NANOM Ch 34

I slowly met Jihyuk’s eyes, taking him in with my gaze. His reddened earlobes, the snowflakes gently resting on his shoulders and hair, the white layer piled up around him, except for the spot where Jihyuk stood. The signs that he had been waiting for me in the snow were vividly clear on his form. Just like that time.

Jihyuk, a man who would never have to feel a sense of longing for anyone, had stood blankly in front of my house, waiting for me like a callow boy. And now, too, he was standing there, looking exactly as he had back then.

On the road that had started to turn white with snow, our long shadows stretched out side by side, unable to touch. I stopped dead in my tracks, unable to move.

“…….”

Jihyuk slowly walked toward me, who was standing still. One step, two steps. With every step he took, my throat tightened faintly. When he was finally close enough to touch if I just reached out my hand, I almost took a step back.

But perhaps it was because my expression was excessively stiff. The waves crashing inside my heart, surprisingly, did not show on the outside. As if I were in a calm state, I looked up at him.

“You’re not surprised. I thought you’d be at least a little surprised.”

Jihyuk, having approached, spoke in a whisper, lowering his gaze to meet my eyes.

The overall atmosphere Jihyuk exuded was the same. His face was as handsome as ever, and the intimidating pressure that made others shrink was also still there.

However, the year and a half that had passed was layered on top of him. The emotion tinged in his arrogant and powerful eyes was clearly deeper and more intense than it had been before.

While fully holding a fervent desire, he was calmly suppressing it. He slowly opened his mouth and confessed his feelings in a composed voice.

“I missed you.”

The familiar voice seized and shook my heart with a thud. And then it threw my heart to the floor. As Jihyuk spoke words that created a ripple strong enough to make me feel nauseous, I swallowed my breath.

Soon, Jihyuk’s hand came closer. The back of his hand, etched with a scar, and his large, thick-knuckled hand were so deeply engraved in my mind that I could picture them even with my eyes closed. The hand that had touched my body, that had carelessly grabbed my hair, that had mockingly dragged me around by a leash. The moment I saw that hand, I automatically stepped back.

“…D-d-don’t touch me.”

My tone was firm, but my voice trembled pathetically. The stuttering symptom that I had so tearfully put to rest also abruptly emerged. My lips quivered like a fool.

“Ta-ta-talk… from there.”

I had made the same request to Jihyuk during our first meeting. But every time I made such a request, Jihyuk would, on the contrary, approach me with an expression of even greater amusement and touch me without hesitation. As if squashing a helpless little ant struggling under his finger harder, more cruelly.

But now, Jihyuk did not carelessly close the distance I had retreated. Merely standing in place and staring intently at my face, he just raised one eyebrow slightly. Then, as if in surrender, he lightly raised both his palms before dropping them with a thud. As if to say he would not come closer until I allowed him.

Facing him, I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath in, and then out.

Our reunion was an ordained procedure anyway. It was probably just a matter of time. From the moment Jihyuk had announced he would come again, I would likely have lived my whole life feeling more uncomfortable with his absence than his presence.

I had resolved that if I ever met Jihyuk again, I did not want to show a shabby side of myself, and I had truly lived diligently until now to make that happen. I desperately endured reality and struggled to survive every single day. I did not want to be dragged around by Jihyuk looking just as I had been, stained with helplessness and fear.

This was not the time to be trembling in fear. Now was the time to speak confidently, and to ask. The many questions I could not pour out. The words of gratitude for helping me financially. And despite that, the resentment for why he had left me.

And… the fundamental question of why he had loved me.

I swallowed a dry gulp of saliva and slowly opened my eyes. After taking another deep breath in and out, I calmly opened my mouth.

“…The d-debt… I owe you….”

“…….”

“I’m going to… pay it all back. I-I’m working hard… to save money right now, too.”

Although my speech was not as fluent as others, once I started speaking, the words came a little more easily.

“After I gra-graduate… early, I’m going to get a job right away, so I-I’ll send you money regularly when I get my paycheck. And….”

“Teacher.”

But Jihyuk cut me off with a somewhat displeased expression.

“Do I look like I came all the way here to talk about money?”

“Then… w-what are we, su-supposed to talk about.”

At my protest, Jihyuk’s brow furrowed even more.

“Is money the only thing you have to say to me?”

“…….”

“I’m asking you, is that really all there is.”

His fierce tone as he asked was thrown like a thud into the center of my chest.

“…Is that… all there is…?”

What he had thrown was a large ember. The speck of fire that fell with a thud quickly ignited a flame on the surface of my heart, which seemed neatly arranged but was in fact bone-dry.

