By Zephyria 
There are people who affirm me exactly as I am. There are people who embrace the immature wounds of one’s childhood that remained unhealed into adulthood. Because of his support—telling me that whatever I do is okay—I was able to become a slightly better person today than I was yesterday.
“……Grandmother.”
When he took her hand, the grandmother’s eyes widened as if she were having a fit. The hand he held for the first time in his life was covered in frail, wrinkled skin, unlike the hand that had once left a stinging pain on his cheek.
“Do you think I bring misfortune with me? Does our family look unhappy to you?”
“You….”
“Dad is a professor respected by his students, and Mom says she’s having so much fun learning the oboe lately. Noona got accepted into a major corporation that others would envy. I’m dizzyingly busy balancing school and my internship, but I’m enjoying it. And…… I’ve met someone I can trust and follow.”
“Anyone can say such things…!”
She tried to shake him off, but as if she lacked the strength, her enveloped hand trembled violently. Yoo Jiha was no longer hurt by her reaction.
“I’ll keep showing you that I and my family are happy. I’ll show you that an adopted child doesn’t bring misfortune into a home.”
He gave her hand one last firm squeeze before gently letting go. The grandmother’s hand, slumped back onto the bedding, twitched faintly, but that hand did not fly toward his cheek as it had in his childhood.
“So, Grandmother, please live a long and healthy life.”
Until he gave his final greeting and stepped away, only her irregular, ragged breathing—not her shouting—echoed through the room.
When he stepped outside, his father silently wrapped an arm around his shoulder. His aunt sighed and lowered her head.
Feeling somewhat awkward facing his family, he shut himself in his room. He tried to calm his heart, which was racing for a different reason than before he met his grandmother, but it wouldn’t settle. Yoo Jiha knew exactly what to do at times like this.
Yes, Jiha.
The call was answered immediately, as if the person had been waiting. Hearing the voice full of concern, the loud thumping of his heart gradually became peaceful.
“I just talked with my grandmother….”
A disjointed stream of conversation poured out. It touched upon the grandmother’s past, stories of his father’s hometown visited after a long time, and his wish that she would cast off her guilt by seeing him become happy. The threads of the conversation, branching out in various directions, eventually converged into one conclusion.
“I want to go home and see Ajusshi soon….”
A small laugh from the man on the other end softly caressed his ears.
Should I head down now?
“Huh? It takes over three hours from Seoul.”
That’s because Ajusshi misses Jiha too.
He thought it was a joke, but a few minutes later, a text arrived saying he was actually departing. He didn’t even know how he spent the remaining time. He barely ate dinner, and the moment a text arrived saying he was almost there, he bolted toward the entrance of the village.
It was close to 9 PM. In the countryside, where night falls early, there were already no signs of people, and only the light of the streetlamps greeted him. He ran with anticipation down the road where he had once wandered in search of his grandmother’s jade ring.
“Ajusshi!”
And he was truly there. Yoo Jiha threw himself at Jeil Heon, who was standing by the car. The broad chest that caught and embraced him softly was so welcoming it brought tears to his eyes. Perhaps that was why the tears he had held back even in front of his father suddenly burst forth upon seeing him.
It was no one’s fault. Neither his own for being abandoned, nor the grandmother’s, who had spent her life swallowing screams and smelling blood, with the soul of a young abandoned girl taxidermied within her.
Burying his face in the man’s chest, which carried the chilly night air of autumn, Yoo Jiha sobbed. The man stepped back from a kiss to wipe away the distress that had been fermented over long years.
“Do you think I unnecessarily brought up a wound that Grandmother didn’t want to uncover?”
“There are wounds that can be healed by ruminating on them alone, but some wounds can only heal once the pus is exposed to the surface. You can’t just leave Grandmother’s wound exposed and then neglect it. Right?”
He nodded slightly. Just as his own long-standing wounds had healed after revealing them to Jeil Heon, he hoped the grandmother’s long suffering would do the same. It would be even better if she could feel happiness in proportion to how happy he became.
