TWELVE 35

“Are you okay?”

As soon as I returned to the hall, Yoon Kijun asked cautiously. I nodded. I couldn’t manage to manufacture a fake expression. I must have looked miserable. That was exactly how I felt. But what could I do? I had to work, and Gi Seoin was a customer.

Gi Seoin ordered an ade every hour until closing time.

“…I’ll go tell him the shop is closing.”

“Shall I go instead?”

Lee Dami asked, but I said I would do it. It was out of a ridiculous stubbornness that I should take responsibility for my own share.

I burst into the room without even knocking. Gi Seoin showed no sign of surprise.

“It’s closing time. Go now.”

As soon as I finished speaking, Gi Seoin stood up immediately. It was a very leisurely gesture. He had always been that kind of person. He acts relaxed even in urgent situations, and acts coldly while his eyes are brimming with emotion.

I was only able to breathe properly after Gi Seoin had completely left Benwood.

“Good job, everyone!”

“You worked hard!”

Lately, I had been exceptionally tired. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was on the verge of reaching my limit, both emotionally and physically. Perhaps because I was in a weakened state, the late autumn wind felt as cold as ice. I hunched my shoulders while waiting for the night bus. There were 8 minutes left until the bus arrived.

Instead of the bus I was waiting for, a car I hadn’t expected at all stopped in front of me. Even before checking the license plate, I knew whose car it was, and my brow furrowed instantly.

Through the lowered car window, Gi Seoin and I locked eyes.

“Seungkyung, get in.”

“Don’t you know you shouldn’t stop a car at a bus stop?”

“I know. So get in quickly.”

“Go.”

“I’ll wait until you get in.”

Coincidentally, there were three other people besides me at the stop. Furthermore, a bus was approaching from behind. Uncomfortable gazes began to gather. How cowardly. Gi Seoin knows all too well that I hate causing trouble for others.

Having no choice, I opened the passenger door and got inside.

“Satisfied? Now go quickly.”

Before I could even finish pronouncing “quickly,” Gi Seoin had already stepped on the accelerator. I lowered the car window that Gi Seoin had closed. The wind I wanted to avoid earlier because it was cold was now desperately needed. It was because my chest felt suffocated and my temperature was rising.

“Let me out now.”

“If I were going to let you out here, I wouldn’t have made you get in.”

“Right, you shouldn’t have made me get in then.”

“That wasn’t among my options.”

“…Good for you.”

I pressed my body against the door as much as possible and stared only out the window. Even so, Gi Seoin’s presence was so clearly readable that it made me irritable.

I watched the outside without exchanging another word, when suddenly the back of my head felt tingly. Gi Seoin’s car was driving on a road completely different from the direction of our neighborhood.

“Hey, where are you going?”

Gi Seoin did not answer. What is he trying to do?

“I’m asking where you’re going right now!”

Even to my own ears, my voice was full of anger. Perhaps thanks to that, only then did Gi Seoin glance at me.

“Let’s go for a drive.”

“Just as you please?”

“Yeah. Go somewhere quiet and have a conversation.”

“Did I say I would? I hate it. Turn the car around.”

“Even if you hate it, bear with it.”

Bear with it? For a moment, I was so stunned that no words would come out.

“…Wow, you’re really shameless. Gi Seoin.”

“The more you run away, the more shameless I’ll become.”

“I’m not running away, I’m refusing.”

“If you refuse, I’ll act even more tiresome.”

In the meantime, Gi Seoin’s car entered the highway. I screamed.

“This is kidnapping!”

“Even if it’s kidnapping, I’ll do anything.”

Because not a trace of bravado could be seen in Gi Seoin’s expression or tone, it felt even more sincere, and for that reason, it was terrifying.

“You really…”

My throat kept tightening, so I swallowed hard.

“You’ve gone crazy.”

At that moment, Gi Seoin’s eyes swept over me.

“Did you only just realize that?”

“Why did it turn out like this?”

“You shouldn’t be the one asking that.”

“Are you saying I made it this way?”

“Do you hope it’s not the case?”

There was no point in talking further. With things like this, what kind of conversation does he want to have? It didn’t seem like we could go back to the way things were even if we did talk.

Gi Seoin’s car stopped after driving for a few more minutes. It looked like a park parking lot. Even at a glance, it was a place with few people and wasn’t well-maintained. It was by no means a comfortable place to be alone with the current Gi Seoin.

“You chose a good spot. I really won’t even be able to run away.”

“Do you want to run away?”

“Yes.”

Only then did I look Gi Seoin straight in the eye. Once our gazes actually met, Gi Seoin lowered his eyes. He did look at me eventually, but it was an action unlike him, whose habit was to always stare intently.