The blaze, growing in size in an instant, awakened the subconscious that had been sleeping as if dead for the past year. It was an emotion that had only been buried in the flow of time, one I had never forgotten for a single moment since the day Jihyuk left me.

My resolution to say everything calmly vanished without a trace. A rush of heat welled up, instantly blurring my vision. With a sob, my chest, which had been inflated to its limit, trembled and sank.

I clenched my fists and approached Jihyuk in a single step. And then, for the first time, I raised my hand to him. Pow! I slammed my fist into his broad chest. My small, trembling fist continuously let out dull thuds, hitting Jihyuk’s chest. Over and over again, I hit Jihyuk.

Jihyuk did not avoid the endlessly clumsy punches. He just took the blows with an expressionless face. The more I hit him, the larger the flame searing my heart grew.

“If you were going to… l-leave… like that, why, why did you come back to me.”

“…….”

“Why, I’m asking you, w-why did you come back!”

A thick sob mixed into my agitated voice. Jihyuk just watched me fall apart.

In truth, I knew it too. The fact that Jihyuk had turned his back for my sake, with great difficulty. Nevertheless, seeing Jihyuk’s face made me want to resent him. I was too small and too exhausted back then to understand and accept that fact.

During the time Jihyuk had vacated his place for me, I recovered steadily, just as he had wished and intended. The severe symptoms of dependence and anxiety that had flared up every time I saw Jihyuk’s face gradually improved, and I was finally able to even have the will to regain a peaceful daily life. It was something only possible because Jihyuk was not in my sight.

However, what was more unbearable than the nightmares I had had until now—of crawling around n**ed with a dog collar on—were the countless nights I spent struggling alone right after Jihyuk left. It was an indescribably lonely time without Jihyuk.

Although it was Jihyuk who had plunged me into a terribly dark loneliness, despite that, no one other than Jihyuk could have held me back then. No one could have helped. It was contradictory, but it was true.

Even if it had not been for the brainwashing Jihyuk constantly subjected me to back then, I would not have been able to leave him. He had made me so thoroughly dependent on him, and I could not help but resent him at the same time as I understood with my head why he had turned his back on me.

“If you were going to c-come back like this… why did you abandon me back then! Why! After you, you were the one who made me like that!”

“…….”

“This… is this love to you? This, is this the love you give?”

Leaving behind a desperate scream that shook the alley, I crumpled to the ground right there. Crouching down, I covered my face with my hands and wept my heart out.

The clumps that had been sticking together so tenaciously all this time finally began to melt in the heat welling up from inside. Tears, flowing out as a byproduct of my cries, fell drop by drop onto the white snow.

In a moment, a long shadow was cast over my head. Before I could even lift my head, large hands slid under both my armpits and pulled me up forcefully. I tried to resist and push him away, but Jihyuk’s strong arms trapped me in his embrace in an instant.
The warmth of the embrace, which held me so that our bodies were touching without a single gap, was what I had longed for so much, staying up countless nights. A temperature so hot it felt like it would burn, Jihyuk’s familiar, violently strong scent. All my senses stood on end at once to absorb the familiar stimulus I was receiving for the first time in so long.

Jihyuk looked down at me, wiping away the tears that were ceaselessly carving transparent paths down my cheeks with his warm palm. In his quiet gaze, the usual playfulness was nowhere to be seen.

“That’s right. That was my love. It was the only thing I could give you back then, Teacher.”

“…….”

“I thought you would die if I was with you, so that’s why I left.”

Jihyuk slowly lifted my face. Glaring at him through my all-smudged vision, I swatted away the hand touching my face. But Jihyuk paid no mind and this time cupped my face with both hands. My w** cheeks, which had been chilled by the cold winter wind, grew hot.

A low voice asked.

“Jeonghyun-ah. Was my absence, painful for you?”

“…….”

“Were you struggling, because I was not there?”

The answer did not come out quickly. Staring at Jihyuk with eyes welling up with moisture, I once again grabbed Jihyuk’s wrist and pulled it down. Like a fool, tears threatened to burst out again. I bit down hard on my trembling lips.

But now that I had met Jihyuk again like this, I no longer wanted to hide my feelings and pretend to be okay. I wanted to confess all the hard times I had and resent him to my heart’s content, and cry my eyes out in front of him. It felt like if I did, the sticky lump in my chest would melt away and my heart would feel completely clear.

“Yes. It-it was hard.”

“…….”

“Because you… weren’t there, I was really, scared… and anxious.”

“…….”

“The person who would wake me up from my… n-nightmares, was only you…. After making me so weak… if you just leave a note like that, how, how am I supposed to take it? Your words that you love me, how… am I supposed to understand them?”

