By Zephyria 
Chapter 7
It had been a peaceful week. When he opened his eyes late in the morning, he saw the neat forehead of the person who had shared most of his short life, and when he reached out, a warmth he once believed he would never touch was held in his arms. During the hiatus period, all he did was eat, have sex, and nap for a while, but Hae-won wanted to stay in this tranquility forever. Without pain, without aging, without death, leaving reality behind to be absorbed in a game of house, like a sandcastle.
However, as the snow that had blocked his escape melted away, the brief grace period of happiness was coming to an end.
In the first week of the new year, the two of them, having packed their modest belongings, stopped by the houses where they had often stayed to say their goodbyes. Some expressed disappointment, asking why they were leaving right as the year turned, while others wished them a safe journey, asking if they were finally leaving. After visiting every house except for one where no one answered the call, the two turned toward the docks at the entrance of Anbyeok-ri. While Seo Hae-young tried to start the car that had been left idle for a long time, Hae-won, caught by Hwang, had to listen to a never-ending stream of advice.
“Go safely! Come back once in the summer, or whenever. Other places are just crowded; it’s quiet here, so it’s a good place to relax. Uh, we have a valley on our side, too. I’ll give you a free whole boiled chicken.”
“Oh, give it a rest. Young people go to nice places; why would they come here?”
Whether he had come to watch or to see them off, the pub owner, with his hands shoved in the pockets of his red padded jacket, scolded Hwang for his excessive farewell. Watching the two bicker with a faint smile, Hae-won turned his head toward a deserted alley. The smile faded, and a cautious question escaped.
“Um… what about… Uncle Gi-tae…?”
“I know, right. He’s not even busy, so what on earth is that brat doing…?”
Unaware that their relationship was no longer what it used to be, Hwang looked toward the alley with a puzzled expression. Having seen Gi-tae’s shoes on the stepping stone, Hae-won lowered his head deeply to hide his disappointed face.
He had visited several times over the past week, but Gi-tae had not met him once. Even when they crossed paths, Gi-tae usually brushed past him coldly, and for the timid Hae-won, it was difficult to persistently follow him. He didn’t know when he would see him again if he left now, so even if he couldn’t offer a proper apology, he wanted to say goodbye. Just as he was debating whether to stop by one last time, Seo Hae-young waved his hand. It was a signal that it was time to go.
Left with no choice, he bowed his waist and turned around. Hae-won responded with a vague smile to Hwang’s worries about traveling safely, and just as he gripped the passenger door handle, Gi-tae, who hadn’t shown his face until now, strode out from the end of the alley. The boxes hanging from both his hands were as large as Hae-won’s torso.
“Oh…”
HHae-won let go of the handle and stared blankly at Gi-tae, who was approaching with a scowl. Sighing at the vacant expression, Gi-tae swung open the closed trunk of the car and loaded several large boxes. Hwang approached and widened his eyes, watching the boxes being loaded.
“My goodness, were you late because you were preparing those? I almost missed it.”
Boxes filled with side dishes and fruits that wouldn’t spoil quickly were stacked neatly in the trunk. After checking Seo Hae-young, who nodded as if giving permission through the half-open passenger door, Hae-won approached Gi-tae, who was silently loading the luggage. After organizing the boxes so they wouldn’t shake during the trip, Gi-tae slammed the trunk shut with a loud bang! Hae-won, who had been hovering hesitantly, delivered his final goodbye in a shrinking voice. He had said he was sorry too many times and thanked him to the point of exhaustion, so the words he could say were limited.
“…I’ll come again.”
“Don’t.”
It was a rejection that decisively dismissed his long deliberation. While Hae-won let out a sigh and gauged the atmosphere, Gi-tae turned his back. Seeing him walk away heartlessly without looking back, the pub owner who had been watching clicked his tongue.
“That brat is always like that. He has no tact.”
“He’s only like that with his words; it’s because he’s actually disappointed. He must have grown fond of you…”
“Making excuses because they’re family, typical.”
Hwang patted the arm of the frozen Hae-won, saying that although Gi-tae didn’t say it, he was doing this because he was secretly affectionate. Looking back and forth between the packed trunk and the alley where Gi-tae had disappeared, Hae-won finally let go of the heavy burden resting on his shoulders. His steps as he turned away were not as sluggish as before. As he climbed into the passenger seat that had been empty for a long time, Seo Hae-young, who had been waiting while leaning over the steering wheel, gave him a look that wasn’t entirely pleasant.
