F57

Yeonho had a very unpleasant dream.

It was a dream where he abandoned everything and ran far away with Siwoo. Well, not everything, he had secretly taken a generous amount of money. They boarded a plane and left Korea, flying to a place where he couldn’t understand a word anyone said, where no familiar language was spoken. A place where only he and Siwoo could communicate.

In a foreign land where no one knew them, they held a private vow ceremony and built a home, just the two of them. Yeonho promised Siwoo he would give him a new family and live the rest of his life as his guardian. That way, Siwoo was born again through him.

But tragedy struck too soon. Siwoo’s family sent people and found the house where they were living. To escape, Yeonho carried Siwoo on his back and ran. But like a fool, he stumbled and fell. Siwoo was taken from him right before his eyes. In the dream, Joo Yeonho was helpless and stupid. He wailed as if a child had been ripped from his arms.

Then Yeonho suddenly teleported back to Korea. He saw Siwoo again.

There was a thick rope wrapped around Siwoo’s neck. Yeonho stood frozen, staring up at him, his entire body soaked red, hanging from the ceiling.

Siwoo had been locked away and treated worse than an animal. Unable to bring himself to kill his own parents, he had chosen instead to tie the rope around his own neck.

In the end, the one who put the rope around Siwoo’s neck was Joo Yeonho. Himself.

But near the end of the dream, Yeonho realized that none of it was real. He understood it was a nightmare born from his own overwhelming anxiety. Because he woke up in that state, he didn’t cry. Only a small drop of moisture clung to the corner of his eye.

“Hyung, hyung.”

He desperately wanted to hold the living, breathing Siwoo in his arms. But no matter how many times he called out, there was no response. It seemed Siwoo had tucked him in and gone to class. Yeonho wiped the moisture from the corner of his eye with the back of his hand and then noticed the scribbles Siwoo had left on his palms and soles.

Today, there was a message written across both his left and right hand.

[How can I make Yeonho smile?] [What would make it fun for him?]

Even after that horrible dream, tears hadn’t fallen. But those simple sentences undid him. The ink smudged easily under his tears.

On the sole of his right foot, a little puppy character had been drawn. Today, the puppy was sleeping. Siwoo always thought of the dog plush Yeonho had given him for his birthday as “Joo Yeonho” and carried it everywhere. No one else knew he kept something like that in his bag. It didn’t suit someone like Kim Yeonho at all.

Yeonho had originally preferred the name Yeonho over Siwoo, out of the two names Siwoo used. It had always felt like fate. But after spending so much time together, he began to realize that the “Kim Yeonho” the world saw and the one he knew were completely different. Gradually, he started feeling more attached to the name Siwoo, the name Siwoo had before he was even born into this world.

Yeonho opened his phone camera and took a picture of the puppy doodle on the sole of his foot. No one had ever told him he looked like a puppy. With sharp eyes, people said he looked like a fox, and with soft eyes, like a roe deer. So maybe, only in Siwoo’s eyes, he looked like a puppy. Probably because he only ever acted cute around him.

On the sole of his left foot was a drawing of Siwoo’s face. The way Siwoo drew himself was simple, a round head with just eyes and a mouth. Yeonho took a photo of that one too. Then he opened the gallery and browsed all the doodle photos he had taken so far in chronological order.

When Siwoo had just started drawing on him, the face had a bright smile like this: (‘◡ ‘). But at some point, the mouth had started drooping. A pouty face: ( ‘^’)

Yeonho wiped away the tear that had dropped onto his phone screen with the hem of his shirt, then sent a message to Siwoo, who was probably in class right now.

Sorry I fell asleep againㅠㅠ I’ll kiss your pouty mouth

The reply would come soon. Siwoo always texted back even during lectures whenever Yeonho messaged him. Sure enough, a reply came not long after.

Will you love me lots when I come home after class? I’ve been feeling a little needy lately

Yeah, just come. I won’t stop loving you for even one second

Yeonho remembered how he had begged Siwoo to love him, to date him, when Siwoo had hesitated in the beginning. What a huge leap it must have been for Siwoo to fall in love with him. For Siwoo, loving someone like him was a revolution. And now, Yeonho realized just how completely Siwoo had given himself to that love, how he had risked everything for it. The thought made Yeonho feel horribly selfish.

Until Siwoo returned, Yeonho tried to get a little more sleep. He closed his eyes, but soon opened them again, overcome by anxiety about things that weren’t even real.

His gaze moved from the ceiling to the appliances and furniture. This space belonged only to the two of them. There was no way Seong Junhee could have touched it, but the irrational fear that someone might be watching still gripped him.

