Erection. It wasn’t a big deal since we were both guys, but hearing sexual terms from Heon felt strange. Maybe because I still saw him as a younger brother. I asked awkwardly, “……How do you know? It says ‘Happy Family’ here.”
“Because he’s my father.”
Heon smiled faintly and turned to look at me. I didn’t understand what he was saying at first, so I slowly turned my head to look at the face of Candidate No. 1, Igiljo, and then at Lee Heon. The candidate’s soft features and light brown eyes didn’t resemble Heon at all. Maybe that’s why I didn’t make the connection.
I looked at him with a bitter expression, unsure of how to respond. He added quietly, his voice subdued, “So I don’t want to see him succeed.”
I didn’t know what to say. It felt like I was hearing about someone else’s family troubles. My own situation wasn’t great, but the idea that the son of a successful assemblyman could hate his father was a shocking revelation. Of course, if he had grown up watching his pedophile father, it made sense, but for me, who had only ever known my mother, it was something I could never truly understand. I wanted to end this uncomfortable conversation. I took a big step toward the boarding house and said, “Oh? Then I’ll vote for someone else. Brr, it’s cold. Aren’t you coming in?”
Under the streetlight, my face was fully visible. Heon, who had been silently staring at me, suddenly grabbed my wrist and asked, “I’m coming in. Hyung, why are your eyes so red?”
“……No reason.”
“Did you cry? Last time, you were drinking as soon as we met. Today, it looks like you’ve been crying. Now that I see it, your face is bruised. What…… happened? Are you really…… struggling?”
Heon reached out and touched the corner of my eye. I flinched in surprise but didn’t pull away from his hand. Are you really struggling? The truth was…… a little…… I felt a lump in my throat. Instead of feeling embarrassed about being caught crying, I felt comforted. I had been struggling a lot.
I hadn’t even told my aunt. Even though she had called, I couldn’t bring myself to talk about what I was going through because of the stalker.
I had no one to lean on. Cha Jin-wook, who was clearly hiding something from me, was unreliable, and my classmates who knew Sunbae Hae-joon were no different.
But Lee Heon already knew I was being stalked, and since we weren’t in the same major, there was less pressure. More than anything, he had a strangely comforting aura that put people at ease.
Drawn to that atmosphere, I couldn’t hold back the welling sadness and sniffled, “I’m struggling.”
“……”
“It’s hard. So hard. I didn’t do anything wrong, but it’s unfair and painful. I just…… I just…… want to run away…… I’m scared……”
“Shh, shh.”
“I have no one to talk to…… I just get beaten up…… and the guilt won’t go away.”
I cried, feeling the gentle touch of his hand wiping away my tears. I didn’t care what I looked like under the streetlight as I poured out all my frustrations.
***
“Why are you acting like this? Like a child. You need to eat, Siwoo, you need to eat.”
“……”
I didn’t eat the food the man offered.
If he forced it into my mouth, I spat it out. If he blocked my mouth and made me swallow, I gagged. The man grew increasingly anxious as I refused to eat. Every time he acted like that, I feared I would be punished, so even as I refused the food, I remained tense. But the man didn’t treat me violently, as I had feared.
He couldn’t stay still, watching me with sunken, hollow eyes.
He didn’t go out once a day as he usually did. Like a man consumed by anxiety, he stuck by my side all day, urging me to eat. I saw it as his way of preventing me from escaping, so I acted even more stubbornly.
The white bed was stained with the remnants of the food he had brought. Even though I was the one refusing to eat, it was the man who looked increasingly haggard.
I vomited the sixth meal he brought. As he watched me retch, he lifted my face with both hands, gently wiping the traces from my lips with a touch that almost seemed affectionate, and asked, “Everything’s been going well. There’s nothing left but for us to be happy. Why are you acting like this now?”
“……Just disappear.”
It was always the same answer. Leaving this place wouldn’t solve everything. I wanted him to vanish from my life.
“You’re lying. You can’t live without me now, Siwoo.”
“……”
He was right. I couldn’t live without him now.
I pulled his thick hand away from my face and looked around with a pale expression. It was quiet now that he was here, but if he left, it would get noisy. Bugs would crawl out, and the horrible stench would return. That was a pain too hard to bear. I needed him. He was right.
“Why are you being so stubborn? I made everything for you. I made it easy for you to accept me because it was hard for you to do it yourself. All you have to do now is love me. That’s all that’s left, so why won’t you listen?”
“Because…… I don’t want to. Maybe this is love to you, but it’s not to me. You made me accept you? Yeah, right. I was in so much pain I thought I’d die, but now I feel stable when I see you. I’m getting used to this life, accepting it, settling in. Eventually, if this goes on long enough, everything will feel normal. It’ll all become easy. Like a livestock trapped in a fence.”
“……Livestock?”
“……Isn’t it? You dress me, put me to sleep, feed me, make me cheap, isn’t that what this is? Don’t be nice to me. Don’t give me rewards—just hit me. Beat me until I’m half-dead, just don’t let me get comfortable.”
I grabbed his hand and struck my own head with it. Oddly, his face twisted as if he were the one in pain. He pulled his hand away and stood up abruptly, saying, “No.”
“Why not? You used to hit me well. You used to beat me until I thought I’d die. Go ahead. I’m giving you permission.”
“……No.”
“Why? Why not?”
“Back then, I had to. Now, I don’t need to. What I want is a normal relationship. When I come home, I want you to welcome me, to look only at me, to depend only on me—a family.”
That’s weird.
“……Don’t expect that from me.”
“You’re the only one who can give me that, Siwoo.”
The conversation went nowhere. Realizing we still couldn’t understand each other, I stopped responding, and the man pitifully rubbed his face against my hand and kissed it. I completely ignored him.
Day two. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep.
I didn’t want to lie defenseless in front of him, and I was also waiting for another chance to escape, like the desperate attempt I had made when he was asleep.
Not eating left me weak, and not sleeping made my head spin.
“Fine. I give up.”
The man suddenly muttered as he looked at the dark circles under my eyes. He got up, opened the door, and left the room.
Rustle, rustle, crunch, crunch. As soon as he left, strange noises started coming from somewhere. It sounded like something being scraped, or chewed, or whispered. Every time I heard these noises, I felt like I was going crazy, but I was getting used to it. Maybe it was just a ghost.
The man returned to the room not long after. The murmuring noises stopped as soon as he came back. He was holding something in his hand. He offered it to me.
“Take it.”
“……What is this?”
“A truck key.”
“……This is the one from the clearing?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you giving it to me?”
“If you can get out of this forest before sunrise, I’ll let you go.”
I pondered his words. Was he saying he’d let me go now? I snatched the key from his hand, as if afraid he’d take it back. I wanted to check if it was really a truck key or if he was just messing with me.
I had never driven a truck, so I couldn’t confirm if this was actually a truck key. In the end, I stopped examining it and asked him, “Are you saying…… you’ll help me drive the truck out of here?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Are you going to do it or not?”
“……”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
