Chapter 197
Surprised eyes turned to look at Eunseong. Eunseong felt like he was going crazy too. He had no idea how to forgive him. His heart was split in half—half wanting to forgive him, half unable to forgive him. It seemed like he shouldn’t forgive him, yet he wanted to do what he shouldn’t. He should leave, but he didn’t want to. He should never see him again… but his heart ached at the fact that he might never see him again. After hearing that Yoo Siwoon was in danger, he couldn’t leave. So he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t even accept that Yoo Siwoon was trying to let him go through death.
“Ahjussi, you tried to die back then. You had no will to live.”
“…”
“This is why… this is why I can’t forgive you even more. Because you’re like this, because you’re so pathetic, I can’t forgive you!”
Eunseong casually uttered words that cut like a knife through flesh. More painful than the stab wound, more painful than his lame leg, Yoo Siwoon felt the sting of each of Eunseong’s words. His brow furrowed with each thing Eunseong said.
Eunseong got out of the car angrily. He closed the door with a bang. Yoo Siwoon also exhaled a stifled breath and opened the car door. He grabbed his crutches, placed them on the ground first, and got out of the car.
Eunseong was already disappearing in the distance. Even from behind, it was clear he was furious.
Yoo Siwoon stood in front of Eunseong’s coldly closed bedroom door after entering the house. He raised his hand to knock but remained still for a long time. Eunseong had already noticed his intention to die. He lowered his hand dejectedly.
“I was trying to protect you.”
Yoo Siwoon found it difficult even to stand. He leaned his forehead against Eunseong’s door. His low voice continued weakly.
“I want to keep… the promise I made when I first saw you, even now.”
It meant that Eunseong should escape from him, who might transform into a monster with his obsessive attachment.
“…Let me protect you from myself.”
Suddenly, the door flung open, almost causing him to fall as he had been leaning his weight against it. Yoo Siwoon barely grabbed the wall and raised his head. Eunseong was standing right in front of him.
“Who are you to protect me?”
“Because I promised.”
“Who did you promise?”
“You.”
“When?”
“When we first met.”
“…”
He recalled the words Yoo Siwoon had spoken while sitting with his back against this door. Yoo Siwoon had told the story of when he first met Eunseong. It was the story of ten-year-old Eunseong playing in the playground.
“I never asked you to protect me.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Don’t protect me. I never asked you to.”
“Then what should we do? Should we continue like this? Continue to hurt each other while claiming to look for a way to forgive? When there’s no such way?”
It was a question of whether they could remain together while constantly poking at each other’s wounds, continually reminding him of his parents’ deaths, causing pain.
Cracks began to form on Yoo Siwoon’s face, which had been frozen like a mask. The feelings for Eunseong that he had tried to give up, even to the point of risking his life, were breaking free of their restraints, exuding a bloody scent. His breathing and expression were becoming increasingly intense.
“Can you live like that? Continuing to hate without forgiveness? Can you stay by my side? I will continue to… not want to let you go.”
Eunseong, who had been staring up at him, opened his mouth.
“I can live.”
“…”
“My parents both died trying to save me, but I’m going to live. I’m going to live even more earnestly.”
“…That was my doing.”
“You didn’t do that, ahjussi.”
“I’m not completely without responsibility, not completely.”
Yoo Siwoon was not innocent in the death of Eunseong’s biological parents. His sin was being born into such a house. His mistake was fearlessly loving Eunseong despite being born into such a family, and allowing Eunseong to love him in return.
“Then you take responsibility.”
“…”
“You take responsibility until the end. It’s all your fault anyway.”
“…I don’t understand when you say it like that.”
“…”
“It sounds like… it’s okay to keep you by my side. It sounds like you’ve forgiven me.”
Eunseong, who had been looking up at him, suddenly wrapped his arms around Yoo Siwoon’s neck and pressed their lips together. Yoo Siwoon’s eyes widened at the unexpected kiss, then closed painfully and distantly. Yoo Siwoon couldn’t bring himself to embrace Eunseong in return. Eunseong, who had been kissing him frantically, bit his lip before pulling away.
Yoo Siwoon remained frozen, still leaning against the wall. Eunseong spoke, breathing heavily, to his astonished face.
“Haa, haa, I haven’t completely forgiven you yet. But I’ll keep looking. I’ll keep looking for a way to forgive you. And we’ll live happily for a very, very long time.”
With their breaths mingling closely enough to shatter, Eunseong made his promise. He would live happily and earnestly for their sake too, saying that’s what they would have wanted.
