World Chapter 2.2

Hyungjo just gave a listless nod. It was only then that I realized his face was so pale he looked like he could collapse at any moment. I touched Hyungjo’s cheek.

It’s cold.

“You don’t look well, are you sick?”

“Oh, really?”

“If you’re tired, you can lean on me. Or go to your room and rest a bit.”

I patted my lap and shoulder. It’s okay to lean here, I can support you even if you lean on me, I patted them to show him.

Hyungjo seemed to hesitate for a moment, then slowly tilted his upper body and lay down, resting his head on my thigh. I touched his forehead with a careful hand.

Will this soothe a fever, will this make him warm?

Hyungjo relaxed his weight comfortably, as if entrusting everything to my touch. It seemed he too wished for this fatigue and chilling anxiety that enveloped him to go away soon. After I caressed Hyungjo’s face for a long while, a little color returned to it.

“Are you sick somewhere?”

“…….”

Hyungjo shook his head, looking up at me from his lying position.

“You look tired.”

“No, I’m okay.”

Hyungjo pushed himself up from where he was leaning on me and sat up. He stared intently into my eyes, which were watching him with concern.

I asked anxiously.

“Should I go buy you some medicine?”

“I’m not sick.”

Hyungjo forced a cold smile, insisting he was really okay.

I hated how precarious Hyungjo looked, as if he might fly away somewhere at any moment. I wasn’t worried about his body. I was scared that he would just disappear like this.

He was so distant, so faint, I was scared he would vanish like smoke at any moment. Hyungjo stared intently at me as I quietly clutched the hem of his clothes, like a baby animal separated from its mother.

“…….”

“…….”

Hyungjo’s hand swept across my cheek. He tilted his head.

Hyungjo was trying to kiss me. I didn’t avoid it. His parched lips touched mine. Though I had no experience, I closed my eyes as naturally as if I had always done so.

Hyungjo rubbed his lips against mine, then pushed his tongue through their chapped gap. It was an unfamiliar collision. Hyungjo’s tongue flinched and trembled, and when his tongue trembled, his body trembled too. His hand gently gripped my shoulder and pulled me closer. I, too, twisted my head and opened my mouth.

We carefully licked the inside of each other’s mouths. Exchanging somewhat ragged breaths, as if licking melting ice cream, we shared a quiet kiss and slowly pulled our lips apart.

Flushed breaths, untidy gasps, scattered.

“Haa……”

“…….”

Even though he was the one who kissed me first, Hyungjo was looking at me with shocked eyes, as if he were the one who had been assaulted. He soon averted his gaze and lowered his head. His exposed nape was damp with sweat. A silence, as if a disastrous mistake had been made, enveloped the surroundings.

I sat there stupidly, waiting for him to say something. Hyungjo didn’t even turn his head.

Did I try to avoid it when Hyungjo’s tongue pushed past my lips? On the contrary, I had eagerly parted my lips and welcomed him, as if encouraging him. I was ashamed and mortified of myself for accepting Hyungjo’s tongue without any resistance and licking back. If it were possible, I wanted to tear out my tongue.

Suddenly, my face grew hot, and my eyes began to well up along with it. To get away from him, I hastily got up from the sofa and scurried up to my room. As I climbed the stairs, I glanced back to see Hyungjo still sitting with his head down, steeped in a sense of defeat.

I went into my room and collapsed onto the bed.

What have I done…….

Sitting there in a daze, I rummaged through my bag and took out my phone. I called Youngwoo.

“Hello? Who is this? It’s hyung, Hyunwoo-hyung. Is Youngwoo there? Yeah, hyung is doing fine. Did Youngwoo-hyung go out? Put him on if he’s there. Okay. Youngwoo? Youngwoo……. Yeah, it’s nothing. I was just thinking of home, maybe I’m homesick. I miss you. I miss you like crazy. Heh, he did? A mushroom? Hehehe. It’s fun. They’re all great. They’re kind, and cool. Yeah. I think I’ve become a Seoul person now. Everyone likes me. Especially this one guy named Hyungjo, he likes me a lot. Yeah, we’re the closest. Aren’t you bored without me? Should I come down? I’m kidding……. I’ll go during vacation. Yeah……. Are you busy? Do you have to go? Ah, okay. Take care, say hi to everyone for me. Be healthy! Yeah! Bye!”

