PSY CH 124

Five whole years—that was how long Jooyoung and Sungwoon had known each other.

He first met Sungwoon when he was twenty.  

That year, Joosung would often come to pick Jooyoung up and drive him home. That day was just another ordinary one—Joosung had said he’d come pick him up, and Jooyoung waited at their usual meeting spot.

Before long, a familiar car pulled up in front of him. Without thinking, Jooyoung opened the passenger door only to find someone already sitting there. Thinking he had mistaken the car, he was about to close the door when Joosung’s voice came from inside.

“Get in the back.”

In that short moment before the door closed, the man in the passenger seat didn’t take his eyes off Jooyoung. Jooyoung couldn’t look away either.

“He’s my junior. Ryu Sungwoon.”

As the car began to move, Joosung introduced Seongwoon. He said Sungwoon was a junior from university, that he had left his car behind, and since they were heading in the same direction, he gave him a ride. Without turning around, Sungwoon greeted them with a simple, “Hi.”

“…Hello.”

Maybe because he couldn’t see his face, that low voice lingered unusually long in Jooyoung’s ears. 

It was the first time he’d met one of Joosung’s acquaintances. To Jooyoung, Joosung was like a stand-in parent, so there had always been a strange distance between them that didn’t quite feel like siblings. Maybe that was why it felt odd to see someone talk to Joosung so casually. Sungwoon seemed so mature, but when he laughed loudly, he felt like someone Jooyoung’s age.

That was all it was at first. They weren’t people who’d see each other often anyway.

But after that, Sungwoon continued to appear from time to time in Joosung’s car. Joosung would grumble about spoiling his junior, but the smile in his voice said otherwise. It was obvious he cared about Sungwoon.

Eventually, Sungwoon started talking to Jooyoung naturally. It was always he who started the conversations, but Jooyoung slowly began to respond. Watching them, Joosung would tease that the kid and the brat were getting along too well. But Sungwoon didn’t mind. He even said Jooyoung was surprisingly mature, asking if he was really only twenty.

It might have been nothing—maybe just something said to comfort the younger Jooyoung—but to him at the time, those words felt different. Among his family, he was always treated like a ticking time bomb, but at least inside that car, he wasn’t looked at that way.

Then, one day, Joosung stepped out to get gas. It was then that Jooyoung spoke to Sungwoon first.

“Can I ask for your number?”

A wave of regret followed right after he said it, but the words were already out.

Sungwoon’s eyes widened in surprise. After a short pause, his lips curved gently.

“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for you to ask that, do you?”

A mischievous glint bloomed over his gentle smile.

Jooyoung felt a shiver at his fingertips. They hadn’t said anything particularly special, but the strange tension between them wasn’t just his imagination. 

Sungwoon reached out and casually took Jooyoung’s phone, entered his number, and called himself.

“Don’t tell Joosung-hyung.”

Jooyoung glanced at Joosung, who was at the gas station, and said it quietly. Sungwoon burst out laughing like a child, saying he liked secrets too and causing Jooyoung to feel embarrassed.

That day, Jooyoung sat behind the driver’s seat instead of his usual spot behind the passenger seat. It was the seat where he could see Sungwoon better. Sungwoon, too, stayed turned toward him until they arrived.

He couldn’t recall exactly what they talked about that day, but he vividly remembered the smell of gasoline that came in when Joosung opened the door, the sunlight stinging his eyes, and the tall buildings flying by on Teheran-ro.

Even after they started dating, every time Jooyoung passed Teheran-ro, that day came back to him. Sungwoon would sometimes joke that it was lucky Joosung had filled the tank that day—otherwise, maybe Jooyoung wouldn’t have asked for his number.

Their relationship was smooth. That is, until Jooyoung’s secret came out.

Jooyoung wanted to be like Sungwoon. His calmness and maturity were things Jooyoung didn’t have. He admired them. So he imitated them.

He tried not to show his instability or hypersensitivity, but it wasn’t easy being immature. Still, Sungwoon was good at calming Jooyoung’s sharp edges, saying that everyone was like that at his age. He rarely got angry.

So Jooyoung told him, for the first time, about Joomin.

Jooyoung always had a hard time because of Joomin, but he couldn’t confide in anyone because feeling that way made him feel like a bad person. But Sungwoon—somehow, Jooyoung felt like he would say exactly what Jooyoung wanted to hear.

“But Jooyoung… he’s still your family. Your brother. No matter how hard it is for you, it’s not harder than it is for someone who’s physically disabled, right? If you keep saying it’s hard, it’ll only get harder. Why don’t you try changing the way you think?”

His hopes were crushed.

