-28-
The moment he admitted to being abandoned, it felt like his already small self would be devoured by a giant shadow and disappear without a trace.
That’s why Bunhong had desperately clung to his heartless first love, which was no different from unrequited love.
Whenever someone who knew about their relationship asked about his relationship with Ido, Bunhong had always said this:
‘I’m okay.’
……
‘I’m good at waiting.’
It was similar to a resolution he made to himself. But Bunhong looks back. Was he really okay? Really?
In endless waiting—humiliation, tears he couldn’t control, a life that was only weary and desolate.
Love wasn’t sacrifice. Love given without compensation ultimately had limits and an end.
“Whisper love once more to fragrant lips that hold poison,”
For Kim Bunhong, left alone, only such questions remained in his tattered heart.
If even the few remaining fragments of sweet memories that had once overlapped with you were tainted with the color of despair, wasn’t it time to escape from the terrible nightmare that shook him?
Now…… hadn’t the time come to end this thing called love?
“But there’s no warmth that touches my fingertips, and won’t I become foam like this and disappear forever……”
I want to breathe. I want to feel that I’m alive.
But you took away all my breath and left……
“Beautiful…… ah, beautiful things that ultimately collapse……”
Brilliance is only momentary,
“I was helplessly defeated.”
Just being passionate alone won’t accomplish anything. On some day in the past, his lover had whispered quietly to him.
Like this, when he was in love with Jeong Ido, he was truly submerged in the terrible depths. In the water, even breathing was painful, so he gasped for air.
His limbs were bound by invisible chains and his tongue was also tied, so like a mermaid blinded by love who had lost her voice, no matter how desperately he thrashed his body and rowed, his attempts disappeared like foam.
In the end, he had no choice but to throw himself without resistance. He thought it was really the end now. His body just kept sinking endlessly below the surface. He thought he could no longer breathe.
‘Ah……’
He desperately reached out his hand toward something that appeared before his eyes again. Was what faintly reflected on the distant surface far above light, or was it just another illusion created by shadows?
‘Maybe I could reach it.’
Hot tears began to flow from eyes that couldn’t bear to give up their attachment. He slowly closed his eyes.
However,
“Stop…… I’ve lost to love.”
Bunhong suddenly realized that he was singing again. In front of people, proudly overlaying himself onto the music he had always admired, revealing himself without reservation.
He gradually salvaged his submerged self from the water and pulled it to shore.
The tinnitus that had been ringing in his dazed ears cleared, and he spat out the last lyrics as if vomiting them with his trembling voice.
Look. How I appear singing this song. Even though the other person probably won’t even remember, at that moment he wanted to shout that to Ido. This was the end between them that Bunhong had finally reached, the finale that Ido had continuously mentioned.
What was this song anyway? The song he had so desperately wanted to have, for which he had even imagined hating, tormenting, and strangling his younger teammate to death.
The moment he finally got his hands on it as he had desperately wished all along, ironically it became truly nothing, just like the lyrics of that song. So futilely.
‘Yes. Really until the very end.’
Kim Bunhong wanted to ask him if he felt relieved now.
‘I’ll admit it. I lost. Ido hyung.’
Was this the ending between them that Ido had always talked about? Such a tragedy that couldn’t be undone no matter how many times it was rewritten.
What kind of eyes was Jeong Ido looking at him with right now? Did he know that this song was one he had composed? Did he know that Bunhong had truly loved him?
If it was a memory he would carry alone anyway, it would be better to lock it away in an old drawer and let it disappear into the back alleys of the past.
“……!”
For a moment, Kim Bunhong and Jeong Ido’s gazes met. They looked at each other like that for a long time. Endlessly indifferent, heartless, and insensitive black pupils.
Looking at those eyes, his lingering attachment melted away like snow, as if by magic.
‘Ha.’
This time it was Kim Bunhong who looked away first. He lifted his palm that had been full of sweat, brushed off his clothes, stood up straight, and walked out of that place.
The door closed. As soon as he came out, his body lost strength and he leaned against the wall for a moment before standing up again.
It was only later that he realized that even after the audition ended, it had been strangely quiet inside without a single evaluation.
.
.
.
