F Side Story 1

When was the first time he had ever wanted to give everything up?

He saw the face of his father, twisted in rage over his clumsy chopstick grip. He heard the cruelty in his mother’s voice. He smelled the overturned birthday seaweed soup on the floor, tasted the tang of blood in his mouth, and felt the tearing pain of his skin being split open. In that moment, Kim Yeonho believed that the body he had been born into was entirely useless.

What was the point of being born human, with eyes, a nose, and hands, if every sensation he experienced was only pain? Wouldn’t it be better not to exist at all?

If he had to keep fighting until death just to dull those painful sensations, then wouldn’t it be far more peaceful and comfortable to have every function in his body come to a halt? He had first thought this way when he was in elementary school.

On the morning of his eleventh birthday, Kim Yeonho hadn’t finished breakfast when he strapped on a heavy backpack and headed off to his cram school’s summer session. He stepped into the building’s elevator and pressed the button. He was supposed to go to the fifth floor, but his finger chose the twelfth, the very top.

Yeonho stared directly into the elevator’s security camera. He had spent his whole life lowering his head in front of his parents. Maybe this was his way of finally meeting their eyes. He hoped they would watch the footage later and feel at least a little pain.

When he reached the rooftop, Yeonho climbed onto the railing. He was taller than most of his peers and fairly athletic, so it wasn’t difficult. Falling off was even easier. Without the slightest hesitation, Yeonho stepped off the edge and flew through the sky. Not even bungee jumping could have felt faster than this.

As he fell, the zipper of his backpack came loose. Books and notebooks scattered into the air like fireworks celebrating his imminent peace.

Once his body hit the ground, he figured the adults would strip off his clothes and discover the signs of abuse from his parents. That would be enough.

But as he plunged toward the earth, he caught sight of a man, hair disheveled, cheeks bruised, face covered in blood. That man had his arms thrown skyward, desperately trying to catch him. Yeonho recognized him instantly. It was Joo Yeonho.

Joo Yeonho caught the small body falling from the sky. The problem was that his own body was broken by the impact. Still holding Yeonho tightly, he began stumbling forward.

Blood pooled where he walked. The strength was draining from his arms. His body crumbled like a sandcastle.

After laying Yeonho down in a safe spot, Joo Yeonho spoke.

“I’m sorry. I can’t carry you any farther. This is as far as I can go. You can walk from here, right?”

And then, right before Yeonho’s eyes, Joo Yeonho exploded like a firework.

“No, don’t disappear!”

Just as Yeonho’s blood splashed across his face, Siwoo’s eyes flew open. It had been a long time since he’d had a nightmare. He immediately understood why the dream had been so unsettling.

Yeonho, who had fallen asleep in his arms, was no longer beside him. It was three in the morning. There was no reason for him to be up at this hour.

Siwoo threw on a robe and turned on the lights, searching for Yeonho.

“Yeonho, where are you?”

He wasn’t in the bedroom, the living room, or the bathroom. He wasn’t answering his phone either. Siwoo felt his mind begin to spiral, his pupils starting to shift in a way that wasn’t normal.

“Why aren’t you here again?”

He was still plagued by the fear that Yeonho could disappear from his side at any moment. It wasn’t something he could fix easily. It was probably a feeling he would carry with him until the day he died.

***

Yeonho set some fever medicine down on the convenience store counter. Along with pills for adults, he also bought syrup meant for children. The reason he was out buying medicine at this hour was because of Siwoo.

Earlier, while asleep, Siwoo had started groaning in discomfort. Yeonho had placed his hand and lips on his cheek, sensing heat radiating from his skin.

Just as he stepped out of the store, rain began to pour. It was July, the monsoon season, when rain would start and stop endlessly. So the sudden downpour wasn’t unusual.

Already soaked, Yeonho didn’t bother going back for an umbrella. Instead, he clutched the medicine to his chest and ran. Home was close enough to reach quickly on foot.

Drenched from head to toe, Yeonho rushed into the apartment, only to find the house brightly lit.

“You’re awake?”

That was when Yeonho remembered the phone in his arms, tucked with the medicine. There had been a call from Siwoo. He hadn’t noticed the ringing over the noise of the rain.

“Hey.”

Standing before him was Siwoo, wearing nothing but a deep navy robe, his appearance a mess. His face was pale, with tear tracks still visible on his cheeks. Yeonho had only been gone for maybe fifteen minutes. Certainly no more than that, yet in that time, Siwoo had woken and gone searching for him.

Did he think Yeonho had tried to leave?

How should he describe the look in Siwoo’s eyes? Fear? Resentment? Sadness? Relief? Longing? Joy? Was it possible to use the words longing and joy for a separation that lasted just fifteen minutes?

Yeonho looked into Siwoo’s face and understood something instantly. Love.

Siwoo’s mental health and emotional recovery only applied to his relationships with everyone else. That fact, in a strange way, filled Yeonho with joy.