“Your father, really…”
It was obvious he was holding something back. Seo Hae-young, who in the past would have drained a person’s spirit, merely spat out a single annoyed remark. While his time-bomb-like demeanor was nerve-wracking, the hand that fastened the seatbelt for him was tender. Glancing at the contradictory Seo Hae-young, Hae-won secretly breathed a sigh of relief and waved to the bouncing Hwang.
The car started without a problem and moved forward, and in the side mirror, Hwang and the pub owner waving their hands grew smaller and smaller. Saying goodbye to people he might never see again always made a corner of his heart ache. As he lowered his eyes to erase the afterimage, his gaze naturally shifted. The one person who had never left his side among the many who had come and gone met his eyes slightly. He struggled to pull his gaze away from the curving corners of the eyes that seemed to tell him to speak if there was anything he wanted to say. The fingers fiddling with the childish game console he received as a twelfth birthday present trembled slightly.
The two drove along the winter sea, whose beginning and end could not be measured. Leaving behind Anbyeok-ri, which had been a refuge; leaving behind the villa, which both still found difficult to face head-on; leaving behind memories riddled with nightmares. Hae-won stared at the scenery blurring rapidly beyond the car window and faced his own inner self. Ambivalent emotions, as dual as Seo Hae-young’s, popped out unconsciously and then subsided; he looked back on the days when he could neither throw away the blackened, rotten lump of resentment nor embrace it, but could only watch it with open hands.
The scenery reflected in his gloomy eyes, sinking deep without being able to make a decision, gradually changed. The roadside, where clumps of unmelted snow were piled, turned into a long highway, and cars heading somewhere and tall buildings began to appear. From the gloomy sky, sleet that brought a chill just by looking at it fluttered down, creating a somber landscape.
The wheels, which had been rolling without a moment’s rest, stopped at the promised place. Snowflakes that crumbled immediately upon touching the skin, no different from rain, were pouring over the garden that had been abandoned for several months. Hae-won silently gazed at the garden where he had once run frantically and been captured repeatedly. He thought only a few days had passed, but weeks had gone by; he thought only a few months had passed, but a year had flown by… it was the house of Seo Hae-young and himself.
As soon as he entered the space where bad memories far outweighed the good ones, Hae-won scratched at his violently pounding chest as if tearing it out and unbuckled his seatbelt. He had finally left Anbyeok-ri, the place that made people strange. Therefore, all that remained was confirmation.
“Go in.”
Through the gap of the opening front door, the interior of the house, emitting a chilly aura, was revealed. Passing by Seo Hae-young, who gestured with his chin for him to enter first, Hae-won took off his shoes, and a low laugh was heard. Hae-won glanced back at Seo Hae-young, who was neatly placing his own shoes next to the ones Hae-won had taken off, and then slowly stepped forward.
Maintaining a superficial composure, as he had on the day he told Gi-tae everything until now, he scanned the surroundings. The curtains were drawn, making the surroundings dim, but it was a view he could draw even with his eyes closed. Memories were embedded in every place, every piece of furniture.
The table that reminded him of the sweetness of cake filling his mouth, the sofa where he had sat leaning back and waited endlessly for Seo Hae-young, the cold floor where he had often knelt. Hae-won moved forward, reviving the moments remaining in various places. The small space where he had hidden Lee Hee-sung, the dining table where he had to eat alone and lonely, the bathroom that had made him scream and limp. Like a movie he had seen long ago, he climbed the stairs, tracing back fragmented memories. The study where he had crawled on the floor gathering glass, the veranda where he had been locked, the small bathroom he couldn’t enter alone, and the place that had once been his room.
After calmly looking around the house, Hae-won turned to look at Seo Hae-young, who was following slowly behind. He couldn’t read the thoughts of Seo Hae-young, who was fiddling with his earlobe and gave a smirk as soon as their eyes met.
“What?”
“…Just.”
As they walked back down the long hallway, Seo Hae-young reached out and cupped his cheek. The thumb stroking under his dry eyes was so tender that he wanted to settle for this, but there was still one place left. It was the most important place. Hae-won descended the stairs with Seo Hae-young, who did not ask why. They arrived at a door beneath the stairs, painted the same color as the wall, so that one wouldn’t know it was there without looking closely.
Standing before the space—a door that had never been locked and a place he had never thought of leaving—Hae-won’s hands finally began to tremble. He carefully lowered them and fumbled for what was in his pocket. A hard card touched his fingertips. It was the final stronghold he had not told Seo Hae-young about, even while spending an infinitely peaceful week. Moreover, even this was something he had obtained from Seo Hae-young’s family.
“I waited for a ve-ry long time here.”
