“This is really the last time. If this business just succeeds, huh? We can all live together as a family like before. Dad promises you, if you just put in a good word for this contract…”
Unable to bear listening to the words meant to coax him any longer, Haeyoung finally ran his hand down his face. Then, without a word, he rose from his seat and grabbed his outerwear and bag that had been hanging on the back of the chair.
The chair, roughly pushed back, scraped noisily against the floor. Seeing Haeyoung stand up, his father’s eyes widened as if flustered. However, he turned toward the door, avoiding his father’s hand that seemed to reach out to hold him back.
Ding-a-ling. The doorbell sound, which had seemed cheerful when he entered, pierced Haeyoung’s ears obnoxiously. As he stepped outside the shop, his father, who had hurriedly gotten up and followed him out, grabbed Haeyoung’s arm.
“Where are you going? Haeyoung-ah, you’ll… you’ll put in a good word, right?”
Haeyoung, who had stopped when his arm was grabbed, looked at the hand holding him, then raised his gaze to take in his face. His expression, which seemed somehow servile, clearly displayed expectations directed at him. The strength drained from the corners of his mouth that he had been struggling to keep lifted.
He wanted to vomit back up the food he had forced down. Haeyoung covered his mouth with his free hand. His vision was dizzy, but before leaving this place, there was something he absolutely had to say.
The words he couldn’t say because he was his father, because they were still family, finally burst out.
“If you’re going to do business, then to me, never again…”
Something seemed to keep getting stuck in his throat. Because of that, Haeyoung, who had paused briefly, forced out his choked voice with difficulty.
“Never contact me again.”
The cold voice settled heavily between the two. Haeyoung twisted his arm free from his father’s grasp.
“…Haeyoung-ah.”
However, at the voice calling him, he reflexively stiffened his shoulders. Unable to face him directly, strength unconsciously entered his jaw.
What Haeyoung captured in his gaze wasn’t his eyes or mouth, but the white breath rising somewhere near them in the empty air. He just stared blankly at the frozen particles clumping together hazily in the air before scattering again.
If he released the strength that had built up around his eyes, the moisture that would flow down his cheeks would quickly freeze too. It was a bone-chilling cold. Was it today that the cold wave was supposed to start? Seonwoo hyung had told him to make sure to wear a scarf and dress warmly today.
“You shouldn’t treat your dad like this… Family should help each other.”
“…”
“In the end, the only ones you can rely on when times are tough are family.”
But in the end, he couldn’t escape reality. Haeyoung let out a sigh mixed with a scoff at the words he heard.
“Ha…”
Watching the breath that came from his own mouth, Haeyoung asked in a slow tone.
“Have you ever felt sorry toward me?”
That was what he’d wanted to ask all along. In his most miserable moment, when it felt like he’d been betrayed even by the one person who had been his only comfort, when there was nowhere to find solace, Haeyoung had wondered about this.
Why did you do that, how could you do that to me?
So if he nodded his head, perhaps Haeyoung could forgive his father just a little bit. Hadn’t he easily let his guard down at the question of whether he’d been upset?
“Even once, have you ever felt sorry toward me? I…”
Haeyoung swallowed the rest of his words. Even after bringing up those words, lacking the courage to face his father, he turned his body while lowering his oblique gaze completely downward.
He’d had to suffer from guilt for days after that last contact. Even when he felt resentful, whenever he remembered the things he’d received from him, he would come to loathe himself for resenting his father. Why did those few crumpled bills he’d put in his pocket come to mind at such moments?
The reason he couldn’t pretend not to know until now was because they were family. As he said, because in the end, they were family.
Haeyoung, who had completely turned his back on him, hurried his steps as if fleeing, leaving that place. He didn’t look back even once while leaving the alley. If there was a gaze watching him, he felt he would regret his words.
Walking mindlessly along the road, Haeyoung spotted a bus stop. The stop, which felt particularly brighter perhaps because of the advertising board attached to it, had a burning sunset glow pouring down behind it.
Looking at that scenery, Haeyoung suddenly thought he should go home. It was already around sunset. The blowing winter wind was sharply harsh enough to be brutal. Haeyoung let out a short sigh at the cold penetrating under his skin.
“Ah.”
Right, it was winter. As soon as he became aware of it belatedly, the cold that rushed in filled his empty insides with wind. Haeyoung, who had taken out the coat he was holding and put his arms through it, approached the stop. His gaze, which had come right up to it, immediately searched for the bus schedule.
Fortunately, there was a bus heading near his home. Haeyoung sat down on the bench at the stop, relieved. As he sat blankly waiting for the bus, a scoff suddenly flowed from his mouth. Even in this situation, he found himself laughable for feeling the cold and looking for a way home.
‘Is it really necessary to struggle so desperately to live like this…’
At the thought that suddenly surfaced, his eyes grew hot. It was because living felt too sordid. He wanted to give up and let go of everything.
