#90
The next question was like a grenade. Ha-min, who had been stubbornly looking straight ahead, turned his head, blinking his widened eyes. His mind went blank for a moment at the brazen question.
“Tell me. I’m curious.”
“Wh-what…”
“Did you really run out just from seeing a single strand of my hair from afar?”
For the first time in his life, Ha-min felt resentful towards his mother. He coughed as if he had choked on something, even though he hadn’t drunk anything.
“Th-that’s… an exaggeration.”
“Tell me without the exaggeration.”
“I don’t want to…”
“Just one thing.”
“…”
“Hm?”
Faced with the persistent questioning and unrelenting gaze, Ha-min felt he couldn’t easily get past this moment. He fiddled with his increasingly reddening nape and mumbled softly.
“Just… your school…”
“Yes?”
“…uniform…”
“I can’t hear you well.”
Despite being right next to him, Tae-rim brought his ear closer to hear Ha-min’s barely audible mumbling. The heat that had started from his nape had already spread to Ha-min’s face.
“Your school… I-I would run… just seeing your uniform.”
His whole body felt hot from the embarrassing old story. Feeling his ears burning too, he rubbed them with his palms and hastily added:
“But, it’s really an old story… from long ago. Not now.”
He shook his head vigorously, strongly denying it. When Ha-min finally turned to look at Tae-rim, he paused for a moment. Tae-rim’s forehead was touching Ha-min’s thin shoulder. He leaned his face against it, looking a bit tired while letting out a faint laugh. Ha-min froze, not even thinking of pushing him away.
“Ha…”
Tae-rim let out a breath mixed with a hollow laugh.
“What a waste.”
“…”
“I should have kept that uniform.”
His low voice was full of regret, as if truly feeling sorry about it.
**
“I… I should go now.”
Ha-min stood up awkwardly and picked up his bag. Thinking the conversation was more or less over, he planned to quickly leave. Tae-rim hadn’t moved for a while, his head still resting on Ha-min’s shoulder. Whether he was really tired or not, only quiet breathing filled the spacious living room for a while. Ha-min thought he might have fallen asleep, but after some time, Tae-rim slowly lifted his head. Ha-min had just stood up, thinking it was a good moment.
“So what do you want to do with hyung?”
Tae-rim’s voice was dripping with fatigue, as if he hadn’t had a proper sleep in who knows how long.
“If you tell hyung not to go, he really won’t go.”
Ha-min shuddered at his words. With a face close to shock, he shook his head vigorously with his eyes wide open.
“What…! Don’t do that. Why are you like this?”
He waved his hands, strongly objecting. Seeing Ha-min’s troubled expression as he even stomped his feet, Tae-rim’s eyes flashed with incomprehension.
“Why?”
“What do you mean ‘why’?”
“You like hyung, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t. Please stop saying things like that…”
Ha-min vehemently denied the blunt, almost shameless words. He wanted to cover Tae-rim’s mouth right away, but he couldn’t do such a bold act. Ha-min looked at him with wronged eyes. In contrast, Tae-rim continued without changing his expression.
“You cried so sadly about hyung leaving.”
He emphasized his previous words with a face that showed he didn’t understand. The more he emphasized, the stranger the light that flashed in his dark eyes became. Ha-min unconsciously hesitated at the persistent and somewhat obsessive gaze.
“I just…”
“…”
“Want to be like before… like hyung and dongsaeng.”
He was sincere. It wasn’t about being stubborn or persistent. He had made up his mind about this long ago. He never even dreamed that Tae-rim wouldn’t go to America because of him. He just found it hard to control his emotions for a moment when he suddenly heard that fact.
It was true that he still liked Tae-rim, but just as you can’t cut a person’s heart like slicing radish, he was just going through the process of forgetting. He could do it well, and he would.
Ha-min looked at Tae-rim again with a resolute expression. Tae-rim looked quite displeased. There was also a hint of disbelief.
“Hyung and dongsaeng?”
His voice was tinged with incredulity.
“Can you really do that?”
He asked sincerely, not just testing. He pressured Ha-min, examining his determined face.
“Yes. Really.”
“You want me to believe that?”
“…It’s true. I’m not lying this time.”
Ha-min put emphasis on each syllable to give Tae-rim confidence. Tae-rim let out a deflated sigh at Ha-min’s earnest but somewhat silly appearance. He ran his hand over his face, letting out an empty laugh as if he couldn’t believe it. At that moment, a glint appeared in his eyes.
“Then can you stay here alone with hyung?”
Huh?
Ha-min’s eyes widened. His head tilted automatically as if he had misheard.
“I’m asking if you can live together while staying like hyung and dongsaeng as you said.”
