With a few times of being helped like that as a trigger, Hui-myeong started following Geum-gang around. Even then, Geum-gang was already living an organized life, so he expected that he could protect him.
Perhaps finding Hui-myeong who followed him around like a baby duck amusing, Geum-gang also naturally accepted his presence before long. Thanks to that, Hui-myeong enjoyed going to school, and felt proud having something called a ‘friend’ for the first time in his life. It was also quick for them to become closer than friends.
He’d never been loved. To his mother, his only family, Hui-myeong had been a burden from birth. So nineteen-year-old Hui-myeong really liked Geum-gang who made him feel loved for the first time.
Do-ha and his lackeys who tormented him, his mother’s boyfriends who changed frequently and committed harassment, his mother’s neglect and violence. With Geum-gang, Hui-myeong wasn’t afraid of the world.
‘It’s been about 7 years since his release.’
Hui-myeong’s mind recalled the sky full of snow clouds on the day he was rejected from visiting Geum-gang in detention and returned.
Until he promised they’d leave Suseolhwa and live together after graduating high school, Hui-myeong drew a future with Geum-gang while waiting only for graduation. However, that winter, Geum-gang killed someone and was sentenced to 3 years. They said it happened while helping a grandmother. He only knew that due to various minor crimes he’d committed, he ultimately received a prison sentence; he couldn’t know the detailed circumstances. Because after that day, Geum-gang avoided him.
On that cold winter day, Hui-myeong diligently went for visits without even a proper coat, but Geum-gang wouldn’t accept them.
Do-ha didn’t miss that opportunity. Hui-myeong’s mother received fifty million won and handed over her son to him. Anyway, since he was a child born from bad luck and misfortune whom she’d planned to kick out as soon as he became an adult, and now she’d even earned money, his mother must have been thrilled. Not even knowing what kind of bastard her son was handed over to.
Knowing nothing and caught by Do-ha, Hui-myeong was dragged straight to America. Completely isolated in a place where the language didn’t work and there were no friends or family, Hui-myeong lived caught by him for 6 straight years in America. At first, everything was scary and disgusting, but tamed by moderate violence and coercion, and the comfort that followed obedience, he’d somehow come this far.
During that difficult period, Hui-myeong missed Geum-gang to death. But there was no way he could meet someone in prison just by missing them.
‘I thought I’d finally forgotten.’
And to think he appeared just when Do-ha said he was getting married—fate was truly cruel.
“Haah…”
Hui-myeong sighed again. Along with the memories, the emotions from that time rushed in all at once. Emotions not made by ‘being tamed’ but made by the ‘real’ Jung Hui-myeong—that time was the first and last. That time when he liked someone so endlessly that the passing of time felt precious.
‘It’s probably because I was young and didn’t know anything.’
Hui-myeong, who had been lying on his side, turned his body to look at Do-ha sleeping in front of him. Above his closed eyes, long eyelashes were gently curled up.
Being with Do-ha allowed him to enjoy a comfortable life. Clothes, cars, ultra-luxury apartments, quarterly luxurious overseas trips that his peers couldn’t afford even working themselves to death—there were countless things. But at the same time, he wanted to run away from him like crazy. Was it because it was wrong from the start? Or was he tamed by his violence to think this life was okay?
But having been by his side for 10 years, Hui-myeong at some point began to feel pity for Do-ha. Whether he was eroded by emotions while being forced to love, he didn’t hate him like before either. There weren’t only bad things during the long time together. There was definitely love in the obsession he showed, and Hui-myeong at one time believed that emotion and leaned on him too.
Perhaps he’d tried to find in Do-ha those longed-for emotions he felt when he liked Geum-gang. That everything he did was actually because he truly loved him.
‘Why did you have to be fixated on me…’
Hui-myeong blinked and looked at Do-ha.
He had no lacking points anywhere you looked. With a height in the mid-180cm range and a slender muscular physique that suited suits well, women especially preferred him, and his appearance wasn’t lacking either. His long eye corners were almond-shaped, but with thick eyebrows, it was masculine. His nose bridge was moderately long and sharp, and his lips were plump and glossy. Occasionally he received evaluations of being “pretty,” but that was said by those who didn’t know Do-ha’s personality.
Though he wasn’t the type to get angry easily, when it came to matters concerning Hui-myeong, his eyes literally rolled back.
