By Zephyria “Mister.”
Choi Hong-seo grasped the arm that was cupping his cheek. He looked up with earnestness, asking him to listen. Lee Hae-sung met Choi Hong-seo’s eyes with the utmost tenderness, yet he feigned ignorance of that earnestness.
“Baby, that’s why it happened… even seeing you break out in a cold sweat in that drawing room, I… I just sneered, asking if you intended to collapse in front of me again.”
His gaze, filled with deep regret as he looked at Choi Hong-seo, softened. He knew his heart was softening along with it.
“You couldn’t have imagined something like this would happen. That’s why you acted that way.”
At Choi Hong-seo’s comfort, he let out a bitter laugh.
“Yes. I wasn’t romantic enough to exercise that kind of imagination.”
Lee Hae-sung’s gaze, which had been looking down at the feet of the two standing opposite each other, returned to Choi Hong-seo. Haa, his breath puffed out again after a sigh. He sighed more often than usual today. Lee Hae-sung let his hands drop to his sides and took off his gloves, tucking them into his jacket pocket. Then, with his bare hands, he cupped Choi Hong-seo’s cheeks and gently brushed under his eyes with his thumb. Unlike the leather gloves, his skin held warmth. The warmth of a living person.
He often cupped both of Choi Hong-seo’s cheeks with his hands, and each time, Choi Hong-seo felt as if he were carefully cupping his heart, not just his cheeks.
“I thought Yoon Hye-an, who kept appearing at places with memories of us… was trying to pique my curiosity by using them as an excuse. Back then.”
“I know. I really don’t resent you at all for what happened then… so please don’t… feel sorry. I…”
“Hong-seo-ya.”
He cut off Choi Hong-seo’s words. It was a rare occurrence.
“I am sorry, very sorry. And, can’t we just forget about the shaman story? We can just avoid those places where Hong-seo was sick from now on, right? Hmm?”
Lee Hae-sung knew Choi Hong-seo was about to bring up the shaman again. Choi Hong-seo squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them. Beyond his shoulder, the ‘Gate of Heaven’ was visible. The real ‘Gate of Heaven’ was a popular tourist destination that most travelers to Bali visited. Lee Hae-sung had told him that people headed to Lempuyang Temple from dawn, waited with numbered tickets, and took their so-called proof shot/photo op in order. Some people complained that apart from the photo taken at the ‘Gate of Heaven,’ there wasn’t much else to see at the temple.
There were countless places he wanted to visit with his lover, whom he had finally reunited with. He wanted to travel the world with him. To walk with his own two feet, to take it all in with his own two eyes, and to taste diverse flavors. He would then capture the feelings he experienced, albeit imperfectly, in lyrics, and Lee Hae-sung would capture them in photographs. He often imagined such things. It wasn’t that Choi Hong-seo truly wanted to visit a shaman’s house with him.
Even this vast mansion in Bundang felt claustrophobically small compared to the world. He didn’t want to be confined here, trembling with anxiety, holding each other, and resolving that anxiety through sex.
Time and Lee Hae-sung were too precious to be consumed in such a way.
Choi Hong-seo took off his gloves and held Lee Hae-sung’s hands. He tried his best to enclose his hands, which were more than an inch longer and thicker than his own, within his grasp to transfer warmth.
“Belief and devotion towards invisible concepts.”
“……”
“When you said that in the interview… doesn’t that mean you believe what the shaman said, at least a little?”
“That’s different, Hong-seo-ya.”
Lee Hae-sung, who had been passively holding his hands as Choi Hong-seo willed, suddenly tightened his grip on Choi Hong-seo’s hands.
“It’s not because I believed what that person said, but because I mulled over the meaning. It was a time when I felt the suspicion that you might be Hong-seo, yet thought I might be going crazy for feeling that way. I just needed words that could serve as grounds to believe you were Hong-seo. There’s no other meaning.”
“She said that ghosts gain bodies, and corpses gain souls…”
“……”
“A corpse is Yoon Hye-an who lost his soul, and a ghost is me, who lost my body and remained only as a soul within Yoon Hye-an, wasn’t it? Did she really know something…”
“Hong-seo-ya.”
Lee Hae-sung cut off Choi Hong-seo’s words once more. Now he was firmly gripping both of Choi Hong-seo’s upper arms.
“Those people make a living by deceiving people with ambiguous words. If she truly knew that you were Choi Hong-seo and not Yoon Hye-an, she should have said it plainly. Isn’t that right? They throw out vague statements and wait for the other person to fall for them. It’s just their method.”
Lee Hae-sung’s eyes glistened as he tried to persuade Choi Hong-seo, shaking his body.