After hanging up, I sat crouched for a long time, phone in hand.

I wanted to call somewhere, anywhere, and just babble whatever came to mind. I wanted to forget what had just happened with Hyungjo. I wanted to just brush it off as if it were nothing.

I was about to call my father, my mother, but stopped. I had just spoken to them a few days ago, and if I called again, they would think something was wrong. I didn’t want to make them worry.

I was sitting glumly, trying to calm my gloomy heart.

A thud of a door slamming came from downstairs, followed by rough footsteps.

The police?!

I couldn’t understand why the police would raid, but a desperate fear that I could be arrested suddenly washed over me. I had done nothing wrong, and I had never been afraid of the police in my life, but there were times when being in this house made my anxiety and nervousness reach their peak.

The anxiety that someone was coming to get me right now.

A perplexing fear of being engulfed by some lingering thought left in a dark place.

I quickly locked my door. I got on the bed, pulled the covers over my head, and hid my body.

“Ah, Hyungjo!”

Hyungjo! Is Hyungjo okay?

I suddenly remembered Hyungjo, left alone in the living room on the first floor.

With the police barging in so suddenly, he wouldn’t have had time to escape. Something might have happened to Hyungjo, but I was too scared to move right now. Something that controlled my body, against my will, was making me cower and constricting my mind and heart.

I trembled under the covers. My heart was pounding so hard it felt like someone was grabbing and shaking it. When I held my breath, my limbs began to tremble. I listened keenly, focusing all my nerve cells on the sounds outside.

Thump-thump-thump, clatter-clatter! Thump-thump, thump-thump!

The footsteps I had heard a few days ago were violently turning the house upside down. Strangely, apart from the footsteps, I couldn’t hear any other sounds.

From such loud noises, there must have been at least five or six of them, but their conversations or shouts were completely inaudible.

Fortunately, it seemed Hyungjo had managed to hide. If he had been there, I would have surely heard shouts of “Get him!”

The sound of heeled shoes pressed down on the second-floor stairs, and I gasped, “Huk!”

It was then. Hyungjo embraced me as I trembled under the covers. I clung to him in return. The footsteps grew even louder. I was so scared I couldn’t open my eyes. Just pass by! Just pass by! I muttered crazily to myself, though no one was listening.

The door to Sungjoon’s room, the one at the very end, burst open, and I heard the footsteps of them storming in. The footsteps that had been wandering in Sungjoon’s room then headed for Hyungjo’s room. The footsteps that entered Hyungjo’s room also seemed to belong to about five or six people. There were no voices at all. Hyungjo held me even tighter.

Next to Hyungjo’s room was my room.

This is it, it’s over.

Though I had done nothing wrong, though I had committed no crime, a vicious fear completely consumed me. My heart wasn’t just trembling, my stomach heaved along with it in fear that I might die if I let go of Hyungjo. The footsteps that were in Hyungjo’s room came again to the front of my door.

‘What do I do! No, I haven’t been able to do anything yet. I haven’t done anything with my brothers, with my comrades who share my blood! For freedom! For true democratization!’

The door burst open. I squeezed my eyes shut with all my might.

I resolved not to open my eyes no matter what and buried my face in Hyungjo’s shoulder. We clung to each other desperately.

The door flew open, and footsteps sounded right next to me. They were pacing back and forth right in front of my eyes. But perhaps because we were under the covers, they didn’t see us and just moved around hastily.

The footsteps echoed like that, then left the room, followed by the sound of them searching the empty room next to mine. And then, just as my mind was growing faint from trembling with extreme fear, the sound vanished as if it had evaporated.

As if it were all a lie…….

Hyungjo let go of me. I must have been within his sight, and since he let me go, I should have been safe, but I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes.

A vile terror had me in its grip and wouldn’t let go, and I was trembling like an aspen leaf, to a degree I couldn’t believe I was capable of. As if I had been stripped naked and thrown onto a snowy street at night.

