Seongjo remembered his past eight years with Yeongbeom as a stable relationship. Certainly in Seongjo’s memory, their eight years together had been smooth.
However, that didn’t mean there had been no conflicts at all. In the first place, it didn’t make sense that there hadn’t even been trivial fights between lovers. And beyond such small conflicts, they’d had experiences where they nearly broke up completely before reconciling.
Seeing Yeongbeom on his knees made that fact come to mind anew. The past overlapped, making his mouth taste bitter. When they’d met again anyway, there had been no need to recall the bad times so he’d buried it, and after they completely broke up, he’d buried those memories again because he didn’t want to torment himself unnecessarily.
“Seeing you like this now… it suddenly reminds me of something from the past, Yeongbeom-ah.”
“…What?”
“I’d completely forgotten.”
Yeongbeom asked what it was, but Seongjo acted as if he couldn’t hear him at all. Not wanting to see his face, he raised his head again and looked up at the patternless ceiling.
“You said something similar back then too, come to think of it.”
Perhaps because Seongjo had already ignored him once, or perhaps because he too recalled some bad memory and became anxious, Yeongbeom didn’t ask further. Seongjo finally bowed his head as if breaking, lowered his gaze, and looked straight down at Yeongbeom’s face.
“You remember too. When you got caught trying to go on a blind date.”
“That…!”
Yeongbeom’s face turned pale. It seemed he hadn’t expected that story to come up now. It was actually a story from quite a while ago, and back then, Seongjo had glossed over the matter with an attitude that was nonchalant compared to the issue. Since he hadn’t mentioned it even once after that, it was understandable he’d turn pale.
Yeongbeom bowed his head like a sinner. He seemed to be in agony.
‘Who’s that girl he’s with? What, I never heard about him having something with a girl.’
It had been when both Seongjo and Yeongbeom entered their graduation year.
At that time, Yeongbeom had been talking alone with a female student from another department he’d never seen before, and a classmate who had been with Seongjo had been indignant, saying Yeongbeom must have gotten a girl without them knowing.
Seongjo had rebuked his clueless classmate, saying it probably wasn’t like that and not to get excited just because a man and woman were together, but even to Seongjo’s eyes, there had been something strange about the two.
The girl who seemed disappointed and Yeongbeom who seemed apologetic. Having a hunch about something, Seongjo had taken and read Yeongbeom’s phone that day, and learned that he’d been offered a blind date by a sunbae from another department, that he’d accepted it, and that after even setting a date, he’d belatedly canceled the schedule saying he couldn’t do it after all.
Yeongbeom had knelt before Seongjo and begged, saying he seemed to have gone crazy for a moment, that he’d felt an inferiority complex about the “difference in level” between Seongjo and himself, thinking they couldn’t be together for long.
Back then, thinking he couldn’t help but understand his feelings, he hadn’t pressed him further. He’d just treated it as if it had never happened.
“…I didn’t go in the end. Not because you caught me, but before you knew, I already…”
Seongjo and Yeongbeom must have recalled the same memory. And what he brought up after deliberation wasn’t an apology. Had he intuited that apologizing again would be useless? Or had enough time passed that he now thought it wasn’t something to apologize for?
“Right, you refused. That’s why I covered it up and moved on. That’s why I’d completely forgotten… but I suddenly remember it now.”
“Back then… you said you understood back then.”
Yeongbeom was quite desperate. However, even seeing that face, Seongjo no longer felt the same emotions as before.
Seongjo tried to recall what he’d felt when he heard back then that Yeongbeom had tried to be set up with someone else. Had he hated him? Had he been dumbfounded? Had he felt betrayed? Still, he must have forgiven him because he loved him.
But now all those emotions seemed faded. Even the sense of loss right after the breakup felt hazy.
They say time heals, and enough time had passed… it seemed to have become medicine. Or perhaps this incident had made him completely lose affection, or at least one realization Seongjo had gained now was clear.
“I thought you’d suddenly changed.”
He’d thought a faithful lover had changed in an instant and turned away.