“What do you mean…”
“Why, does that seem difficult?”
It was almost a provocative question. Although the intention to stimulate Ha-min was clear, it seemed to work as Ha-min bit his lip hard with a startled expression.
“Just for about a month.”
“…”
“Let’s try living like hyung and dongsaeng as you said, and then decide. Both you and me.”
He calmly proposed. No, it was more like an urging. At the suggestion that seemed to challenge him to prove it, Ha-min stared blankly at him with clouded eyes for a moment. Tae-rim continued without any particular change in his demeanor.
“In a month, you’ll be done with your semester, and by then I’ll have no reason to stay in Korea anymore.”
“Why should I…”
“Can’t you do it?”
It was unreasonable. He was making an unreasonable demand too naturally. Ha-min couldn’t close his opened mouth and was only denying it to the best of his ability.
“This doesn’t seem like something to think about so easily…”
“There’s nothing to think hard about, Ha-min.”
Suddenly, he was right in front of Ha-min’s eyes.
“It’s just a month.”
“…”
“If you still say you have no lingering feelings for hyung then, I won’t bother you anymore.”
He calmly met Ha-min’s confused gaze. He captured his eyes. The gentle, undulating voice and the persistent gaze tightened Ha-min’s mental strings.
His beautiful voice, like jade beads, tickled Ha-min’s ears. Ha-min pondered with a troubled expression at his request that bordered between plea and urging. Yes, hyung must be confused too. Suddenly crying sadly about him going to America, hearing that he had been following him around since he was young. Yes, this was the result of his own carelessness.
“Will a month be enough…?”
Tae-rim’s lips curved smoothly at the careful words tinged with heavy contemplation.
“Of course.”
“If… I want to stop…?”
His trembling eyes looked like those of a frightened young lamb.
“Do as you like.”
Looking at Ha-min, who didn’t easily let his guard down even when given a choice, Tae-rim read Ha-min’s obvious concerns.
“Why? Afraid something might happen if we stay here together?”
Tae-rim playfully smiled faintly and lightly brushed aside Ha-min’s bangs covering his eyes. Ha-min’s lips moved without a reply. With his bangs moved away, his brown eyes deep in thought were visible. His neat eyelashes moved up and down incessantly.
“You’re not confident, are you?”
At Tae-rim’s probing question, Ha-min suddenly widened his eyes. A different light sparkled in his brown eyes as if he couldn’t lose.
“No…? I’m confident.”
“…”
“…I’m confident.”
“…”
“…I can do well.”
Ha-min muttered as if talking to himself, blinking his eyes stupidly. Seeing Ha-min speak as if casting a spell on himself, Tae-rim quietly smiled and raised his hand to brush the hair growing on Ha-min’s nape.
“…Alright then.”
Although Tae-rim smiled gently, having succeeded in persuading Ha-min, he couldn’t hide his discomfort. His usually relaxed face twisted somewhat uncomfortably as Ha-min’s insistence that he had given up his feelings seemed more sincere than expected.
Tae-rim gulped down the remaining water to quell his churning insides. After drinking it all, he crumpled the empty plastic bottle in his hand. The sound of it losing its shape in an instant rang out fiercely. But Ha-min, momentarily dazed by the sudden proposal, didn’t hear anything and just stood there awkwardly.
**
Tae-rim seemed determined as he even followed Ha-min to his gosiwon to help move his things. It looked as if he was monitoring to make sure Ha-min wouldn’t slip away somewhere in between. Although there wasn’t much to pack since he was only staying for a month anyway, the luggage wasn’t the issue. What am I doing right now?
Ha-min felt uneasy the entire time he was packing his things and heading to the luxury villa where he would be staying with Tae-rim again. He felt like he had been swept along in the moment. Yet, he accepted because his words about being able to do well were sincere. He didn’t want to be swayed by hyung’s casual affection anymore. He was too tired for that himself.
“Want to have lunch and do some grocery shopping on the way?”
Tae-rim asked, glancing at Ha-min who was staring blankly out the window. Unlike Ha-min, he seemed calm. On the other hand, seeing him look even refreshed, Ha-min was still in a daze.
“No, it’s an awkward time for lunch. Let’s do the grocery shopping and I’ll make dinner for you when we get home.”
Perhaps because they had been busy since morning, it was already well past noon. He turned the steering wheel leisurely and headed to a nearby large supermarket. His luxury villa was just a bridge away from all the convenient facilities. The location was perfect, not far from school either.
He looked relaxed, like someone following a plan. As if this whole series of events was nothing special. Yes, that’s how he should be too. As if nothing had happened. Just like before, just like hyung and dongsaeng.
