#71
Ha-min quietly listened to his voice with his head bowed. He couldn’t muster the courage to face him. All the heat seemed to gather around his eyes. A sense of injustice welled up, making his heart churn. He felt pathetic and ugly for harboring vain hopes in a situation he had initiated. With his lips trembling from the emotional heat, he pressed them shut before opening them with difficulty.
“Until when…”
His voice caught, and he paused for a moment.
“Until when?”
He tried to sound as calm as possible. But lacking the courage to meet his eyes, he asked quietly with his head still bowed. He wanted to know the expiration date. Until when could he mix bodies with him like this.
“Well…”
His leisurely response was suddenly cut off. After a moment of contemplative silence, a soft voice was heard.
“Probably until Ha-min finds a good partner.”
Those seemingly considerate words were just cruel.
In the end, there was a set time limit, and his hard-to-ask question was merely a predictable confirmation.
**
As soon as he arrived in Seoul, Ha-min headed to his parents’ home. He had bought a pile of gifts for his mom and dad. Although it was a short trip, he had seen beautiful scenery, the sea, breathed Jeju Island’s air – and above all, it was even better because he was with people he could call friends. His mom was the happiest about him traveling with friends. She even sent him pocket money, dipping into her emergency funds. After all, it was something unthinkable just a few years ago.
After arriving at his parents’ home and unpacking, he immediately headed to a nearby jewelry store. He had his water-damaged watch repaired and replaced the worn-out watchband. Although it showed signs of age, it looked almost new and he liked it. Most importantly, it gave him a deep sense of security and peace of mind.
The anxiety and restlessness he felt when the watchband broke was beyond imagination. After experiencing it once, he realized how much he was obsessing over this scar. Even though he knew that constantly hiding it wasn’t the answer, his cowardly nature kept surfacing.
He vaguely thought that a day would come when it wouldn’t matter, but that was just an excuse. Desperate to hide his scar, he lied every day, evaded, and ran away from relationships with people.
He wanted to tell Tae-in directly, if no one else. Tae-in was waiting patiently for him without prying. He wanted to repay that sentiment, but if he kept running away like this, his relationship with Tae-in would remain stagnant. Just a superficial friendship.
The reasons Ha-min was bullied changed daily. One day it was because he was fat, another day because he couldn’t run errands properly, and another because he smelled. These were all reasons they made up. Even on the day he was accepted to university, he couldn’t escape it. He studied until his nose bled every night among the top students, considering it his only escape route. On the day he received his university acceptance news earlier than others, as a result of his efforts, he was beaten without fail. The reason was that someone like him got accepted to university. The bullying had naturally decreased as they became third-year high school students preparing for college entrance exams.
But as the entrance exams approached and graduation neared, they unleashed all their stress on him. The excitement of sharing his university acceptance news with his mother was short-lived. He felt a sense of futility as he helplessly endured the violence. A vague thought that he might never be able to break free from this persistent bullying overwhelmed him. On that day when he was beaten until nightfall, when the sense of futility was particularly strong, Ha-min cut his wrist. It was a day shortly before graduation.
Ha-min sat at his old room’s desk and took out a worn box carefully hidden in the drawer. Inside were a few items he couldn’t throw away, including a children’s baseball he used to play with every day with Tae-in, letters he scribbled alone when hyung went to America, and a tattered high school entrance photo of hyung.
He had dreamed that they might meet again someday while still alive. When his thoughts and emotions became dry, he would take out his photo, touch it gently, look at it, and think such thoughts. That after these tedious times passed, there might be a day when they could meet again, even just once. That simple heart had now grown uncontrollably. The price of his grown heart was something he alone had to bear.
There was a set time limit anyway, and that limit was his responsibility. One-sided love is something you have to swallow and endure alone. Being greedy or throwing tantrums to the other person is nothing but childish. He didn’t want to disgracefully betray this feeling he had harbored for so long.
Both his scar and his heart were becoming increasingly burdensome. He had to unload them before they deeply consumed him.
**
“Hyung, what are you eating for lunch?”
Since returning from Jeju Island, he had become particularly close with Hee-gyeom. Or rather, Hee-gyeom unilaterally followed Ha-min.
Despite being in different departments and their buildings being in opposite directions, Hee-gyeom would scurry over at lunchtime to eat together.
