“……It was my mom’s. Shellfish allergy.”
“Ah.”
So it belonged to that mother who passed away last year. Thanks to that, I survived. But I felt sorry for somehow bringing up his mother who had only recently passed away. I didn’t know what to say and was gauging his reaction when I briefly made eye contact with Joel.
“Hey, stupid. You don’t need to make such a fuss. Get rid of that weird expression. It feels like such an old thing that I often forget it was even last year.”
……He seems kind of mature.
Joel had a detached expression. Whether he really felt like it was an old event, he didn’t show a trace of sadness. He just reminded me of an old philosopher or sage saying ‘death is only natural.’ Though looking at his rough speech and behavior, he was nothing like that at all.
Before I knew it, we arrived at the hospital, and I unbuckled my seatbelt while Joel stopped the car. And as I looked outside, the hospital name was familiar.
“Oh.”
“What.”
“Here, this is the hospital where my hyung works.”
I’d seen the hospital name on hyung’s business card and stationery. This was my first time actually coming here, and to come for something like this. I was a bit embarrassed.
“Call your hyung, or your parents. You’ll need a guardian.”
“Okay.”
Joel instructed me on what to do quite maturely, and I obediently did as told. I called hyung, and left a text for Mom and Dad who didn’t answer their phones. And as I headed to the emergency room with Joel,
“Julyyyy! My baby!”
“……Hyung, please.”
Hyung, who had run over in such a hurry that sweat formed on his forehead, pulled me into a hug. Because of the fourteen-year age gap, hyung sometimes called me ‘baby.’
I saw Joel make a strange expression at the phrase ‘my baby,’ then soon puff out his cheeks. He was definitely trying to mock me. And as expected, I heard “Pfft, puhup! Puhaha! ‘My baby’ he says!”
“Are you okay? Your throat didn’t swell? Huh? How did you end up eating cilantro. Huh?”
“I was eating food a friend made, and didn’t know……”
“A friend?”
Hyung, who had been looking me over everywhere, finally noticed Joel standing behind me. Since hyung was even shorter than me, he tilted his head way back to look up at Joel and covered his mouth with wide eyes.
“Ah, um…… Your name? Your, your age…… You’re not a college student, are you……? Relationships between minors and adults are a bit……”
“He goes to the same school as me, same age, and his name is Joel Gomez.”
Why was he so flustered? I don’t know what he was so curious about, but since he was a companion who came to the hospital with me, I explained about Joel step by step. Hyung nodded excessively—nod, nod, nod—then looked back and forth between me and Joel. Those hazel eyes were trembling.
“So…… July, your first boyfriend?”
“Ha!”
“No!”
At hyung’s careful question, Joel burst out a breath, and I yelled loudly. The eyes of everyone in the hospital, from the receptionist to the other people there, all pierced in this direction. Ah, I’m dying of embarrassment.
“Ah, not the first? Then how many times……?”
“He’s not my boyfriend!”
This unnecessarily open-minded hyung. Look at Joel’s crumpled face. Who would glare at their boyfriend so sharply like that? What else is in that gaze besides malice, annoyance, and irritation? Do you feel love or affection or anything like that?
“Why are you looking like that? I’m the one at a loss, not you, okay?”
“How are you at a loss? I’m the one at a loss!”
That bastard talks so ridiculously. Bad personality, curses a lot, rough behavior—he’s got nothing but bad qualities, yet I don’t know who he thinks is at a loss.
“Who would take someone as stupid as you? Just register! Unless you want to die again.”
“Ah!”
Joel grabbed my head and spun my body around, as if he didn’t want to exchange any more words or make eye contact. Then he pushed me straight toward the reception desk. Hyung, who hurriedly followed, registered instead. While we were waiting because there were no available spots in the emergency room,
“Our, our baby! July, Julyyyy!”
“Have you seen our baby? Our baby, our baby. Our baby is still very young! Al, allergy!”
“……”
Discovering Mom and Dad, who had rushed into the hospital sniffling, I buried my face in both hands. My parents were grabbing some nurse’s arm and sobbing.
“‘Our baby,’ he says.”
I heard Joel, who was pointlessly still standing beside me instead of leaving, laughing—pfft, puhup, pfft!
“Our baby!”
I was pulled into a hug by Dad, who had finally found me. Next was Mom.
“How did you end up eating something like that, hm? You’ve been frail since childhood, so I’ve worried a lot…… How could you, such……! You’re not being bullied at school, right, hm? Like someone forced you to eat it……!”
