PHUW 51

He couldn’t help but feel disgusted with himself.

Bang!

His clenched fist slammed down on the washing machine.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

When fists weren’t enough, he drove his forehead against the dryer above the washer, again and again.

“What’s going on?”

Maybe it was too loud, the laundry room door burst open and Haeri and Gom appeared.

Two pairs of barley-tea-colored eyes stared straight at Jeong Mok. His heart sank below his navel then shot up into his throat.

How could he possibly explain the self-harm born from the loathing of himself, from nearly stepping into a realm forbidden for a human to tread? There was no way, and no self, that could explain it.

Even in the moment of hesitation, the other looked beautiful. Seeing him step closer in worry made him barely pull himself together. This wouldn’t do.

“Both of you… get out.”

Cutting it short, he shoved them outside the laundry room.

“Huh?”

“Get out!”

His urgency made him raise his voice. Haeri’s eyes went wide like a rabbit’s. Gom backed away and gave a small bark. Looking at the two, startled and even a little frozen, Jeong Mok barely managed to steady his voice.

“Sorry for shouting. It’s really nothing, so don’t worry about it and go.”

With an awkward smile, he shut the laundry room door. Following the self-loathing, embarrassment and shame made his scalp burn hot.

Jeong Mok rubbed his numb-feeling face with both palms.

He took the laundry out, put it in the dryer, and set it running. Then he left the laundry room and grabbed the car key from the basket near the front door.

“Where are you going?”

Even though he had snapped without reason, Haeri came close without a hint of anger. Rather, he looked apologetic, even smiling hesitantly. Even Gom was watching Jeong Mok’s mood.

“…Something came to mind. I’ll step out for a bit.”

“Yes. See you later.”

Haeri pressed down on Gom’s head beside him and bowed. Jeong Mok should have apologized and cleared the misunderstanding with the one deflated from his needless outburst, but he had no mental space left. Even in the short glance, his eyes kept drifting to the soft lips and smooth neck, and further, to the neatly stretched legs. Before his crazed eyes could fix on Haeri’s hips and inner thighs, Jeong Mok pushed out the front door.

The car key he had grabbed without looking happened to be for the domestic SUV. It was the car he had bought to go to nearby parks or campsites with Song-i, since luxury sedans or sports cars felt too burdensome and inconvenient. After Song-i passed, he hadn’t driven it once. But it felt too awkward to go back in just to switch keys.

So he got in the SUV. Since he had kept up with maintenance, driving was no problem. Without a destination, he simply set off.

Turning wherever he felt like after leaving the neighborhood, he naturally ended up heading toward the memorial forest an hour and a half away. When he realized, he wondered for a moment if he should go elsewhere. In his current state of mind, he wasn’t ready to face Song-i. But no other place came to mind, and the car was already on the highway.

Had he really looked at Song-i that way? Had he not loved her as she was, but instead harbored strange feelings?

The truth was, calling Song-i his girlfriend had begun with a trivial excuse, an everyday deflection. Despite his somewhat outsider behavior, his unusual build drew repeated confessions or blind date setups in the army or at university.

Living with Song-i had quickly brought him into a more normal range, but he had not been ready at all to love someone in an erotic or romantic way. Maybe it was better if he never did in his lifetime. So he refused each time.

But people obsessed with romance seemed to think that a man like Jeong Mok, healthy in body and from a wealthy family, had to be paired with someone, as if it were a mission. Again and again, they pushed blind dates or introduced people under the guise of chance. Since he was not lacking in looks, the other person always showed interest, and each time it was Jeong Mok who was troubled. Constantly refusing wore him out.

One day, when turning down an obvious setup at a drinking party arranged by a senior, he joked that a woman was waiting for him at home. That was the turning point.

There was a woman he lived with. She was so sensitive that she kept him on a tight leash. The reason he couldn’t stay out drinking in the evenings was because of her. The rumor spread, a misunderstanding, but not entirely false, and afterward Jeong Mok was freed from unwanted introductions.

From then on, if asked if he was seeing someone, or if someone showed interest, he declared that he lived with his girlfriend. Sometimes he even wore a ring engraved with the date they first met. Of course, that girlfriend was Song-i.