“That the Jo Yeongbeom I knew had changed… okay, I’ll admit it. It was too painful.”
Being tormented by such a thing was extremely damaging to Seongjo’s pride. However, now that he’d confessed that fact with Yeongbeom before his eyes, it wasn’t as painful or difficult as he’d thought. It felt hollow as if empty and simultaneously relieved.
“But I think I understand a bit now.”
“……”
“You were always this kind of bastard. From back then, continuously.”
Bitterness washed over him as he chewed over the side of him he hadn’t known, or rather, the side he hadn’t needed to know while in love, only after breaking up. But knowing it, he could let go. Because he’d felt painfully how futile it was to agonize over what reason he’d changed for.
“You said you wanted forgiveness. Fine, I forgive you.”
“Seongjo-ya.”
Yeongbeom called out restlessly. This time too, Seongjo half-listened to his words and finished speaking.
“Now leave.”
“Lee Seongjo…”
Though he called Seongjo’s name once more, there was no strength in that voice. Hearing the call that faded at the end, Seongjo made an annoyed expression.
“What, should I call the police? Even without going to the police, I can just call the security team. They’ll make sure you go in nicely without doing anything useless.”
The useless thing mentioned here of course meant situations like him visiting Yujeong’s house. At Seongjo’s appearance of not giving even room to apologize further, Yeongbeom was silent for a long time. Soon he turned his back as if giving up.
He moved his feet very slowly, slowly like someone who couldn’t even walk properly. Seongjo looked down at his white socks dragging on the floor. Yeongbeom’s habit of wearing white ankle socks had been formed after he met Seongjo.
Though he probably wasn’t thinking the same thing, Yeongbeom paused his steps at that very moment with good timing.
“…Do you… really have no feelings left for me anymore?”
“……”
“You don’t love me anymore?”
Yeongbeom saying those words had a voice that seemed about to cry. That tear-filled voice truly made Seongjo angry. His bangs flew up with the breath he exhaled.
“Hey.”
“……”
“So, fuck… what are you trying to hear by saying that shit?”
How could he ask about love? Yeongbeom, not Seongjo himself.
“Do you really want me to still love you? Do you want me to love you, forgive you, and embrace even your faults, Yeongbeom-ah? Then what. If I do that for you, what, would a bastard like you even give up the marriage?”
There was no way. In the first place, if he’d been the kind of person who would give up marriage to Oh Seyeong, he wouldn’t have abandoned both his lover and family. Seongjo continued with a sharp hollow laugh.
“You’ll get married, you’re going to get married, but have an affair with me? Is that what you want?”
“Seongjo, if you…”
Yeongbeom opened his mouth with a voice about to die out. Seongjo, who had been lashing out in anger, felt a chill at that moment. A premonition flashed through his mind that what would come next would be either “Seongjo, if you permit it” or “Seongjo, if you want it,” one of those two.
Seongjo quickly cut off his words.
“Stop talking. I don’t want to hear it.”
“How do you know what I was going to say…”
“Whatever you want, I have no intention of doing that for you. Just leave…”
Yeongbeom said nothing. Seongjo threw out one more thing in a voice that grew increasingly lower, hazier, and settled.
“You asked if I don’t love you?”
“……”
“Think about it, Jo Yeongbeom… If you were me, would you still love someone like you?”
Yeongbeom, who had been standing there like a ghost, soon began moving his slow steps again. His hunched back shuffling along lit the entrance sensor light once more.
In a barely audible voice, he said.
“I’m absurd even to myself… but since I’m doing this anyway, I’ll say one more crazy thing.”
“Don’t.”
“Thinking of you meeting someone else, I can’t handle it. I can’t bear it… I want to do something, anything.”
Yeongbeom, who spat out those words, pressed the door lock’s open/close button without even hearing a response. With the operating sound, the front door opened weakly and closed again. Seongjo stared at the empty entrance for a long time until the light went out.
What did he mean he wanted to do something? What else had he wanted to do? He didn’t want to think about anything related to him.
A terrible emptiness enveloped Seongjo.
He recalled long ago…
And even longer ago than that.