He knew that Lee Hae-sung was someone who didn’t believe in anything supernatural. He hadn’t expected him to agree so easily to visiting a shaman. However, he was more resolute than anticipated. Perhaps that meant he was more afraid than anticipated.
Regretting his harsh words, Lee Hae-sung soon released his hands that were tightly gripping Choi Hong-seo’s shoulders. He then ran his hand down his own chin, as if crushing it, and took Choi Hong-seo’s bare hand.
“Whatever it is, I know you want to grasp at straws. I feel the same way. If there was a sure way, I’d be willing to give up even the name ARA. I want that method too.”
“……”
“But I won’t try to solve this matter through shamanism or any other religious method. How can I believe in such methods, Hong-seo-ya?”
“Mister, I woke up in Yoon Hye-an’s body. That’s also something unbelievable, isn’t it?”
Choi Hong-seo pleaded, as if it were his last resort.
He knew that Lee Hae-sung would do anything he said. He wasn’t unaware of that. He also knew that his current refusal wasn’t simply due to his own belief that he didn’t believe in shamanism.
After gazing at Choi Hong-seo silently for a moment, Lee Hae-sung brought Choi Hong-seo’s hand, which he was holding, to his left chest. Beneath his palm, pressed firmly against his chest, he could feel a throbbing pulse.
“I confirmed that with my heart.”
“……”
“Even if I can’t see your old face, I believe that the person in front of me now is you. I look at you now with the same devotion I used to treat your past self. Whatever the shaman meant by her words… that is my faith, and that is my love.”
He could no longer say anything. Choi Hong-seo lowered his head. One of the gloves he had carelessly stuffed into his jacket pocket fell out. Before he could even bend down, the glove was swept away by the strong wind. As he watched the glove roll on the stone path with a sense of futility, Lee Hae-sung took long strides and picked it up.
As the afternoon deepened, the temperature seemed to have dropped even lower than when they had left the house.
Lee Hae-sung, who had returned to Choi Hong-seo, who stood with his spirit broken, warmed Choi Hong-seo’s hands, reddened by the cold wind, with his breath. Then he put the retrieved glove back on.
“You read the interview in the Spanish magazine, didn’t you?”
Choi Hong-seo nodded.
“Yes, the ‘story’ you mentioned there. It’s Hong-seo’s story.”
“……”
“After losing you, I had to rethink my entire life.”
Lee Hae-sung, who had put on the left glove he retrieved, took the right glove from Choi Hong-seo’s jacket pocket and finished putting it on.
“Meeting you and developing feelings like anyone else, having you unfairly taken away by those dogs, and then… miraculously getting you back.”
“……”
“You are my story, my narrative.”
Lee Hae-sung’s voice, which had vibrated with anger towards the ‘dogs,’ immediately regained its composure and became calm. After putting on both gloves, Lee Hae-sung finally looked at Choi Hong-seo with a faint smile, as if relieved and pleased.
“A man with a story is nice, but don’t you think this is enough now?”
Forcing the corners of his lips up, it was a desolate smile, like this garden that had lost its green. It was pathetic, as if admitting he had become penniless.
Choi Hong-seo closed the distance of a single step and approached him. He wrapped his arms around his sides, embracing his torso. With only his eyes peeking out over his shoulder, he looked beyond, at the ‘Gate of Heaven’. He was grateful that Yoon Hye-an wasn’t much shorter than him. He had always liked the world seen from this vantage point.
“That’s right. You’re right, sir. It’s okay as long as we don’t go to places like the ancestral shrine, the Hannam-dong mansion, or the Seocho-dong villa…”
“……”
“I was wrong.”
Haa, he sighed, raising his shoulders and then letting them fall. Then he embraced Choi Hong-seo.
“You did nothing wrong. You did nothing wrong at all. You just… have to keep one thing. You won’t make me anxious, will you?”
“I won’t. I won’t.”
He repeated the same promise he had made in Malibu.
The arms holding Choi Hong-seo tightened, squeezing his body.
“You won’t go looking for that shaman behind my back, will you? You promise?”
He nodded his head several times.
“I promise.”
If there was even a tiny bit of my own desire mixed into my return, it wouldn’t be for revenge, and certainly not out of curiosity about how the ‘X-Boy Scandal’ ended after I died. It would only be for this person, because this person was on my mind. Therefore, all I had to do was reassure this person.
Lee Hae-sung’s goose down jacket, which had felt cold the moment it touched him, quickly grew warm as he held him. Choi Hong-seo gripped its surface tightly with both hands.
Contact came from the dermatologist who had treated Lee Hae-sung’s younger brother’s atopy, around the time the two of them turned away from the ‘Palace of Water’.