Chapter 67
This time I couldn’t brush it off with a clumsy joke.
Standing in the cramped kitchen of this house, he had said it was okay that I didn’t send emails. That not forgetting was enough.
Our past selves weren’t in a relationship with responsibilities to each other.
But it was true that we felt special attraction, special emotions beyond simple fondness for each other. We just didn’t voice it because we were afraid of the parting that had been decided before we could even start something.
His confession seemed to continue from that hotel room 7 years ago. It wasn’t the atmosphere of keeping it as a memory, coincidentally reuniting, and trying to work things out again while we were at it.
He had lived protecting those feelings from that time without a flaw, while I hadn’t… My gaze drifted down to around his lips from bitter guilt.
“I work here, earn money, and live here. Where would I go? Is it that easy?”
I deflected with excuses.
With the hand that had been touching my cheek, he lightly lifted my chin. It meant for me to look at him.
Since he was someone from the past who didn’t know how to make even such trivial requests of me, I was newly amazed by that change.
“You said you’d go back to Italy if this casting fell through. You said it several times while drunk. Do you know how scared I was then?”
His tone and expression were so serious that I ended up smiling instead.
“I’m tied down until this project ends, so Lee Han-ssi can rest easy for the time being.”
“……”
It was something I said jokingly, but it didn’t seem to get through to him. Feeling awkward for unintentionally making him anxious, I subtly turned the topic to him.
“You said your goal was to work in Europe after graduation. Isn’t Lee Han-ssi the one leaving Seoul before me?”
“You… remember that?”
“I said I remember all the important things. It just took time to recognize Lee Han-ssi because you’d changed so much.”
At the pizzeria in the square, he had said it would take time, but his goal was to work in Europe.
Ridiculously, while hearing that story, a faint hope had briefly bloomed within me. What kind of unsuitable dream was I having over someone I’d only made a few days of memories with at a travel destination? I had soon poured cold water on that expectation myself, but I couldn’t even deceive myself.
He was twenty at the time. Even if he came to Europe as planned, finishing school, building a career there first… it was a distant future story that might take 7-8 years or even longer to cross over to Europe.
Being someone far from romance or optimism, I couldn’t believe that I had tried, even momentarily, to pin hope on such a distant future.
That’s why I remembered it. Because it was an emotion unlike me.
“Did I really change that much?”
He asked with a pleased expression, resting his chin on my chest. His face, stripped of smooth manners and confident sophistication, seemed closer to his past self.
He who had just turned twenty, standing at the boundary between boy and young man, was now before me, inside me, as a complete adult male.
I swept up his hair that had fallen over his forehead.
“Now that I know everything, I wonder why I didn’t recognize you…”
Looking closely at his face once more, I asked.
“You got taller, right?”
“Mm… probably about 6-7cm since freshman year of college?”
Even then he wasn’t short, but he wasn’t overwhelmingly tall either. His build was also closer to a slender body compared to now.
“In my memory, your face was also very dark.”
“After graduation, I didn’t have as many opportunities for outdoor activities as in college. It naturally became like this. Well, the baby fat probably went away too.”
Saying that while stroking his chin, he traced the lines of my face with his fingertips and continued.
“I originally liked exercise, but after that I worked hard on my body too. My weight probably increased by more than 10kg from then. Since almost all of that increase was muscle mass, my build got much bigger. I thought someone who likes being dominated would prefer a thicker body.”
“You built your body because of someone you didn’t even know if you’d meet again?”
He who had slid his fingers along my forehead, nose, philtrum, and lips just smiled ambiguously. As if he’d had definite confidence that we’d meet again.
That appearance overlapped with his past self who would speak about the distant future years ahead with firm eyes as if it were tomorrow’s business.
He gently rubbed over my lips as if applying lipstick.
“Hyung stayed the same. Maybe your atmosphere became sexier than before? My heart went crazy the moment I saw you in Bangkok.”
My voice crawled with regret for not recognizing him sooner.
“In Bangkok… you should have acknowledged knowing me first. Then I would have…”
I was about to add that then I would have recognized you too, but I trailed off. It might sound like I was blaming him.
“I wasn’t confident.”
“……”
“And whether you remembered me or not, whether you recognized me or not… anyway, you responded to my seduction because you liked the current me. I was just thinking I shouldn’t miss even that opportunity.”
At the hotel bar, and in the room where I was staying. While retracing his somewhat puzzling words and actions, he hesitantly added.
“I also thought that if you knew I was that ‘innocent boy’ from before, hyung might cool off…”
“Not writing emails… it was just me being cowardly. It wasn’t that memories with Lee Han-ssi weren’t precious.”
He shook his head. Then he intertwined his fingers with my left hand with his right.