He closed his eyes for just a moment and started to doze off, only to bolt awake with a scream, feeling the hallucination of a serpent slithering up his body.

Even gathering up Siwoo’s belongings to build a nest no longer helped Yeonho fall asleep. If the real Kim Siwoo wasn’t physically present, every space felt incomplete and unstable. Even with the television blaring loudly, anxiety still gripped him.

So again, selfishly, when Siwoo returned to him, Yeonho couldn’t keep his promise to always take care of him. The moment Siwoo walked in, Yeonho collapsed into his arms, blinking drowsily.

“…Yeonho, do you not think I’m pretty anymore?”

The most beautiful Siwoo in the world asked him that, lips pouting, a faint pout tugging down the corners of his mouth.

***

The conditions Seong Junhee currently demanded of Yeonho were simple. Just stay in the house they lived in together, and come home in time for dinner so they could eat together.

He hadn’t told him to break up with Siwoo. He hadn’t demanded a relationship or physical affection either. So Yeonho believed that if he could just follow those two rules, everything could be handled without Siwoo getting hurt.

Even so, Yeonho’s life fell apart completely. It was impossible to live a normal life under the same roof as Seong Junhee. But since things had already gone this far, Yeonho decided to make the most of it.

He began recording everything he could, photos, videos, anything that could serve as evidence of Junhee’s behavior. He recorded their conversations whenever possible. At home, in front of the entrance, in the car. Wherever he found anything suspicious, he took photos on his phone.

He planned to use them one day, when the time came to expose Junhee’s crimes. For now, because Junhee had threatened Siwoo, Yeonho had no choice but to lay low. But during that time, he intended to prepare meticulously.

One day, when Junhee had climbed to the top and had the most to lose, Yeonho would unleash everything and destroy him. By then, Siwoo would be an adult, financially independent from his family, and fully standing on his own.

To gather the clearest evidence, Yeonho even installed a camera in his own room. He began pretending to sleep with the lights off so Junhee would think he had the chance to come in and record something himself.

He never actually slept. But during that time, Junhee entered his room twice. Yeonho endured the horror and managed to capture footage of his crimes.

All the collected evidence was transferred to his phone and backed up onto several external hard drives, separated by date. These hard drives were never used in day-to-day life.

He had to change his phone password. Unfortunately, that made Siwoo misunderstand and think Yeonho was hiding something. It broke his heart, but this was something he could resolve on his own. Trust could be rebuilt in time.

Though his problem had started as a disrupted sleep cycle, Yeonho was eventually diagnosed with insomnia and prescribed sleeping pills by a psychiatrist. He took the right dosage each time during Siwoo’s classes, but they had no effect. There were no serious side effects, but sleep never came.

Tragically, the only place Yeonho could sleep was in Siwoo’s arms. The one person he had completely opened himself to. The one who never touched him sexually while he slept. Only Siwoo’s arms were safe.

Throughout the autumn, he lost weight. And, of course, the first person to notice was Siwoo. From his perspective, no matter how much food he fed Yeonho or how often he tucked him into bed, Yeonho kept getting thinner. It was only natural for him to find that strange.

Holding Yeonho up in his arms, Siwoo thrust into him again and again as Yeonho clung to him, legs wrapped tightly around his waist.

“You keep getting lighter.”

“Haa… I’ve been trying to lose weight. You really like this position lately. Hht…”

Recently much calmer, Yeonho smiled faintly, his expression tinged with sadness. Siwoo caught his lips and gently sucked on both the lower and upper one in turn, meeting his gaze.

Not long ago, Yeonho had asked Siwoo not to let go of him, even if things got hard. Now, cautiously, he asked again,

“You don’t hate me, right? You promised you wouldn’t.”

“In my head, I don’t. But I can’t control what I feel.”

“Mm…”

Without meaning to, Yeonho clung to Siwoo’s neck and pouted. The thought of Siwoo hating him, of eventually falling out of love with him, was a sentence that hurt Yeonho more than anything else. It might have been his greatest weakness.

Just imagining it made his chest ache. Kissing Siwoo’s cheek over and over, he whispered in a trembling voice,

“Why does that scare me so much… the thought of you hating me…”

“Then I’ll just make sure I don’t.”

Yeonho pressed his cheek against Siwoo’s and sank into thought. Nothing scared him more than the possibility of Siwoo turning away. Should he finally tell him everything, to stop the misunderstandings?

This was all caused by his own selfish desire to have Siwoo and the madness of his family, but they loved each other. Maybe it was okay to ask him to share the burden.

But before that, there was one thing Yeonho had to confirm with Seong Junhee. There was something he had always been too afraid to ask, something he hadn’t dared to face head-on. So he decided to wait just one more day before telling Siwoo everything.