ITDW 3

Sometimes, among friends who snacked to their heart’s content, Jaeri would get so upset that he couldn’t even buy a single hot dog that he would purposely bite his lip all day long, injuring it. With the VVIP card Jungyoon gave him, he couldn’t buy any food that wasn’t approved by him, and during his always-hungry teenage years, the hollowness in his stomach was unbearable. But Jaeri never once rebelled. It was partly because he was afraid of him, and partly because he loved him.

In addition to that, there were several other prohibited items for purchase. Clothing and anything worn on the body, items of personal preference like alcohol and cigarettes, and even content were forbidden.

Jungyoon was a person who felt it was his natural right to have his way with Jaeri from head to toe, and Jaeri rather enjoyed the fact that controlling and raising him had become his hobby. He liked being someone special to him.

However, there were occasional deviations during the periods when he did some crazy things, that is, during his hypomanic episodes. Those deviations were usually so impulsive that the seams, the finishing, and the overall execution of his plans were quite rough, and the full story would often be exposed in stark detail, but this time, even if it was easily exposed, it was exposed too easily. In just a routine message check, all the pieces fell into place.

Jungyoon was silent for a while. Within that silence, it felt as if chains were intricately carved without a gap, rendering one unable to move. Jaeri couldn’t even breathe loudly and just kept his head down. The smell of the leather seats felt particularly pungent.

“Kim Jaeri.”

“Yes, yes. Hyung.”

“How many times did Kim Yoonjae give you a card without my knowledge?”

“…Two or three times.”

Jungyoon snorted lowly.

“What’s the point of trying to be clever now?”

“Three times…”

“And with that, you dared to touch alcohol.”

So, that was the only way he could drink premium liquor with his debaucherous friends.

“…Hyung, I only drank once.”

“Get rid of those friends of yours.”

“Yes…”

“You, let’s have a talk tomorrow.”

At the words that he would be spared today, a bad feeling wrapped around him like layers of packaging paper, sparking fear. Jaeri knew the personality of his hyung, with whom he had been living alone for six years.

It was now clear that he had deceived him, evaded his control, and disobeyed his instructions. It was like standing on a frozen lake with a thin, transparent layer of ice in the dead of winter and resolutely stomping on its surface.

He belatedly reflected on how things had come to this. He hadn’t thought that Park Jinsu and Yang Hyunjun could be traitors, nor did he know that his sister would send a problematic message. His sister didn’t know the things to be careful about regarding text messages. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her, who already thought the eldest son of the family was a bit of a psycho, about the fact that his messages were being inspected, as if he were tattling.

The car entered the lane, made a U-turn, and returned to its original route. His driving was stable and smooth. Only inside that car, the hearts of the two brothers were violently sharp and sore, like thunder and lightning striking in the night sky.

As soon as he got home, Jaeri had to do a preliminary scoring of his test. Kneeling in front of the living room table, his hands trembled slightly as he scored the test in front of Jungyoon. The score was better than he had thought, but worse than he had hoped. Jaeri was relieved it wasn’t a worse score, but Jungyoon was not.

His kneeling legs began to go numb as he sat in front of his hyung, who was staring at the scored paper for a long time as if in thought. He couldn’t ask what he was thinking and just shifted his kneeling legs slightly. He discreetly tapped his legs, which felt like an electric current was running through them—jolt—and wiggled his toes a little. As the blood began to circulate a little, it became much more comfortable.

“This is ambiguous.”

With a click, Jungyoon placed his fountain pen on the table and disappeared into the kitchen. Jaeri watched his broad back until it was out of sight, then felt a sense of self-loathing pierce his heart like an arrow.

Hyung had managed and groomed him so thoroughly, yet he went around drinking crudely with strange guys, and when hyung wouldn’t let him buy whatever he wanted, he took money from his sister and spent it secretly like a rat, and he spent so much money on his education, but he was so stupid he couldn’t even do well on the test. He was ashamed that all his flaws had been exposed, and he was sad that he was that kind of person. This was the hyung who had taken him in when he had nowhere else to go, and yet, even within that solid fence, he had become a little full and had polluted the rules inside the fence.

