Place to Be Chapter 7

Even when he looked at the types of magazines kids secretly brought to school, his gaze would inevitably drift toward the men photographed with the women rather than the women themselves posing in suggestive positions.

At first, he considered it mere curiosity—a man wondering how other men looked. But as it happened repeatedly, he realized that the fleeting, anxious sensation that surged whenever he saw those photos was similar to the feeling other boys had when looking at pictures of naked women. However, whenever that thought surfaced in his consciousness, Seo Chiyoung would desperately turn his head away from it, fearful of the dread and anxiety that began to encroach upon his mind.

It was during that time that winter arrived. Once that winter passed, he would officially become an exam candidate, so Seo Chiyoung spent the entire break at a study hall. His mother, saying that staying glued to a desk all day would ruin his health, signed him up for the gym located in the basement of the study hall building. His routine that winter became going to the study hall early in the morning, stopping by home only for meals, and working out for about an hour at the gym before returning home late at night.

When he went to the gym late at night after finishing his studies, there was almost no one there. This was partly due to the timing—an hour or two before closing—and partly because it was awkwardly far from the residential area. There were only about three or four people in the gym, which was quite spacious for a basement. By the time Seo Chiyoung finished his workout, it was usually practically empty.

However, it wasn’t lonely, as he had struck up a conversation with someone he often ran into at the same time—someone who either worked or lived nearby. As he learned through later conversations, he was a young man about ten years older than Seo Chiyoung who worked at a nearby office.

At first, Seo Chiyoung felt somewhat uneasy. It was because he felt the man’s gaze watching him with interest. Indeed, whenever he turned his head, the man was looking at him. That gaze, which seemed to be examining something, strangely bothered him; though Seo Chiyoung tried to turn away, his nerves remained on edge. So, when the man suddenly spoke to him, he couldn’t help but flinch.

“Are you a student?”

“…, Yes.”

“Where? If it’s around here, is it Jungwon High?”

“No…, Gyeonghwa High School.”

“Oh, really? I graduated from there too. What do you know, we’re sunbae and hoobae?”

The man beamed a wide smile as if he were genuinely pleased. The good-natured smile was unexpectedly friendly, so Seo Chiyoung eased his tense heart a little. The man approached and climbed onto the treadmill right next to the one Seo Chiyoung was on, beginning to run slowly as he turned his head.

“Who’s your homeroom teacher?”

“It’s Mr. Kim Sungdae…”

“Hmm—I’m not sure. Since it’s a private school, the teachers shouldn’t have changed much. When I attended, the Dean of Students was a really tough guy. Let’s see, what was his name… Cho, Cho Kyung… something…”

“…Mr. Cho Kyungsik?”

“Ah, right! Cho Musik! His habit was always saying, ‘You ignorant fools, learn something, learn!’ so his nickname was Cho Musik. Do you know him?”

“Yes. He’s the homeroom teacher for the class next to mine. …He’s still like that.”

Seo Chiyoung laughed softly. The familiar stories flowing from a stranger’s mouth were somehow funny. The man, who had been looking steadily at the quietly laughing Seo Chiyoung, wore a wide grin. Looking delighted, he murmured, “It’s good to see a hoobae,” and opened up the conversation.

The man was a very interesting person. He was well-informed and had a talent for telling stories in a savory way, so during the times they met almost every night, Seo Chiyoung became quite close with him. The wariness he had briefly felt at first had dissolved to the point where he wondered why he had felt it at all.

Then came one night. Normally, the man would always head straight back after finishing his workout, saying, “My house is nearby,” but that day, he followed Seo Chiyoung into the shower room, claiming his hot water boiler had broken down. Entering the empty shower room and turning on the water, Seo Chiyoung—who felt a bit awkward encountering someone he usually met casually while they were now both naked—gave an embarrassed smile when their eyes met. The man smiled back.

“Chiyoung, don’t you hear that you’re cute often?”

“Huh? No, I don’t.”

