Shin Haehyeon’s world is perfect.
A capable, successful father. A warm and wise mother. Two brothers, each remarkably talented, bound together by deep affection. And Haehyeon himself — the youngest, showered in his family’s love. The kind of ideal family that only seems to exist in dramas.
There couldn’t possibly be a single thing Shin Haehyeon lacked.
Just as that family loved Shin Haehyeon, Shin Haehyeon loved them back. And in the deepest part of myself, I felt jealousy rise up at that simple, obvious truth from time to time.
Not that I wished unhappiness on him.
I didn’t want to shatter his world, either.
If anything, I wanted Shin Haehyeon’s happiness to be eternal and brilliant.
The secret wish I carried was this — that there might be a place for me within it. An absolute place that would never waver no matter what happened. And that kind of position was one only given to family.
But lack, tedium, emptiness — things like that had no place in Shin Haehyeon’s perfect, solid world.
I was simply very, very lucky. Even while leaking lack and tedium and emptiness from every part of me, I had managed to win his favor.
…Why am I not your family? I want to love you — freely, completely, the way only blood can — tied to you so tightly that no one could ever pull us apart.
I wanted to be the first to see your face when you woke up in the morning. To share meals with you as a matter of course. To stay by your side when you were sick.
Even if not to the extent of my excessive desires, Shin Haehyeon’s family had love in such abundance that some of it naturally spilled over and reached even his youngest’s school friend.
“We got a report and came by. Your name is Wookyung, right? Have you been alone this whole time?”
Shin Haehyeon’s parents, upon learning of my situation, had filed a report with the police for child neglect. The officers who responded spoke with me to understand the situation and attempted to contact my biological father, who held custody.
This happened more than once, but in the end it only ever amounted to inconveniencing my father’s secretary. The verbal promise to check in more often held no real weight. My biological mother was even further gone — word of her had cut off long before that. I wasn’t curious in the slightest about what she was doing with her life.
It was a kind of abandonment. But it was also a situation where the police found it difficult to take active measures. Since I was given sufficient financial support and there was someone who came to manage the household, I didn’t look anything like an abused child on the surface.
“How about living at a relative’s place? It’s dangerous to be alone for long stretches.”
“Living somewhere other than here?”
“Yes. It looks like you have an uncle. Where was it — somewhere in Gyeonggi…”
I refused without a second thought.
“I don’t want to.”
“Why, why not?”
“…My dad does come by sometimes.”
It was a lie.
He didn’t come to this house.
He’d built a new family, and he had no desire to see me.
My biological mother had a face striking enough to draw stares wherever she went. And I looked exactly like her. Since her infidelity had been one of the causes of the divorce, seeing my face could only remind him of her. In the middle of their worst fights, he’d once screamed, “Is she even my kid?”
Regardless — he was a man with more than enough money, so even without any interest in me, he never cut off the financial support. That too was handled by his secretary, on his behalf.
When I spoke as though I missed an irresponsible father who rarely came home, I quickly earned a look of sympathy. In truth, I had a very clear reason inside me.
If I moved to that house, I could no longer be the next-door neighbor and classmate who was always by Shin Haehyeon’s side. I wouldn’t be able to see him every day. And if that happened, Shin Haehyeon would soon start thinking of me as just one of his childhood friends — and then forget me altogether.
That was the most unbearable ending I could imagine. Everything else — my loneliness, my relationship with my uncle — were secondary concerns.
Somehow, I stayed in that empty house, hovering around Shin Haehyeon’s family, feeding off their affection.
I was invited to family dinners. Sometimes I fell asleep alongside Haehyeon in his room. I was treated like a kind of honorary houseguest.
“Wookyung, do you want one too? I picked up a game for Haehyeon and grabbed one for you at the same time. You two play together anyway, so don’t worry about it.”
“Thank you, hyung.”
Haejun hyung brought something back for me whenever he bought gifts for his younger brothers.
“Hey, clean your room. Aren’t you embarrassed that Wookyung’s tidying your bookshelf for you?”
“Ugh, I told him not to, he just does it on his own — what am I supposed to do! I don’t mind it messy.”
“If you don’t clean it there’s no space to open a book.”
“Huh, Gwon Wookyung! Why are you ganging up on me too?”
Haechan hyung looked cold on the outside but had a lot of quiet warmth. I had the sense he felt sorry for me deep down. When he bickered with his younger brother, I’d subtly take his side and tease Haehyeon right along with him.
…Beautiful days.