Hyungjo’s hand grabbed my trembling arm. At the warm sensation, I was barely able to open my eyes.

“They didn’t see us.”

“…….”

I covered my mouth, from which a scream was about to burst. My body twitched with the aftershock of the trembling.

I felt it clearly. A strange energy, something strange had entered my body and then left. The pitch-black fear that had consumed my entire body, the extreme anxiety of being caught. It clearly wasn’t mine.

The fear of being caught without having accomplished anything was greater than the fear of dying. But I couldn’t figure out what it was that I hadn’t accomplished. I stumbled over the words I had shouted.

‘I haven’t done anything with my brothers, with my comrades who share my blood! For freedom! For true democratization!’

I had definitely shouted that in my head. I bit the back of my trembling hand so hard that blood started to seep out.

That fear was not mine. It wasn’t mine. I had experienced someone else’s fear.

What on earth is this? A lingering thought, is it something like that?

I looked at Hyungjo. Hyungjo was looking at me with worried eyes. The words tumbled out, choked with tears.

“It’s strange……, it’s strange. Hyungjo, something’s wrong with my body.”

“It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”

Hyungjo hugged me tightly again. Even though Hyungjo was holding me, the trembling still didn’t stop. Fear ran coldly down my nape and along my spine.

“I’m scared.”

“I’ll protect you from those bastards until the very end.”

“I’m scared, Hyungjo……”

I buried my face in Hyungjo’s shoulder and cried. Hyungjo stayed by my side and watched over me until I cried myself to sleep. I held his hand tightly and didn’t let go.

It was that evening. I told the hyungs about what had happened during the day. They exploded with indignation.

“Those sons of bitches! They killed the Tuwi chairman! With the press in on it too, who can we trust! Damn it, there’s a limit to how much you can mock us!”

Taewan beat his own chest and let out a scream-like cry into the air.

It was starting again. Democracy, liberalization, the student movement, overthrowing the military dictatorship, Juche ideology—it was as if they lived for those things. They always talked about ideology, debated it, and vented their anger.

So, were those footsteps those of detectives trying to catch student activists? Who in this day and age would arrest an activist like that? In a country where even protests are applied for and approved by the authorities. The National Security Law had been abolished, the Central Intelligence Agency had been dismantled a long time ago, and in an era like this where human rights have become more important than anything.

These people, what on earth…….

Taewan, who had read the doubt in my eyes, stroked my head and said.

“Do you still believe that proper democratization has blossomed in this land?”

“…….”

I had learned that there were limits to liberal democracy. The principle of having to ignore the minority and side with the majority ultimately carried the premise that it could not satisfy everyone. Their emotional consensus was always placed in a direction and an era that I could not understand.

∞ ∞ ∞

A severe hunger washed over me. I went into a convenience store and bought a sandwich and milk. I devoured them hastily, like someone who had starved all day. After moistening my dry throat with milk, my stomach finally felt full. I felt like I could live. It was just a snack, but a cold sweat beaded on my back from the relief of feeling alive.

Having roughly sated my hunger, I went into the classroom. I sat in an empty seat and opened my book. My department classmates whispered as they passed by me.

I ignored them as they rudely gossiped about me. I didn’t question why they were doing it, nor did I get angry.

I was completely steeped in the alienation my father had warned me about. It was impossible from the start for me, who had lived a completely different life, to blend in with them without any sense of rejection.

By not caring about others, I was able to focus more on myself. The more I got to know myself, the more I ironically felt lonely whenever I faced my inner pleas, and I also realized my inner desire for someone’s affection and attention.

Whenever I sensed the desolate loneliness that came over me, I thought of the kiss I had shared with Hyungjo. I had never thought a kiss could have such absolute tranquility. It was as if time had stopped for that moment.

In the end, it only made things more awkward between Hyungjo and me, but it was the first time I had ever felt such a distinct emotional and physical connection with another person.