Seo Hae-young, blocking his back and cutting off the retreat, rested his chin on Hae-won’s shoulder. Taking advantage of the moment Hae-won tensed his body to keep from jumping, a hand reached out from behind and turned the handle. The sliding open of the basement door and the gradual revelation of another house struck his unsuspecting mind like a blunt object.
“Ah…”
Hae-won trembled all over, unable to overcome the vivid terror. The hand gripping his goosebump-covered forearms stroked his skin as if telling him not to tremble, and then a ticklish breath brushed against the back of his ear.
“I read all the letters you gave me, too.”
“Let… ters?”
“The ones where you wrote that you love me.”
He couldn’t understand Seo Hae-young’s words. It was because he had no memory of writing letters. Since the time he spent awake was so agonizing that he drank alcohol as soon as he opened his eyes, his memories of the basement were like a book with important parts torn out. All he could recall were the long wait, the anxiety, and his wasting body. Fearing that the same situation might repeat, a desire to just run away from here surged within him. But Hae-won absolutely had to weigh it. He had to see this place and weigh the fragmented inevitability against the unforgettable past. Whether he would accept it or not.
“Go in. You should take whatever you want to bring.”
Seo Hae-young gripped the shoulder of the hesitating Hae-won and gently pushed him forward. Pushed from behind, his awkwardly extended foot stepped onto the stairs. Facing a crossroads, Hae-won unconsciously grabbed the hand of Seo Hae-young, who was showing him the way. It was a precarious support. Biting the inside of his cheek until it bled, Hae-won approached his twisted past while relying on the person who made him most anxious.
Step by step, as he descended the stairs, the illness planted by past days slowly consumed him from his legs to his head. Struggling to calm his quickening breath, he lowered his legs, which refused to move. Finally stepping into the space that was a perfect reproduction of the house where he had lived for twenty years, yet the space that had ruined an entire year, Hae-won clutched his head, which hurt as if it were breaking. Everything was identical except for the bed. The house at the end of the hallway of a row house where fallen leaves in autumn would crunch underfoot. The small space visible upon opening the front door that didn’t open easily. The space where he had let friends stay, and where he had shared bodies with them, a space he had no choice but to discard—the walls surrounding it began to heave and distort dizzily.
“Gasp…!”
He pressed his eyelids with his palms and then let go, but the dizziness remained. His pulse raced wildly, and a sense of terror, as if he were about to faint, overwhelmed him. By the time the metallic sound wheezing out of his throat no longer felt like his own, his upper body swayed unsteadily. Someone was grabbing his arm and shaking him, but the things rushing into his vision were even more intense.
The scratch on the old wardrobe, the pilling on the blanket, the small bookshelf with one shelf collapsed… things he had passed by without even noticing were now visible too clearly and were unbelievably alien. Because the furniture arrangement was exactly the same as the house where he had lived, the place where his father always lay and the place where he had walked on his tiptoes were vividly etched in his sight. Even blurred figures and certain sounds were being revived. Hae-won turned his head busily, not even noticing the grip holding his body.
“Ah… ugh…!”
This probably wasn’t reality. However, all sorts of trivial things felt vivid, as if they were within reach, as if they were speaking right next to him. Everything was too clear. With a look of horror, Hae-won fixed his gaze on one spot. Instead of the damp basement smell, the scent of summer brushed the tip of his nose.
He saw a man in a school uniform. Back then, the one who came and went at all hours… what was his name? Ah, it was Joo Hyun-woo. He saw and heard Hyun-woo opening the refrigerator and nagging him to eat better. Soon, as he looked down at Hyun-woo, who was lying on the narrow floor asking if he could sleep over, someone shouted loudly from where the entrance was. He saw Go Tae-gyeom, spitting out curses, asking why the hell he was coming here when it was so narrow and uncomfortable. As expected, he was also in a school uniform. When Hyun-woo flicked his hand, telling him to stop it and come in, Tae-gyeom stepped into the house with all sorts of temper and pointed at the refrigerator. Get me some water.
Hae-won stared blankly at the scene and then looked up. He saw Seo Hae-young entering through the wide-open door. He saw a young Seo Hae-young naturally walk in and hold his white face up to the breeze of the electric fan. It was a young Seo Hae-young. The young Seo Hae-young, cooling off from the heat, lifted his head, and their eyes met without a chance to avoid it. His beautifully colored lips parted, and a whisper, as if speaking into his ear, was heard.
You have to decide.
And in an instant, the inside of the house surged and crumpled. The screen, which shifted as if collapsing and being sucked in, induced nausea.
“Ugh…!”
