Munyeong gave him an awkward smile as he anxiously clutched his own hands. The sight of him forcing that smile with such a pallid complexion made Haejeong’s brow furrow slightly.
“Is it a problem that I was startled?”
“…Still, it seemed like you were really shocked…….”
The image of him just before he lost consciousness surfaced in Munyeong’s mind, and he murmured quietly. It had been striking enough to etch itself deeply into his memory. It was an experience he’d never had before. It was the first time someone had stepped up like that when he was hurting — the first time he’d ever seen someone panic and stumble around in that kind of flustered shock on his behalf, and it left a deep impression on him. Only then did he notice Haejeong’s bare feet, without so much as a sock on them.
“……Your feet…….”
“Are you hurting anywhere else?”
Munyeong started to say something in alarm, but the other was faster. Haejeong’s face showed no concern at all for whether he had shoes on or not, whether he was barefoot or otherwise — he only had eyes for Munyeong, staring at him with piercing intensity. His expression was full of worry, anxious that something else might be wrong, that something might go amiss. Munyeong had been gazing at him in a daze, as if he’d lost his mind, when a faint warmth began to rise in his throat. Watching Haejeong set everything else aside and focus only on him, Munyeong felt something like reward — as though everything he’d endured was being repaid. The loneliness of all that time, the weight of having been alone — it felt like compensation.
“When did you get hurt?”
At the blunt, direct question, Munyeong pushed his feelings aside and averted his eyes, pretending not to know. He smothered the surge of emotion rising in him and steadied the ripple in his throat. Then he deflected the question he couldn’t bring himself to answer, keeping his tone light. He couldn’t tell the truth.
“…When I was young. …An accident.”
“You got hurt and didn’t receive treatment?”
“……You already know. That I grew up in a facility.”
Munyeong answered quietly, his face tinged with embarrassment.
“So what if you grew up in a facility. Couldn’t they even cover a child’s medical bills?”
“……It wasn’t that serious an injury….”
“It wasn’t serious, but you still have aftereffects? Does that make any sense to you?”
With each exchange, Haejeong’s voice climbed higher. The flames in his eyes were blazing fiercer by the moment. Munyeong watched his emotions shift so rapidly and let out a small, tired laugh. It was a weak laugh, but it was enough to stop Haejeong’s agitation in its tracks. As if he couldn’t stand the idea of raising his voice in front of someone who was hurting, Haejeong let the tension drain from his throat and exhaled briefly.
“You should have…….”
Then he parted his lips and got the words out with difficulty. The eyes that had been burning so fiercely dimmed all at once, dropping into something dark.
“…You should have said something.”
He continued, twisting his face in pain as though it were he who had been wounded. And the large hand holding Munyeong’s was trembling. It came through in those faint, almost imperceptible movements — just how badly shaken he’d been, how worried.
So this is what it feels like to be worried over. The sensation was so foreign that Munyeong couldn’t stop the impulse surging inside him. The feelings he had been suppressing for so long, burying layer upon layer — they reared up like a horse that had broken free of its reins.
“……Sorry.”
Munyeong gently pressed the area near his heart and smiled faintly. Strange — I feel oddly happy. So this is what it’s like, having someone worry about you. The thought came to him quietly.
“Damn it…. Stop saying sorry.”
He snapped, his voice cracking with emotion. As though he couldn’t hide the suffocating frustration and heaviness washing over him, he exhaled roughly and pressed on.
“…What do you have to be sorry for.”
“…….”
“…Ha, damn it……”
His voice had started to tremble. For a moment, Munyeong thought he’d heard wrong. His breath stopped. His eyes began to waver endlessly.
“……I, ha…….”
He’d been moving about frantically — raking his hands through his hair, mussing the back of it — when he suddenly brought a hand up to his own eyes. Haejeong’s large hand, hiding his face, pressed firmly against the corners of his eyes.
“Shi…. I was so goddamn shocked….”
