By Zephyria 
Gyeoul often wore such a face. He smiled even when he was really hurting. It wasn’t that he was trying to hide his hurt with a smile. Gyeoul simply placed the painful and the joyful on different planes.
But sometimes, he would gasp for breath as if it was too much. Like when I entered Gyeoul’s room, which I hadn’t been able to enter for months. Gyeoul lowered his head, looking embarrassed.
“I’ve never gotten a place before… I have a lot of, uh, roommates. That’s why I couldn’t let you in…”
“…”
“I didn’t want to show you. This pathetic side of me.”
As the light in the entryway turned on, I saw several cockroaches scattering quickly. Gyeoul’s reddened nape, all the things he was desperately trying to hide, poured out to me once again.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Gyeoul. Gyeoul was again breathing weakly, struggling. In the way he had taught me. Enduring the weight of the world with composure.
“…Are you.”
“Huh?”
“Are you okay?”
“Of course. I was just afraid my favorite person would be disappointed, but I’m fine living here. It’s actually comfortable. I can just catch the bugs. And the soundproofing is a little… bad. So I sometimes play music on the speakers to mess with them. You don’t have to worry about me.”
And again, he smiled.
Watching him, I asked impulsively. No, actually, I had wanted to say it for a while.
“Should we, uh, live together?”
Gyeoul quietly studied my face. Whether it stemmed from pity. Or some other reason. I met his seriousness head-on. It couldn’t be that kind of feeling. My heart. Just…
“…Why?”
I didn’t want to be apart from Gyeoul. It hadn’t changed since then. Instead of just taking you home, I wanted to go home together. Instead of not being able to come to my lover’s house for so long, I wanted to lie proudly in the same bed. I just wanted to be together.
“Because I like you.”
“Even if we… live together here?”
“Yeah.”
Gyeoul closed his mouth. I didn’t even care about the cockroaches. His one sentence pierced my heart. That he was afraid of disappointing me.
How could I ever be disappointed in you. I can’t help but love you no matter what you look like, Gyeoul.
I wanted to express that feeling. It might have been sudden, but it wasn’t an impulsive suggestion. In the countless moments of parting in front of his house, I wanted to hold his hand.
“Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s live together, Yi-tae.”
Gyeoul just smiled at me with a perfectly clear face.
The cohabitation that started like that has already passed two years. Gyeoul seemed to be slowly finding his footing. Even though he still often had nightmares and sweated, even though he inhaled so deeply that his chest heaved… The number of times it happened had definitely decreased. He didn’t lose his solidity and cast his sunlight again.
I didn’t want to lose that precious thing. Now I wanted to protect him.
But all I could do was be by his side. Other than holding his trembling hand. That felt so powerless. If I had the chance, I wanted to stop it even if it meant giving up everything.
Then one day. I even used my annual leave for the first time in a while to pack a lunch for Gyeoul. These days, Gyeoul was feeling the heat and barely had any appetite, just picking at his food. Gyeoul always used to eat so heartily.
This summer, Gyeoul had been having particularly restless nights. Sometimes he was even afraid of sleeping. Something must have happened on the day he went home alone. But Gyeoul never opened his mouth to my questions. He just shook his head.
Hugging and patting Gyeoul, who was soaked in sweat from the tropical nights and nightmares, I planned to nourish him. He wasn’t the type to gain weight easily in the first place, but at this rate, it seemed like he would be nothing but bones. Of course, my skills were inferior to what you could buy, but Gyeoul ate all the food I made anyway.
I took the lunch box and went to Gyeoul’s company in time for lunch. It was 12:15 PM. I parked the car haphazardly and was about to stand in front of the company and wait when suddenly a face caught my eye. It was a woman who looked very anxious and terrified. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I couldn’t remember who she was, but I had a feeling I should watch her.
The woman was standing in front of Gyeoul’s company. Her eyes, which had been rolling around red, met mine by chance.
Her dead eyes filled with life in an instant. No, a faint joy settled in her wildly gleaming eyes. Those were the eyes of a mad person. I realized it at that moment. That person was Gyeoul’s biological mother. She was so unstable and dirty that I couldn’t recognize her now, but I couldn’t forget that look in her eyes.
