INM 7 Part 1

Chapter 7 In My Own Words 

The young man led me to a casual dining bar a short walk north of my office. The lights were set brighter than usual for this time of night, reflecting off the off-white walls and creating a soft atmosphere throughout the place. The green of the obviously fake potted plants looked even more out of place against the night lighting, but strangely, the cheapness was somehow comforting. It was a flavor I liked. This bright, friendly and unobtrusive interior was a salvation for me right now. 

I deliberately looked at the menu, trying not to give the young man a rude look. Despite my exhaustion, I couldn’t find anything appealing on the menu. I could only say that the prices were quite reasonable. Judging from the interior of the store and the prices, the target customers were probably mostly students. In fact, most of the customers looked like they had just left their teens.

I ordered a gimlet from a well-built clerk with dark brown hair in a ponytail. I took a sip of the gin-based cocktail that was soon brought to me, then put the glass down immediately.

“There’s no other place in Brisbane where you can get dinner for this price.”

Ethan smiled leisurely in front of a pile of carbohydrates… no, a Fridge full of Genovese that looked like something a young person would like. There was no hesitation in his words, and his voice was strong. It was hard to believe that he was the same person who had been muttering venomously.

After a pause, I looked at him again. His clothes and hairstyle were quite different from when I met him at the university, but his reddish-brown hair, hazel eyes with a slight green tint, and well-defined nose and chin were the same. The bangs that had covered his face like thick curtains were neatly styled, revealing a somewhat nondescript, well-ordered face.

Swallowing my words about the fries being unnecessary, I simply confirmed the young man’s words.

“Yeah, it’s pretty cheap.”

The corner of the young man’s mouth turned down slightly at my comment. A faint line between his eyebrows cast a shadow, and his eyes scanned as if to check the accuracy of my comment. Two hazel eyes, used to observing others directly, looked at me.

When I was young, I often received such looks. Assessing eyes, directed at something other than oneself.

As I received this look with a somewhat cold feeling, the young man finally casually looked away from me and picked up his glass. A grapefruit floated in the short, rectangular tumbler, and white crystals were sparsely smeared around the rim, reflecting the light dullly. There were faint, fog-like drops of water on the surface of the glass, and Ethan’s thumb wiped the surface as if to clear the mist.

Keeping his eyes on the salty dog, the young man spoke.

“Why did you decide to follow me?”

I just shrugged and picked up my gimlet again. The refreshing, cool lime and the smooth taste of the gin. It was much sweeter than the gimlet at Alexandra’s, and it wasn’t satisfying enough for me, who wanted a dry alcohol.

Why had I decided to follow him? It was indeed puzzling to me. Was I in a state of giving up thinking like Kasim and Victor said?

No, I didn’t think so. I couldn’t explain it to myself, but for the first time in a few days I felt a small sense of accomplishment that I had made a decision for myself.

I didn’t know what kind of results would come from that small sense of accomplishment, but I wouldn’t regret those results.

Giving up on getting an answer, I turned to the young man and spoke.

“I don’t know either.”

As he eagerly moved his fork around the nearly empty plate, the young man scoffed at my statement. Though the hostility was the same, his relaxed expression and gestures were very different from the one I knew. Was this young man really the shy Ethan who had exchanged sarcastic remarks with Kasim at the university?

I felt the same distance I felt when I met a stranger. I shook off this feeling of incongruity and continued.

“More than that, is the story you want to tell me tonight about Alan?”

“Yes.” Ethan replied flatly. He stuffed the fork that had pierced the Fridge into his large mouth and continued. “It seems we’ve both seen different sides of Alan. I wanted to hear about the Alan you knew.”

I wasn’t stupid enough to miss the implied meaning. He thinks that this is the last chance to talk to me. I mostly agree. Sam must have done a good job. He cornered this young man just like he did me. So much so that he even lost the will to cover it up.

That he had a hand in Alan’s death.

It wasn’t surprising. I had a vague feeling about it from the moment he showed up at my apartment. But I also felt a sense of frustration. At the same time, the fact that the person who had completely destroyed Alan’s future and possibilities had taken shape in front of me strangely eased the guilt that had been eating away at me. And that guilt was gradually replaced by a thin anger.

Perhaps because my senses were sharpened, I could feel the movements of my own heart as clearly as if I could touch it. Is there no word to describe the experience of knowing your own ugliness, like “knowing ignorance”? Something like “knowing vulgarity”. 

Not noticing that I was just breathing without opening my mouth, the young man slowly clasped his hands together. Immediately, he unclasped them and scratched the inside of his right wrist with a motion like folding his arms. I pretended not to notice the movement and kept my eyes on his olive eyes, so similar to mine. 

“I want to ask you something about Alan as well.”

“Please go ahead.”

“Do you think Alan was happy?”

“What kind of question is that?” Ethan frowned, looking completely disdainful. “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. And I’m not interested.”

The reason I didn’t jump at him was because I knew those words were meant to provoke me. It was then that I finally realized the full meaning of Alan’s death. Alan was unjustly robbed of everything. All his opportunities and his future were completely taken away. And that’s not all. I, Alan’s friends, and Maria, too, were robbed of him forever in our own lives. 

Instead of the small memories we were supposed to build with the young man, we were given a future filled with endless regrets that we couldn’t help but think about. I should have been nicer, I should have spent more time with him, I should have accepted all his invitations, and I should have fulfilled all his wishes… just like Chloe and Victor, I should be grateful for what I gained from my relationship with Alan and look forward to the future.

