“Wh-what are you doing?”
His legs had nearly been exposed.
Startled, Hyowoo hastily grabbed the blanket and pulled it back.
As the blanket in his hands vanished in an instant, a brief flash of disappointment crossed Lee Seohee’s face.
His expression dimmed momentarily, like a child who’d had an anticipated snack snatched away right before their eyes.
“I wanted to see.”
“See what?”
“You wearing my clothes.”
Hyowoo frowned in disbelief as he looked at Seohee, who was completely serious without a trace of playfulness.
“What’s the point of seeing something like that?”
“Well, because I want to see it.”
It was a childish answer that didn’t match his earnest face at all.
Hyowoo gripped the blanket even tighter and said firmly.
“No.”
“Don’t be like that, just let me see once.”
“I said no. Give it up.”
“It’s not like it’ll wear out, so why not?”
“It will wear out. That’s why I can’t.”
“Haven’t we had a similar conversation like this before?”
“I don’t remember. Either way, absolutely not.”
“I feel like I’ve heard that ‘absolutely not’ before too.”
No matter what he said, Hyowoo maintained his firm attitude as if there was no way he’d show him.
Lee Seohee grumbled quietly that he was being stingy, but he didn’t whine or pester further. He simply sat in his spot with a disappointed expression, covering only his lower half with the blanket.
“Maybe it’s because the tension from the match hasn’t worn off yet, but I can’t fall asleep. Since tomorrow’s a day off anyway, should we watch a movie?”
Lee Seohee picked up the remote asking if there was any particular movie he wanted to watch, and as he was scrolling through the OTT list, he suddenly asked.
“Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear shorts.”
“What?”
“Last summer was pretty hot, but whenever we went on dates, you always came out wearing long pants.”
Hyowoo was a bit surprised that he remembered such a trivial detail, though he knew Seohee was an observant person.
With his knees pressed together under the blanket, Hyowoo answered hesitantly.
“I don’t really like wearing shorts. They’re uncomfortable…”
“Ah, me too. When I wear shorts, my legs feel so bare that it feels like I’m not wearing pants at all.”
Lee Seohee smiled brightly, saying that while uniforms were fine, they felt somehow awkward as everyday wear.
In contrast, Hyowoo’s face clouded over slightly.
He wavered his lips, debating whether or not to talk about it, and finally spoke up.
“I wore them until second grade of elementary school, shorts…”
“That’s just like me too. I also wore them when I was young, but as I grew up I naturally stopped wearing them.”
At Lee Seohee’s words, Hyowoo shook his head slightly.
“…After that, I couldn’t wear them anymore.”
* * *
It was an extremely hot summer day.
Hyowoo and Gyeonwoo were on their way back from the department store with their grandmother, who had come up to Seoul to look after her grandsons during summer vacation.
Since it was still a while before rush hour, the subway was quiet.
Their grandmother sat in the middle of the empty subway seats, with the young twin brothers sitting close on either side of her.
As soon as the impatient Gyeonwoo sat down, he tried to unwrap the toy they’d just bought at the department store.
When her grandson struggled, using not just his hands but even his mouth, their grandmother stopped him.
“What’s the rush that you need to open it here? Just wait till we get home and do it slowly.”
“I want to play with it now!”
“Our Gyeonwoo is a good boy, right? Listen to grandma. And what if you open it here and the toy breaks?”
“If I open it carefully, it won’t break~”
All of their grandmother’s attention was focused on the stubborn Gyeonwoo.
Hyowoo was also about to stop him from the side when it happened.
Something touched his thigh—swoosh.
It was a damp, lukewarm, indescribably unpleasant sensation.
Startled, Hyowoo looked down.
On his leg exposed below his shorts, a sun-tanned, broad hand was placed.
It was the hand of the middle-aged man sitting next to him.
Hyowoo just blinked his eyes, looking back and forth between his leg and the man.
The person definitely hadn’t been there just moments ago.
Moreover, it was strange that he’d chosen to sit right next to him when the subway car was so empty there were plenty of seats.
‘Maybe I’m so small the ahjussi didn’t see me?’
So he’d reached out without knowing and accidentally touched his leg?
Hyowoo tried his best to make sense of the situation.
But to consider it an innocent mistake, the man’s demeanor showed not an ounce of wavering.
The man, who had been staring straight ahead, suddenly began rubbing Hyowoo’s leg.
The rough hand, damp with lukewarm sweat, defiled his tender skin.
Each time the palm moved up and down, Hyowoo felt like he couldn’t breathe.
It was horrifying.
Goosebumps rose all over his body, and nausea churned in his stomach.
He wanted to immediately push the man’s hand away and shout to his grandmother, ‘There’s a weird ahjussi here!’
But because he was so shocked, Hyowoo couldn’t do anything.
For about three minutes like that. The man silently touched Hyowoo’s leg, then as soon as the train arrived at the next station, he slowly stood up as if nothing had happened.
