Arcadia Chapter 4.4

Van didn’t open his mouth until the coffee had gone cold and Wayne had finished his meal. Around the time Wayne came back with a fresh cup of coffee for himself, Van, with his arms crossed tightly, moved his lips.

“Dia’s been acting a little strange.”

“And you’re sure you’re not the one who’s stranger?”

“He… me… he…”

Wayne, sipping the strongly brewed coffee, waited for Van’s next words, who looked as pained as if he’d swallowed a hot stone. Van exhaled, then inhaled again, tapped the table a few times, and finally muttered suggestively.

“I think he likes me.”

Van, who had brought it up with difficulty, expected Wayne to show some kind of reaction, but the man just took another sip of coffee, remaining silent. When Van banged on the table, urging him to answer, Wayne let out a deep sigh and leaned back in his chair.

“Is it okay to do this to someone you’ve already rejected?”

“I wouldn’t do this to anyone else. You’re just… well, just cooperate a little.”

It wasn’t that Van had come to Wayne because he was particularly trustworthy or comfortable. He wanted to confide in someone, but he had no one else to talk to about this kind of thing, so he had come here. It was, so to speak, an unavoidable choice. As he held his ground, drumming his palms on the table, Wayne rubbed the bridge of his nose and asked with a completely uninterested expression.

“Why’s that? He’s always followed you around like a puppy.”

Having managed to get permission to vent, Van quickly leaned his upper body forward. He didn’t have much time, as he had only slipped out for a moment on the pretext of taking out the trash.

“These days, Dia doesn’t ask me to feed him. He eats by himself, can you believe it? He doesn’t ask me to wash him either. He’s been washing himself lately, but he still used to nag me sometimes. Oh, I do dry his hair for him, though. And he doesn’t sleep with me anymore. He says he’ll sleep alone now. Isn’t that strange? He used to come into my room even if I kept kicking him out.”

“…He’s been doing that until now?”

Wayne asked back, looking dumbfounded. As Van nodded his head vigorously, the man put down his coffee cup and gestured with his chin as if to say, “Keep talking.”

“What’s the problem?”

“He suddenly grew up. He got taller, too… Honestly, I don’t even know what he’s thinking anymore. Maybe because he’s gotten more mature.”

“So.”

“But he’s acting in a way that’s kind of misleading.”

Van, knitting his brows, recalled Dia’s behavior over the past week.

Van had been far from naive since he was young. Thanks to his striking appearance in many ways, he was always surrounded by people, and among them, there were quite a few who approached him with a special kind of interest. Having received all sorts of expressions of interest, he had become jaded to flirtatious advances. From Van’s perspective, some of the signals Dia had been sending lately were similar in nature to the advances his past lovers used to make.

He would sneak up and hug him from behind, or lick his fingers, or make a fuss about wanting to make him breakfast. In a word, he was subtly hitting on him. And that damned “subtly” was the problem. It wasn’t like he was throwing his body at him like the day he tried to kiss him, so it was awkward to warn him to stop.

Besides, even if it felt like an advance, he couldn’t be certain that it was. He might just be imitating scenes he saw in movies or on YouTube. But even after digging through Dia’s video history, it was all lectures and travel destinations, so there was nothing that could be the culprit, but anyway, it was hard to be sure. Surely, he couldn’t genuinely harbor ‘those’ kinds of feelings. He wanted to believe that.

Wayne listened to Van’s rambling worries with an air of annoyance and bother, then summarized it briefly.

“So you’re saying he wants to have sex with you.”

“Are you crazy? What are you saying to a kid?”

Horrified by the outrageous statement, Van shuddered. Rubbing his goosebump-covered arms and glaring at him as if he were the scum of the earth, Wayne let out a hollow laugh and retorted.

“A kid? He’s a full-grown adult now.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Yes, he is. He’s all grown up.”

“If I say he’s not, he’s not.”

What Wayne said, who dropped by morning and evening to check on Dia, was close to the truth, but Van desperately denied it. “Come back when you’re grown up,” “I’ll think about it when you’re all grown up,” “Tell me after you’ve grown up…” From Van’s perspective, who didn’t even know how many empty promises he had made off the cuff, Wayne’s statement was highly dangerous.

Van, who couldn’t accept reality and was being stubborn, stared blankly at Wayne drinking coffee with a weary face, then found a plausible answer.