As always, Sungwoon spoke gently and maturely. But he never said what Jooyoung really wanted to hear. He was clearly an outsider. He talked like it was someone else’s problem, from another world.

Jooyoung began to realize the difference between them. What he had that Sungwoon didn’t was “absence”.

The reason Sungwoon was always so composed was that he had never lacked anything. He didn’t have a hole in his heart.

Even so, Jooyoung still liked him. He still wanted to be like him. Sungwoon loved and cherished him, too. 

The first time Sungwoon found out about Jooyoung’s kleptomania, it was the first time Jooyoung saw him visibly shaken. Watching him lose his usual composure, Jooyoung felt both exhilaration and shame.

“You’re sick. That’s all it is.”

But Sungwoon quickly regained his calm. Like how coughing and fevers come with a cold, he said it was just a symptom. He repeated it several times, maybe more to himself than to Jooyoung.

The first thing he did was suggest they switch hospitals. He kept moving hospitals until Jooyoung finally said the medication seemed to help.

He was more proactive than Jooyoung’s own family. Whenever Sungwoon comforted him or said he could get better, Jooyoung could feel the sincerity. When Jooyoung dozed off like a sick chick from the meds, Sungwoon looked heartbroken, as if it were his own pain.

But even through all of it, Sungwoon never asked—not even once—why Jooyoung stole, what the reason was. Like his family, he only tried to fix the broken shell. He fixated on hospitals and medicine.

Maybe, in Sungwoon’s world, that was the mature thing to do. Not digging into someone’s pain, just treating it like an illness.

Jooyoung’s kleptomania didn’t heal easily. When the stress built up, the impulse surged, and it always led to incidents. Even with medication, it happened.

Conflict had more than enough power to eat away at affection. Like dousing a blazing fire with water, their love gradually cooled. As sensitive as he was, Jooyoung noticed the change faster than anyone. Things became unstable, and as a result, his impulses grew harder to control. It was a vicious cycle.

“Jooyoung, can I be honest? I just don’t understand what you’re so unhappy about.”

Born into a wealthy family, blessed with good looks that turned heads, and holding a respectable job.

“What do you think people who live paycheck to paycheck would say if they saw you?”

There was a lot of meaning packed into the words Sungwoon left unsaid. Normally, Jooyoung would have snapped back sharply, but this time, he couldn’t bring himself to argue.

Even with someone beside him, he felt completely alone. And when the incident finally happened, the last faint ember of love was snuffed out. Thick smoke billowed between them, and the more Jooyoung breathed, the more his chest ached.

The day Sungwoon said they should break up, Jooyoung shouted, enraged.

“You said it was okay! You said I was sick and just needed to get better! And now you’re walking away?”

He thought it was cowardly. He knew it wasn’t Sungwoon’s fault, but still resented him. He couldn’t accept the breakup. What had kept him standing through all the chaos—his impulses, his family’s worry, even the trial—was Sungwoon’s support. But at the hardest moment, he let go.

“Bae Jooyoung, do you think this is the time for you to be dating?”

Had he ever heard Sungwoon’s voice that cold?

“Take care of your life first.”

That was all he said before turning away. The end was quick and final.

Jooyoung hadn’t stopped him because he knew Sungwoon was right. He had to fix his life, which was starting to spiral down. It wasn’t the time to lean on love like a crutch.

But how?

Just reaching out didn’t mean you could hold on. He still didn’t know what to do to turn things back to how they were before. He desperately wished someone would tell him.

He locked himself in his room and did nothing. He didn’t eat, didn’t shower. From behind the closed door, he could hear the sound of his parents and Joosung arguing endlessly. Sometimes, even Joomin’s voice mixed in.

Ironically, the only one who took Jooyoung’s side was Joomin. Saying that more than ever, family needed to stay united. That Jooyoung was the one suffering the most right now. When Jooyoung heard that, he might’ve laughed loudly.

“Let’s take a break for a year. Jooyoung, you need time to cool off, too.”

In the end, they decided to send him to Maeyang, where his grandpa lived. Jooyoung resisted repeatedly, but Joosung didn’t back down. He scolded him harshly, asking if he really wanted to defy their parents even after seeing their faces.

That was the first time he saw how exhausted his parents were. Standing behind Joosung, they couldn’t even meet his eyes. That silence, that avoidance, said everything.

So he packed his things and went to Maeyang.

Before leaving, he debated many times whether to contact Sungwoon. He resented him for walking away when things got hard. He wanted to confirm that Sungwoon was still fine and scream out a curse fueled by spite.

But Jooyoung did nothing. He wanted to leave his life before the collapse untouched. He didn’t want to ruin it any further.

And just like that, his relationship—and his life in Seoul—came to an end. A hollow ending, at that.