“Kimchi stew from the cafeteria. You?”
“Instead of the cafeteria, there’s a new sundaeguk place if we go to Daehakro. Wanna go there? I heard it’s really good.”
“Sure, I like sundaeguk.”
Ha-min nodded with a smile. He left the school with Hee-gyeom, chatting about trivial things. Thanks to Hee-gyeom’s easygoing personality, it was easy to become close. Ha-min also felt more comfortable with him than with other kids, perhaps because he was the first person to whom he had revealed his scar.
Eun-soo and Woo-kyung might feel hurt if they heard this, but he realized how much that one difference could change his feelings. Of course, he knew that Hee-gyeom had witnessed his scar and kept seeking him out because of that thought. It’s natural to be concerned about such things.
“Don’t you have a girlfriend?”
Ha-min asked Hee-gyeom as they entered the sundaeguk restaurant and gathered spoons and water glasses. Hee-gyeom looked at him with puzzled eyes.
“Why?”
“Because you’ve been eating lunch with me every day lately.”
“Ah, I broke up not too long ago. What about you?”
The question naturally came back to him. Ha-min thought for a moment before speaking.
“I haven’t yet.”
“Huh? Never dated?”
“Yeah.”
Ha-min smiled awkwardly. He had never liked a girl to begin with. But he hadn’t liked a guy either. Because he had only liked one person in his life, he wasn’t even sure if he was gay or straight.
“I used to be really fat in the past.”
“Wow, I can’t imagine that.”
“Girls wouldn’t have liked me.”
“But you’re not now, right?”
“Now… there’s someone I like.”
Ha-min spoke calmly. At this sudden topic, Hee-gyeom, who had been scrolling on his phone, looked at Ha-min with a rather serious gaze.
“Wow, really?”
“Yeah.”
Ha-min spoke quite lightly. He had shed one layer of the anxiety about being found out.
“But…”
“Yes?”
“I’m trying to give up now.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Just… I think there’s a time for that too.”
Ha-min smiled bitterly. It was more than enough time to realize that the more he clung to the physical relationship, the more his greed grew. He would act more affectionately the more times they slept together. Like before, he’d show him movies, hug him, come to pick him up, take him on drives. And he would struggle, falling into that sweetness again. It was a vicious cycle.
“You thought well. Half the world is women, why cling to just one person? At such a young age.”
Hee-gyeom spoke casually while taking a big spoonful of the freshly served sundaeguk. Mid-bite, he suddenly raised his head and furrowed his brow. He looked like he had just remembered something.
“Actually, I had someone I really liked in high school too. I wanted to die after being rejected by them. It was so hard then that now I’m afraid of liking someone that much. It really felt like my heart was blown open. You know how in dramas they show these grand loves of the century and you think, ‘Why are they acting like that?’ But it’s really like that in real life too. You can’t easily give up… Though it’s funny to think about it happening in high school.”
Hee-gyeom stirred his soup with his spoon, seemingly reminded of those memories.
Seeing Hee-gyeom’s self-deprecating smile, Ha-min felt sympathetic and poured a full glass of water for him. It was a kind of fellow feeling.
“Yeah, it’s like that.”
Heart blown open. Perhaps he was swimming in even stronger emotions every day. To avoid drowning.
**
Strangely, he felt unburdened.
Was it because his emotions were no longer swayed by ambiguous expectations? His feelings for him hadn’t changed, but maybe it was because he now knew it was hopeless anyway. It felt like he had been cleanly rejected without even confessing. Perhaps because his complicated feelings had dulled as much as they could, only an unburdened feeling seemed to remain.
“What would you like to drink?”
Ha-min asked Hee-gyeom with a gentle smile. They had some time left after lunch, and he had something to say, so they stopped by a cafe. When he asked after looking at the menu, Hee-gyeom cleanly chose an iced Americano. He could never drink that himself.
“What are you going to drink, hyung? I’ll buy.”
Ha-min stopped Hee-gyeom as he was about to take out his card from his pocket.
“I’ll buy, sit down.”
“Ah, aren’t you buying too often?”
“You like it though…”
“That’s true.”
Hee-gyeom replied with a chuckle and took his seat. Ha-min smiled at his brazen behavior and went to the table with the drinks.
“What did you get, hyung?”
Hee-gyeom asked after gulping down his iced Americano.