“Come to think of it, I think it’s because of you. He feels like he’s being robbed of something, so he wants to try and imitate everything.”

“Now you’re blaming me?”

“Being a parent is this hard…”

Van, pretending not to hear Wayne’s scolding, let out an exaggerated sigh. Dark clouds gathered on the face of the jovial, handsome man who had seemed to have no worries. Wayne looked down at the cup of black coffee, then pointed out the contradiction mixed in Van’s words.

“Why are you his parent?”

“I raised him, so I have a stake in it at least…”

“So how are you going to send him off? About half a year left, is it?”

Van let out a low sigh at the unexpected question. He had completely forgotten again. He wasn’t particularly slow-witted, but he often forgot about the limited time he had. Whatever Dia’s intentions were for his embarrassing actions, he was a one-million-dollar experiment before he was a boy he had raised.

Suddenly realizing his place, Van’s shoulders slumped. Wayne, glancing at the top of the uncharacteristically dejected Van’s head, stood up and cleared the two coffee cups. Wayne, who had poured Van’s untouched coffee into the sink, spat out in a light tone.

“Do it.”

“…Do what.”

“Sex.”

Van’s eyes, as he slowly lifted his head, grew as wide as saucers. His handsome face then crumpled more than a piece of paper.

“Are you really crazy?”

Wayne, who had placed the rinsed coffee cup upside down on the drying rack, shrugged and continued with his vulgar words.

“He’s all grown up anyway, so what. If you raised him, you should at least pop his cherry, shouldn’t you?”

“What kind of bullshit is that!”

Van, who shot up with a shout, glared fiercely at Wayne who had spouted such immoral words, then stormed out of the place. Wayne, who watched the back of Van, who had become less adept at controlling his emotions than when he was in Cancun, wiped his wet hands and swept his hair up. His dark, sunken eyes touched the wet coffee cup once, then lingered for a long time on the chair where Van had been sitting.

Van, who had stormed out of the house next door, was heading home fuming when he realized his mistake. His original purpose was to suggest that since Dia might have become strange from only seeing him, maybe the two of them could try to get to know each other, but in the end, all he heard was nonsense. “Ah, so annoying.” Van, who had roughly washed his dry face, was startled when he threw open the front door he had left unlocked.

“You’re back?”

It was because Dia appeared as soon as he opened the door. Van, who had just been having an unspeakable conversation with Dia as the topic, stealthily avoided his eyes and went inside, closing the door.

“What are you doing, here.”

“Did you take out the trash properly?”

“I took it out nice and clean.”

As he changed his shoes and glanced at him, Dia held up what he was holding in both hands.

“You didn’t take it with you.”

It was a trash bag. A very large and lumpy one. Frozen, Van cautiously observed Dia’s bright smile, then put his shoes back on.

“Why is that there… Thanks.”

He snatched the trash bag and hurriedly left the house. Van, who ran out and threw away the trash, came back into the house where Dia welcomed him, as if nothing had happened.

He prepared for a barrage of questions from the boy as he scrubbed his hands, but Dia didn’t say much. He was quietly reading a book, leaning against the sofa, and just smiled once when their eyes met.

Van, who sat down next to him with an awkward smile, felt relieved, but also a little disappointed. Should he say it felt like the child who couldn’t do anything without his dad had suddenly grown up and become indifferent? Finding him approaching to be a burden, yet feeling disappointed by his indifference. He couldn’t understand his own fickle heart, so he just stared at his phone for no reason.

Dia, who had been staring at the book without turning a single page since Van left the house empty-handed, lifted his gaze. The boy quietly watched the side of Van’s face as he tapped on his phone, leaning against a cushion, then let his upper body collapse. When he lay down with his head on Van’s thigh, Van, who had abruptly lifted his phone, blinked and then let out a small laugh.

The hand stroking his hair felt good. Dia, who dropped the book he had closed onto the carpet, slipped his hand between Van’s thigh and the sofa. The soft skin flinched. Pretending not to know anything, he grabbed and kneaded the thigh that fit in one hand, feeling the tightly tensed muscle.

“Van.”

“…What, you punk.”

“I just called your name.”

