“He’s your friend. I didn’t do anything.”
Baek Iseon slightly frowned and grumbled. Was it crazy to think that looked cute? Jang Juwon forcibly held back his mouth that kept trying to curve up.
“Are you sulking?”
“Yeah, a little.”
Baek Iseon pouted his lips and showed signs of sulking. Jang Juwon lowered his hand under the table to avoid people’s gazes and covered his hand with his own. Baek Iseon raised his eyebrows slightly.
“I just, I wanted you to get along well with my friends too.”
“…I’m trying, you know.”
“Were you?”
“Yeah. Do you know how hard it is to put up with that bratty girl especially?”
Baek Iseon pouted his lips and raised his voice slightly. Jang Juwon eventually burst out laughing. Then Baek Iseon furrowed his eyebrows slightly as if he didn’t understand.
“I must be crazy.”
“What?”
“You look cute, sunbae.”
“Jang Juwon… You, you…”
Baek Iseon’s eyes widened. With gestures that were unlike his usual self, he picked up Jang Juwon’s drink from the table and began gulping it down. When he put down the empty glass, his face had turned a bit red.
“Thank you. I didn’t know you were trying.”
“Yeah… It seemed like you wanted that.”
He lowered his eyes slightly and muttered quietly. His thick eyelashes moved along his slowly blinking eyelids.
“Sunbae, is there anything you want from me?”
Jang Juwon rested his chin on the table and looked straight at his lover with his eyes wide open. He too must surely have something he wanted from me, just like I did. Come to think of it, Baek Iseon had never once shown any hint or gesture that he wanted something from me. Because everything was perfect? He’s not a child, and Jang Juwon knew well enough that such a thing was impossible.
“…I can’t say.”
“What?”
Jang Juwon was a bit flustered. So there was something, as I expected… But he can’t say it? What on earth could it be?
“What is it that you can’t say? Don’t tell me you’re trying to make me do something weird.”
At those words, thrown out half-jokingly, Baek Iseon hastily averted his gaze. He was showing signs of hesitation unlike himself.
“If you find out what I’m thinking, what I want, you’ll definitely hate me.”
“There’s no way that would happen!”
Jang Juwon raised his voice. Baek Iseon was strange. Reading the room in a way that didn’t suit him, hesitating, even hiding what he wanted to say. Jang Juwon put more strength into his hand holding Baek Iseon’s hand.
“Tell me.”
“Jang Juwon…”
“Hurry up.”
His mouth moved as if about to open. Then he let out a deep sigh with an expression of defeat.
“I, I want you… to be only mine.”
“Sunbae…?”
Jang Juwon didn’t understand what he was saying. Weren’t they already in that kind of relationship? Baek Iseon leaned forward with a somewhat subdued expression. The gap between their facing faces was narrowing. Jang Juwon saw the moment when he was completely captured in Baek Iseon’s dark eyes.
“Yeah, if it were up to me, I’d want you not to meet anyone, friends or whatever.”
“Haha, are you jealous?”
“I don’t like you looking at other people. I hate it even more when you talk to them. I don’t like you smiling at other people, I don’t like you acknowledging them. I want you not to meet anyone. No, I want you not to even go outside. Sometimes I… think about locking you up somewhere. So that, so that you can’t go anywhere, can’t meet anyone…”
“…”
“I just… want you to only be by my side, Jang Juwon.”
Jang Juwon couldn’t give any answer. That pouring, desolate confession was far too heavy for me to handle. His expression gradually hardened.
“I know too. I’m really terrible, right?”
As if noticing such thoughts, Baek Iseon cast down his gaze with a faint self-deprecating smile. Through the narrowed gap, his eyes were shaking back and forth. Jang Juwon realized that his lonely confession was actually stemming from anxiety, that he was a pitiful person.
“What are you so… what are you so anxious about…”
Jang Juwon suppressed the urge to hug him tightly. Instead, he looked straight into his eyes.
“…I wonder.”
Baek Iseon lifted his head slightly. Eyes still wrapped in anxiety were staring at Jang Juwon. Jang Juwon couldn’t understand what on earth was shaking him so much.
