M 86

Ki Tae-jeong took a short deep breath and opened the office door. He was about to call out to Sehwa right away. He intended to say something cliché like “Did you rest well?” or “How are you feeling?” He knew Sehwa would be crying, so he wanted to comfort him as gently as possible.

However, his lips trembled but wouldn’t open. “Sehwa.” He had called him that easily in front of his subordinates, but now he couldn’t utter a single sentence in front of him. “Honey,” such an embarrassing term of endearment would have been easier. It was closer to teasing.

But now he knew all too well why Sehwa had chosen to be called “honey” instead of his  name in the bunker, and why he  had later asked if he couldn’t call him by name… Now, it wasn’t as easy as he thought to casually drop his surname and call him  “Sehwa.”

Frustrated, Ki Tae-jeong kept rubbing his dry face. “Shit. The timing is fucked up.” Why did this have to happen now? He had been thinking he didn’t want to make him cry anymore, that he wanted to keep Sehwa by his side as much as possible.

He had been sincere when he said he would explain everything after the trial was over. Even if not immediately, he was planning to be honest soon. If he wanted to stay with Sehwa, if he wanted to take responsibility as he had told him, not just play around and discard him, he couldn’t keep deceiving him forever.

At first, he had thought lightly of Sehwa. Looking back, there had been oddly concerning points for quite some time… But back then, even he didn’t know what to call these feelings. That’s why he had pushed him, sometimes teased him, and often made him cry. …If he were to find some sort of excuse, that would be it.

In fact, he already knew very well. In the end, all these stories could be shortened to just one word: sorry.

Ki Tae-jeong, trying to hide his nervousness, unnecessarily took off and put on his uniform hat as he passed through the entrance hallway towards the living room. He felt that elaborating on why he had been deceiving Sehwa would only hurt him  more, but simply saying sorry seemed too insincere.

Only now does he realize. This isn’t like a battle that can be recovered from. It wasn’t a fight where you could pay back what was taken, or discuss compensation if there were mistakes. The emotions he shared with Sehwa were closer to individual lives than that. Something that, once wilted, cannot be replaced by anything else, irreversible forever.

“I’m back.”

Suppressing the turmoil in his heart, the first words he chose were so stiff and blunt that even Ki Tae-jeong was dismayed.

“…Lee Sehwa.”

Sehwa was sitting on the sofa, curled up. Though he  must have sensed his presence, he  didn’t turn to look at him. His round back of the head sticking up was cute but pitiful, and somehow had an ability that made one’s heart ache.

Ki Tae-jeong suddenly felt he understood why Sehwa could only breathe comfortably in his arms. As soon as he recognized his presence, strangely, some of the tension eased. As soon as his head, not his nose, recognized that Sehwa’s scent filled the air, he felt like he could finally live.

It wasn’t even 6 o’clock yet, and since it was summer, the days had grown quite long, but the house was still dim. Even considering it was a 4-Hwan, this place was particularly lacking in sunlight.

A red and black sunset cast over the unlit office. With each step closer to the sofa, Ki Tae-jeong’s elongated shadow cut like a knife through Sehwa’s round, flowing shadow.

“…How are you feeling?”

After staring blankly at Sehwa, whose face looked as if it had been repeatedly stabbed with something sharp, Ki Tae-jeong plopped down on the opposite sofa.

Sehwa only raised his  head, his  gaze still averted. Seeing his  downcast eyes all red, it seemed he  had been crying continuously even when he couldn’t see him.

Looking back, there had been several moments of discord. It was always he who made Sehwa cry. He had sliced his heart repeatedly with a blade on his tongue. Knowing he would be hurt, no, deliberately choosing hurtful words to throw at him.

Yet Sehwa always reached out first. Either chattering away with nonsense while shrunk up and watching his reactions, or wishing for incredibly small things. And at the end of it all, what he ended up with was an even greater affection than before.

Now that Sehwa was treating him like an inanimate object, Ki Tae-jeong, who was already struggling to find his bearings, found it even harder to open his mouth. The only consolation was that the bag he always carried like a part of his body was sitting quietly next to him. At least he  intends to return together. At the same time, a selfish sense of satisfaction also crept in. Yes, Lee Sehwa likes me. In the end, he  still likes me.

Ki Tae-jeong cleared his throat a few times, bringing his clenched fist to his mouth. He debated whether to acknowledge the gown that had fallen at his feet, but decided to pretend not to notice it.

Suddenly, he recalled the day he first allowed Sehwa to go out. His young face, desperately searching for him in the darkness, with a plastic bag dangling from his wrist after eating a 3,000 won ice cream. His white body, which seemed truly his, which he had explored for a long time after making him take off his clothes under the pretext of an examination.

There was also a time when he had held and comforted Sehwa when he was upset because of Boss Son. They had sat side by side doing special makeup, and once, curious about what he  called “that thing” that he  did better than sex, he had asked Sehwa to reenact how he  dealt with customers.

Quite a lot of memories had accumulated even on this one sofa. The problem is that it doesn’t seem like these can be called fond memories…

Ki Tae-jeong placed a heavy shopping bag on the table. He had imagined what if he had done this, what if he had done that… But one can’t turn back time, can they? If there’s nothing you can change, all you can do is move forward. He just needs to treat him better than before. He just needs to comfort him well. After all, Sehwa didn’t fall for him without knowing what kind of person he was.