He bit down on the curse, his hand trembling. The large hand covering his eyes was shaking in small, uncharacteristic tremors. He was so rattled he couldn’t even finish a sentence — his hand was shaking. Munyeong stared at this side of him he had never seen before, as if under a spell. Whatever he said, that expression looked exactly like a man who’d aged ten years in an instant. The anxious dread that had seized him — the fear of what might have happened to Munyeong — was palpable. As Munyeong watched in a daze, he felt something constrict around his heart. It was as though someone had grabbed his heart with all their strength and simply refused to let go.
Munyeong had been watching Haejeong quietly — watching him come undone — when he slowly raised himself upright. Moving as though in slow motion, he carefully reached out and took hold of Haejeong’s collar. The slight pull made Haejeong’s gaze finally shift to him. Those reddened eyes blinked, shifting from confusion into something else. For the first time in his life, Munyeong didn’t hold back. For the very first time, he didn’t restrain himself — he leaned toward him.
It was an impulsive act.
“…….”
“…….”
He pressed his lips against Haejeong’s — against the lips that had been chewed raw, the skin worn away. In an instant, every movement Haejeong made came to a halt, as though time itself had stopped.
He could feel how rigid Haejeong’s body had gone, but Munyeong pressed his lips deeper as if it didn’t matter at all. He knows. How impulsive this is, how reckless. He knows he’s not the kind of person who has the right to do something like this — and yet his body had moved on its own, against everything his mind told it. How could he hold back, seeing the one person who worried about him, who had run here barefoot? He couldn’t help it. Because feelings always — in the blink of an eye — swell into something beyond control.
Munyeong’s kiss was very short. Brief and simple — yet the impact it delivered to the other was greater than anything before. Like a man struck by a hammer, like a man whose breath had been knocked out of him, Haejeong sat frozen, staring at Munyeong with dazed, bewildered eyes that still hadn’t quite cleared.
“……Sorry.”
“……What is this.”
Haejeong’s eyes, glassy and somewhere far away, were plain to see. Having done it himself, Munyeong still squirmed under his gaze and asked carefully.
“…Are you angry?”
Sudden worry swept over him — had the unexpected kiss offended him?
“…Ha. I really can’t figure you out.”
He let out a hollow exhale and pressed his lips together. As if he couldn’t bring himself to continue, he opened and closed his mouth several times before drawing a long breath.
“I’m not angry. So answer me.”
“…….”
“Why did you just — that… thing… why did you do that to me.”
He seemed too flustered to say the word aloud, hesitating for a moment before asking again. Munyeong wavered, fumbling for an answer, and then quietly opened his mouth.
“……You… did it too.”
Munyeong, too, brought up the thing that had been too embarrassing to say out loud. It hadn’t only been him. It felt unfair to be the only one being pressed for answers. But even having said it, the embarrassment made him drop his gaze.
“…….”
“…….”
The question hit exactly on the mark, and Haejeong couldn’t produce an answer either. Both of them fell silent. A thick quiet stretched between them for a long moment. They stayed like that, neither able to say anything — until the one who finally broke the fragile stillness was Munyeong.
“…Why are you so good to me?”
Haejeong’s eyes, which had been turned elsewhere, slowly found their way back to him.
“…What do you mean, good to you.”
“……You were. Since we were young.”
The sudden words made Haejeong’s brow knit together. He looked like he genuinely didn’t understand. Setting aside the present, he had no memory whatsoever of having been good to him as a child.
“Aren’t you mixing me up with someone else?”
He asked again with a bewildered look, and Munyeong gave a faint, weary smile.
“……No chance. You were good to me.”
“…What did I even―.”
“You saved me when I was about to get beaten up by kids at the facility.”
Following that, Munyeong’s voice came out soft and measured. That characteristic calm of his settled quietly over the space around them.
“…You also agreed when I asked you to keep an eye on the kids.”
“…….”
“You looked out for me so I wouldn’t get hit.”
“…….”