I had heard that lonely people tend to be obsessed with physical relationships. I could vaguely understand that feeling. It might have been because it was after I had seen Sungjoon and Heo Seok entangled. Am I also conscious of Hyungjo because I, too, perhaps want to mix my flesh with someone?

My head was spinning. I skimmed over the letters that weren’t even registering in my eyes, then laid my head on the desk and buried my face in my book.

“Is that him? Oh my god……”

“Yeah, the one who just put his head down, that’s him.”

What……?

I slowly raised my head. Two female students who had even turned their bodies to look at me quickly turned their gazes forward. It wasn’t just the two of them; many gazes were subtly tracking me, piercing my brow.

“…….”

I awkwardly swept my hair back once. The whispering directed at me seemed certain.

What did I do?

The cynical indifference had turned into hostile interest. The feeling of being distinctly ostracized from a group was so miserable that no one who hasn’t experienced it could ever know. It felt as if I had detached from them and was floating in the air. They and I did not exist in the same space but were clearly separated by a different dimension of glass-like distance.

I had always comforted my weakening heart, but for the first time since coming to Seoul, the strong desire to just quit everything and go back constricted my limbs.

The face that came to mind at times like these wasn’t my parents’. I thought of Hyungjo. I wished Hyungjo would comfort me, I wanted to be comforted by him, and the realization that I was yearning for Hyungjo more than I was bothered by the people’s whispers sent a chill down my spine.

I spent the whole day among people who seemed to be whispering about me. Even in such misery, a human gets hungry. As I ate a piece of bread, I felt pathetic and the situation seemed so ridiculous that a hollow laugh escaped me.

Tired of even caring about those whispering behind me, I hurried home.

Sungjoon must not have had classes today, as he was painting at home. I was invited into his room and watched him work.

It was a neat room with modest furniture. An easel was set up on one side, and the smell of oil painting materials wafted out, so strong it was almost nauseating.

An incomprehensible abstract painting hung on the easel. Being an amateur in art, I just appreciated it quietly without any thought of judging it.

“What do you think?”

Sungjoon asked without stopping his hand.

“I don’t know how to look at paintings. I just think, oh, it’s well-drawn, it’s cool. What were you thinking about while painting it?”

At my words, Sungjoon paused his hand. He said in a low voice.

“……Seok, Heo Seok.”

“…….”

The painting was predominantly blue. A deep blue, a bright sky blue, they mixed and spiraled, and at the bottom of the canvas, black and red were spreading in dots. To put it this way, it was a painting that felt like an oil tanker had capsized in a blue sea and was leaking oil.

“Seok is blue.”

“…….”

I was about to ask what the black painted at the bottom of the picture was, but I stopped. Sungjoon’s side profile looked too lonely.

I just said, “Oh, I see. It’s cool,” words I didn’t mean. While he painted, I looked around the room.

A canvas covered with an old cloth kept piquing my curiosity. While the other paintings were displayed in frames as if to show them off, it was very suspicious that only that one was hidden.

I asked him.

“Hyung, is it okay if I look at this painting?”

“Ah……, yeah. It’s okay.”

As soon as he gave his permission, I removed the draped cloth. I exclaimed in admiration without realizing it.

“Oh, it’s Taewan-hyung!”

At my words, Sungjoon smiled and nodded his head. It was a picture of him stroking his short beard. It felt as if Taewan’s unique relaxedness and the smell of rough sweat were wafting from the painting.

“Hyung, you drew it really well. Wow, art students are really something else. It really looks like Taewan-hyung.”

“It is Taewan.”

I spouted elementary school-like admiration as I looked at the Taewan in the painting. It felt as if Taewan would burst into his hearty laugh at any moment. The wrinkles around his smiling eyes were so vivid they seemed tangible.

He had painted Taewan with such affection and warmth, so why had he painted the abstract of his lover, Heo Seok, so coldly?

I thought of the coldness and anxiety in the abstract painting I had seen a moment ago, the uneasiness that the complementary colors brought.

“It really looks like Taewan-hyung.”

“It is Taewan. I go to art school.”

“I’m sorry. That’s the only exclamation I can think of. It really looks like Taewan-hyung.”