Seo Chiyoung laughed, asking if he was joking. He had heard that he looked calm and gentle, but he hadn’t heard that he was cute since he was a very young child, so he shook his head with a sheepish smile. The man glanced over Seo Chiyoung as if it wasn’t entirely a joke.

“Really? You look just like a kid. An innocent kid who doesn’t know the world. …Your ‘thing’ is still a kid, too.”

The latter part was said somewhat playfully, as the man meaningfully pointed his chin toward Seo Chiyoung’s lower body. Seo Chiyoung’s face turned red instantly. Since there was no problem and he was told it wasn’t strictly necessary, he hadn’t had a circumcision. He usually never thought about it, but being pointed out so bluntly made his face flush as if a complex he never knew he had had suddenly developed.

“I was told I didn’t need the surgery…”

“I didn’t get the surgery either. I peeled mine back myself. Look.”

The man turned his body toward Seo Chiyoung. Seo Chiyoung reflexively dropped his gaze in the direction the man’s hand was moving. He loosely gripped his own penis and lifted it as if showing it to Seo Chiyoung.

Seo Chiyoung momentarily caught his breath. While he had caught glimpses in places like public bathhouses or swimming pool locker rooms many times, it was his first time seeing another person’s genitals displayed so purposefully right before his eyes. He tried to look away quickly, but what entered his vision then were the protrusions dotted along the dark shaft. He had heard stories about embedding bead-like foreign objects there, but he had never actually seen it, not even in a photograph. He found his gaze stolen despite himself.

The man, watching Seo Chiyoung who had frozen stiff without even being able to blink, smiled and took one step, then two, standing right in front of him.

“Is it fascinating? You’ve never touched something like this, have you? Here.”

The man suddenly grabbed Seo Chiyoung’s hand and, as if it were nothing, pulled that hand and made him grasp his penis. He felt the thick grip of the man’s distorted genitals. Over the hand that was reflexively shrinking away, the man overlapped his own hand and gripped it.

“It might look hideous, but how does it feel now that you’re touching it? Looks like it would taste good, doesn’t it?”

The man’s voice became suggestive. Seo Chiyoung didn’t know what to do and just looked down at his hand. The man’s hand, which overlapped Seo Chiyoung’s, began to move slowly up and down.

“My intuition is usually quite accurate in this area… You like men, don’t you?”

Bowing his head, he whispered into Seo Chiyoung’s ear. Seo Chiyoung flinched as if struck by lightning. Unable to even blink his wide eyes, he just moved his lips, whispering in a barely audible voice, “N-no, I’m… I’m not.” The man brings his lips even closer to Seo Chiyoung’s ear as if it were unexpected—or as if telling him not to lie.

“Really not…? You’ve never thought about wanting to sleep with a man? Not even once? There’s nothing to hide. I’m the same way. I got the feeling the moment I first saw you. …Right here.”

Pressure was applied to the man’s hand that held Seo Chiyoung’s. And Seo Chiyoung felt a strange sensation—a throb, a pulsing leap—right against his palm. The hardened mass of flesh swayed within his hand.

Another person’s desire. The fact that the desire he was encouraging with his own hand belonged to a man pierced through his mind vividly.

In that moment, Seo Chiyoung was swept away by an indistinguishable, distant fear and shock. His mind went pitch black and his thoughts were paralyzed. It felt as if both thought and reason had flown away somewhere.

He didn’t know at what point he had burst out of there. Like a film that had been cut and then spliced back together, there was a gap in his mind. He had a faint memory of pushing the man away and running out frantically, but he couldn’t be sure. When he came to his senses, he was walking along an unfamiliar alleyway, his body huddled tight.

The first thing that surfaced was rational disgust and a strange sense of alienation.

Why. How. …It’s not me. I’m not like that.

His hand felt hot. Like it was burned—yet he was reluctant even to clench his fist—with his hand half-closed, Seo Chiyoung huddled his body against the chilling sensation constantly flowing through him and just kept walking. It felt as if his ability to think had stopped for a while.