Ironically, it was during the time when people looked at me as a poor child abandoned by his parents that I tasted the greatest happiness of my life.
It was a happiness beyond my station, and it left me soft and undone inside.
The foolish delusion — that I could go on enjoying all of it indefinitely, when I was entirely dependent on Shin Haehyeon’s goodwill. No — even that would have been fine, if only I’d been able to stay satisfied forever with my position as something like a family friend to Shin Haehyeon. In short, the problem was that I had lost sight of my place and begun to harbor an unripened desire.
The role I played in Shin Haehyeon’s life was close friend. A leading-role position that not just anyone could hold. There had been several moments when that role was nearly taken from me, and each time I’d held onto it with everything I had. And yet —
After all that, I had been in a terrible mood lately.
The reason was clear.
Shin Haehyeon had gotten his first girlfriend.
Ha. I’d guessed a day like this would come eventually.
Shin Haehyeon had always been absurdly popular, so if anything, starting to date in the third year of middle school was late by his standards.
“Ugh, seriously… Na Hyunju is so funny.”
Not noticing me watching him with sunken eyes, Shin Haehyeon giggled to himself while staring at his phone.
Shin Haehyeon’s room.
A place I’d walked in and out of so many times the threshold had worn thin — I knew what was in every drawer as well as I knew my own room.
When I was young and didn’t know better, I’d fallen asleep in this room’s bed plenty of times after we’d been playing. At some point, though, whenever a moment like that presented itself, I started deliberately steering away from it.
Today was a day we were supposed to do homework together. He’d whipped through the English composition assignment — easy as breathing for him — and was now busy exchanging texts with his girlfriend. Watching him fiddle around without so much as opening the science homework he clearly didn’t want to touch, I finally lost patience and tapped the top of the book he’d stacked there for show.
“Hmm?”
“You said we were finishing all the homework today.”
“Ugh… I feel like tomorrow would be fine too.”
“Tomorrow you have your academy all day for practice.”
“Can’t I just knock it out during a break?”
He’d obviously end up messing around with friends who came to his desk or going to visit his girlfriend’s classroom.
“Stop putting it off. Do it now.”
“Okay, okay.”
Shin Haehyeon stuck out his lip, opened his textbook, read a few lines about voltage, current, and resistance, then looked at the circuit diagram and furrowed his brow.
“By the way — have you ever kissed anyone?”
“What?”
It was a gut-punch of a question.
“You haven’t, right?”
“……”
“Well, you don’t even like being touched by anyone. How would you ever kiss someone?”
Every drop of blood drained from my hands and feet.
Completely oblivious to the state I was in, Shin Haehyeon teased me with an innocent face.
“What about you, then?”
I barely managed to ask back. My heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest.
“Me? I haven’t either… but I might, pretty soon.”
The answer was obvious.
“I’m really curious what it’ll feel like.”
How would it feel.
Like you’re going to cry, probably.
Seeing his face lit up with the giddy flush of young romance, I felt my jaw clench on its own.
“This hyung will try it first and let you know.”
Shin Haehyeon laughed with reddened cheeks, then patted his own face a couple times before gripping his pen tightly and turning back to his textbook.
As he read the same sentence over and over, clearly not quite grasping it, and worked through the problems, his lips fell slightly open.
He had absolutely no idea that he’d just thrown a cruel stone into a heart already churning with waves.
All this time, I had trembled with fear that the existence of a girlfriend would erase and push out my presence as his closest friend. I’d felt a childish sense of betrayal toward Shin Haehyeon. I’d endured the sickening, twisting ache of seeing or imagining the two of them together. And what he’d just done undid every effort I’d made to keep those wild, swinging emotions in check.
I pretended to focus on my book, but in truth not a single word was going in.
Until Shin Haehyeon, groaning through his problems, yawned over and over and finally drifted into a light sleep right on top of his textbook.
Defenseless.
You — who will have your first kiss soon.
I didn’t let the opportunity pass. On an impulse, I pressed my lips to his.
If I had to make an excuse — jealousy had blinded me, and I wasn’t in my right mind.
The warmth carried through those soft lips, sealed seamlessly against mine, sent a strange shiver through me.
Let me be the one to have you.
Why can’t it be me?
Shin Haehyeon, who had no pheromones, tasted like something warm and milk-soft.
I lingered far too long on those lips — so gentle they almost made me want to cry — before I slowly pulled away.
My hands were trembling.
And standing there, watching me with cold eyes, was Haejun hyung — holding a plate of fruit.
