DI Ch 212

I stared at him, still in deep sleep, and whispered softly:

“I threw away all the photos of me that you put in those weird frames, hyung.”

Oh, he’s frowning. It’s not immediate, but there’s a delayed reaction.

“I’m joking.”

Though his groaning is cute, I don’t want to torment him, so I should stop.

“I was afraid you’d bring them back if I threw them away, so I burned them all.”

“That…”

“This is also a joke.”

I shouldn’t be mischievous, but his reactions are so cute I can’t stop. But now I really should stop. Feeling sorry for the furrowed brow that had just relaxed, I gently tapped between his eyebrows to soothe him. Since I feel bad, maybe I’ll let those secretly taken photos slide. Though he went ahead and printed them out and displayed them in front of me without my permission, but well. I started to consider whether I should call it brazen or insensitive that he openly displayed photos that weren’t even front-facing, but I gave up.

“Hyung, I just had a dream. Remember when we went to see the night sea long ago? I dreamed about that time.”

On the way home after school, how surprised was I when you suddenly suggested we go see the sea? Just the two of us. By train, no less. The only thing that worried me was the test scheduled for the next day. Of course, the time I spent worrying turned out to be pointless – with just one word asking what I was worried about, and one smile, I immediately followed you.

It might sound irresponsible, but as you said, it turned out fine in the end. I had studied regularly, and if I had just paid attention in class, there was no way I could have gotten the questions wrong. Even if that wasn’t the case, I couldn’t have said no. To break from routine and take a train to see the night sea, and it was you, not anyone else, who suggested it – how could I say no? Especially when it was just to me, only to me…

“Now that you have a car, we don’t really need to take the train, but thinking back to that time makes me want to ride it again. You know, it was so quiet on the way back, with just the two of us. I liked that.”

There seemed to be something romantic about the night sea. I was enveloped in it, feeling dazed the entire way back. Riding the last train home, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were the only two people left in the world.

“It was really nice…”

It was nice, but now I’m hungry. I sat up, interrupting my reminiscing. My stomach, forgetting yesterday’s indigestion, sent signals that it was completely empty. Out of habit, I peered into the hallway, and the now-familiar houseman approached silently. As if this wasn’t the first time, before I could even greet him, he said in a soft voice that strawberries had just arrived and asked if I’d like some. I quickly said yes.

Was it since I started exercising? I began waking up hungry more often. Most of the time I’d ignore it and go back to sleep, but occasionally there were nights like this when I wanted to eat something. Ah, heart-shaped strawberries. I rummaged through the basket of strawberries and returned to bed, spending a leisurely dawn with the sleeping face at the edge of my vision.

Suddenly, my hand holding a strawberry caught my eye. More precisely, the neatly trimmed, tidy nails. When did he do this? I looked at hyung, bewildered. There shouldn’t have been time to do this without me knowing. Does he still wake up occasionally while sleeping?

I thought about offering to do his nails, but they were already closely trimmed as if done yesterday, deflating my enthusiasm. As I interlaced my fingers and clicked my tongue briefly, I met his half-open eyes. Thinking it was perfect timing, I bit into a heart-shaped strawberry and moved it to his lips. He started chewing quietly. As he chewed, he seemed to become more alert, and questions arose in his blank face that had seemed thoughtless before.

“They say strawberries are good on an empty stomach.”

“…”

Two beats later, another question arose. When I prompted him to open his mouth with an “Ah,” he reacted two beats late again and opened his mouth. He responds quite well when spoken to at times like this.

“Hyung.”

“Mm…”

“Yesterday, you told me not to ask anything no matter what I heard when I went out.”

“Mm…”

“But can’t I ask now?”

“…”

Though he only moved his lips without replying, seeming sleepy, I could tell the answer was no.

Enduring, just letting things slide, is the easy path. Once you start doing it once or twice, other paths don’t easily come into view. But this path is one that can’t move forward, always treading in place. Maybe that’s why I can’t help but be childish. You kept saying I was young, and then you made me grow up with mirror therapy, and I felt so grateful that it made me furious. No, I could just stop enduring, couldn’t I? Let’s see you try just enduring from now on.

“Hyung, was it really because of the drug that day?”

“Mm…”

Ah, shit. Being double-checked (confirmed) like this makes me feel even more wronged and sorry – I feel like I could die. I don’t want to love a kind person or a good person. I just want the person I love to be kind to me. But this kind of kindness seemed to come from a love so deep and profound. Too deep for me to even attempt to follow. If it were me, I wouldn’t have thought to cover up something that wasn’t even my fault, especially in such an unfair situation.