〈And yet, I still don’t know if this emotion is love, Jiha.〉
However, the man who would become the central axis of his happiness still had not withdrawn those words. Was he still far from reaching that point? Was it not enough that he liked him very, very much?
He recalled the man mentioning a ‘gem.’ That gaze of longing, as if cradling something infinitely precious and lovely. Yoo Jiha bit his lip to avoid showing his jealousy. He felt a childish urge to ask who he liked more: the gem or him. Even though any answer would likely put Jeil Heon in a difficult position.
As he stared up, the man tilted his head with a puzzled expression. Not wanting his anxious, child-like inner thoughts to be discovered, Yoo Jiha pretended to be suspicious.
“But you really are Ajusshi, right?”
“Mm, who else would I be but Jiha’s Ajusshi?”
“Maybe an anomaly disguised as Ajusshi….”
“This is serious. It would be troublesome to be misunderstood, so I’ll have to let Jiha verify it personally.”
Jeil Heon also pretended to be serious, leaning down to press their lips together. The tongue that entered languidly, tickling his skin with sweet breath, was unmistakably familiar. Since he intentionally didn’t open his teeth, the man laughed softly into his throat and tapped his teeth with the tip of his tongue as if pleading. Meanwhile, the arm around his waist gently tickled his side.
Just as Yoo Jiha let out a giggle and was about to open his lips, Jeil Heon suddenly cleared his throat, pulled his lips away, and took a step back.
The reason for this sudden action was explained by the presence and voice approaching from behind.
“Hey, hey. Yoo Jiha. What are you doing here?”
It was Yoo Jisu, walking down the country road while swinging a fire poker for self-defense, befitting a former kendo player. In his panic, Yoo Jiha’s voice even cracked.
“Wha-wha-what are you doing, Noona?”
“The adults said they might need some soju tonight, so I’m on my way to the supermarket up ahead. When on earth did you get home from….”
Yoo Jisu’s eyes belatedly landed on Jeil Heon, who stood awkwardly behind her brother. Her usually slouching, casual face froze for a few seconds, then a bright, sincere smile from the depths of her heart took over.
“Jiha, who is the gentleman next to you?”
Goosebumps broke out all over Yoo Jiha’s body.
Jeil Heon had intended only to escort him home because the night roads were dangerous, but he ended up being spotted by his father. His father, of course, remembered him. According to Yoo Jisu, it was only natural, as he had a face that people would reminisce about even in a senior center decades later, saying, ‘I saw a handsome man when I was young….’
“Aren’t you Jiha’s team leader? What brings you here….”
“Hello, sir. I heard from Jiha while I was traveling down for a business trip to Jeonju. I heard the brewery in this village is very famous, so I came to buy a box, but I’m late because I couldn’t time it right.”
Wow. Seriously, how can a person lie so fluently without even blinking… Yoo Jiha’s mouth hung open, but his father, who had been suspicious, let out a hearty laugh.
“As expected, you have a good taste in alcohol. That brewery belongs to a hyung I know. I’ll contact him tomorrow and ask him to take good care of you. Now, don’t just stand there, come inside. It’s a rural area, so there are no motels.”
His father forced Jeil Heon inside, despite his polite refusals that he could find lodging in the township. With his gentle personality, Jeil Heon blended effortlessly into the unfamiliar family, and since a love for alcohol ran in the family, a drinking table was quickly set. He breezily accomplished something Yoo Jiha could never imagine: ‘having a drinking session with adults he’d just met in a house he’d just visited for the first time,’ and his father, who had wanted to share a drink with him, had his wish granted.
Even the aunt’s discomfort at suddenly hosting a stranger turned into goodwill the next day, when Jeil Heon—who had woken up perfectly fine at dawn after polishing off five bottles of soju alone—quickly helped the uncle with several tasks that required extra manpower.
Though Yoo Jiha flinched slightly upon hearing his aunt’s monologue.
“Unlike young people these days, he doesn’t hesitate to do the dirty work, and his character is truly upright.”
S-still, in terms of legal age, he is younger than the aunt…