61.
#It wasn’t a mistake
He could clearly see his own face reflected in the quietly gazing eyes. For some reason, it felt as if they were reproaching him.
“Would it make sense if I said I embraced you because I was drunk?”
Hayun’s question felt like a hammer blow to the head. Was that how he wanted to rationalize it to himself? That his brother had made a mistake while drunk.
“If I said I was completely out of it and embraced you without even knowing who you were, would that make you feel better?”
No, absolutely not. It was something that should never have happened, for any reason. Adding “because I was drunk” as an excuse wouldn’t make it any more acceptable. If anything, it might have increased his disappointment in his brother.
But without even that reason, he didn’t know how to cope with this situation. He needed some excuse, any excuse. He felt like he needed even a ridiculous reason, like he had gone mad for a moment.
“Have you forgotten whose name I called out the entire time I was embracing you?”
Hayun asked again.
Dawoon-ah. Jeong Dawoon.
Even while forcibly embracing him, the voice calling his name was consistently affectionate. That’s why he had hoped that if he said no, it would stop, and he repeated the cycle of hope and disappointment.
It wasn’t a mistake. He wasn’t drunk. Jeong Hayun had embraced Jeong Dawoon with clear intent.
After confirming this fact, it became unbearable to look at Hayun. He couldn’t understand what the other was thinking. This incident couldn’t be considered just a release of desire. He had clearly crossed a line. This was closer to rape.
Ha, rape… What could Jeong Hayun possibly be lacking?
As far as he knew, if Hayun wanted, there would be a line of women willing to meet him. It didn’t have to be his ‘brother.’ He definitely wouldn’t have been short of partners. So why him, of all people? The more he thought about it, the less he understood.
While Dawoon was confused with all sorts of thoughts, Hayun just watched silently. The eyes that had been fixed on him like they were frozen began to waver and then moved to empty space. Though his face didn’t contort, the corner of his lips trembled slightly as if he was biting the inside of his mouth.
“I want to get out.”
Finally, unable to get any answers, Dawoon tried to stand up in the bathtub. He tried to grab the edge of the tub to stand up, but he had no strength below his waist. As he frowned in confusion at not being able to move his own body at will, Hayun grabbed Dawoon’s wrist that was holding onto the bathtub.
“Don’t touch me!”
He reflexively shook off Hayun’s hand, even though it wasn’t gripping him tightly.
“Don’t touch me.”
He said again, enunciating each word while looking at Hayun. Hayun didn’t respond. Instead, his gaze turned towards the water. Even though it wasn’t a small bathtub, because Dawoon had been unconscious, he was sitting practically in Hayun’s arms. Even without touching, their more intimate parts were already in contact. Realizing this fact, his face flushed hot.
He moved his body to separate from him and create distance. As he lost his support, his body swayed with the ripples in the water.
“Useless stubbornness.”
Hayun muttered as he stood up. As Dawoon watched the water that had been enveloping Hayun’s body drip down, Hayun suddenly approached and picked him up.
“Don’t! I said don’t!”
“You can’t even stand up on your own. I’ll take you to the bed, so just stay still.”
It was true, as Hayun said, but right now, he felt repulsed by even the touch of Hayun’s hands on his body. He didn’t care if he might fall from struggling too much. As he tried to push Hayun away but couldn’t move, he bit Hayun’s shoulder hard. Hayun let out a short groan of pain but didn’t loosen his grip on Dawoon.
Eventually, they reached Hayun’s bed while Dawoon was still being carried. After laying Dawoon on the bed, Hayun let out a long sigh and turned around. Dawoon flinched, wondering what he was going to do, but Hayun returned from the bathroom with a large towel and threw it to Dawoon. It was clear he meant for Dawoon to dry himself off as he was soaking wet.
“Want me to dry you?”
Hayun asked when Dawoon didn’t move even after receiving the towel. Dawoon pressed his lips together and started to move his hands to dry himself with the towel. The bed sheets were already quite wet where he was sitting.
As he bent his waist to dry his lower legs, he winced at a sharp pain. Although he didn’t let out a groan because he was gritting his teeth, the throbbing pain that started from his waist and inner buttocks didn’t easily subside.
Thinking about the cause of the pain made him want to curse. He usually didn’t use curse words, and anyway, it was his brother in front of him, so the words didn’t actually come out.
As he couldn’t bend his waist further and couldn’t dry below his knees, Hayun knelt in front of Dawoon. He took the towel and silently and thoroughly dried Dawoon’s calves, ankles, and feet.