A summer that was different from any other year. He saw himself curled up in the corner of a room with the lights brightly on. Ignoring all incoming calls, trembling, packing his bags, and not long after, unpacking them—pitiful… From his own mouth, which was vomiting back what he had pushed inside, the same whisper flowed.
You have to decide. You have to decide. You have to decide. You have to decide. You have to decide.
In an instant, the room was covered in blood-red. A knife scratching the palm, cigarette butts searing into a low desk, the sudden intrusion of Hyun-woo and Tae-gyeom, and Seo Hae-young. The red-stained vision spun around and around. It spun noisily, mixing all sorts of colors, then stopped for a moment, then spun again, showing a certain point and vomiting all the memories left in the ordinary space and furniture. Very fast, fast, fast.
This place was the condensation of the past.
He screamed and jumped around, wanting to escape. He hated the past that spun endlessly and wouldn’t let him go. Just as he was screaming at the top of his lungs, feeling like he would truly go mad if he stayed here any longer, a booming voice shook the center he was barely clinging to.
Yoon Hae-won! Hae-won, Yoon Hae-won. Hae-won. Hae-won. Yoon Hae-won.
The faces of every person he had ever met filled the surroundings densely. Then, they opened their lips all at once and called his name. The guys he had called friends, passersby he had brushed past, frequent customers, neighbors he had greeted… He covered his ears and curled his upper body, but his hands kept being pushed away. Even as he twisted his body to avoid it, they gouged his eardrums with sharp edges like shards of glass. Bruises bloomed like flower petals on his limbs, which were bumped and bent here and there.
“Yoon Hae-won!”
One voice struck down like a bolt of lightning. The crudely spinning past disappeared in the blink of an eye, but his blurred focus did not return. The man who had climbed on top of him raised his hand and struck his cheek once more. His flailing legs stopped moving for a moment and then went limp. Pain rushed in all at once, like a dam bursting.
“Ah…”
It hurt enough to make a groan escape naturally. He tried to touch his cheek, which felt burning as if it were scorched, not knowing how many times he had been hit, but the arm attached to his side wouldn’t budge. Rolling his tear-filled eyes to look around, he saw a dark ceiling. Closing and opening his eyes slowly, Hae-won could finally recognize the man who had fished him out of the past.
“Hae-young…”
“Yes, Hae-won.”
The man responding with a bright smile was the familiar Seo Hae-young, yet he was not the Seo Hae-young Hae-won had seen for that brief moment. Though the adult Seo Hae-young, who had leaped far across time, rubbed his swollen cheek, Hae-won’s mind was focused elsewhere. The scar on his cheek, and the index finger that would not bend among the fingers stroking his forehead covered in cold sweat, clung to Hae-won’s parched throat. Things that hadn’t been visible in the young Seo Hae-young—things that were perhaps irreversible—turned his stomach.
The heat transferred to the burnt-out lump of emotion bubbled over. Pushing Seo Hae-young away with a strength he had never possessed before, Hae-won stood up unsteadily, touching his dazed forehead and turning his head here and there. Joo Hyun-woo, who had appeared with a smiling face only to end with a weeping one, was gone; Go Tae-gyeom, who had raged and nitpicked before clinging like a beast, was gone. His father, who had screamed incessantly with a painted face, was nowhere to be seen. Nor was the young Seo Hae-young, who had smiled showing his dimples. Ah. Hae-won let out a low lament. Everything that had felt so vivid was a mere illusion.
“Hae-young, here… this isn’t… this isn’t the place…”
Hae-won, who had been laughing vacantly, walked with faltering steps. Everything he touched and saw was an obstacle. Muttering that it wasn’t right, Hae-won threw aside the neatly folded blankets and trampled them. He dragged out the mattress and pillows as well. When he threw the bookshelf from which the graduation album had disappeared, the remaining shelves shattered. He opened the wardrobe, one door of which creaked, and threw all the hanging clothes onto the floor. Gifted clothes, pajamas, and clothes he had cherished were crumpled and torn.
“No, no… this isn’t my, my house. It’s not… I have to get rid of it all. All of it, all this…”
This time, he swept everything off the sink with his hand. He smashed and threw away all the old dishes and cutlery filling the cupboard. When he pushed over the fan that barely worked with a rattling sound, its old cover shattered.
“If I get rid of this, all of this… then…”
Hae-won tore at the bubbling wallpaper, breaking and trampling everything that caught his eye. He threw, smashed, tore, and ripped.
“If we do it again… let’s do it again. Then, then…”
Tears that had not fallen during the week he had been momentarily happy drenched his cheeks and fell in rapid succession.