Conveying my raw, unrefined, true feelings, I finally stopped being afraid of Jihyuk. He was Jihyuk, whose mere existence had pressured me to the point of being unable to breathe, but it was not like that anymore.

My pathetically trembling gaze gradually found its place, and my scattered words became more and more composed. I became able to look straight into the eyes of Jihyuk, who had strode up before me. But strangely, the tears continued to flow.

With a short exhale, Jihyuk extended his arms and wrapped them around my body. Once again, a hot temperature engulfed me. I tried to push away that warmth, which felt like it would swallow and burn my very heart, but this time my hands were caught. Grasping my hands that were trying to push against his chest, Jihyuk made them wrap around his waist and hugged me again. In that state, for a while, only the sound of our breathing continued.

“I liked you. Teacher.”

A low voice spoke. With a breath so hot and still, it could melt the cold snowflake brushing past my ear.

“Now, I love you like I could fucking die.”

The words Jihyuk was saying now matched the piece of memory that had been deeply lodged in my heart for a year and a half, refusing to come out. The remnants of the confession Jihyuk had first driven into my heart—I had looked at them all this time, sometimes hurting, sometimes resenting him, and sometimes getting lost in longing.

The confession I heard again after letting that time pass was now no longer incomplete. It was not a dream or a fantasy. Jihyuk, in a truly existing form in front of me, uttered a complete sentence to me. So clearly that I could not even think I had misheard, while meeting my eyes.

“It might be hard to believe, but I was sincere.”

“…….”

“I’m sorry for making you have nightmares alone. From now on… that won’t happen. Even if you tell me to get lost, spit on me, cry and beg, and kick me, I can’t get lost anymore.”

Jihyuk’s words, whispered in my ear as he held me, felt just like a hallucination.

“So, date me.”

Following that, Jihyuk nonchalantly uttered something unbelievable. I was so stunned that I was at a loss for words, just staring at him, but he showed no sign of joking at all.

However, I slowly shook my head. What could I possibly do with Jihyuk now?

Even if Jihyuk liked me and even if he loved me, and even if I had thought of Jihyuk countless times during the past and read him in every moment. Jihyuk’s and my relationship had already become too twisted. To the point where the more we were together, the sharper the corners that jabbed each other would become, making us bleed, and eventually forcing us to turn our backs on each other.

“Your love, is too much for me. It was scary, and… painful.”

With difficulty, I spat out each heavy word.

“And… you also thought that you and I, shouldn’t be together. That’s why… you left.”

“You said it was hard because I was gone.”

“…….”

“You said my absence was agony for you, Teacher.”

But my words were soon blocked by Jihyuk’s quiet rebuttal that followed.

“Jeonghyun-ah. No matter what you say, I have no intention of letting you go.”

Jihyuk, who had paused his words slowly and clearly, slowly reached out his hand and stroked my forehead. Despite facing the cold, cutting wind, his hand was still hot.

“Do you think I turned my back on you so you could live well without me? As you know, Teacher, I’m a selfish b**t**d, so I’ve never once had a thought like that.”

“…….”

“No matter what you say, I can’t let you go now. From then until now, you have been mine, without change.”

Jihyuk, speaking like that, truly seemed to have not changed at all from when we first met. He was still arrogant and self-centered. He also seemed to have no intention whatsoever of respecting my feelings as I pushed him away, saying I did not want this.

Suddenly, my breath caught in my throat. Did that mean Jihyuk wanted to return to the same kind of relationship as before? Was that truly all that Jihyuk wanted from me?

It was not that I hated the warmth, scent, and voice Jihyuk gave me. On the contrary, I had spent countless nights longing for his body heat. I could not help it if someone were to criticize me, saying that the memories of being held by him countless times were just engraved in my body. It was just that I could not forget the fact that in the desperate situation I was in, Jihyuk was the only one who had held me.

However, I did not want to return to a relationship where I was subservient to him, unable to move a muscle. I really did not want that anymore. I did not want to sell my body to Jihyuk for something in return anymore, nor did I have a reason to.

I barely parted my trembling lips.

“I… can’t forgive you.”

“…….”

“It’s tr-true that you helped me, and saved me… but… whenever I see you, the moments you, you tormented me… I think I’ll keep remembering them.”

But despite my rejection, Jihyuk showed no sign of backing down.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me as if nothing happened.”

“…….”

“And I’m not suggesting we do something right away. I won’t touch you carelessly without your permission, Teacher.”

I looked at him with a surprised face. Every word he uttered felt completely foreign to me. Words like forgiveness and permission were words that, between him and me, only Jihyuk had been able to use until now.