‘Our Dawoon is still a child.’
When was it? It must have been not long after their parents passed away. It was also the day he had his first panic attack. He had been alone in his room when he found it hard to breathe. He had been doing an art assignment, so there was a palette with various paint colors squeezed out on the desk. As he was gasping and clutching his chest, he unfortunately fell onto the palette, and paint got all over his clothes and arms.
Somehow Hayun knew and rushed in to provide first aid, which calmed him down, but he was already too exhausted to move. Hayun sent away all the housekeepers and servants, then took off Dawoon’s paint-covered clothes and took him to the bathroom to wash him. After washing him, he sat Dawoon on the bed and dried him from head to toe with a towel, just like now. Then, lightly ruffling Dawoon’s hair, he said:
Our Dawoon is still a child, so it’s natural to be weak, and it’s okay to cry when it hurts. There’s no need to try to hold everything in. He said he would be by his side, so Dawoon, who was still a child, could throw tantrums like a child.
At those words, Dawoon had clung to Hayun and cried for a long time without making a sound. He fell asleep crying, and when he woke up, Hayun was still sitting in the same place.
To Jeong Dawoon, Jeong Hayun was his one and only brother in the world. He was someone who meant more than just the word ‘brother’ that others used. He was the only person Dawoon could rely on, the person who understood him better than anyone else, and a precious person he never wanted to lose.
He believed without a doubt that even if the whole world betrayed him, Jeong Hayun would always be on his side. But why…
“Dawoon-ah.”
At the gentle voice, his eyes moved habitually. But he didn’t want to see his face right now, so he consciously stopped his gaze midway. As a result, he ended up seeing Hayun’s shoulder. The bite mark he had left was not only red but even had blood forming on it. He frowned at the scar. Why did he have to feel sorry when Hayun was the one who had done wrong?
“If you need to believe it was a mistake to feel better, you can think that way if you want.”
He repeated what he had said in the bathroom.
“But it wasn’t a mistake. I wouldn’t have embraced you for something as trivial as a mistake, would I?”
Embraced. Jeong Hayun had really embraced him.
Maybe he had been drunk on a few glasses of champagne. Maybe he had a terrible dream while drunk. He wanted to believe that. Despite the too-vivid traces left on his body, he wanted to attach an implausible reason and escape from reality.
But Hayun didn’t even allow that. He made it clear that it wasn’t an accident that just happened, but his own will.
Dawoon looked at Hayun with his jaw clenched so tight that his jawbone stood out. Honestly, he resented him. He had hoped that Hayun would say it was a mistake, that he was really sorry, that it would never happen again. Then he could have forcibly buried it and acted like nothing had happened.
“What are you trying to do, really…”
His mind was in chaos. He and Hayun were brothers. So why was he doing this? What was he planning to do from now on?
“I see that what’s important is not why I did it, but what we’re going to do from now on.”
At Hayun’s words, Dawoon finally realized that what was important to him wasn’t what had already happened, but his future relationship with Hayun.
“Aren’t you curious about why I embraced you?”
He had asked himself the ‘why’ question countless times too. No matter what reasons he came up with, he couldn’t make sense of it, and he was on the verge of exhaustion from thinking about it over and over again.
“Why did you do it?”
Knowing the reason wouldn’t change anything. The spilled water couldn’t be put back no matter what. Maybe that’s why he was starting to resign himself to it.
“…”
Hayun was the one who had asked why he wasn’t asking for the reason, but when actually asked, he didn’t say anything. If this was how it was going to be, why did he ask if Dawoon wasn’t curious about the reason?
“Haa.”
His emotions welled up and his eyes stung. Feeling like tears might spill out at any moment, he lowered his head and repeated taking deep breaths in and out. He wasn’t a child anymore. Crying wouldn’t solve anything. So he didn’t want to cry.
“I…”
Hayun began.
“I clearly remember the day father first brought you and your mother home.”
At this unexpected statement, Dawoon raised his head to look at him. Hayun’s face was expressionless, as if he was wearing a mask.
Unlike him, Dawoon didn’t remember well the day he first met Hayun. It was understandable since he was only five years old at the time.
“It was my birthday, that day. My father, who had never once remembered my birthday, said he’d come home early, which was unusual. But then he brought you and your mother.”
As he listened blankly to Hayun’s words, his heart sank at the mention of the birthday.