Then, Jaeri vaguely realized what he was doing to himself. He was providing his hyung with evidence that he was a very bad kid. He knew his hyung wouldn’t do it, but he was afraid he would look at him too coldly, like his mother, and abandon him. He was looking at himself with a fiercely objective and quite cold gaze, and knowingly generating reasons why he was a person worth abandoning. If he was abandoned because he was worth abandoning, it would hurt a little less. He really knew his hyung wouldn’t abandon him, he knew, but still.

Jaeri crossed his arms as if to hug himself. He stroked his own arms a little with his hands. Warmth was transmitted.

“Jaeri, are you cold?”

“Hyung…”

At Jungyoon’s words, Jaeri was startled and uncrossed his arms. He had brought a tray with a glass of water and his evening medicine and placed it in front of Jaeri.

“Take your medicine, and go to bed. It’s late.”

“…Can’t I sleep in your room, hyung?”

Jungyoon’s eyes sank. He flinched at those eyes and his shoulders trembled, but Jaeri didn’t back down and pleaded once more.

“…Hyung.”

“Get up. Go to your room and sleep.”

“…”

“Kim Jaeri. Aren’t you getting up?”

Jungyoon roughly grabbed Jaeri’s arm and pulled him to his feet. With a characteristic smile that seemed to say he was dumbfounded, he lifted Jaeri’s lowered head with his fingers. With a sharp gaze, he tried to look deep into Jaeri’s eyes. Jaeri squeezed his eyes shut. He spoke quickly in a small voice.

“I know, I know I did wrong.”

“Shut your mouth.”

“But it was the CSAT today.”

When there was no answer to his pleading words, he looked at his hyung, who frowned for a moment with an unreadable expression, then his mouth hardened as if holding something back, and he let out a low sigh. Jaeri, with a sullen face, only stared at the pattern on the silver tie bar neatly placed on Jungyoon’s tie.

He slowly clenched and unclenched his fist. Soon, he placed his large hand on Jaeri’s head and stroked it with a gentle touch. Jaeri’s curly hair billowed between his long fingers. The hand that moved up and down on Jaeri’s small head seemed, from time to time, to have lost its way and was about to roughly grab his hair. But the touch itself was gentle. Intoxicated by the skinship after a long time, Jaeri mustered his courage.

He wrapped both arms around his hyung’s waist and hugged him. When he rested his cheek on his hyung’s shoulder, his scent, mixed with his body heat, rose up warmly. A scent that has a certain intensity but, as if hidden in a fog, does not immediately reveal its true nature. The sensuality hidden in that vapor, he had always missed and still misses.

Jaeri thought that a high school senior brother could ask this much of his hyung after the CSAT was over. Of course, he wasn’t a completely perfect high school senior brother, but still, the past days of studying thirteen hours a day had crumbled, and time had suddenly lost its purpose and become empty, just like any other test-taker.

Of course, besides his request as a high school senior, there was something else he wanted to confirm. Hyung, you do love me a lot, at least as a younger brother, right?

“Today, you decided to let it slide…”

Jungyoon’s eyes narrowed as he looked down at his youngest brother who hugged him more deeply. Jaeri rarely expresses what he wants during depressive periods like this one.

“…Take your medicine first.”

Jungyoon stroked Jaeri’s thin back. He had an idea why the child was suddenly acting like this.

The atmosphere at school was bizarre, like witnessing a black balloon floating leisurely across a blue sky. That’s how it seemed to Jaeri, while most of the other kids were caught up in the excited mood. As far as Jaeri observed, even amidst their excitement, each of them had a heavy weight attached to them, and he disliked the awkward and uncomfortable disharmony of it. They were all not being honest.

“Kim Jae, did you do well? How was it? Wasn’t the CSAT a bit difficult? I’m tentatively confirmed to retake.”

“Just say you’re confirmed.”

The boy snapped at the classmate who came to his desk and pretended to be friendly by placing his fingers on the corner of the desk. He wasn’t someone he wanted to talk to for long, but he did it because he was annoyed just looking at his face. This guy was the one dispatched as a representative of those who wanted to know the boy’s score.

“You little bastard, you have no manners. What about you, you were trying for S University.”

“I can’t go.”

“Oh, welcome to the retake family.”

“I don’t know if I’m retaking or not.”

“Then K University?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hey, still, K University is elite. Me, hey, if I could get into K University by retaking for two or three years, I would.”

