‘Let’s tell them that what they’re worried about will absolutely never happen. That I really just misunderstood……’
So let’s beg them to trust me just once.
He worried that begging to be sent back to school might have the opposite effect, but that’s why he had to show sincerity to the point they couldn’t even suspect him.
The most advantageous method when acting out a lie is to deceive even yourself.
Yumyeong sighed and stroked his own cheeks, full of exhaustion, then headed to the bathroom.
Then, looking in the mirror, he whispered to himself that he was just briefly drawn to fresh stimulation, that there was plenty of possibility for misunderstanding. Let’s not deny that he never liked him. Because it was true that he liked him. Also, because he was a guy worth liking.
While washing his body and face, Yumyeong washed away even the anguished emotions from last night. It was clear which of the two—family or emotions—he shouldn’t betray. When he thought of Hakyoung, his heart pounded with regret, but even this wasn’t an emotion that would last a lifetime.
After finishing his shower, Yumyeong’s cleanly washed face was strangely pale.
‘This is the truth and reality.’
Sometimes fiction has better plausibility than truth. Especially when the evidence supporting it is considered common sense, all the more so.
Yumyeong quietly came out of his room.
“Excuse me, where is Mother?”
When he asked the housekeeper he encountered, the answer came back immediately that she was in the garden.
“She must be tending to the plants. She said today she’d cut the heads off the dead flowers.”
Looking out the window, he could see his mother’s silhouette wearing a sun hat. Yumyeong lightly bowed his head and moved his steps down the first-floor stairs.
***
Huimyeong was sitting in the living room doing homework.
The house was very quiet. Only the sound of cicadas crying at intervals seemed to pierce his ears. From time to time he turned his head toward the second floor where his older brother’s room was, but there had been no sign since morning.
His brother hadn’t even come down for breakfast. If the housekeeper hadn’t casually mentioned that his brother seemed to have had an upset stomach last night, he wouldn’t have even known the reason.
Yumyeong didn’t show himself at the top of the stairs until past noon.
“Ah, hyung!”
Huimyeong sprang up from where he was sitting. However, it was difficult to approach his brother with that heavy expression. When their eyes met, Huimyeong fidgeted restlessly in place, just rubbing his hands together.
“Hyung, are you going out?”
“Yeah, no… to the yard.”
“It’s hot outside.”
“Just for a moment, it’s okay.”
On the back of his brother’s hand passing before his eyes, blue veins stood out. While wondering why he looked paler than usual, Huimyeong pattered after his brother who had already approached the door.
“I’ll go out with you.”
“Uh… you can’t.”
Yumyeong smiled.
“Huimyeong, go back to your room.”
Huimyeong followed a few more steps, but stopped there with tearful eyes, thinking his brother might dislike it.
Mother was tending to the garden plants in the quiet mansion where the midday sun had settled. Through the window, he could see his brother, making shade above his forehead with his hand, approaching Mother.
His brother’s back was turned so his expression wasn’t visible. He didn’t know what his brother said, but Mother’s expression hardened with a thud and she immediately tried to enter the house.
His brother grabbed the arm of Mother, who was refusing conversation. When both their bodies fully faced the window, Huimyeong went “eek” and ducked his head below the sofa.
What were they talking about that their expressions were so serious?
He wanted to eavesdrop but the sounds were murmuring and hard to understand. But he could feel the emotions gradually intensifying. Especially Mother occasionally trembled her shoulders and yelled.
Huimyeong, increasingly frightened by the unexpectedly serious atmosphere, shrank his body.
Sometimes Father said harsh things to his brother, but Mother always protected him. She would even carefully prepare snacks and climb the stairs for his brother who had become silent after being scolded. When even that Mother was angry at his brother, he thought something really big must have happened. Huimyeong wanted to cry.
That’s when it happened. His brother’s head, which had been persuading Mother with a calm face until the end, whipped around with a sharp sound.
“Hic……”
Mother had struck his brother’s cheek.
At the unexpected scene, Huimyeong unknowingly began crying “heeing.”
However, the atmosphere after the strike flowed in yet another unexpected direction. Mother, while crying, sadly stroked his brother’s cheek that she had just struck. His brother, whose cheek had turned red and hot, also hugged that Mother tightly and patted her back.
Huimyeong sniffled and lowered his body to approach the window. He could hear his brother’s murmuring voice.
“Mom… it’s okay. Trust me. Really.”
His brother’s hand with prominent blue veins shone white under the sunlight. Huimyeong looked at his brother’s appearance for a long while with tear-filled eyes.
A moment later, the door opened and Yumyeong entered. The skin fully exposed to the summer’s direct sunlight looked chilly rather than heated by the warmth.