“Then, then we…”
He wanted to go back. He wanted to undo everything. He wanted to carve out the moments when it felt like he could only see the end by throwing his body away. He wanted to burn away the moment his friend turned into an object of fear and hatred, the moment memories faded, the moment he wished they would shatter into pieces and sink, the moment even the people he trusted turned their backs and he had no choice but to rely on a stranger, and the moment he miserably begged after finally being betrayed. He wanted to return to before he was broken. He wanted to go back to the days when he had been happy, saving penny by penny, believing that tomorrow would be okay and that someday he would remain by his side with a proud appearance. He wanted to return to the days when the beloved Seo Hae-young’s body had not a single scar, when his fingers and the backs of his hands were intact, and when he hadn’t seen or heard strange things.
Thinking that if he destroyed and burned the house permeated with the past, the wrong choices that had brought him this far would also evaporate, Hae-won devoted himself to ruining the house, unaware that his newly grown nails were splitting. As he broke and collapsed the things he had cherished so as not to show their age, he prayed desperately. If only this house is gone, if I just break all of this, he’ll come back, he will.
“Haa… haaa…”
The hand that had been destroying his precious sanctuary, relying on a bizarre belief, eventually dropped. There was nothing left to grab, nothing left to throw. Standing unsteadily in a house that had become a disaster zone with nothing left to touch—a place that could no longer even be called a home—Hae-won looked around the space that had met a miserable end.
Ridiculously, nothing had changed. Letting out a hollow laugh, he dropped his head, and Seo Hae-young, standing in the center, came into view. It was not the young Seo Hae-young. The scars had not disappeared, and the hand resting on the floor had not returned to normal. Even after wiping away his tears, it remained unchanged. The terrible reality was still there.
He still couldn’t tell, even now, what it meant that the man just watched him as if telling him to do whatever he wanted. It was always like that. With an ambiguous attitude and way of speaking, he would drive him to the brink and shift the blame. He would act in a way that made it impossible not to love him, only to cast him away coldly, or he would bewitch people while wearing a fragile shell. The boiling anger and sorrow turned toward Seo Hae-young. Before he knew it, Hae-won had pushed him down and climbed on top of him. Now, with nothing left to break, Seo Hae-young was the only person who remembered the past. A wretched sound, like the cry of a beast, leaked through his tightly clenched teeth.
If I kill Seo Hae-young, can I go back? He wanted to complain that he had just had a bad dream, as if waking from a long, long nightmare, and start over. He felt like he was losing his mind wanting that. Despite knowing he was acting abnormally, Seo Hae-young’s eyes were calm. He simply watched while lying on the floor amidst crumpled blankets and torn books, with an arrogant gaze as if he would allow whatever Hae-won did. So, very slowly, Hae-won placed his trembling hand over the protruding Adam’s apple. The windpipe of Seo Hae-young, which he had coveted only once, touched his scar-filled palm.
“Get, get rid of it all, and we again…”
It was warm and pulsing. It was the perfect moment to strangle him to death. However, the moment he slightly curled his fingers, a towering wave crashed against his ears. The weight of someone sinking into the sea, whose resistance was fading and who had gone limp, shackled his arm.
“Heugh…!”
Dropping his hand as if burned, Hae-won gasped for air and rubbed his ears vigorously. Even though he had only touched him, his arms and breath trembled miserably, as if he had already killed Seo Hae-young. It was a humiliation that made it impossible to lift his head. While he was floundering in the receding wave and the surging self-loathing, a voice arrived, pointing the way forward.
“Want to try hitting me?”
Tears that had soaked his eyelashes fell downward. Droplets falling onto scars that might never fade cleaved the white cheek. Seo Hae-young, offering a makeshift solution with an indifferent expression, blurred and cleared repeatedly.
“You can hit me. Like this.”
Lifting his limp hand, Seo Hae-young slapped his own wet cheek with a loud crack. It was a blow that was loud but not painful. Hae-won blinked, letting his endless tears flow, and shook his head. When he couldn’t return the blow despite the demonstration, Seo Hae-young, wearing a subtle smile, reached out. The wrist that had been touching the floor was pulled into a large grip. Seo Hae-young folded the fingers that were like dry twigs, curled the back of the hand down to the skin to make a fist, and then made it touch his own cheek. The soft skin was pressed against the knuckles.
“Now. Hurry.”
Hae-won shook his head. Hitting Seo Hae-young was unthinkable. He had never even imagined it.
“Hae-won, hurry.”
He couldn’t gauge what Seo Hae-young, who willingly offered his cheek, wanted. Thus, sobbing while holding the fist Seo Hae-young had formed for him was the best Hae-won could do. Even as he shook his head with a groaning moan, the force pulling his wrist only grew stronger.