Dia, who smiled with his eyes closed, turned on his side and grabbed Van’s thighs with both hands. Startled, Van sat up straight and tried to subtly move his thigh away. Dia applied a tiny bit of pressure to his grip. The leg that had been inching away was helplessly pulled back. Lying with his head on both thighs so he couldn’t pull them away again, Dia watched Van, who was darting his eyes around with a bewildered expression, and the corners of his mouth lifted. Dia, who had grown significantly in body and mind, had realized a surprising fact.

Van, who had seemed so big and strong, was actually small and weak. So, so weak that he was afraid to let him out of his sight.

20xx. 6. 12. The thing I raised from a cell is after me.

Van, who had scribbled a single line, stared at the nonsensical sentence and then crossed it out with a pen. He scribbled over it several times so the writing wouldn’t be visible. Letting out a deep sigh and turning the page, the one-line entries left here and there caught his eye.

He had picked up a pen for days on end to observe and record SUC-07, but all he had left over the months was a collection of impressions that barely amounted to twenty pages. This is what happens when you entrust a job to a lazy person.

He could barely remember what happened yesterday, so there was no way he could cram it all in now like he was doing his vacation homework. Van lifted his head and looked out the window. The wind blowing in mid-June had become much softer, but still, the sky in this neighborhood was still gloomy and the air was invariably chilly.

Van, who was watching the desolate street again today, turned his gaze to the forest that contributed to the gloomy atmosphere. Police cars occasionally patrolled, but there was no news of the murderer being caught. “There’s a limit to getting paid for doing nothing.”

Van, who clicked his tongue, slumped over his desk and turned on his phone. He naturally went into the photo app and once again admired the picture he had looked at so much it was seared into his retina. It was a picture of Dia, with his cheeks flushed, holding a model airplane toy and smiling brightly. His pinky-nail-sized front teeth and curly hair were so cute. Van’s nose tingled for no reason. How could this lovely child have…

“Asleep?”

Startled, he turned around to see the real Dia had approached without a sound. He clearly remembered closing the door, so opening it without a sound was a talent in itself. Van hid his phone and scolded him lightly.

“Let’s knock, Dia.”

“I did, but there was no answer.”

“So it was my fault.” Van, who pouted his lips, turned to sit properly, and Dia, who had lightly placed a hand on the back of the wooden chair, leaned his weight on it and bent his upper body. Van, who bent his back as well, spotted a glass of orange juice being placed on the desk. The arm that had been next to his face was quickly withdrawn, but the warmth left on his back did not disappear right away.

Instead of leaving the room, Dia sat on the edge of the bed and, leaning against the wall covered with tacky posters, opened the book he had brought. Van, who was thirsty just in time, sipped the juice and rested his chin on his hand. Since he had nothing to do, he found himself constantly observing Dia.

Dia, with the spine of the book resting on his raised knee, continued to speed-read. The pages turned so quickly that he wondered if he could even read the words, but judging by their conversations during meal times, it seemed he was indeed reading. Finding the hair, which had been trimmed to a length that was neither short nor long, bothersome, Dia would occasionally sweep it back lightly, and Van, watching him, called out suggestively.

“Hey, pretty boy.”

Dia didn’t answer, just lifted his eyes slightly. Meeting the eyes that held a fresh green field, Van couldn’t help but be impressed.

Just as Wayne had asserted he was an adult, Dia’s appearance certainly looked like a full-fledged adult, over twenty years old. If only it had stopped there, but the boy became astonishingly more beautiful with each passing day. To the point where the nickname ‘pretty boy’ felt shabby, Dia was blossoming into a fantastical beauty that was beyond compare.

And that wasn’t all. Even though he wasn’t doing any proper exercise, his physique was getting better by the day. Van, from the perspective of the same gender, scanned Dia’s body with a completely subjective and resentful eye. Unlike himself, who had to work out like crazy to barely build muscle, Dia seemed to build fine muscles meticulously just by breathing. Do aliens just get muscular from eating and moving around a little? Truly, the world was unfair and Dia was selfish.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

To Dia’s question, Van, who had been trying hard to find a flaw in his long legs, broad shoulders, and other parts, answered with a slick smile. “Just because you’re pretty.” He said vaguely and relaxed his eyes. On the other hand, there was also a sense of pride, thinking, ‘He became this pretty because I fed him well and raised him well.’ Dia, who wasn’t flustered by the random compliment, grinned and closed the book. Then he patted the spot next to him with his palm.