“Ha……”
Closing the door and with his back turned, Yumyeong stood stock-still, looking at the ground for a long while. He wanted to approach his brother but couldn’t muster the courage. After a moment, Yumyeong, who had swept back his hair, slowly climbed the stairs.
Several days later, Huimyeong, an elementary school student whose school year started early, began attending school first. While he went to school and his attention was captured by friends he met after a long time, his brother disappeared again. Without even leaving a goodbye.
***
As a result, with that confrontation, Yumyeong was able to return to school again.
“I know everything too. In the end, I’m the one who has to leave this family, right?”
“Who said such a thing, who!”
“Even if you deny it, it can’t be helped. Father seems to be planning to send me away anyway, and it’ll be over when I become an adult, so now Mom should let go of some responsibility too. There’s less than two years left, so please be more comfortable.”
“How can you tell me to give up on my child?”
“I’m not telling you to give up. Mom and I, let’s just both step back. I’ll also only study without looking elsewhere until graduation. Really. If I break that promise even once, then at that time you can really lock me up at home or whatever. So……”
Whether the heat had risen to his brain under the hot sun, he himself became strangely agitated and poured out unexpected words.
Mother seemed to have received a great shock at her obedient son’s sudden transformation. It would be unfamiliar to see such a son pouring out what he had to say while looking straight at her without begging or yielding.
His feelings were complex and subtle. He had rebelled for the first time, and it was strangely refreshing.
Since he got what he wanted, getting slapped once didn’t matter at all. Mother bent her intention to transfer him back to Seoul, but even in the midst of that, she didn’t say she trusted him.
Because of that, before returning to the dormitory, several restrictions were placed.
Maintain grades at the level from admission, dating is prohibited regardless of who the partner is.
If he causes problems in school life such as another suspension, immediately return to Seoul.
Of course, compensation was also given—a new phone and a card separately received from Mother.
What remained now was to truly prove what he had said himself.
So Yumyeong decided to give himself exactly two years of reprieve, just like the two years he gave to Mother.
The initial reason for being attracted was because his face was pretty.
Because he thought with a face like that, he wouldn’t feel resistance to kissing even if it was a man.
I had a weak heart and that kid was kind.
Because he seemed to really like me……
But would that emotion last a lifetime?
No way.
They just briefly matched frequencies and gave it meaning. Hakyoung was the kind of guy who would show sincere affection to anyone. No matter how trivial and light the trigger, the moment that relationship becomes special, he’ll try to give one hundred twenty percent effort. So it was better not to start at all.
I too wanted to date so badly that I almost chose an absurd partner.
The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it is. Standing at life’s most important crossroads, at a time when showing only trustworthy behavior to my parents wouldn’t be enough, I almost made such a choice as if possessed by something. And that dating wouldn’t even take responsibility for my life. Dating feelings would last at most 2-3 years, and by then they would be over twenty, enjoying a new life. The accomplished Ryu Hakyoung might meet his ideal type who actually suits his tastes, not me, and be happy.
Before this foretold upheaval, he also couldn’t know if this momentary affection would last.
So he’d close his eyes tight and study like crazy, then get grades in the college entrance exam that anyone would have to acknowledge, and when he turned twenty, he’d do everything he wanted to do then.
If Hakyoung still looked pretty even then, dating might not be so bad either.
Though he didn’t know if Hakyoung’s heart would remain the same.
‘Since he’s so accomplished and falls for people quickly, by then he might say he likes another man.’
Yumyeong chuckled. But what could he do even if he ended up waving at a departed bus? Then that wouldn’t be his share of luck. His insides burned because the luck called Ryu Hakyoung already felt precious, but Yumyeong pretended not to know that pain.
Yumyeong returned to school carrying tension. Especially how much he creaked when facing Hakyoung—others wouldn’t know even in their dreams. But even though he came with such firm resolve, even though he knew how many tears his mother shed because of him, every time he saw Hakyoung’s fervent eyes, his heart tried to melt.
When he wavered like that, Yumyeong brainwashed himself by recalling the ‘plausible and common-sense scenario’ he had prepared in advance. That this emotion was also temporary. He even deliberately avoided Hakyoung, afraid his resolution would keep blurring.
Ridiculously, he seemed to have believed that if he avoided him like that, time would suitably seal it up.
It was unexpected that Hakyoung was more desperate than he thought, but he figured he was originally a guy faithful to romantic feelings.
However, that he was the ‘Yeong’ he had been waiting for so long.
Swept up in the unexpected shock, Yumyeong’s thoughts stopped. He felt like he was sitting in ruins where all his solitary plans and resolutions had completely collapsed.