“…Shall we talk as we go?”

“…”

“I think you might have something you want to ask me.”

Sehwa slowly raised his head as if he had heard something unbelievable. Staring at Ki Tae-jeong with his back to the ominously flickering light, he let out a cold laugh.

After laughing like that for a while, Sehwa suddenly dropped his head. He  rested his  forehead on his  knees for a moment to catch his  breath, then straightened his curled-up body. Truly straight. His  direct gaze conveyed an indescribable resolve.

“Why bother probing? You seem to already guess what I’ve found out.”

“…I don’t know exactly what you heard or where.”

“…”

“I thought something was odd when you asked such an out-of-the-blue question… I just guessed that you must have heard something shocking, either from the doctor Lieutenant Kim planted or from Oh Seon-ran… That’s why you even collapsed. And I,”

“Brigadier General…”

Cutting off his words as if he didn’t want to hear them, Sehwa chewed his lips, hard enough to draw blood.

Sehwa had been wearing these clothes a few days ago too. It was the same outfit he had on when he fled like someone being driven out from the Ministry of Defense infirmary to the house. He had clearly sent someone to bring his clothes to change into and other necessities, but it seemed he hadn’t touched them. Well, he had only been wearing a gown while here, so there was no need to look for new clothes.

But seeing Sehwa not much different from a few days ago made it feel like time hadn’t passed. It felt like any other day before this unexpected rift occurred, as if anything could be undone. He kept wanting to believe that.

“Is that all? Don’t you… have anything to say to me?”

But it seemed Sehwa didn’t feel the same. He was trembling slightly as if he had just woken from a terrible nightmare. No, he looked like someone who had woken from a sweet dream to face a hellish reality.

“…I was going to explain everything. But your current state,”

“You said it clearly. That you didn’t want anything like a child.”

“…”

“That if you had known, you would have been careful about contraception, that you really didn’t know.”

His voice was firm as he cut off Ki Tae-jeong’s words, not wanting to hear them.

“Of course I didn’t believe that. I thought… there must be something. Yeah, even if you didn’t know at first, you must have noticed later. After thoroughly enjoying yourself inside me, you only realized later that my body had changed, that’s what I thought… But the excuses you added seemed sincere, so I thought… ah, things must have gone wrong unexpectedly…”

“…”

“…But this, it’s not just a matter of you knowing everything from the beginning.”

His chin trembled as if holding back tears. Every time Sehwa squeezed his eyes shut and opened them, every time the inner part of his lips turned pale white, it felt like the emotions he  had been holding were crumbling away.

“How can a person be like this, how can someone be this cruel…?”

Ki Tae-jeong could say nothing and just silently watched this sorrowful collapse. He could do nothing. Except blankly observe his eyes that had boiled to the limit and were now slowly cooling… There was nothing he could do.

“Did you enjoy it? Every time I said I liked you, not knowing how I was being treated inside… You must have thought, what a fool,” Sehwa finally cried.

“It’s not like that.”

“…”

“Lee Sehwa,”

“You don’t know… with what feelings…”

“…”

“What resolve I made to accept liking you… You don’t know.”

You don’t know. You couldn’t know. You probably didn’t want to know such things. His  sorrowful words were broken up, muffled by swallowed sobs. Sehwa covered his mouth with his  hand and tried to steady his  gasping breath. As if he had lost even more weight in this short time, his sleeve cuff that was looser than before slid down his arm.

…Ki Tae-jeong could no longer make any calculations. Without measuring this or that, his mouth opened.

I’m sorry. Sehwa, I’m sorry.

The words he had hesitated to say so many times were about to burst out on their own.

“I’ve been thinking hard all this time. Because I wanted to give back to you exactly the same.”

However, Sehwa, who was thoroughly heated up, seemed to have no intention of giving Ki Tae-jeong any more chances.

“But… I realized it would be useless. I have no money, no power, I’m not smart… I have nothing…”

Sehwa looked at his empty hands, then slowly turned his head towards Ki Tae-jeong. His  gloomy eyes swept over the rank insignia on his chest.

“Besides, you regard me not as a person but as valuable evidence… How could I give you the same pain that I received?”

“I told you it’s not like that!”

Ki Tae-jeong meant to say he was sorry, that he had been sorry. But in the end, he ended up denying it as if shouting.

“Fuck, I…”

He didn’t want to appear threatening. It was becoming increasingly difficult to bear Sehwa’s gaze, which was growing colder. He felt like he knew what his calm expression, which he had never seen before, implied. He had resolved to listen to anything, to slowly work things out, but in his impatience, he shouted first.

“It’s true that at first I didn’t think much of you, that I saw you as a means, that I didn’t treat you as a person. But…”

“…”

“You know it’s not like that anymore.”

“…”

“Compared to before, I’ve changed a lot, I don’t treat you carelessly anymore.”

“…”

“…You know that.”

To this pitiful confession wrung out of him, Sehwa blinked quietly. With each brief moment, various colors flashed across his sorrowful pupils as if changing film… And in the end, what remained was an empty black.

“…No, I don’t know.”

Sehwa hurriedly lowered his head as if he hadn’t heard anything. Then he  rolled up his sleeve to his shoulder.

“I don’t want to know anymore.”

On his exposed thin arm were several lines of patches wrapped around. Just like an old charm.