“When did you find out?”

“…Later.”

When is later? For a moment, I felt so frustrated that I pressed without realizing it.

“Was it before or after I was kidnapped?”

“…”

As soon as I asked, he frowned, then tossed and turned as if having a nightmare, making pained noises. Judging by his reaction to just the word “kidnapped,” it must be traumatic. I felt so sorry for him, so I stroked his head hard and patted his chest to calm him down. My lack of thoughtfulness only ended up tormenting him needlessly.

Perhaps because my bustling about rubbing here and there was bothersome, hyung finally woke up and pulled me into his arms, trapping me.

“What are you doing…”

His voice, hoarse from just waking up, was lower and rougher than usual, making my chest feel ticklish. To be honest, I like this moment so much that I want to stay close until he wakes up fully.

“I was just touching you.”

“You asked something weird again, didn’t you?”

“What do you mean, again? Anyway, I didn’t.”

At my words, Tae Seong-je opened his eyes halfway and kissed me.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Wait, why do I taste strawberries? Did you feed me strawberries?”

“They say strawberries are good on an empty stomach.”

“I heard that in my dream just now.”

“Did you dream about me? Wow, I dreamed about you too.”

Can’t get away from each other even in dreams. We giggled facing each other and rolled around on the bed. I was careful not to accidentally get pinned down. When hyung got on top of me and looked at me… Sometimes his face overlapped with the image of his dead face, and I couldn’t help but break out in a cold sweat.

As we were fooling around for a while, hyung stared at me intently and then let out a deep sigh first thing in the morning. He’s been very troubled lately, I wondered if he has something on his mind. I’ve only seen gangster business in movies, never in real life, so even though I want to share his worry, it was such an abstract image that I couldn’t even empathize. Still, I could at least listen, so I asked what was wrong, and if someone was giving him trouble. Tae Seong-je said:

“You…”

“…”

“You’re the one giving me trouble…”

He closed his eyes and said it again. He said that I didn’t do rehabilitation, that I’m thinking about the lottery and other things when I should focus on my health, that I’m up to all sorts of tricks with just my book smarts. He seems to get sleepy again as his voice gets drowsier and quieter, but then he becomes impassioned at the end.

“You sound like a lawyer. Is the law a joke?”

…said the gangster. I restrained myself from adding that. As if we hadn’t just been rolling around playing, he drifts back to sleep asking where the good Seo Seung-won went, and I held back once more. If I said I left him on the mountain last winter and came down alone, it would hurt his feelings.

“Be a doctor. A doctor. At least say you’ll be a doctor…”

“Can just anyone be a doctor?”

“Can just anyone be a lawyer?”

Oh, it’s been a while since he’s been irritated like this. I playfully asked if he was getting annoyed at me now, and he hugged me tightly I thought I was going to burst.

“Ah, no strength, hyung, no strength!”

“Stop that already. I know you’re doing it on purpose.”

I know that you know. I knew I was caught a long time ago, but it was fun to see him hesitate every time, so I kept doing it, but now you really seem annoyed. I said I understood and wouldn’t do it anymore, then found my phone and a video call to “My Hyung.”

“Hyung, sleep a bit more. I’m just going for a quick run. I’ll be back before you wake up. I left the phone by your pillow.”

“Don’t go…”

“Don’t hold me back every morning. It really makes me not want to go.”

“Then don’t go…”

He muttered to the pillow, saying if I wanted to run, I should wake him up and we could go together. I want to stay by his side too, but I’m the one who feels like dying if I don’t expend energy first thing in the morning. Even on days when my knee bothered me, I felt like I had to run to survive. I’ve stopped taking medicine, I eat only good things, and with exercise, I’m brimming with energy. I wish I could release it right here in this bed.

I planted a deep kiss on his eyes that had closed like a baby’s, changed clothes, and went outside. Maybe I’ll go for a walk or a run with Sand. Not sure if it’ll be okay, but I decided to go in, deeper in, tracing my memories with the thought of deciding once I got there. Actually, having a phone while running is just cumbersome. Moreover, it’s inside the house, and one of us is running while the other is sleeping, so we’re not even looking at the screen. Yet, the reason we do this is clearly because there are times when we want to feel each other’s presence. When I paused to catch my breath or when I opened my eyes to an empty spot next to me, just hearing their breathing or the sound of them moving gave me a sense of relief. I felt this way, and so did he. I’m not sure how long this will continue or if it’ll be like this forever, but for now, it’s fine. Maybe it’s because I’m not the only one feeling this way.