No, don’t think about it, Yoon Haeyoung. At his mood that quickly sank, he raised his hand and roughly rubbed his face. Each time his dry hand swept over his face, his wretched expression was erased. Soon, as the hand covering his face fell away, his reddened eyes irritably fixed straight ahead.
Before long, Haeyoung boarded the bus that had stopped in front of him. As soon as he sat down, he leaned his head against the window frame. The bus, with everyone seated, started with a loud engine roar.
Every time the bus climbing the hill rattled over a bump, he felt a suffocating pain tightening his heart. Haeyoung, who had been leaning his head against the window frame, turned his gaze obliquely to look outside. The setting sun was dyeing the cement buildings a bright red as if to swallow them.
However, the things passing by outside the window only caught his eye but didn’t remain in his mind. The scenery that couldn’t even leave traces as afterimages just passed before his eyes. Like someone who had turned on a TV they weren’t even watching, Haeyoung looked outside apathetically.
He came to his senses after a voice that seemed to pierce his ears drove into them.
“Hey! How far are you going?”
Haeyoung, who reflexively lifted his head, immediately looked around.
In the bus that had been crowded with people, only he remained at some point. So the driver sitting in the driver’s seat must have been asking him with a raised voice. His troubled gaze turned toward the window.
When on earth had it gotten dark—the window, where the sun had already set, was bluish.
“…Excuse me, but where is this?”
“It’s before the last stop. It’s not a stop, but should I let you off here?”
A husky voice answered Haeyoung’s question. When he bowed his head saying he would appreciate it, the back door of the bus opened without a response. Moving his awkwardly standing body, he exited the bus and stood vacantly on the street.
“Where is this…”
As he pressed his forehead and looked around, a familiar Chinese restaurant came into view at the end of his gaze. Discovering the flashy exterior building, he let out a short breath. It was the restaurant he’d come to with others on Christmas Eve.
When he came by car it took about 10 minutes, so if he walked, would it take about 30 minutes? If he followed the visible road straight up, the stop where he usually got off would appear. He seemed to have come about two to three stops further.
Where on earth had he left his mind, Haeyoung, scoffing at his own carelessness, slowly began to move his steps. The winter evening after the sun had already set was cold. He wanted to hurry home.
Not wanting to be lost in thought, Haeyoung deliberately gave his attention to the things visible around him, taking in each streetlight as he walked, and finally the familiar residential area began to enter his view. He could also faintly see from a distance the stop where he always got off when coming home from work.
Thinking he’d almost arrived, he quickened his steps, then hesitated for a moment at the silhouette visible from the stop. It was because the figure standing restlessly as if waiting for someone and peering toward where the bus would come seemed somehow familiar.
Thinking it might be, Haeyoung slightly furrowed his brow and slowly approached the stop.
“…”
The closer he got, the more his suspicion turned into certainty. First, the tall height of the person standing at the stop caught his eye. The person with a rarely seen physique was someone Haeyoung could recognize even with his eyes closed.
His footsteps, which had unconsciously quickened, stopped precisely in front of the stop. Haeyoung stood before it and took in Seonwoo, whose white face was paler than usual. Wondering just how long he’d been waiting for him outside in this winter, his ears were particularly red.
This… fool…
The moment he saw him, Haeyoung desperately held back the tears that surged up. Seonwoo, who had been watching the direction the bus would come from and seemed to have felt the presence behind him, turned around. Haeyoung didn’t miss the expression that appeared on Seonwoo’s face when he discovered him.
“Why are you coming from that direction…”
He seemed about to ask why he was walking from the opposite direction instead of from the bus. However, Seonwoo didn’t finish his words and closed his mouth. His eyes, which had momentarily widened slightly in surprise, narrowed again.
He approached in one step to Haeyoung, who had stopped as if frozen. Then he grabbed Haeyoung’s cheeks, who was standing looking at him, and examined him with a quite serious face.
At that tender gaze, somehow feeling like the tears he’d been holding back would pour out, he had to clench his teeth. Seonwoo, who had been quietly looking down at such Haeyoung, eventually removed the hand he’d placed on his face.
It was the moment when Haeyoung reflexively lowered his gaze following the falling touch.
“Haeyoung-ah, there are no cameras here, and no microphones either.”
Did he notice the gaze that mourned the falling warmth? Haeyoung raised his head at the feel of thick fabric covering over his head. But all he could see was just pitch darkness.
Seonwoo, who had taken off his outerwear and covered it over Haeyoung’s face as if wrapping it, reached out his hand and pulled him into an embrace. Haeyoung stiffened at the firm arms that wrapped around his shoulders and back.
At that moment, a low voice settled clearly down to Haeyoung, who had been wandering in the darkness.
“No one can see you.”
“…”
“So…”
“…”
“So you can cry, Haeyoung-ah.”
“…Ngh…”
Hot breath was exhaled before he could even stop it. The emotions he’d been suppressing burned hotly around his eyes as if on fire, and his cheeks became wet in an instant.
Yoon Haeyoung burrowed into the embrace that held him tightly and let out the crying he’d been holding back.