“There’s nothing cowardly about it. I couldn’t say things like wait for me… or I don’t want to end it like this either. We weren’t kids, and I couldn’t tell someone four years older than me to date by exchanging emails.”
With his lips buried in our interlocked hands, he looked up at me.
“Of course, compared to acting tough, I waited incredibly desperately for emails.”
“……”
I was about to list the same excuse again – that I didn’t know you’d wait so much, so long – but closed my mouth. Instead, this time I pulled our interlocked hands and kissed the back of his hand.
Even at such simple skinship, emotion flashed in his eyes looking at me.
“I really mean it’s okay. It’s not like you promised to definitely send emails then didn’t keep that promise. I now know it wasn’t that you didn’t send them but couldn’t send them. And…”
“……”
“I told you before. Having someone to search for was like a bet I placed on the future. That hope allowed me to live in the present.”
“Ah…”
I let out a stupid exclamation and furrowed my brow.
That evening when we enjoyed wine and dinner at ‘Fiano’ that he had reserved. We had definitely been able to empathize with each other’s stories without revealing our inner thoughts in detail. But I hadn’t expected at all that the story that had sounded vague was about me.
I couldn’t believe his long-held feelings. Not that I doubted them, but they didn’t feel real. Looking at him with a blank face, I unconsciously shook my head slowly. He gently rubbed the back of my interlocked hand with his thumb.
“I could have found out how you were doing, but my body being tied to New York wasn’t different from then. I was preparing to find you when the situation was properly arranged. If I learned about the current hyung… I felt like I’d throw away everything – school, responsibilities, whatever – and only cling to obtaining hyung.”
“……”
“I didn’t think hyung would accept such a me.”
A man who would patiently and surely get what he wanted in his hands, rather than rushing in recklessly when he wanted something. I had thought that way in the past too. But to plan a reunion transcending time and space constraints…
“Still, I often imagined. What hyung would look like now, what you’d be doing while living. Most of the time, the hyung in my imagination was doing theater in Europe.”
“Ah…”
“I wasn’t surprised that you were acting, but I never expected you’d be in Korea as a TV actor.”
He knew my true feelings about theater. That’s why I felt unworthy living what seemed like a second-choice life pushed along. I felt like I’d disappointed him who had held onto the me in his memories for so long.
I subtly released our interlocked hands and tried to get up, saying shouldn’t we drink something. But he seemed to have no intention of getting off me or pulling out of me.
“I have to leave soon anyway, so let’s stay like this a little longer.”
I had no choice but to bury my head in the pillow again from the pressure firmly holding down my shoulders.
“But… don’t you think about changing your residence? Even if you weren’t acting, you could live in a better place.”
“If I were living in a better place without acting work, that would mean I’m still economically dependent on my mother at this age.”
“But you’re acting now. Income from acting work is unrelated to your mother. You experienced it today, so you’d know, but um, this house and this bed…”
He looked up at the back of the upper bunk bed covering overhead. Then he shook his head and continued.
“I think they’ll seriously interfere with our future dating.”
“Dating?”
At my unconscious question, his eyes looking down at me widened.
“Then, you don’t plan to date? We reunited crying, and even had sex from the emotion of reunion. What was all that?”
“I didn’t really cry…”
“Wow… I’m not the only one who changed. Hyung wasn’t such a heartless person before either.”
He who deliberately spoke exaggeratedly immediately denied what he’d said with a firm shake of his head.
“No, hyung was cold even then.”
“……”
“You were someone who left without even hugging me once when I looked at you so pitifully.”
“You said not sending emails was all fine, but it seems you still have lingering resentment?”
At my joke, he smiled prettily with his eyes narrowed. Then he put his hand under my armpit and firmly embraced my shoulders. Our still-connected lower bodies pressed even closer together. There was nowhere to escape from the two eyes looking straight at me from close range.
“We’re dating, right?”
“……”
“I’m hyung’s boyfriend now, right?”
He didn’t wheedle or beg. His pleasant, calm voice was quiet like a whisper.
Trying to hide my expression by brushing around my lips with the back of my hand, I hesitantly reached for his arm that was holding me.
“We’re both… past the age where we need to say such things with words.”
“When I want to hear it this much. Can’t you just endure being embarrassed for a moment?”
“……”
“Tell me clearly.”
This time I could feel trembling in his voice.
It was closer to a plea containing supplication rather than a confident, bold demand. His voice rustled like dry fallen leaves.
To avoid breaking down emotionally, I couldn’t hug him then. But now was different. We were living in the same city, and unless major changes came, we wouldn’t be constrained by space this time. There was no need to forcibly deceive my heart.
With the hand that had been stroking his arm, I went up his shoulder and neck. Feeling embarrassed, I deliberately played with his handsome face by pressing his cheeks.
“I thought you were more mature than your age. But seeing you like this, my boyfriend is indeed younger than me.”
“……”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