Yoo Siwoon’s expression twisted as he looked at Eunseong. There was no longer any reason to distance himself from Eunseong or forcibly suppress his feelings.
He wrapped his arms around the waist that approached him as they kissed again. The sensation of filling his chest with Eunseong and embracing him enveloped him like a tremor.
He savored the warmth of the body temperature that enveloped him like plunging into water. He couldn’t believe he could hold Eunseong like this again. Holding Eunseong tightly in his arms, Yoo Siwoon tightened his grip several times, almost to the point of suffocation.
Eunseong also rubbed his cheek against Yoo Siwoon’s, finally able to let go of the tension and concern that had been constricting his heart. They held each other for a long time, allowing the distant, spreading heartbeats to seep into their very bones.
Yoo Siwoon rubbed himself against every part of Eunseong he could reach—his hair, cheeks, neck, and shoulders. Eunseong’s scent, temperature, texture… even the faint spread of his breath. These were things he had concluded he would never touch or feel again, things he had given up on.
“I would have really regretted it if I had died then.”
“…What did you say?”
“I’m glad I didn’t die.”
When Yoo Siwoon muttered this unconsciously, Eunseong released his arms from around him and stood facing him.
Eunseong had thought he had died then. The face lying on the bed after surgery was literally like a corpse. With his hands all stained with Yoo Siwoon’s blood, he had looked like he could die at any moment, yet now he was speaking of death as if it were a joke.
“I actually wished you had just died.”
With indignation surging in his chest, Eunseong glared at him while unconsciously grabbing a handful of Yoo Siwoon’s hair with one hand and shaking it as if to tear it out.
As his upper body shook, it also touched the wound on his abdomen, causing Yoo Siwoon’s spine to bend sharply and a painful groan to burst forth.
“Owww…”
He grimaced, perhaps in pain from having his hair pulled hard. When Eunseong released his hand, Yoo Siwoon smoothed his disheveled hair and said to Eunseong, who was looking at him fiercely:
“Now you’re quick to raise your hands.”
“You said you wished you had died? Ahjussi, you really almost died back then.”
“What’s the point of me living more without you?”
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t particularly want to live.”
“Who gave you the right!”
Eunseong grabbed Yoo Siwoon’s hair firmly again, shrieking at him as he casually spoke of death again, saying there would be no meaning in living if Eunseong had left, that it would just be empty.
“You didn’t particularly want to live? What have you done right! What have you done right!”
Eunseong shook him with a grip that threatened to pull out all his hair if he continued with such ominous talk, until Yoo Siwoon promised that he understood and would never speak of dying again. Only then did Eunseong release his firm grip.
“…Like a fool, really almost died like a fool.”
Eunseong’s vision became blurry with tears. The memory of facing him as he was dying, soaked in blood, came back involuntarily at the realistic mention of death, making his whole body tremble.
His death, his absence, became real only belatedly. The coolness of the sharpened blade that had brushed past his neck was only felt at this moment.
“Eunseong’s hands are quite spicy. Having my hair grabbed seems more painful than being stabbed with a knife.”
Smoothing his disheveled hair, Yoo Siwoon laughed like a guileless person.
He had felt hatred, then sorry, then resentment again… While he couldn’t forgive him, the idea of him dying, of him leaving him, of him disappearing like this—if that had happened, it would have been even more unforgivable. He would have chased him to the ends of hell and never forgiven him, not even in death, not even in rebirth. It was something he couldn’t tolerate, to the point where he wanted to threaten the unforgiven one. Him dying without his permission, leaving him, was more unforgivable than deceiving and using him. That was the greater wrong.
The realization that Yoo Siwoon might no longer exist in this world far exceeded Eunseong’s imagination. It was beyond terror. Eunseong resented even that coolness. He resented himself for not being able to accept the death of a person he couldn’t forgive.
Yoo Siwoon grasped Eunseong’s hands, which were trembling with anger. Eunseong flinched but didn’t pull away from his hands. He didn’t forcibly withdraw his hand. He just silently allowed himself to be held.
A large hand with warm heat. Eunseong’s eyes became moist as he looked down at the back of his hand, marked with a cross tattoo.
It was warm. He was alive. Though he didn’t know how to forgive him, he seemed to understand that him being alive was much better than him being dead. Eunseong thought oddly that this must be what they meant by saying life on earth is better, even if you’re rolling in a dog poop field.
It seemed like his parents had risked that danger to save Eunseong in order to let him know this warm body heat.
In the end, to send him to Yoo Siwoon’s side…
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
