World Chapter 1.5

It was Sungjoon and Heo Seok. They were completely naked and entangled. Their sweat-drenched bodies glistened.

“Close the door.”

“……I’m sorry.”

At Heo Seok’s cold words, I closed the door again. I stood there blankly for a moment. Then, with a dazed expression, I went into my room.

The moment I closed my door, my heart pounded as if my blood were flowing in reverse. I collapsed onto the floor.

What……?

Wh-what……?

What were they doing?

It was like a scene from a dirty movie that I used to watch secretly with Youngwoo. But those two are a man and a man. The moment I realized that, my heart sank and my mouth fell open on its own.

My heart was racing uncontrollably. I placed a hand on my chest as if to clutch it, trying my best to calm myself down. Just then, someone knocked on my door. The knock startled me so much I jumped.

“Can I come in?”

It was Sungjoon-sunbae. While I was flustered, not knowing how to answer, the door clicked open. I remained crouched, blankly watching the door open.

He was no longer stark naked as he had been a moment ago but had neatly covered his private parts with clothes. Seeing me collapsed on the floor in shock, Sungjoon’s brow hardened. He came into the room, perched on the bed, and looked down at me.

“…….”

“…….”

An awkward silence flowed.

He didn’t look embarrassed, but rather devastated. Sungjoon was nervously biting his lip.

I tried to act nonchalant, but it was the first time I had ever actually witnessed such a sexual act, regardless of whether it was between opposite or same sexes, so I couldn’t calm down at all. I was a complete novice in that area and not sophisticated enough to handle such a situation skillfully.

After a long while, Sungjoon finally, with difficulty, opened his mouth.

“……Were you very surprised?”

“…….”

Instead of answering, I just nodded my head.

The door burst open and Heo Seok came in. He plopped down next to Sungjoon. It was a gesture that seemed to be trying to shake off a burden, and at the same time, one that expressed with his whole body that he was annoyed.

Heo Seok spoke irritably.

“What a dramatic reaction. Do we have to have sex while tiptoeing around others?”

Sungjoon glanced at the fed-up Heo Seok, then looked back at me. He spoke in a slightly subdued tone.

“Hyunwoo, Seok and I are seeing each other. We thought no one was home. We should have been more careful, I’m sorry.”

“…….”

I swallowed dryly and just nodded my head. My urgent nodding, trying to understand, must have looked more like an impatience to escape the situation quickly, as both Heo Seok’s and Sungjoon’s faces hardened simultaneously.

“It’s just as you saw. We have those inclinations. But that’s all it is. We’re not hurting anyone, we’re not causing any harm. We’re just……, in love.”

The story Sungjoon slowly laid out was overly melodramatic. His somber, sunken voice was laced with a depth of sadness I couldn’t possibly fathom.

I quickly hid my flustered expression. I wanted to clear up their misunderstanding.

I wasn’t the type of person to feel disgust for such things, nor was I one to ostracize them. I considered it just another form of how people live, liking someone, loving someone.

“I’m not prejudiced about things like that.”

“That’s a relief, then.”

“It was the first time I’d seen it in person, so I was just really surprised. That’s all.”

“What, is this pity?”

“……Ah, I haven’t, I haven’t liked anyone before. Things like that, I haven’t yet.”

Heo Seok curled the corner of his lip, looking at me as if he were sneering. Just as Heo Seok was about to add another word, Sungjoon’s hand pressed down heavily on his thigh.

“Thank you for understanding. We’ll be careful so this doesn’t happen again. Sorry for startling you.”

“Don’t just open other people’s doors from now on.”

They each uttered a sentence. One had a gentle tone, the other a sharp tone that cut like a knife.

“I’m sorry. I thought someone was sick.”

I explained, dropping my gaze.

“Well, someone was in pain.”

At Heo Seok’s words, Sungjoon’s cheeks flushed red. Heo Seok breezily left my room, and Sungjoon followed him out with an embarrassed expression.

Taewan came home with alcohol and late-night snacks in his hands.

For the first time in a long time, all the housemates gathered and tilted soju glasses. It was my first time drinking with the hyungs.

As I sat on the sofa and picked up my chopsticks, Hyungjo, unable to resist Taewan’s persistent calls any longer, finally showed himself.

Hyungjo looked at our gathered forms pathetically, then plopped down in the seat next to me and snatched the chopsticks from my hand.

“Hey, Kim Hyungjo.”

“…….”

Hyungjo paid no mind to my protest that I was annoyed, expertly cut a piece of kimchi pancake, put it in his mouth, and chewed. Then, he handed the chopsticks back to me.

I glared at him sideways. Sungjoon, who was quietly watching us, smiled and said.

“That’s his own way of trying to be friendly.”

“Huh?”

“Hyungjo, I mean.”

At Sungjoon’s words, Hyungjo didn’t reply and just rubbed the back of his neck. He seemed embarrassed.

“Let’s all have a drink.”

Taewan poured clear soju into the glasses. We didn’t toast energetically, but his downing the soju first was the signal for us to lift our glasses as well.

Hyungjo also gulped his down and set his glass on the table. He scowled deeply, as if the aftertaste was bitter.

Sungjoon seemed to be a lightweight. He couldn’t even finish half a glass of soju and started coughing, so Heo Seok handed him some water.

“You can’t even drink, just pretending.”