Hurry. Hae-won, hurry. Hit me. I said it’s okay. Hurry.
The urging continued to penetrate his weakened mind. The ticklish voice kept pressuring him to do the impossible. He felt as if he would die if he didn’t obey. Feeling the pressure of being driven into a corner, Hae-won hesitantly opened his clenched fist. When asking about a mistake, waking him from a seizure, or being hit as a joke, Seo Hae-young had always used his palm. It was a punishment that was less painful, though shameful. But he didn’t want to. He hated even this. Just because it hurt less didn’t mean hitting Seo Hae-young was acceptable. He expressed with his whole body that he couldn’t do it, but Seo Hae-young remained steadfast.
Hurry, Hae-won.
With an expression as if he were being tortured, Hae-won pulled his trembling arm upward. The higher his hand rose, the deeper the smile on the reddish corners of the man’s mouth became.
“Heeu, hueu…”
Lifting his hand above his head, Hae-won breathed in short, clipped gasps while looking at Seo Hae-young’s cheek as he finally closed his eyes. He couldn’t breathe properly. A fear that made his hair stand on end, just like right before being hit, tensed his muscles.
Hurry.
Seo Hae-young’s lips moved once more. As if he must hit him now. Hae-won followed Seo Hae-young’s words, just as he used to do in the past, doing whatever he was told. The palm that sliced through the air struck the cheek where the scars had not healed. A sting resonated through his wrist, and the skin that rubbed against the cheek smarted. For a moment, it was a sensation so unpleasant he wanted to carve away the palm that had pressed into the flesh. Closing his eyes tightly, Hae-won swallowed the sobs bursting out and raised his hand again. The urging continued.
“Ah… uuu…!”
Hurry. It’s okay.
Seo Hae-young’s urging became fuel that stirred his judgment, causing him to strike several times with a palm that trembled so violently he couldn’t control the strength. Even as the plump lips burst and the white skin flushed, Seo Hae-young did not stop him. When he cried that he couldn’t do it anymore and pulled his hand away, Seo Hae-young forcibly dragged it back to his face, and when he tried to escape, he gripped his waist and wouldn’t let go.
“S-stop it…! Stop it, please…!”
He was afraid of Seo Hae-young, who urged him to hit more, and he felt pity for Seo Hae-young, who tried to gain an equal standing in this way. Begging the man who looked like a completely different person while being hit, Hae-won staggered as the hand pulled his nape, sobbing with a pained face. What Seo Hae-young demanded was overwhelming. It was too difficult. The pressure piercing his temples was chilling and terrible. He didn’t want this kind of equality. The sound of Seo Hae-young starting to laugh with a completely burst lip tormented Hae-won with a higher intensity than in the past. The flushed cheeks and the blood, so red it looked sticky, gnawed away at the nerve string he was barely holding onto. The nerve string, scratched away as if being eaten, pulled taut and then snapped completely under the force of the hand pulling him again.
The hand that wasn’t being held fumbled on the floor. His fingertips caught a pillowcase. He hurriedly curled his fingers and lifted the mass he grabbed. The moment the last shred of reason separated from his body moving on its own, Hae-won frantically pressed the fluffy pillow over Seo Hae-young’s face.
“S-stop it. Don’t, heugh, don’t do this to me… Please, please, Hae-young…”
It was an easier method than strangling the neck or clutching the head. His eyes became bloodshot, and a strange excitement tickled his waist. Simultaneously, he felt a surge of nausea. His thin back heaved as he tried to vomit the nauseating feeling from his stomach, but nothing came out of his churning throat.
“Uuugh…! Ugh, heuu…”
He didn’t know what to do because he wanted to kill Seo Hae-young, who always urged him to do strange things. Seo Hae-young had to take responsibility for ruining them this much. If he could be killed, he deserved to die. But Hae-won knew well that he could not kill him with his own hands. He also knew that nothing would return by doing this. No matter what he did, the house, his friend, and the Seo Hae-young of the past would not return. The card he received from Seo Ga-young was the last remaining lifeline, but he wouldn’t be able to use it. Even after facing the past, he wouldn’t be able to escape. He had known everything before coming down here. The scales were already tilted to one side.
The hollow laughter turned into a bizarre cry the moment he realized that Seo Hae-young had not resisted at all for a while. Even when the things that made up his daily life collapsed one by one, even when the Seo Hae-young he relied on and loved was the one destroying that daily life, the cry that had only boiled intensely in his throat began to leak out little by little. The strength left the hand pressing the windpipe, and the pillow slid away.