Even in the moment he got off, the man never once looked at Hyowoo.
* * *
Having calmly finished his story, Hyowoo let out a long breath.
“I was really scared. I was confused too because I couldn’t understand why a stranger ahjussi was touching my leg…”
It wasn’t until he was a bit older that Hyowoo realized what had happened to him that day was sexual harassment.
“That’s when it started, when I stopped wearing shorts. Thanks to that, I still get lectured by my family every summer. They say it’s suffocating just looking at me.”
Hyowoo rested his head on his knees and continued speaking calmly.
“I’m used to it now, so no matter how hot it gets, I don’t even think about wearing shorts.”
Lee Seohee asked carefully as Hyowoo laughed composedly.
“You didn’t tell your family?”
“What?”
“From what you’re saying, it feels like you didn’t tell your parents or anyone around you.”
He was right.
Hyowoo had never told anyone about what happened that day until now.
It was a story he hadn’t even shared with his twin brother Gyeonwoo, despite the fact that they shared almost everything.
At Seohee’s unexpected question, Hyowoo, who had been resting comfortably against his knees, lifted his head and said urgently.
“B-but… it’s not like I suffered greatly.”
He had no intention of being evasive.
Hyowoo genuinely considered what happened that day insignificant.
Compared to the cruel things he’d endured from his ex-boyfriend and the alphas, having his leg touched a bit by a perverted subway ahjussi when he was young was nothing.
“It’s not like it became a trauma or anything, I was just a bit startled, that’s all.”
Hyowoo laughed saying it was nothing serious, but Lee Seohee’s expression was dark.
As the person whose face was usually lit with constant smiles hardened, even the air grew heavy.
“I just became a little uncomfortable wearing shorts, that’s all. Don’t think too seriously about it either, Seohee-ssi.”
“……”
“Oh, right. Let’s watch that. You know that famous comedy movie they used to show on TV every Christmas.”
Just as Hyowoo reached for the remote, as if trying to shake off the awkward atmosphere—
Lee Seohee gently stroked Hyowoo’s head.
“You were scared, weren’t you?”
“What?”
“A stranger adult did something like that, so you must have been so scared.”
Hyowoo was flustered by the unexpected comfort.
He tried to immediately respond that he hadn’t been scared, but when his eyes met Lee Seohee’s, his mouth wouldn’t open.
His eyes were like a mirror reflecting the truth.
“…I think I was…”
Hyowoo calmed his heart and quietly opened his mouth.
“Like you said, Seohee-ssi… I was scared…”
What young Hyowoo felt that day wasn’t discomfort and confusion, but fear.
If it had been nothing serious, he wouldn’t have been unable to wear shorts even in hot summers until now, and he wouldn’t remember that nauseating sensation.
The fear of that day when he couldn’t even resist an adult bigger than him.
Only now, more than ten years later, could he finally acknowledge that he had actually been very scared, and that he’d wanted to confide in someone and receive comfort.
“The reason you didn’t tell your family was probably because you didn’t want to worry them. Because Hyowoo-ssi is a kind and considerate person.”
That was the right answer too.
Because he didn’t want to worry his parents, because he didn’t want to hurt his grandmother’s feelings.
Hyowoo had kept what happened that day to himself all this time.
“It’s good to consider others, but when something like that happens, you must tell people around you and ask for help. That’s absolutely not a burden.”
At his sincere advice, Hyowoo nodded.
“It’s probably because Hyowoo-ssi is so pretty that such a vile bug was attracted to you, but to dare do such a thing to a child…”
Thanks to his comfort, Hyowoo’s heart felt lighter, but Lee Seohee himself looked like he couldn’t easily suppress his anger.
Since his usually gentle smiling face was now serious, this time Hyowoo wanted to lighten the mood.
“If you put it that way, Gyeonwoo has the same face. But even so, that guy has probably never experienced anything like that.”
He brought up his most convenient target, his younger brother, to lift Seohee’s sour mood.
“Ah, that’s right. Since you’re twins, Gyeonwoo-ssi must have been pretty when he was young too. But doesn’t Gyeonwoo-ssi have a personality where he can’t stay still for even a moment?”
“What?”
“He moves around constantly, so there probably wasn’t even a chance for anyone to touch him. And now, if someone touched him wrongly, they probably couldn’t even collect their bones.”
At his accurate analysis, Hyowoo couldn’t help but laugh quietly.
“Anyway, if anyone does something weird on the subway or anywhere, make sure to report it to the police. And let me know too.”
Though he mostly took public transportation, due to his anthropophobia, Hyowoo tended to avoid crowded times.
Perhaps because of that, he hadn’t encountered any perverts so far.
But he suddenly became curious why Seohee wanted him to tell him too, even though he lived abroad.
“There’s no point in telling you. It would just make you feel bad, Seohee-ssi…”
Then Lee Seohee answered firmly with a bright expression.
“We should catch bastards like that and cut off their wrists.”
