HACKED 105

“We are complete strangers on paper. Right now, we’re in the same orphanage and the same room, but as soon as you or I leave this place, we’ll be total strangers. What kind of relationship is this that you call it brothers?”

My stomach churned at those words. Even more violently than when Lee Jaeyoung had returned after being severely beaten.

Something hot surged up from my solar plexus. It felt as if a lump of rock was stuck in my throat. My eyeballs ached as if they were about to fall out. I wanted to vomit.

There were so many things I wanted to say. At the same time, not a single word came to mind. So, after a few stammers, I could only manage to say one thing.

“Why me, of all people?”

“I’m gay. I’ve always only liked guys.”

Lee Jaeyoung said it as if it were no big deal. But the content of those words was by no means trivial.

“Why do I like men? Why is that? Is it because my dad is a bottom-of-the-barrel sex offender, so I subconsciously vowed that I shouldn’t like women? Or did my mom abuse me so much that I grew to hate women entirely? I’ve thought and thought about it for a long time. Well. Regardless of all that, I guess I was just born this way.”

I barely suppressed my breathing, which was becoming ragged. Whether Lee Jaeyoung was gay or not didn’t matter at all. That wasn’t the point.

“That’s… not what I’m asking… right now.”

I asked with my teeth half-clenched. Lee Jaeyoung explained with a slightly flushed voice.

“Remember when we first talked? When I suddenly grabbed a passing hyung and spoke to him. Back then, you snapped at me, saying, ‘Do you know me? Why are you talking to me when you don’t even know me?’”

Was it like that? I don’t remember well. The earliest memory of Lee Jaeyoung I can recall is us having a childish, disjointed argument over “who is more miserable.”

“Back then, I said I saw your name on the orphanage list and talked to you because it was pretty and unique. That… wasn’t a total lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. It was because of how you looked, not just your name.”

“…….”

“Honestly, all the guys here are ugly as hell. But among them, there was one person who was just too incredibly pretty…. I could only see you, hyung. Since a person like that even had a pretty name, there was no way I couldn’t be interested.”

Lee Jaeyoung’s confession was only difficult at the very beginning; once the floodgates opened, it followed relatively easily. Whether he knew my feelings or not, he incessantly poured out his inner thoughts.

“When you said you’d get a room and live with me, my heart fluttered so much. It’s a bit funny, but I even thought it felt like being newlyweds…. But it felt like I was the only one unilaterally receiving from you, so I wanted to do something too. That’s why I looked for a part-time job.”

“…….”

“It’s true that I was going to gift you a headset for your birthday. But if I was only going to buy that one headset, I wouldn’t have worked for months. I just… even if I couldn’t manage the deposit, I wanted to contribute a bit to the living expenses.”

Right. So that’s what you thought. We were never brothers for a single moment.

The faint sense of fulfillment I felt every time I heard him call me “our hyung” or every time I referred to him as “my dongsaeng.” The petty sense of responsibility I held. The confidence, or arrogance, that I could support at least one of you.

All of that… was just the ridiculous roleplay of an orphan stained by deficiency, and Lee Jaeyoung had merely played along with my act… I only now realized it.

A guy only two years older trying to act like a dignified hyung—me, clumsily imitating a head of a household while longing for a family I never had—how ridiculous must I have looked to Lee Jaeyoung? Meanwhile, Lee Jaeyoung was imagining setting up a newlywed home with me.

“I… thought of you as a ‘real dongsaeng.’ I know we are strangers in reality. Of course I know. But, still….”

“Is that so? I’ve never once thought of you as a ‘real hyung.’”

“…….”

“I’ve liked you ever since I first spoke to you. I was always gauging the timing of when would be good to confess. At least, that’s how I felt. Sorry if there was a misunderstanding.”

‘Sorry if there was a misunderstanding’? Fuck, is that something to say right now?

I wanted to strike Lee Jaeyoung’s face, which was so crowded with bruises there was no place left to hit, with all my might. But self-loathing was stronger than that.

I want to kill him. No, I want to die. Everything is just shitty….

Bang!

It was then. The door to the living room swung open violently.

