F72

Yeonho stubbed out his cigarette and stared at the smoke drifting in front of him. He could guess who had attacked Seong Junyoung with a baseball bat at dawn. He felt guilty for having suspected Siwoo, even for a moment. It also bothered him that Junyoung was now directing baseless suspicion toward Siwoo. Yeonho looked down at his own hands and let out a faint sigh.

On his way back to the hospital room, he stopped in front of a full-length mirror. He stared at his grotesquely twisted reflection and muttered to himself.

“Just when it seemed like things were getting better, this is how far I fall. Joo Yeonho…”

An ugly face. A mind in complete disarray. Someone who couldn’t even manage his medication and ended up making the person he loved feel miserable. He stood there for a long time, looking at his pitiful self, then started walking down the hallway again.

He gripped the hospital room’s doorknob. Through the slightly open door, he heard voices, Junyoung and their father talking. Yeonho let go of the doorknob and quietly listened.

Junyoung was confessing to their father everything he had done to his younger stepbrother. Just as Yeonho had believed his mother would always take his side, it seemed Junyoung also viewed their father the same way.

“You let it slide when big brother did that to Yeonho, didn’t you? Thought I wouldn’t find out? So look the other way for me too. Aren’t I your son?”

“You insane bastard. Why would you do the exact same thing as your brother? What kind of monster did you grow into?”

“Because he raised me. My brother did. If you didn’t want that to happen, you should’ve raised me yourself. But you were too busy, weren’t you?”

Yeonho’s legs gave out and his head burned. He didn’t want to believe what he was hearing. He stared blankly at the door, realizing that buried within their conversation was a piece of the puzzle he had been missing. A memory he hadn’t wanted to face, that his mind had instinctively rejected, had now come crashing in.

So his eldest brother had done the same thing to him that Junyoung did? And their father knew but turned a blind eye?

He had suspected something bad had happened with Seong Junhee, but not this. He’d never imagined the past could be this horrific. The scattered puzzle pieces finally began to fit together, and Yeonho blinked slowly with dry, stinging eyes. His breathing grew ragged and his vision spun, but he held his breath and steadied his legs to keep from making a sound.

Junyoung pleaded with their father.

“I know I messed up. But honestly, I’m better than him. The videos I recorded were soft. I didn’t even film nudity. Doesn’t that make it less bad?”

“Are you even listening to yourself? You drugged a kid with narcotics.”

“So what? Are you going to throw me away? The one who did this to me is Kim Siwoo. He’s sleeping with Yeonho. Scare him a little, will you? If you let him run loose, he’ll kill me just like he did my brother. He said he’d turn my life into hell.”

“You deserve to die. You and your brother both. If he kills you, so be it.”

“Don’t say stuff you don’t mean. That guy already killed one of your sons. Why can’t we call it even? You and the Namyeon Construction CEO each lost a son. Why should you be the only one who takes the loss? Please, do something about Kim Siwoo.”

“You think I’m a gangster? A thug?”

“If you won’t do it, I will. I’ll hire someone and have him killed. It’ll count as self-defense.”

Yeonho inhaled sharply and stepped back with a face gone cold. The information he had just been forced to learn crawled through his mind like insects. He moved slowly, carefully, making sure his footsteps made no sound. It took him a long time to exit the hospital building.

He opened the car door and got into the driver’s seat. He tried to call Siwoo to warn him to be careful, but his hands were shaking so badly that the phone slipped between the seats. His head throbbed with pain, like screws being driven into his skull all at once. Cold sweat ran down his face as he lost consciousness.

He had a dream. In it, Siwoo drove somewhere, and the moment he stepped out of the car, people grabbed his arms and legs and dragged him off. They tore into him, slashing him to pieces.

All Yeonho could do was watch, like an audience member in a theater. Stupidly, dream-Yeonho only revealed himself after Siwoo had been ruined. Covered in blood, Siwoo died in Yeonho’s arms, unable to even close his eyes.

He didn’t even have the strength to scream. Even after the dream ended, Yeonho slept like the dead. When he finally woke up, two hours had passed. His phone showed a missed call and a message from Siwoo.

Something came up, so I’m heading to Seoul for a bit. I’ll be back this evening, so don’t worry. If anything happens or if it’s hard to be alone, call me right away.

Seoul? All of a sudden? Did something happen?

Yeonho tried calling him in a panic, but this time Siwoo didn’t answer. So he replied to the message.

Sorry I missed your call. Why did you go to Seoul all of a sudden? Be careful. Junyoung might try something bad. I think he thinks you’re the one who hit him. But it wasn’t you. Don’t come back here. Go to your parents’ house and stay with your family for a while. That’s probably safer.

Yeonho leaned back against the car seat, closed his eyes, and sank into thought. Anger was rising. And with it, a sense of responsibility for Siwoo that now outweighed his bitterness toward his family. What echoed in his mind was what Siwoo had said to him five years ago, on the day they’d promised each other eternal love. He had spoken the words in his weakest state, clinging to Yeonho’s chest.

Please protect me.

How had he forgotten such a desperate plea? How had he chosen to live on, pretending it had never happened, just to find some peace of mind? The guilt was overwhelming.