Jihyuk had always been the one who reigned over me. Our relationship was tilted from the very beginning, to the point where it could not even be placed on a two-pan balance. Because the things he and I possessed were so different they could not even be compared. He was born strong, and I was not.

Jihyuk had bought me with money and treated me carelessly. He had played with me as he pleased until I was completely broken. And yet, he felt no guilt whatsoever. He had a cruel nature from the beginning, and tormenting a kid with nothing like me would have been nothing to him.

That was why I thought Jihyuk would never feel something like regret. I thought what the returned Jihyuk wanted from me was the same as before. But.

“I won’t make you cry. From now on.”

“…….”

“I’ll do well. I’ll cover up all the bad things with good memories.”

Jihyuk’s eyes, as he spoke in a calm yet confident tone, were completely different from when he used to treat me carelessly and crush me. Perhaps it was the same face he had when he was my student, sending a hot and pure desire toward me, his teacher.

Jihyuk’s hand slowly, traces my unresponsive cheek. But contrary to his calm tone, his eyes were unstable and trembling faintly with some unfulfilled desire.

“I won’t make you scared or pained. There won’t be anything to make you uncomfortable.”

The white, hazy circles of breath that bloomed between the two of us soon scattered fleetingly in the air.

“Just… when I come to see you, Teacher.”

“….”

“Just show me your face like this, once in a while. …That’s enough.”

Even after his low words ended, the silence continued for a long while. And I, with a deep sigh, shook my head.

“…No.”

The voice that followed was a little clearer.

“…That too… right now, is difficult for me.”

I still, still find Jihyuk’s love difficult. It was also true that I was afraid. The scar on my chest from when I cut it with a knife, unable to overcome the feeling of suffocation, still remains clearly on me. And the dark mark on my neck from repeatedly wearing the collar.

Could I really look at Jihyuk by my side and not recall the moments I was hurt? No, it would probably be difficult. Even if the scars on my body heal someday, it would take a very long time for the painful moments to be erased from my heart. Moreover, it would be even more so if I continued to be with Jihyuk.

And yet. Even though I know that well.

“I understand. In that case, Teacher, you just live your daily life as you are now.”

“…….”

“I, for my part, will start trying to seduce what’s mine from now on.”

Unlike the joke-like content of his words, Jihyuk was not smiling. His gaze could only be described as ardent. That gaze was so direct that I could naturally read his heart, which was afraid that even those words would be rejected. His gaze, like that of a callow boy expressing his feelings to someone for the first time, was slowly, very slowly, knocking on my heart.
The clumsy and unstylish confession, for that very reason, sounded sincere instead. This moment, with these words coming out of Jihyuk’s mouth, felt so unrealistic it was as if it were a dream.

The softly falling snowflakes continued to cover Jihyuk’s head and shoulders. His fingers, carefully tracing my face, were this hot, yet his earlobes now looked as if they would fall off, having gone beyond being redly frozen.

Just how long had he been standing here? As he made his way here without a single call, how long had he intended to wait for me?

The him that I know was a person for whom looking down on and commanding others was natural. And yet, in front of me, Jihyuk acts as if he is a person who does not know how to calculate. From a certain point in time, all the way until now, when he is confessing that just seeing my face is enough.

When did that point in time begin?

Yes, it must have been after he came to like me, and love me. When my thoughts reached that point, my chest suddenly felt a little warm. I lowered my head to hide the sudden urge to cry.

The next words I said to him might have been an unavoidable act. Like me and Jihyuk, standing helplessly under the relentlessly falling snow that covered both our bodies, unable to avoid it.

“…Next time, the time after this… if you happen to want… ramen.”

My hoarse voice cracked pathetically. With a cough, I cleared my throat and continued in a low voice.

“…You can come over to eat.”

For a while, only the rustling sound of snow piling up could be heard. The falling snowflakes had grown thicker than before.

While hazy puffs of breath burst out and disappeared several times, Jihyuk just looked down at me for a long time with surprised eyes.

A large snowflake landed on his blinking eyelashes, then slowly melted. It was the moment he squinted to shake off the droplet of water that had formed in his vision.

A hot palm approached and gently wiped the water away. The large palm that had melted and wiped away the snow then lingered on my eye area and forehead for a while longer.

In the dark vision he blocked for me and the familiar body heat, I was, for a fleeting moment, back in the past. To the moment when Jihyuk held me firmly when I had a painful dream. To that moment when I fell back into sleep, fully absorbing the body heat of Jihyuk, who had trapped my flailing self in his embrace.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw Jihyuk’s smiling face. With the same mischievous smile as always.

“Then see you again tomorrow.”