What was certain was that the woman didn’t know this was Gyeoul’s company. If she had known, she would have stormed in right away. Goosebumps rose all over my body. She was standing there even though she didn’t know. By chance. By some kind of attraction. If I had come just a little later, she would have run into Gyeoul. It was hard to breathe.
She ran towards me.
“You… you’re that guy who was standing next to my Gyeoul!”
It was a thunderous shout. How could such a volume come from such a withered frame? There were fewer people around because it was before lunchtime.
Looking closely, the woman’s hair was disheveled, and her clothes were stained and shabby, unlike before. She was the image of a completely broken person. She had cursed Gyeoul so harshly, telling him to die… but she was the one who had fallen apart.
Sometimes, Gyeoul would wake up from a nightmare and speak quietly. Not even distinguishing between reality and dream, his faint voice continued without stopping.
“Yi-tae, actually, I don’t think I did anything wrong. It’s just… that’s the kind of person she was. But she’s still someone who can eat well and live well on her own. Because she’s really vicious and… tenacious… It’s funny how even hate is a kind of affection, and how much affection I have for the person who raised me.”
Seeing her in this broken state would clearly have a negative impact on Gyeoul. Even if he didn’t have any longing or affection for his biological mother, maybe the kind Gyeoul would blame himself.
So they must never meet.
“…”
“You ruined my son! It’s your fault! Because you’re a devil! You charmed my kind Gyeoul and hurt me!”
“He’s not your son anymore.”
“…Shameless bastard. It’s your fault. It’s because of you that Gyeoul lost his parents. You, you’re the one who made it that way. Hehe… How can you be so shameless, selfish, and incompetent? Huh? Aren’t you sorry to Gyeoul? You made Gyeoul a bastard and an orphan.”
I paused my breath for a moment and subtly checked the watch on my wrist. Her words were still like well-honed blades. It was almost time for Gyeoul to come out. I had to get this person far away, somewhere. I didn’t want her to be in Gyeoul’s sight even for a moment.
“…There are a lot of eyes watching, let’s move somewhere else.”
I pointed out the fact that she was conscious of other people’s gazes. The woman seemed to have regained her senses slightly and hurriedly looked around. She was unconsciously biting her nails with her yellow teeth.
She still seemed mentally unstable. Like someone being chased. Compared to the past when she was wearing luxury goods, she was no different from a beggar now.
The woman nodded like crazy. Somehow, her anger from before seemed to have subsided. She wasn’t here to find Gyeoul after all. She must have just thought of Gyeoul when she saw me. Maybe she was planning to rip me off somehow, like Gyeoul had told me.
We stopped walking only after entering a deserted alley. It wasn’t like we could go to a cafe and have a friendly chat. I just needed to get the woman away from the company. So if Gyeoul didn’t find her and receive even a slight impact, that would be enough. This meaningless waste of time.
“Say what you have to say. Don’t even think about trying to reconnect the relationship you shamelessly severed.”
“You guys still seem to be dating well?”
She no longer had the eyes of someone who had lost her reason. Her shining eyes were like those of a beast that had found its prey. Now that I knew that, I couldn’t leave the woman alone. She would come after me again tenaciously. Then it was only a matter of time before Gyeoul and the woman ran into each other. I had to chase her away forever so she would never come back.
Even if it meant revealing my weaknesses, even if it meant giving up everything. I had to do the defense that I couldn’t do back then now.
“…”
“Ah, now that I think about it, I haven’t received the value of raising him. I fed him, clothed him, and sent him to academies, how much did my back bend? Isn’t that just common decency? Even though he only gave me crap.”
“…”
“It’s easy for a mother to find out her child’s address. Honestly, you don’t want to meet, do you? I don’t really want to either. So…”
“You’re saying you want money. Like a beggar.”
“A beggar! It’s a fair price! Don’t you unfilial bastards have any shame?”
She turned blue with anger as if she had heard a very humiliating remark. But no matter how much she tried to sugarcoat it, there was something she couldn’t hide. A certain greed that gleamed in her eyes.
She smelled terribly rotten. It was the smell that came from those who had already given up on being human.