When Haeri asked him why he was being good to him, it had been the same. It was only because Haeri had been badly hurt through his own carelessness, because at that moment he felt moved, because he had enough room to do so, that was all. Yet since Haeri still would not let go of his suspicions, Jeong Mok had done what he always did, using Song-i as an excuse. Saying he resembled his dead girlfriend was not a complete lie either.

It was true that his heart leaned toward Haeri because he resembled Song-i. Or perhaps someone with that sort of impression, careless yet not simple, had always been within the range of people he could like.

The question was, if that was his taste, then among the countless women he should have met by now, surely at least one had been like that. So why had he never felt anything then?

This was an age when brown curly hair and a sharp, cheerful charm were in fashion. He could think of at least two people with similar personalities or impressions.

His confusion only grew heavier. He rolled down the driver’s side window in frustration. The fierce wind struck his ears. His spinning head began to slow.

As he kept exhaling deep breaths, he missed the exit he should have taken. He frowned and drove to the next one, this time getting off properly.

Cooling his head for a moment and thinking again, it seemed he had overreacted about Song-i.

Song-i had been someone he met dramatically in childhood when he was plagued by severe trauma. She had played a crucial role in his dragging trauma treatment. Just because he had cherished and adored Song-i unusually, just because he had sometimes used her as an excuse to fend off approaches, that did not prove he had harbored strange feelings toward her.

If anything, Song-i was a younger sister. A younger sister he had adored. In that case, Ahn Haeri, who resembled her, should also be a younger brother. A very pretty younger brother.

So what was different between Song-i and Ahn Haeri? There was an unbridgeable wall, dog and human, but with Ahn Haeri there was another barrier, same sex, not insurmountable but quite high. Jeong Mok had never even thought of it that way before. He worried he might fall for women and turn into a jealous wreck like his father, but this side…

Suddenly his mother, Noh Heejae, came to mind.

Visually very sensitive, Noh Heejae mingled with anyone, regardless of age or gender, if they suited her taste. Besides her older sister, Noh Seongjae, there were others who called themselves “aunt” who came and went often, all close acquaintances from the arts. At the time, he had not thought much of it, but considering her tendency to blur the line between artistic exchange and sexual exchange, he could not be sure those aunts had really remained only in the category of fellow artists.

‘Could it be?’

The tangled, sloppy blocks of logic suddenly began to fit neatly into place.

Sexual orientation was not inherited. But people often attributed personalities and tendencies to family traits. The chairwoman believed that too, which was why he judged Jeong Mok so harshly as the son of Jeong Yeongil.

If jealousy was a family trait, then why not homosexuality too?

It was unscientific logic no better than medieval thinking, yet it seemed strangely convincing. On top of that, the emotional link he belatedly discovered with his mother was absurd enough to make him curse. Fuck.

If he had known beforehand that his orientation was different, he would never have approached Ahn Haeri so freely. He would have been more cautious, perhaps cold, and even if he offered help he would have left it entirely to a law firm instead of stepping forward himself.

He would not have seen that frail frame the hospital gown could not hide, the blank white face as if dazed, the barley-tea-colored eyes, and the messily tousled brown curls. Then he would have passed over An Haeri without ever discovering any similarity with Song-i.

What troubled him more was how fast these feelings had grown.

Not long ago, Jeong Mok had been worn out by a gloomy life. Even when a mental hospital loomed near, he could not help himself and had only gotten up when the professor and Choi Jieon pushed him. A passive survival.

But now?

Here he was, suddenly driving like his tail was on fire, deeply reflecting on his own boundaries and rushing toward Song-i. This was not regression, but escape. Not sinking, but boiling over. His everyday life was in upheaval.

The one who had triggered this fierce change, who had awakened a disposition even he did not know he had, had been nothing more than a cute and pitiful younger brother until just the day before yesterday.

Simply because he resembled Song-i, simply because he was male, he had been too careless. Now that he thought of it, checking his burn scars directly, holding him to sleep through a panic attack, even finding an energetic adult with a lively sex drive just cute, all of it seemed stupid.

If he let this unfamiliar feeling devour him at such speed, one day he might surpass Jeong Yeongil and become the worst kind of human. Perhaps he had already taken a step toward a cruel ruin.

That was what terrified Jeong Mok.