immediately looked away.
The weekend passed, and Monday arrived.
For two days, a fierce battle raged between the regret of whether he couldn’t have endured that one moment and the self-justification that he had truly reached his limit.
As a result, he accepted the conclusion that this was the end. The clear fact was the termination of his relationship with Cha Min-gyu, and nothing would change.
Because this was a relationship that was neither the “friendship” that had connected them for 15 years, nor the “family” that Min-gyu had claimed.
It would be a lie to say he had no lingering regrets. Perhaps he would reminisce about the confession at the boxing gym as long as the time he had spent in his long one-sided love. Min-gyu’s words from the night before, spoken while drunk—that there would never be another person like him in his life—applied equally to Yi-ho.
Perhaps Cha Min-gyu’s thoughts had changed since that night. What would he think of the friend who had cherished him more than family, only to suddenly throw out a confession of love…?
‘Ah, come to think of it, that was a coming-out.’
Even amidst all sorts of self-destructive imaginations, he didn’t worry about having revealed to someone that he was gay. Despite believing the connection had ended, he had a trust that Cha Min-gyu would not make things difficult for him by spreading rumors at the company or to those around them.
“…….”
He thought the world had collapsed, but still, his body came to work and sought out the tasks he had to do. Even if he couldn’t even turn his head in the direction of the other person.
However, a moment later.
“Team Leader Song.”
Cha Min-gyu approached Yi-ho without mercy.
“…….”
When Yi-ho didn’t lift his head, a large hand invaded one side of his vision. He tapped the corner of the laptop with his finger. A sudden tension tightened Yi-ho’s heart. Yi-ho held his breath to avoid letting his ragged breathing be discovered. He felt a gaze landing on the back of his lowered head.
“I gathered my courage to come here, too.”
“…….”
“Look at me and give me an answer.”