“I don’t know. Hyung hasn’t decided yet.”

He didn’t know why he had to have this conversation, but it seemed petty not to answer, so he concisely threw out the facts and laid his head down on his desk. Having obtained insufficient information, the kid, who maintained a grade in the top 30% of the class, sneered at the boy for ignoring him and ending the conversation unilaterally, then quickly went to another friend and spread the news, “Looks like Kim Jae has no chance at S University and is borderline for K University.”

It was unpleasant. The fact that that stupid bastard was spreading his estimated score to others, the fact that he was speaking loud enough for him to hear since they were graduating soon and he didn’t have to be wary of him anymore, the fact that he wasn’t just borderline for K University but that idiot was concluding it with his stupid brain, the school that pointlessly made students come to school the day after the CSAT, and the Korean education system like that—it was all so annoying he couldn’t stand it. And also at himself for not getting a score good enough for S University.

The boy felt something surging up inside him and thought it was a little dangerous. At times like this, it was better to go somewhere with no people. He got up just like that and staggered to the teachers’ office. He found his homeroom teacher and said he was leaving early.

“Oh, Jaeri. It’s almost over. Are you not feeling well?”

“No. I’m not feeling well at all. I need to go home right now. Here’s my preliminary score sheet.”

If he wasn’t allowed to leave early, he was planning to leave without permission. He felt that impulse. The impulse to break everything, and to eat something incredibly spicy, or drink himself into a stupor, or buy cigarettes and smoke them five at a time. Or to cut his stuffy chest with a box cutter.

“Okay, you don’t look well. You can leave early. You worked hard. Here.”

The homeroom teacher said that and handed him a beautifully wrapped bag of chocolates, but he just glanced down at it and walked out of the teachers’ office. He could see the car waiting in the distance on the school field. It was hard to get there, so he counted to a hundred in his head. Just a hundred more steps. After walking a hundred steps, just fifty more. He managed his feelings by quantifying how much further he had to walk in his head. Why hadn’t the car been parked right in front of me? he thought, pretending to be objective that getting angry about it would be irrational.

He opened the car door and threw himself down on the back seat.

“Young master.”

“I left early.”

“…I’ll go get your bag.”

Driver Yoon saw the young master appear dragging his slippers, without a bag and not even wearing a coat, and quickly stood up.

The boy stared at the ceiling, then suddenly thought that he was quite proud of himself. At the very least, he had wanted to flip over the desk and swing the chair at that bastard, but he had only imagined it. He had come safely into the car without doing anything.

A call came. He didn’t answer, but it didn’t hang up, so he thought it might be his hyung and looked, and it was indeed his hyung. He had thought that word would get to his hyung right away.

“Yes.”

— I heard you left early.

His hyung’s languid voice echoed. It was good. It was always good. Even when he was scared. His mood brightened a little. He wants to talk about various things with his hyung. From college admission, to what he’ll do with his time now, and about the particularly nice weather today, and so on.

“Yes, hyung.”

He heard the sound of Jungyoon asking Manager Gu something for a moment. There was a bit of a commotion on the other end of the line. And he quickly answered Jaeri.

— I can’t clear my schedule, so go home, take your medicine and a sleeping pill, and sleep.

“…Yes.”

— I’ll send the key to the medicine cabinet through Secretary Lee, and Secretary Lee will take the medicine out for you. The security team is going with him, so don’t waste your energy.

He was so angry he didn’t even answer and just hung up the phone. It’s not like he’s a monster, he just has a large range of emotions and his actions are a bit uncontrollable, but he doesn’t know why he has to be forced to sleep just because his hyung isn’t around. And sending the security team. If they had sent just two people, he would have given up resisting and swallowed the pills. He had even successfully held back from bashing in the head of that chatterbox, but if he’d known it would be like this, he should have just bashed it in. A chair is a bit much, maybe something safer.

Suddenly, a flame shot up in his heart. He impulsively opened the car door and ran. The process that usually operated in the order of mind, thought, action, felt like it had changed to mind, action, thought. He thought he might get a huge scolding for today’s incident on top of what happened yesterday, for which he was already going to be scolded today, but it couldn’t be helped. Rather, the churning tension was fun. Unlike yesterday, he didn’t want to lie around sleeping lethargically today. His mind was clear, and it was a brilliant morning.