Collapsing over Seo Hae-young, who was inhaling the breath he had held, Hae-won wailed as if vomiting the large lump situated in the center of his chest. Veins stood out on his forehead as clumsy sobs burst forth. Hae-won unleashed the sorrows of his life up to this day into the only place he could rely on, yet the most harsh embrace of all. Seo Hae-young, who lifted his limp arms to hug his wretched back, was still lovely. He liked the hand patting his back. The voice whispering in a playful tone not to cry was comforting.
“I… I don’t know what you’re thinking…”
He hated Seo Hae-young, who always pushed him to the edge of a cliff. He hated the hand that inflicted wounds on his body. He found the voice that spoke words that crushed his heart so casually disgusting. Nevertheless, he hated himself so much for not being able to leave that he wanted to tear himself apart. It was only natural that Gi-tae looked at him with eyes full of contempt. It was right for everyone to point fingers at him. In the inescapable self-loathing and despair, he simply didn’t know what to do. When he reached out for help, how many people had brushed him off? With what faces had they turned their backs? There was no one who fully embraced him. The only person who had stayed by his side in some form was Seo Hae-young.
Anyway, wherever he went, whatever he did, no matter what happened, in the end, inevitably.
Nothing Seo Hae-young had said was wrong. It ended up like this. In the end, the only thing he wanted to recover, even if it meant destroying the house and killing Seo Hae-young, was one thing.
He wanted to recover Seo Hae-young. The Seo Hae-young who had shared his foundation, the Seo Hae-young who had been his support, the Seo Hae-young who was scary but lovely. In an environment where he shouldn’t have been greedy, that was the only thing he wanted to possess. Hae-won had to admit it. He had to accept that he could not live outside of Seo Hae-young’s fence. To do that, he had to comply with Seo Hae-young’s ambiguous behavior. He had to trust Seo Hae-young, who confused people with vague and difficult words. It was the hardest thing, yet the most basic.
“I really, r-really don’t know. Can’t you tell me just a little? It’s just, I… I’m struggling so much, and you, you’re too difficult…”
Broken words flowed out sporadically. Hae-won leaned on the hand that regularly patted his heaving back and waited for Seo Hae-young to give a clear answer. He felt he wouldn’t be able to feel at peace until he heard the answer. He felt he might want to kill the beloved Seo Hae-young again, or be crushed by guilt without even touching him. Or, unable to endure it, he might eventually slit his own throat. In the sea, and here, the truly scary thing was not Seo Hae-young, but himself. He couldn’t lift his head, fearing that he would repeat such acts every time his illness flared up.
“…Hae-won.”
The hand that had been stroking his back as if embracing his dirty heart moved up to the back of his head. The touch, which was blunt rather than soft as always, calmed his trembling. The hand that gripped his arm strongly pulled his exhausted body to the side. The two people, matching their gaze at an equal height, stared at each other with two pairs of bloodshot eyes. After a long wait, the burst lips parted, and a monotonous voice flowed out.
“I’m actually very predictable.”
Swallowing the blood pooled in his mouth, Seo Hae-young took the hand that had struck his cheek and lifted the fingers one by one.
“Ignoring my messages, not coming when I tell you to visit, not listening to me. You just have to not do those things.”
Fiddling with the three straight fingers, Seo Hae-young gripped them in one hand and shook them slightly as if telling him to remember this. It was a whisper that contained a rebuke of the past, yet it was a sentence that evoked nostalgia.
Hae-won looked at the white fingers that entered between his raised fingers to create a perfect interlock. They held on so strongly that it felt as if they wouldn’t come apart even if he shook them or pulled. Turning his gaze from the fingers entangled like fate to the deep black pupils, Hae-won sought the final answer.
The answer to the abuse poured out at the villa that summer, the answer to why he hadn’t resisted even when tried to be smothered with a pillow, the answer to why the relationship had been ruined to this extent, and the answer to something he couldn’t hear enough of, no matter how many times. Hae-won needed a very clear answer. Gripping the white fingers with a strength similar to Seo Hae-young’s, whose grip was strong enough to turn his fingertips white, he let his voice vibrate through a throat that hadn’t stopped sobbing. He hoped his pitiful voice, leaking out like a mumble, would reach Seo Hae-young. Hoping that Seo Hae-young, who had always suggested the way, would point out the right path this time as well, he threw out a question filled with confusion.
“We… we like each other, right? This is normal, right? It’s not strange. You like me… You, you like me?”
Slowly curling the corners of his lips, Seo Hae-young smiled with a blood-stained face. It was a devastatingly beautiful smile. While Hae-won gazed at him blankly, a free hand reached out and pulled the nape of his neck. It was time for an answer. Lips that had briefly touched the left ear let out a small sigh of “Ah,” as if realizing a mistake, and moved to the right ear.