It is currently a weekday afternoon. It’s a time when other kids are busy being at school. Aside from me, who dropped out, and Lee Jaeyoung, who is absent, there is no one who should be entering this room. But who….

“Lee Jaeyoung. You didn’t do the punishment of cleaning the staff restroom, so I came to find you. You two, just now, what on earth were you talking about?”

The two of us looked up, startled.

“Between guys, what? Like you? Confession?”

A blatant look of disgust was etched on the director’s face as he stood in the doorway looking down at us.

˙✧˖°🎮 ⋆｡˚

The memories after that are blurry again.

Lee Jaeyoung and I were immediately separated into different living rooms. I don’t know if they even adjusted our daily schedules, but I could hardly see him during meals, free time, or on weekends.

And endless interviews followed. Interviews with the director, the chief, the childcare workers, the social workers, the counselors….

Interviews with other staff were fine. They cautiously asked if I had ever been forced into sexual contact or acts by Lee Jaeyoung, and when I testified that such a thing never happened, they concluded the interviews without much incident.

Some of them even offered old-fashioned but sincere words, saying it wasn’t my fault if I or someone around me was a sexual minority, and that there was no need to feel guilty at all. Hearing those words, I thought that the person who really needed that comfort right now wasn’t me, but Lee Jaeyoung.

But the director was the problem.

‘Yeo Myeong, answer me straight. Since when has that brat Lee Jaeyoung been strange? A child with healthy limbs, having nothing better to do, acting so filthy.’

‘If I had known he was such a problematic fellow, I wouldn’t have accepted him into our facility. They said both his parents were criminals, and the child is abnormal too. This is why the seed doesn’t go anywhere.’

‘No, why is a guy wanting to sleep with another guy not a mental illness? Why can’t I throw him into a locked ward! This is why our country’s laws are no good. Since the regime changed, the country has been turning upside down, tsk.’

‘Myeong, if you’re also a gay or whatever, say so right now. I don’t have the confidence to handle two crazy people.’

‘Why did I lock him in a solitary room? If I put someone like that in a room with boys, who knows what kind of disgusting things he might do!’

‘But this brat, acting so ill-mannered. How dare you talk back to an adult with your eyes wide open? Do you want to be beaten to death too? Huh?’

With the director in this state, there was no way confidentiality could be properly maintained. In an orphanage that was already closed-off, rumors spread faster than anything.

Everyone whispered about me and Lee Jaeyoung. Some of those stories probably reached my ears… but because my memories from around that time are entirely blurry, I can’t recall them well. Perhaps I just didn’t want to remember.

Early summer, not long before my birthday. I was able to meet Lee Jaeyoung again. In the worst possible way.

Lee Jaeyoung threw himself from the rooftop on the day his solitary confinement was lifted.

I was the witness of the fall and the first person to discover the body. It was because he fell right in front of me. If I had been just one or two steps closer, I probably would have been crushed by him and died together.

I don’t know if he intended that or not. Probably not. He was too kind for that.

Or maybe he did. How can one know the thoughts of someone who is no longer in this world?

At that time, I didn’t grasp the situation properly. I reflexively looked up because of a rattling sound from the railing above, and I saw something falling. Soon, a massive impact shook the earth. Hot blood splattered across my whole body.

After that, it was a total blackout. According to others, I fainted almost immediately.

By the time I could think somewhat normally, his funeral was already over. Just like that, I became completely alone again.

I started wanting to die. More intensely than when Lee Jaeyoung had given me a sense of betrayal.

Despite that, I didn’t have the courage to put that impulse into action like Lee Jaeyoung. It would have been better if I had died with him then.

In the end, I left the orphanage before turning 18. Because of that, I didn’t receive support like the self-reliance settlement fund. Later, the law would be amended so that children who leave midway can also receive support, but that is a story from several years later.

I left the orphanage almost empty-handed. Then, I scraped together all the money I had saved to get a single-room semi-basement apartment of less than 18 square meters.

— Sleepless in the city glow

Chasing shadows we don’t know

I finally obtained the freedom I had longed for so much. I also began my work as a composer in earnest.

— Dreams are hidden in the night

Lost and dancing out of sight

Faces blur in hazy fog

Boundaries hidden in the smog….

But I still wanted to die.