He’d heard it branded in his ears that the reason Do-ha was getting married was all to keep Hui-myeong by his side. In exchange for letting him keep Jung Hui-myeong by his side, Do-ha promised he’d do whatever the family told him to.
Do-ha vented all that stress on Hui-myeong. The more the pressure intensified, the more he strangled Hui-myeong, squeezed affection out of him, and tormented him roughly when things didn’t go his way.
‘This too… must be love.’
Hui-myeong smiled bitterly while stroking Do-ha’s cheek. Though it was so one-sided it was suffocating, love was love. Hui-myeong decided to think that way. Otherwise, his life spent with Do-ha so far would feel too miserable.
Just then, at the warmth touching his face, Do-ha suddenly stirred.
“Euuum… Myeong-ah. Why aren’t you sleeping.”
Do-ha slid his hand into Hui-myeong’s side and pulled his body into his arms.
“I woke up.”
Hui-myeong whispered in his ear in a hoarse voice. Though he’d never fallen asleep, it was a lie to reassure him.
“When you sleep, I can sleep well too.”
At Do-ha’s affectionate voice as if waking from a good dream, Hui-myeong’s heart pounded. They say even bad feelings become affection—when Do-ha treated him well, Hui-myeong sometimes had the delusion that he was the most loved person in the world.
“Yeah. Let’s sleep together, Do-ha-ya. I think I can sleep now.”
Hui-myeong squeezed his eyes shut while gripping the blanket that held the warm scent of detergent. Do-ha stroked Hui-myeong’s shoulder and slowly kissed along his neckline.
“Myeong-ah, euuum…”
Not satisfied with wrapping around his torso until his stomach would burst, he rubbed his nose against Hui-myeong’s nape.
Even though we sleep in the same bed every day, could he still be this affectionate? Hui-myeong thought while receiving his shower of affection. Perhaps that’s why it’s harder to endure. Because this man who’s completely crazy over me is getting married. I probably want to leave before being abandoned.
Hui-myeong, who had always been starving for love, tried hard to find that love from Do-ha when Geum-gang disappeared. Though it wasn’t exactly the same piece of love he’d learned from Geum-gang, he forcibly crumpled that persistent heart, angular and protruding everywhere, into his emotional puzzle. Though it might be a mess from afar, Hui-myeong believed even that distorted piece was love.
‘If I leave, do I have somewhere to go?’
In his fading consciousness, Hui-myeong recalled Geum-gang. That solid face that appeared like salvation whenever he was cornered.
‘I miss you.’
Even while thinking of Geum-gang, cruelly, sleep poured down as he was held in Do-ha’s familiar arms. On days like today with many miscellaneous thoughts, at least sleep should come well.
2.
Hui-myeong’s daily routine was simple. When he woke up in the morning, he would first take care of Do-ha’s breakfast. While Mrs. Jeong, who did the housework, came three times a week, he wanted Hui-myeong to take care of his breakfast.
It wasn’t anything grand. He would carefully brew coffee and set out toast, boiled eggs, butter, and jam. Occasionally, when he was on a diet regimen, he would serve a predetermined meal plan, but Mrs. Jeong prepared it and Hui-myeong only served it.
Hui-myeong would either eat breakfast together in front of him or sit like a doll and keep him company. Sometimes, the day after particularly intense sex, Do-ha would let Hui-myeong stay lying in bed, but basically, he needed Hui-myeong in front of him to feel at ease.
“I told you yesterday, right? The trainer’s changing.”
“Yeah. But why?”
Hui-myeong asked, pretending not to know while spreading butter on his bread. As if he didn’t remember the trainer from a year ago who had been beaten to a pulp and thrown out for helping him escape.
Do-ha felt relieved when he acted like an idiot. He thought it might be because he wanted Hui-myeong to forget the sins he committed. Or perhaps he wanted to erase the memory of him trying to escape.
“He seems to talk too much unnecessarily. You don’t like talkative people, right?”
Do-ha answered the question while grabbing Hui-myeong’s hand as he tried to scoop jam one more time. It meant he should stop spreading it since he’d already put so much red strawberry jam on the bread that it was dripping. Hui-myeong immediately understood his intention and withdrew his hand from the jam. He could gorge on it after Do-ha left for work, so for now, he decided to obediently follow his words.