Hae-won listened intently to the voice that pressed out each syllable. Out of the countless whispers buried in a pit dug within a reed forest, a single piece—filtered and refined—flowed into his intact ear. It was a cautious, soft whisper, like sharing a secret that must never be told to anyone.
I love you so much. I love you so much I want to kill you. I wish you belonged only to me. I wish you couldn’t even move, that you couldn’t do anything. But because I love you so much, I’ll try to endure it. I’m enduring it because I really love you. So be grateful, Hae-won.
Seo Hae-young poured in whispers wrapped in a pretty package so that Hae-won wouldn’t shrink back in fear, then smiled shyly. When he pressed his forehead against Hae-won’s—who couldn’t answer as if his throat were blocked—tears pooled on the bridge of his high nose before overflowing. As if soothing Hae-won, who did nothing but tremble and cry, Seo Hae-young kissed him lightly and planted reliable stories into the holes of his mind.
“We’re fine. Understand? We’re okay. We’ve liked each other for a long time. Everything is normal.”
Hae-won nodded, following Seo Hae-young as he whispered that everything was fine, normal, and perfectly okay. He didn’t feel an overwhelming surge of emotion or boundless happiness, but strangely, the corners of his mouth twitched. Wearing a distorted smile, like someone who had forgotten how to laugh or cry, Hae-won clung desperately to Seo Hae-young, who was blooming with a bright smile. One hand remained locked in an unbreakable grip, while the other clung to his neck. He must not let go, and he could not let go.
“I… I like you too. I’m scared, I-I want to die… but I like you. I hate it so much… but I love you, love you so much.”
In a space reduced to a mess, Hae-won delivered a messy confession to a messy Seo Hae-young. He embraced and held onto the man who saw delusions, believed that harming his own body was atonement, and would be unable to achieve sincere repentance even in death. Embraced by Seo Hae-young, who willingly held him back, Hae-won buried his face in the warm nape of his neck and laughed through his tears. His head was spinning.
“That’s right. We love each other. Since the first time we met.”
“B-but… but I. I shouldn’t be like this… but I like you so much…”
“There’s nothing wrong with us, Hae-won. It’s just because we love each other too much. I’m sorry.”
Who should be held responsible for a relationship that had become a wreck? There was no answer. Neither Seo Hae-young nor he could shoulder the entire burden. Perhaps this heavy responsibility had to be split in half. Maybe he would end up lightening the load that leaned far more heavily toward Seo Hae-young, until they eventually bore the same weight.
“It’ll get better. We’ll be okay.”
Hae-won tried his best to believe Seo Hae-young, who whispered with conviction. Casting aside doubt for a moment, he filled the gaps by recalling the moments they had loved across the long stretch of time. Then, an uncomfortable sense of happiness began to slowly rise. As a murky hope filled his chest, a plausible smile finally bloomed.
“I-is it really okay? You really like me… right?”
“Yes, everything is okay. I’m sorry I was too late. We were already in love. I was just too late.”
Hae-won laughed vacantly and leaned his forehead against Seo Hae-young’s collarbone, where traces of atonement remained. He was anxious yet peaceful, sorrowful yet glad.
After passing through a path of thorns paved with wrong choices, a shattered relationship, revenge, and promises, there was only one thing he had gained. The hand he was gripping tightly was everything. Having lost thirteen years together, every person, every routine, every trust, every flutter of the heart, and every peace, he had gained just this one thing. This reality was still difficult. But just as their peaceful days had become the past, this too would eventually fade into the background. He couldn’t yet imagine a future where he could look back at this painful and miserable today and laugh, saying, “That’s how it was back then.” For now, he simply had to carry it. He would set it aside for a while, only for it to be flipped over again when facing a situation like today, holding each other’s hands once more, finding temporary stability while fearing the coming future, believing that this too shall pass.
Broken dishes, disheveled blankets, pillows with stuffing leaking out, a shattered bookshelf, scattered clothes, torn books, a ruined house, and sleet fluttering outside the window.
In the center of it all, two people left alone like rags looked at each other and laughed hollowly.
Breaths as light as a breeze mingled. The corners of their mouths, tickled by the breath, tore open as their laughter grew louder. Sounds—whether they were laughing or crying, it was impossible to tell—became trapped in the basement that held their past. In their small house, where the door is always open, but they can never leave.
There was no way to escape the dilemma they had stepped into long ago.
So now, it was time to start a new game.
A game with no winners and no losers, until the very, very end.