“I ate it with my own hands without knowing. I’m not being bullied.”
I patted the back of Dad, who was crying with snot running down his nose. Right. So what if it’s embarrassing. I’d never had anyone worry about me like this before. As I unknowingly pulled up the corners of my mouth, Mom suddenly grabbed my face.
“Are, are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. I took the EpiPen. I came to the hospital just in case.”
“You didn’t even take the car, so who brought you to the hospital, hm?”
“This kid here.”
“Ah……”
I gestured toward Joel standing crookedly to the side. Mom and Dad, with their tear-moistened eyes wide open, simultaneously opened their mouths slightly. For some reason frozen stiff, the two swallowed their saliva, then asked in perfect unity like a married couple.
“July, your boyfriend……?”
“No!”
Joel’s face crumpled viciously again. Nevertheless, whether my parents thought I was denying it to avoid being caught as gay, they tried to grab Joel and interrogate him. They seemed ready to dig into everything starting from his age to his height and weight, even his financial situation, so I quickly stopped them.
“You go!”
“I saved you and this is what I get?”
“Do you want to be introduced to my whole family as my boyfriend, or will you just quietly leave!”
Joel had only one choice, and it was obvious. Joel, who scrunched up his whole face at the words ‘my boyfriend,’ went outside the hospital without looking back. Phew, after the commotion passed and things finally settled down, I suddenly felt angry.
Joel Gomez, that bastard—who does he think he is to keep getting angry at being called my boyfriend! No matter how I looked at it, I was the one at a loss a hundred times over!
* * *
After the emergency room incident, my parents and hyung seemed to think Joel was my tentative boyfriend. No matter how many times I said he wasn’t, that evening they asked if my date was fun, asking why I was eating food he personally made. Of course, I answered.
“……Would it have been fun?”
The food Joel made almost killed me, and I barely survived after taking the EpiPen and came to the emergency room—would the date have been fun? No, first of all, it wasn’t a date!
I explained it many times like that, but my family was fixated on the ‘personally made’ food and waited for my coming out that would soon arrive. The fact that the food contained the poisonous herb cilantro that almost killed me didn’t seem important.
“Boyfri……”
“It’s really not! It’s not! It’s not! I almost died from eating cilantro, shouldn’t you be worried about that first? Huh? He’s not my boyfriend! I’ll absolutely never date him! I’d date 1,000 other men before I’d ever date him!”
At dinner, I couldn’t hold back and ended up shouting like this. Dad’s body was trembling, so I thought, oops, I made a mistake, and was about to apologize when Dad buried his face in both hands and started crying.
“Right now, our July is…… coming out, right?”
“……What?”
Exactly which part made you feel that way…… No, hyung is crying too. ……Mom too.
“July, we’ve always been waiting for a day like this. Whether you meet a man, meet a woman, whoever you meet, we really don’t care.”
“……”
Mom got up from her seat and gently hugged my shoulders. No, I’m grateful. And I am gay. But this wasn’t a coming out……?
“July, I told you. Your parents were ready to even join a gay parents’ group. To think you’ve come out like this, your confidence and courage are so wonderful.”
Hyung also got up and hugged me. Dad, who had been sobbing with tears streaming down, also joined in and hugged me. Like that, I was forced to come out.
Our close and affectionate family would never listen to my words. Since I was gay and couldn’t say I wasn’t again, I swallowed a sigh and raised my arms to hug all three family members.
“……Right. I am gay…… but he’s really not my boyfriend! Really. He’s absolutely not! Even if I died and came back to life, I wouldn’t date him!”
“Right, right. Gay people all have their preferences too, of course! Of course, Dad doesn’t have such old-fashioned thinking that all male friends are boyfriends!”
“Mom too!”
“Hyung too!”
“……Yes.”
Something felt off. But still, having this identity that I’d buried because of my original family who said ‘homosexuality is wrong and it would be good if it could be cured’ acknowledged felt strange. My chest seemed to flutter, my heart pounded rapidly—thump! Thump! Thump!—and my eyelids grew hot. In the end, I shed tears too.
Though it was a forced coming out that happened by accident, it was quite successful. My family’s embrace was also so warm and affectionate. Still, only after saying many times that I absolutely wouldn’t date Joel Gomez did we continue eating.
“Still, you lived because he treated you quickly, so repay the debt.”
At hyung’s request as a doctor, I nodded.