In the quiet silence where not even breathing could be heard, someone swallowed their saliva with a gulp, and simultaneously it became noisy as if magic had been broken.
‘Who was that guy just now?’
* * *
He always had many things he wanted to say. Things he wanted to ask, things he wanted to know, emotions he wanted to convey were so abundant they were overflowing. But he couldn’t,
Because he was worried he might appear childish to him. In front of Jeong Ido who was always so mature, Kim Bunhong didn’t want to show any weaknesses.
‘Why don’t you contact me first? Why didn’t you call when you said you would? Why did you smile at other people? Why won’t you look at me? Tell me. Talk to me. Do you love me?’—He couldn’t pour out these obsessive words that Ido would surely dismiss as whining toward him. Because Bunhong didn’t want to be hated by Ido, he swallowed them.
‘But why didn’t hyung ask me anything?’
Bunhong was curious. Even if that was the case for him, why hadn’t past Ido asked Bunhong any questions? Even when they were dating, even in those moments when they fell in love, it was strange how he acted like someone who wasn’t curious about anything regarding Kim Bunhong as a person.
Whether he desperately wanted something, what he wanted to do. Except for questions that would be more suitable for professional rather than personal relationships, he really didn’t ask him anything. No matter how he thought about it, it wasn’t a relationship that could be called normal lovers.
It was sincere feelings that had now passed and could no longer be conveyed. The child who had been crouching and crying in the darkness briefly looked around. Then, realizing that it was already ruins where the other person had left, he finally walked out.
Creak, he stood blankly in front of the rusty door handle, then carefully opened the door.
“……”
Realizing that he had been living in an impossible dream all along. So now he decided not to look back anymore.
No matter how sweet a dream might be, one must wake up someday. He didn’t know then that now was the moment to do so, but he knows now.
Bang. Soon the noise of the door closing echoed loudly as if pronouncing a death sentence.
The moment he removed his hand from the cold door handle, Bunhong slowly loosened the strength of the fist he had clenched tightly while singing.
Love was like a blowing wind—no matter how tightly you grasped it, it eventually flowed between your fingers.
“……hong.”
“……”
“Kim Bunhong!!”
It was before he could even fully straighten his bent fingers. Someone called Bunhong’s name. Along with the sound of the door bursting open again, tens of thousands of thoughts flashed through his mind, but in the end, what he said when he turned around was just,
“Hyung.”
That was all. Ah. Bunhong let out a small exclamation while intuitively realizing. A corner of his chest throbbed, and he had a premonition that Jeong Ido had also regressed.
Otherwise, there was no way you, who should be complete strangers at this time, would call his name multiple times as if you knew something.
“……”
There was no affection or tenderness between them after the regression. It was already a finished relationship. Because they had seen the very end to the point where it couldn’t be reversed even if they came back, the two lovers who had fatefully reunited maintained silence for a moment.
Then their gazes met, but Jeong Ido reflected in Kim Bunhong’s pupils showed not an inch of movement. He gazed at Bunhong so calmly, as if all those past days when he had looked at him with those cold eyes and spat out harsh words had become things that never happened.
“Let’s move somewhere else first.”
Sudden formal speech. Bunhong lifted his head puzzledly at Ido’s tone that had changed to a businesslike manner and understood the situation.
Ido clicked his tongue briefly at the glances of people who were stealing looks at them, then nodded his head toward Bunhong.
He silently followed behind him. Then a large, clean office appeared. The corridor was silent without even a passing mouse.
‘This space……’
He glanced around various places with just his eyes. Bunhong wondered if Ido’s position within the company before regression had been to this extent. Enough to naturally come and go from such a place?
‘He’s already changed the past to some degree.’
Unlike him, Ido seemed to be properly utilizing the advantages of regression. He could guess to some extent.
Well, with Jeong Ido’s level of execution ability, there would be nothing he couldn’t do, Kim Bunhong judged while feeling puzzled.
‘This probably wasn’t the first time we’ve met like this after regression.’
Certainly they had already met once before, when Bunhong was heading toward Hangeul’s studio as promised.
The elevator they rode together rose quickly, and when they finally arrived at their destination, they had certainly turned their backs on each other, and their paths had already diverged then.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