Thank you for still being broken, just for Joo Yeonho. I want to be the same. Even if I return to being a normal, functioning person with everyone else, I want to stay broken, just for you.

Soaking wet, Yeonho was pulled into Siwoo’s arms.

“Yeonho… why?”

The question was: why had he left his side? But since he immediately pressed his lips shut, he probably didn’t really expect an answer. There was no way Siwoo didn’t know that Yeonho had no intention of leaving him.

“Mm…”

Yeonho dropped the medicine he was holding. When Siwoo saw the medicine fall to the floor, he reached out and began stripping off Yeonho’s soaked clothes. Siwoo’s feverish, bare body pressed against Yeonho. The cold rainwater that had soaked Yeonho’s skin transferred to Siwoo instead. As if their bodies were trying to meet in the middle and find an average temperature.

Siwoo sat Yeonho down right by the entrance and pushed him to the floor. He reached for Yeonho’s head to pull him into a kiss. But in that moment, Yeonho tightly shut his eyes, raised both hands to his chest, and flinched.

Siwoo had already seen it many times before, how Yeonho flinched whenever Siwoo’s hands moved toward his head during moments of intense emotion. Back then, he had no idea why Yeonho was so afraid of being hit.

But now that he knew what Yeonho had endured, he understood completely. Siwoo knew better than anyone what it was like for a person to react defensively to violence. When he was a child, he had struggled just to meet his father’s eyes without shrinking away.

He didn’t mention the reflex he had come to recognize in Yeonho. He didn’t want to drag out memories of being slapped and struck by Seong Junhee while being brainwashed into believing he was just an obstacle ruining Kim Yeonho’s life.

The truth was, Siwoo had always known. If he hadn’t been in Yeonho’s life, Yeonho would have gotten rid of Seong Junhee a long time ago. Without the weakness Siwoo represented, Yeonho wouldn’t have needed to endure that violence, or choose death.

But he didn’t say sorry. They had promised not to apologize to each other. All Siwoo could do was quietly help erase the painful habits still lingering in Yeonho.

He gently stroked Yeonho’s face and hair over and over. Even though everything had supposedly been resolved, the damage still ran deep inside them. After a typhoon passes, wreckage is always left behind. Cracked pavement, blown-off signs, torn banners. Healing takes more time than destruction.

How many more nights like this would they go through? They still had a long way to go.

Relaxing into Siwoo’s soft touch, Yeonho let his body go limp and tension melted away. He looked up and kissed Siwoo lightly on the lips, then joked,

“Our house feels like a psych ward right now.”

Siwoo chuckled, leaned in close, and whispered near his lips.

“I thought our house was more like a prison.”

Manslaughter and violation of the drug control law. With two convictions between them, Siwoo and Yeonho looked at each other and burst into laughter.

Kim Yeonho’s weather was a typhoon. Joo Yeonho’s weather was a downpour. But when they were together, it was clear. Rain was falling hard outside their window, but inside their home and inside themselves, the skies were clear. Tomorrow, the sun would shine even brighter.

Yeonho pulled Siwoo into a warm embrace and reached down to pick up the fallen medicine. He tore open the packaging of the children’s fever reducer and poured the orange syrup into the measuring cup.

“Yeonho, take your medicine. You’re burning up. You’re not allowed to be even a little sick.”

Siwoo heard Yeonho’s gentle voice call him “Yeonho” as if he were a child. He saw eyes looking at him like he was the most precious thing in the world. He smelled Yeonho’s skin, tinged with rain. Tasted the orange syrup in his mouth. Then felt Yeonho’s soft lips on his own. All five senses were filled with warmth and happiness.

I am being loved. I am being protected. I am alive.

Maybe I was born to see Yeonho with my eyes. To hear his voice with my ears. To smell his scent, taste his skin, touch his body.

After the chaos had passed, Siwoo fell asleep once more, curled in Yeonho’s arms.

In his dream, eleven-year-old Kim Yeonho stood again on the rooftop of the cram school building. He tried to fall forward, but his backpack was so heavy that he lost balance and tipped backward. So he didn’t die. That part was exactly what had happened to Siwoo when he was eleven.

But there was something different in this dream. As he lay flat on the rooftop, a child’s face peeked over the edge and met his eyes. Another elementary schooler, who tugged on his backpack from behind, spoke boldly with a shy smile.

“You’re really pretty. Want to date me?”

Even though it was their first meeting, Kim Yeonho instantly knew who the boy was. He dusted himself off, got up, and said,

“So you’re finally here. I always waited for you to show up in my dreams.”

Kim Yeonho reached out his hand, and the boy took it.

Siwoo was no longer afraid of the unconscious ambushes that struck him in the middle of the night. No matter what moment from his childhood appeared in his dreams, this boy would be there with him. And if he was, then no dream could ever be a nightmare.