The silent surroundings, the enclosed space, just the two of us. This environment delivered every single one of Gi Seoin’s minor gestures to me without exception.

“Seungkyung.”

Gi Seoin opened his mouth.

“Do you hate me that much?”

That’s it. The tone that shakes me, the expression that makes me surrender, the look in his eyes that makes me soak into him. Gi Seoin accurately understood the weapons he possessed and used them well. Even when he whispered for me not to abandon him more than 10 years ago, he looked at me with exactly this kind of face.

“…It’s not that I hate you.”

“Then?”

However, it seems Gi Seoin hasn’t realized yet, even with that smart head of his. That too much time has passed now, and that I have changed as well. I have been weak all this time, but I was no longer that naive.

“I’ve realized that we cannot mix.”

“Where is such a thing?”

“It exists, it definitely exists.”

I learned this while wandering for 18 years. Just as the world we live in is made of heaven and earth, light and darkness, it is the same for us living in this world. Relationships that coexist but cannot mix certainly exist. Unfortunately, so it is with Gi Seoin and me.

“I… I want you to live a life that suits you.”

Whether he understood my words or because he didn’t, Gi Seoin furrowed his brow.

“And among the things that suit you, I am not there.”

I deliberately continued the explanation.

“I don’t particularly want to remain as an uninvited guest by your side.”

The moment I spoke, it became clear.

I don’t want to get hurt.

“Why are you an uninvited guest?”

“Because nothing in your life will welcome me.”

“No…!”

“I…”

I shook my head and cut Gi Seoin off.

“I ruin you, Seoin.”

I grabbed Gi Seoin’s arm and pushed up his sleeve. The solid wrist, the white skin, and the scars crossing over it in a mess.

“Seungkyung, you won’t abandon me, right?”

A long time ago, these were the scars Gi Seoin had carved himself so as not to let me go.

“Look, isn’t this the proof?”

Just as I am, Gi Seoin probably doesn’t want to be hurt either. That’s why we have to end it. I no longer have the energy to even insist that we’re friends. A relationship that hasn’t even taken a shape. We are incomplete and can never become whole.

In the past, I believed I could protect Gi Seoin. I was under the illusion that I could embrace his wounds and make them heal. Even though I was far lacking compared to Gi Seoin, I was arrogant enough to think there was definitely something only I could do for him.

“You did this again.”

I pointed to a wound that had barely even scabbed over.

I had wondered. To think that Gi Seoin, who isn’t even seventeen anymore, would do this kind of thing….

“Even so, can you still say that I don’t ruin you?”

“Then…”

Gi Seoin pulled his wrist away, wearing an expression like a child being scolded.

“If I don’t do this, can you stay by my side?”

“No.”

My heart wavered. But I grit my teeth.

“I find you burdensome now.”

“…”

“I feel miserable when I’m by your side.”

“Why on earth…”

“Because that’s how I was born.”

Because there are holes in my hands so that I can’t hold onto anything. Despite that….

“Gi Seoin! If you keep crying, I’m seriously going to kiss you!”

“You were looking only at me back then too instead of studying.”

[Mr. Seoin. I look forward to working with you. —Cha Minyoung]

“But, by any chance… are you dating?”

“Honestly, I thought Gi Seoin liked you.”

“Woo Seungkyung, just live with me.”

Because I keep wanting to have Gi Seoin.

The heart I thought I could hide forever was now injured and decaying, the stench of rot vibrating from it. I can no longer avoid this pain. If I continue to be greedy for you, who can never be mine and shouldn’t be mine, I’ll be pushed by despair and die. Perhaps from the day I witnessed you walking the street with another person, I was on the edge of a cliff.

“Seoin, you know everything. You know what I’m saying. So stop asking now. Every time I answer, I feel like I’m being shaved away. I also…”

I didn’t want to cry because I felt like this heart that had turned ugly would be discovered, but the tears did not consider my circumstances.

“It’s because I, too, want to live.”

I couldn’t face Gi Seoin any longer, so I lowered my head.

A hand suddenly comes up under my face. It’s a white, large hand. It’s that hand that had bound me even when he grabbed it playfully.

I brushed away Gi Seoin’s hand that was trying to wipe my tears. Once more, and once more….

Then, this time, that hand covers and grabs the back of my hand.

“Do you feel like… you’ll die if you’re with me?”

I couldn’t refuse.

“Woo Seungkyung.”

Because Gi Seoin was trembling.

“Then what about me?”

Because the sound of the breath caught at the end of his voice seemed even wetter than my eyes….

“If you’ve brought me all the way back to life, and now you say you’re going to die because of me, then what about me?”