With a new resolve, Yeonho opened his eyes wide and stepped out of the car. His breathing eased, and he felt calmer. As he strode forward with determination, he muttered like a possessed man.

“You should’ve crushed me alone. Why did you have to hurt that poor, innocent person?”

He walked quickly through the hospital hallway, then stopped in front of a full-length mirror. He looked himself in the eye. Unlike before, there was murder in his gaze. The shaman who had once been close to his paternal grandmother had said something to him when he was just five years old. That Joo Yeonho had the face of a killer.

And now, he believed it. He truly had the eyes of someone who could take a life. But he didn’t mind. It was hatred born from love, a murderous intent meant to protect the one he loved.

Their father had already returned to Seoul. With his last source of support gone, Seong Junyoung now looked at Yeonho with wary eyes as he stood silently in front of him. Yeonho met his gaze calmly and spoke.

“Hyung, I’ve been thinking. We’re family, and we’ll have to keep living together in some way, right? So I figured I should try to understand how you feel.”

Junyoung’s guarded expression eased for a moment. Yeonho didn’t miss the opportunity and continued.

“You wanted people to think there was something special between us, didn’t you? Like I was all you needed, that no one else mattered.”

Junyoung cleared his throat but said nothing. Yeonho sat on the side bed, leaned in close, and asked softly.

“Do you like me? Is that why you did it? Please tell me. If that’s what it was, I think I might be able to forgive you.”

Junyoung gave no reply, but Yeonho went on, as if he could already see through everything.

“You just didn’t have the courage to be honest with me, did you?”

“How could I? I knew you’d never accept it.”

“Why did you think that? If you’d confessed first, I might never have ended up with Kim Siwoo.”

He whispered, voice languid, and Junyoung’s face flushed red. Yeonho could feel acid rising in his throat. He fought the nausea and kept talking.

“Tell me exactly what you want from me. If you do, I’ll end things with him.”

“…Are you serious?”

“Me and Kim Siwoo, we just slept together a few times. That’s all. It wasn’t anything special. We barely even saw each other.”

Yeonho lay down, resting his head on Junyoung’s thigh. As Junyoung’s hand brushed his cheek, Yeonho thought about how much he wanted to slice that hand open with a serrated blade. But his voice remained quiet, composed.

“When you’re discharged, want to go snowboarding with me? You taught me back when I was in elementary school. I was so happy then.”

On the day Yeonho and Siwoo confirmed their love for each other, Yeonho had held Siwoo’s wounded body in his arms and promised to protect him.

It hadn’t been an empty promise. A person becomes an adult when they find someone they’re responsible for. The moment Siwoo clung to him and said, please protect me, the naïve, reckless child that had been Joo Yeonho finally became an adult.

***

Siwoo had left without leaving a scratch on him, letting Yeonho sleep undisturbed. When Yeonho slowly opened his eyes, he reached out and touched the space where Siwoo had been. There wasn’t even any warmth left. Just like that, Siwoo was gone for good, and Yeonho was alone again.

Shivering from the loneliness, Yeonho forced himself to get up, using the last of his strength to carry out what he had to do.

He slipped into the ski suit he had rented and stood in front of the mirror. To his strange delight, the marks from Siwoo’s hands were still on his neck. Traces of vicious love and hate. Yeonho found them beautiful. He rubbed the spot where Siwoo had choked him, making the red bruises even darker. He didn’t want the traces Siwoo had left on him to disappear.

The convenience store inside the resort didn’t accept courier deliveries. So Yeonho deliberately walked the dark road to a convenience store outside the resort. There, he picked up an empty box from the front of the store and sat down at one of the outdoor tables to make a call to Seong Junhee, speaking in a casual, relaxed tone.

“Hyung, can you talk right now? You don’t sound busy. Isn’t tomorrow your day off?”

As he spoke, he scratched at the adhesive side of a roll of packing tape he’d just bought.

“The bouquet you sent arrived. It felt so weird getting that. We used to be so close. How did things get like this between us? I loved you more than I loved Mom.”

He let out a sigh, though there wasn’t an ounce of sincerity in it.

“I really hate you. But sometimes it feels like nothing’s changed at all. Do you think maybe I liked you in a different way?”

He poked the box repeatedly with the scissors in his hand.

“Maybe I only realized it after all this happened. That no matter what you do to me, I can’t help but forgive you. After you left the house we lived in together, I started wondering if what I felt for you was actually love.”

The acid rose again. Nausea followed. He wanted to throw up everything inside him.

“Do you love me? Is that why you did it? Please answer me. If that’s what it was, I think I can forgive you.”

Like someone suffering from a nervous breakdown, he scratched the surface of the box with the scissor blade, anxiety making his eyes wild and full of rage.

You should’ve just hurt me. Why go after that poor, weak person too?

“When you get off work, want to go snowboarding with me? We used to go out early in the morning when no one else was around. Those were the best times.”

On the day he and Siwoo confirmed their love for each other, Yeonho had carefully kissed the scars on Siwoo’s wrists. Those cuts that looked like they’d been made by a razor, and promised him it would never happen again.

Kim Siwoo had been reborn after meeting him. To Joo Yeonho, he was like a child, someone he had a duty to protect, no matter what.