Heo Seok wiped Sungjoon’s moist lips with his thumb, and while taking care of him who had barely drunk half a glass, he guided Sungjoon’s head to his shoulder.

Sungjoon leaned his body loosely against Heo Seok’s shoulder without any particular resistance. To anyone watching, they looked like an affectionate couple.

Neither Hyungjo nor Taewan was flustered by the couple’s affectionate display. They already knew about their relationship, and just as I had learned and accepted it, they also seemed to accept them as they were.

Hyungjo’s gaze, which had been on the two of them, shifted toward Taewan.

Taewan filled his own soju glass again, emptied it, and slowly opened his mouth. His tone was extremely solemn.

“The seniors who formed the dissident left wing have to help. We either re-elect the Tuwi chairman… I wonder if that guy is safe.”

“Since the Mincheong-hakryeon incident, most have been avoiding underground organizations. It’s time to rise to the surface. Now that the emotional foundation for the democracy we’ve always thirsted for has been formed, isn’t this our chance?”

Taewan scoffed at Heo Seok’s reply. It was as if to say, what would you know? Sungjoon, who had been leaning on Heo Seok, slowly sat up straight.

A chilly air flowed between them.

Taewan directed his sharp eyes toward Heo Seok.

“Jeon Tae-il self-immolated and Kim Sang-jin committed harakiri. Just like you said, a yearning for democracy boiled up among the masses. That led to the struggle against the anti-Yushin dictatorship. But what happened? It collapsed under brutal suppression. The vanguard organizations that followed, the mass struggles, they all retreated and sank into silence. I can’t listen to your nonsensical ideals anymore. It’s frustrating and agonizing.”

“You’re becoming more and more of a pessimist. Is it mannerism?”

“Mannerism? What a strange thing to say. If anything, it’s disillusionment. Not mannerism. That’s a disease that idealists like you catch.”

“What did you say?”

“I’m sick of it. The arguments, the debates……. All we do when we gather is this stuff. It’s not like the world changes just because we say these things.”

“If you’re going to talk like that, why don’t you just go jump into the labor field? Stop exhausting other people.”

“Fine, so I’ve exhausted you. But know this. We are dreaming a dream that is too big. Especially you, Seok, you scare me. You’re the kind of man who would overthrow the regime and sit on top of it. A man who would delude people with your ideals and incite the ignorant with an absurd idea.”

As soon as Taewan finished speaking, Heo Seok shot up and threw a punch straight at his face. Taewan, who had been sitting, tumbled over, hitting a soju bottle and overturning the table. Sungjoon, his face pale, wrapped his arms around Heo Seok’s waist, trying to restrain the flailing man.

Hyungjo frowned, looking at them.

Slamming down the glass he was drinking from as if throwing it, Hyungjo grabbed my wrist and pulled.

“Where are you going? Try to stop Taewan-hyung. Do something about Seok-hyung!”

“…….”

“They’re going to get seriously hurt at this rate!”

I needed to stop the hyungs’ fight, but Hyungjo didn’t even pretend to listen. He seemed so used to such fights that he was sick and tired of them.

I had no choice but to be dragged up to the second floor by his strength. From the living room, the sounds of their shouts as they continued to fight with raised voices and the clattering and crashing of things breaking could still be heard.

Hyungjo pulled me forcefully to my bedroom door, telling me it was time to go to my room, as I awkwardly resisted being dragged, my wrist still in his grip. But he didn’t let go of my hand. In fact, he squeezed it even tighter. Hyungjo’s grip painfully tightened on my wrist.

“Still, we have to stop them. Are you just going to leave them like that?”

“Leave them. It’s not a one or two-day thing. They’re like this every day. Every single day, you get it? For decades now, every day!”

“…….”

For decades now, every day……, he said?

He, like me, had only known the hyungs for a few months, yet Hyungjo showed a weary reaction as if he had experienced this tiresome confrontation for a long time.

I looked up at him blankly. His gaze, which had been staring down at me, softened a little, and Hyungjo let out a sigh and opened his mouth.

“The government attempted to pass the Campus Stabilization Act, taking advantage of the relative vacuum left by the suppression. In the end, the entire student movement is being oppressed. Rising to the surface……? Heo Seok-sunbae always makes it sound easy. Mannerism, disillusionment… Taewan-sunbae spoke like a defeatist, but in truth, he was the most diligent. He fought more fiercely than anyone against the current regime’s behavior. That’s why he knows the field, the public sentiment, and the rotten parts of the regime so well. That’s why he’s afraid of Heo Seok-sunbae. That man who would hold the hearts of those who yearn for freedom hostage and reign over them……. who can’t let go of his opportunistic nature. It might be the duality of the bourgeoisie, just as Taewan-sunbae said.”

“What on earth are you talking about? What’s the Campus Stabilization Act, and what’s the anti-Yushin dictatorship? When was all that? What in the world are you talking about?”

Hyungjo’s eyes turned to me. I couldn’t say a single word to the sorrowful gaze in his pupils.

“Remember this well. You have to remember.”

“……What are you talking about.”

“Go inside. It’s time to sleep.”

I wanted to press him for answers.

I wanted to ask them, what era are you all living in, spouting nothing but incomprehensible words?

But at Hyungjo’s words that it was time to sleep, I couldn’t ask anything and went into my room as if under a spell.

My wrist, where he had held it, throbbed. The moment I lay down on the bed, sleep poured over me as if it were a lie. My mind and soul were violently sucked into slumber.