By Zephyria 
With a noticeably sunken face, Eun-ha asked. Yeon-jun tilted his head as if expanding his thoughts before answering.
“I’ll listen first.”
“You said you’d break up with me if I told you.”
“If I understand it.”
Eun-ha furrowed his brows in silence. As if in a staring contest, he looked down at Yeon-jun with intensity in his eyes, then eventually let out a faint sigh. It was as if he wasn’t entirely pleased, but felt there was no other way.
Soon, he shifted his gaze in a random direction.
His hesitation didn’t last long. He looked like someone who had reached a final decision.
“……When I’m with you, I keep wanting to run away.”
“…….”
“That’s the reason. Happy? Now go back.”
Just as Eun-ha, having spat out his words with a stiff and detached tone, was about to stand up, his wrist was suddenly grabbed. The grip was so firm that he wouldn’t have been able to shake it off even if he tried; Eun-ha, who had been about to turn his back, stopped and looked down.
“…What now. Let go. I already explained.”
“How is that a reason?”
“You didn’t understand? I said it very simply. I feel like I want to run away. So I ran, and that’s the entirety of why we broke up.”
“Why do you want to run away?”
“…….”
“That part is missing.”
Eun-ha let out a faint laugh. It was a sigh closer to a scorched, hollow chuckle.
“You’re curious about that?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you curious about that?”
“…….”
“Why on earth are you curious about something like that, Yeon-jun?”
Yeon-jun pressed his lips together while looking at Eun-ha, who was muttering as if he couldn’t possibly understand. The nuance was as if he shouldn’t be the one curious about such things.
Yeon-jun thought to himself that he was curious about that very thing—why Eun-ha was curious about why he was curious.
Isn’t it natural to want to know? Because he likes him. He wanted to understand, even just a little. Why Eun-ha felt the urge to run away when he was by his side. What the psychology behind it was.
If it was something within a solvable realm, he could just work to solve it.
He didn’t understand why Eun-ha spoke as if blaming him for it.
“……If I had to put it into words.”
That was when Eun-ha suddenly murmured. Once again, with the demeanor of someone who had made a decision.
That is, with a face emptied of all distractions and simply detached. In a voice without inflection.
Yeon-jun gave him an attentive look.
“Yes.”
“There isn’t one.”
“…What?”
And then he stumbled. The concise answer was simply too absurd.
As if he couldn’t see the face now tinged with bewilderment, Eun-ha continued calmly, without a hint of a change in expression.
“There is no reason why I want to run away.”
“…….”
What kind of explanation is that… No, is this even an explanation…?
Unable to say anything, Yeon-jun merely parted his lips slightly and examined Eun-ha’s face as if observing something utterly strange and bizarre. Could there be a declaration more blindly confident than this?
Though he had witnessed Eun-ha acting impulsively several times before, this one was truly difficult to interpret. Glancing at Yeon-jun’s expression, which clearly showed his confusion, Eun-ha admitted plainly.
“It’s a trashy reason. Yeah. I know.”
“……I don’t think of it that way—”
“Anyone would think of it that way, Yeon-jun.”
“…….”
“That I’m trash. That I’m a crazy bastard.”
“…….”
“So please, just think of me that way too. Please.”
Please.
The voice was filled with desperation, just as the words suggested. Yeon-jun paused and narrowed his eyes slightly. A certain assumption faintly surfaced, as if he were on the verge of realizing something. Ah. So—.
Did he mean for him to wake up and snap out of it?
To objectively recognize that he was that abnormal.
Why the person who should have felt that way first and foremost didn’t hold that impression at all.
“…….”
None of this would be an act. He wasn’t mimicking something just to inject objectivity. At the very least, Eun-ha was speaking his heart honestly. The desire to run away was sincere, and the fact that there was no other reason was also sincere.
Perhaps it wasn’t that there was no reason, but that he didn’t know the reason.
However, if there was one thing he was faking…
“…….”
He shifted his gaze. He toyed with Eun-ha’s thin wrist, which was still held in his hand. He was sensitive to Eun-ha’s health. He had suspected it, but he had really lost weight. The frail feeling wrapping around his hand was slightly more meager than what he usually knew.
At this rate… letting out a light lament internally, he spoke.
“Hyung.”
“What.”
“Do you hate it when I hold onto you like this?”
Instead of an answer, Eun-ha only sent a steady, downward gaze. A look demanding further explanation.
“You said you wanted to run away.”
“…….”
“Do you wish I wouldn’t stop you from running?”
“…….”
“I’m asking if you really want us to break up forever.”
He wasn’t asking this because he was curious. He had already decided on the answer, concluded that the answer was correct, and was simply checking whether he would hear the correct answer or a lie.
If there was one thing Yeon-jun was certain about regarding the confusing and ambiguous Eun-ha, it was the fact that he liked him.
“Actually, I don’t really understand any of this.”
“…….”
“And I don’t want to end things with you like this.”
“…….”
“But if you say you want to, I’ll do it.”
He was sincere. It was a sincerity he could offer because he didn’t doubt for a second that a simple affirmative answer would not return.
As if to prove that, Eun-ha remained silent for a long time.
Like a person trapped in frozen time, he had been stiff and motionless, until at some point, he let out a fragment of a hollow laugh.
“Why ask when you’ve already reached a conclusion on your own?”
Yeon-jun met his eyes. Straight, without the slightest hesitation.
“Because I want to hear it from your own mouth.”
“…….”
“Should I stop holding on?”
It was a question with an obvious intention. Eun-ha looked down at Yeon-jun as if he were a bit resentful, and for a moment, his face shook violently, unable to maintain his composure. As if he were about to burst into tears.
He quickly turned his head. As if he wanted to hide his expression even for a moment.
Truly, as if he wanted to run away.
“……No.”
“…….”
“No, Yeon-jun.”
“…….”
“So the one who really needs to run away is you…….”
Please. Let go. Don’t do this. Stop doing this to me… Ignoring Eun-ha’s pleas to let go, spoken in a voice gradually becoming moist, Yeon-jun pulled his wrist. The body, which followed with a futility that was almost pathetic, landed right in his arms. Yeon-jun familiarly embraced the limp body that had no will to escape.
He wants to be held.
Thinking that if that was his true heart, then simply holding him was the solution.
The familiar warmth and the surging body scent brought a sense of comfort. With that, Yeon-jun felt a gradual sense of stability settle in. He had really missed him, and for the entire week, he had thought of nothing but wanting to do this; holding him made him feel good. All other problems were quickly pushed outside the boundary and faded away.
“You skipped a few meals.”
“None of your business……”
“It is my business. I’m your boyfriend.”
“Is that what’s important right now……?”
“If not that, then what is important?”
“……You’re really not normal……”
“Hmm. I think you’re more like that than I am, Hyung.”
A crisp answer came without hesitation. Eun-ha was momentarily stunned by the rebuttal he never imagined the boy would deliver to his face. His lips parted slightly for a moment before he stammered a question, as if checking if he had heard correctly.
“What…… I’m not normal……?”
“Yeah. I’m certain today. I think you’re abnormal, Hyung.”
“…….”
“But I still like it.”
“…….”
“What should I do?”
He knew that he wasn’t asking because he truly wanted an answer. He could faintly hear the sound of a giggling laugh by his ear.
Because of that, Eun-ha was buried in a strange feeling—not of surrendering, but of being forced into surrender by another. Finally exhausted by that stubborn affection, he let his whole body go limp.
Trapped in the cozy embrace, he thought self-deprecatingly. As if everything was ruined.
What do I do… You just become abnormal along with me…