But I, and probably Maria as well, don’t want anything we learned or were given from his death, and we just want that clumsy young man’s future back. After feeling numb just a moment ago, a strong emotion suddenly colored the scene before me red. Fortunately, my mind went blank and I couldn’t speak. Before I said anything unnecessary, I had to concentrate on what was in front of me. Be calm, as I had always been since I started working as an independent interior designer.

The scene before me came back into focus. Somehow Ethan’s plate was empty. A burly waiter came over and took the plate, and the young man placed a dirty napkin on it from the edge of the table. In this casual gesture, I suddenly remembered a conversation I had with Alan when we first met.

The first thing I realized was that he was exactly like my high school classmate.

The young man, who had been dragged out of Alexandra’s shop in an incredibly tacky outfit, had lamented with a look of desperation that went beyond tragedy. He introduced himself simply as Alan.

He’s definitely a bad guy. I can tell. He’s definitely the same kind of person as my dad.

I think I asked Alan what he meant by “the same kind”.

I stared at his hand movements for a while, narrowing my eyes at my intuition, which seemed to be spot on at times like this.

“Ethan… weren’t you a specialist in information?”

Ethan’s brow furrowed at the sudden, irrelevant question.

“So what?”

“You know, stuff about VPNs, servers, stuff like that?”

“More than the average person.”

“I see.”

I lowered my eyes, placing the joints of my index and middle fingers at the corners of my eyes to feign eye strain. As I took another deep breath and opened my eyes slightly, I saw the young man’s hand move slightly, spasmodically. It was his left hand.

At first I just noticed that he was left-handed, like my high school classmate.

The young man touched the cup of salty dog with his right hand in front of me. There were still about three centimeters of lemon-yellow liquid left at the bottom, but it would be empty in two more sips. The somewhat stoic Anglo-Saxon impression of his face, his completely calm demeanor, and the lack of ease in his clothes were incongruous and striking. I was reminded of Alan’s mother, Maria. And for some reason the image of Paul Maxwell, whom I had never seen, overlapped with the figure of the young man sitting in front of me.

Ah, so that’s how it is.

“You were Alan’s lover?”

Ethan laughed nervously. I could tell what that laugh, which seemed to set all my nerves on edge, meant. It felt like the essence of everything I disliked about myself was being presented to me. The owner of the hand that offered it was probably Alan. I couldn’t help but feel that Ethan and I were now facing each other at Alan’s behest.

After hesitating for a few seconds, I decided to open up to the young man as he wished. 

“So you wanted to hear about Alan from my perspective. I met Alan for the first time three months ago. Most of his talk was about his father, but he told me a few other things as well… He told me about you when we first met.”

He’s really annoying.

After complaining for a while about the possibility of liking men, Alan finally started talking about the person who had caused it. 

He’s always talking about time efficiency, cost efficiency and stuff like that. He’d always butt in and say things like, “You’ve got to get a return on your time investment”, or “People who pay fees are idiots.”

I watched with a smile as Alan continued to complain without stopping.

And then, Luke, when I realized it, I couldn’t believe it. I think he was trying to hit on me.

“When I heard about you from Alan, I thought you were some kind of “muscular priest”.

Ethan’s eyes darkened suspiciously. He seemed to notice the slight sarcasm in my words, but couldn’t quite grasp their meaning. 

“A priest…?”

“I thought you looked like the priest in my town. He’s respected by everyone in town, people ask his opinion, and he’s always in the center of town.” 

Though confused by my affirmation, Ethan didn’t seem to mind, and his face softened slightly. He’s still immature. If he were a little more experienced as an adult, he would have realized that I myself was not one of those “people in the city”. 

Thomas, an old friend of my grandmother’s, was a bit difficult to understand and had a delicate way of caring for others. By the time I was old enough to remember, his hair was white and the top of his head was bald. When he found out that Brian and I were gay, he worried unnecessarily about us, even though we weren’t particularly troubled by it, and came to tell us that “God blesses you regardless of your sexual orientation.”

The bitter feeling I had when he visited me then still lingered in me. At that time I was still immature and could only express my resentment toward the “big old man” in front of me as “arrogant”. 

Now I understand. I resented his attitude of never doubting that his values were right. I hated him and envied him at the same time. An adult who was given good things from the beginning of his life and grew up without questioning them. On the other hand, I was forced to constantly question my own assumptions and had to learn everything from scratch. 

When we parted, Thomas said to me, “Thanks to you, I have another friend.” I think he meant Alexandra. It was this pushy priest who connected us with “Max Anderson” who had been living quietly in this small town for some time. 

Unconsciously, I reached for the cup. A cool sensation of water clung to my fingertips.

“Alan asked me for advice about dating you. I told him to stop seeing you. I told him to find someone to connect with in a gentler way.”

I stopped just before I put the gimlet in my mouth. I hesitated for two seconds before continuing.

“I gave Alan a lot of advice that I can’t even remember myself. I was happy to be relied upon by a polite young man. It felt like proof that I had grown.”

I took a sip from the glass, pouring out the honest feelings I had never been able to tell anyone before, and probably never would again. A cold stream of alcohol flowed from my mouth to my chin and I wiped it away with the back of my hand in disgust. It was ironic. The only person I could confide in with the honest feelings I couldn’t admit to the police, my best friend, or even myself was this young man who had taken Alan’s life.