“It’s okay. Because you said the person you like is me.”
So I can wait.
Baek Iseon swallowed his words. So that he wouldn’t know this messy heart that wanted to interrogate him about that night right now, interfere with his private life, and restrain him.
“The person sunbae likes is saying this, so nothing will happen.”
“Jang Juwon.”
“So don’t be anxious.”
“Yeah.”
Instead of hugging him, Jang Juwon lightly stroked his hair. People’s gazes bothered him, but this much should be okay. Baek Iseon smiled. But somehow he didn’t feel at ease. Something felt off.
* * *
Despite the affectionate touch stroking his head, Baek Iseon couldn’t erase these shabby and petty thoughts from his mind.
‘So that you can’t go anywhere, can’t meet anyone…’
It was said as if throwing a tantrum, but it was actually words filled with sincerity.
I wanted only me to be reflected in those round eyes. I wanted that soft voice to call only my name. He was too lovable and that stimulated my anxiety.
So that no one could covet him.
Just letting him attend school and tolerating those two pieces of trash hanging around was already consuming considerable patience.
And now one more unwelcome guest had been added. Ahn Jaeon. Jang Juwon said he was just a close sunbae, but Ahn Jaeon clearly revealed intentions that he didn’t think that way.
That jacket Ahn Jaeon handed over so conspicuously was a blatant provocation. A very petty and cowardly one at that.
There was definitely something the two of them were hiding. And neither Jang Juwon nor Ahn Jaeon would tell me. Baek Iseon clenched his fist tightly.
Jang Juwon told Ahn Jaeon he wasn’t seeing anyone? Why? Because they weren’t close enough to come out to? Of course, there was also the possibility that even that was Ahn Jaeon’s lie. Because he clearly wanted me to separate from Jang Juwon’s side.
The reason I didn’t give my lover the jacket, the reason I didn’t demand an explanation, the reason I said I’d wait for him to tell me, was because I didn’t want him to know this petty heart of mine.
Ahn Jaeon. He was a decent person by anyone’s standards. With quite handsome looks, sincere and good-natured. That’s why it was even more infuriating. He was a different kind of person from someone like me with such a black heart. Unlike me who tormented Jang Juwon and tore up his heart, he knew how to be honest. Perhaps Ahn Jaeon suited Jang Juwon better than me. And perhaps, he might be the person who could make him happier.
So, so I have to lock him up. Before Jang Juwon falls for Ahn Jaeon, lock him away where no one can see him…
At that moment, Baek Iseon realized. That these emotions he was feeling were not normal.
Wanting to ruin all of my lover’s relationships, thinking I was tolerating things—that definitely wasn’t a normal way of thinking. No matter how much we were lovers, no one had that kind of authority.
All of this was because of Jang Juwon.
When I looked at Jang Juwon, my head kept getting strange. I had dangerous thoughts as if it were nothing, and I wanted to make him lonely. So that he would completely depend on and cling only to me…
‘Fuck, I’ve completely lost it.’
Baek Iseon looked at Jang Juwon in front of me. There was no way I could do that. He would definitely be hurt. And he would resent me. Just because one friend felt uncomfortable around me made me this upset, so if I prevented him from meeting anyone, he might leave me immediately. If that happened, Ahn Jaeon, that son of a bitch, would target him.
Ah, then what if I just make it so he can’t leave in the first place…
Once started, the insane thoughts continued endlessly without any sign of stopping.
“Jang Juwon, you won’t leave me, right?”
“Why would I leave you, sunbae?”
I quietly looked at that face answering with a somewhat absurd laugh. Right, I can’t lose this smile.
I had no choice but to admit it now. That all this anxiety and abnormal possessiveness was actually a reaction from the fear of being abandoned. And that Jang Juwon had made me this way. Standing before affection I’d experienced for the first time, I was a coward and I was pathetic.
This wasn’t desirable. For a better relationship too, I needed time to clear my head. But my lover wouldn’t allow that. Because whenever I saw him, my head was still completely filled with him.
* * *
