Struggle Chapter 150

On top of that, they were so insistently together that he couldn’t even have phone calls like the one on the first night. Lee Taerok craved a cigarette and took out his e-cigarette, but came to his senses when Kim Saon hastily snatched it away.

“What’s wrong with you. Why are you so out of it.”

He wasn’t the type to confuse indoors and outdoors. Kim Saon clicked his tongue.

Lee Taerok irritably rubbed his cheek and then swept his hair back.

His mood was sinking endlessly. The fact that he couldn’t even manage his own condition was annoying, but the reason being nothing more than love.

Nothing more than love.

He spoke of it that way, but that feeling had never been “nothing more” for a single moment. The feeling he believed he held in his grasp—perhaps it had never been in his hand to begin with. Lee Taerok felt as if he’d been struck repeatedly in the head. He had been in a daze for a long time, and as anger rose like a low fever, he was plagued by an inexplicable anxiety.

Yes. Anxious.

Not because Lee Nanyoung had been taken from him, but because he felt he might be taken away.

Just then, as if to mock Lee Taerok, a photo arrived by message. A family photo sent from his hyung-nim. Lee Taerok let out a laugh of sheer disbelief. It was rather cold.

Yet even so, he stared at the photo for a long time, then rubbed Nanyoung’s face with his thumb. His hand was more than large enough to cover Nanyoung’s entire face. It had also been a long time since he had been unable to touch Lee Nanyoung. It felt like years. His mouth was dry and his throat parched, so Lee Taerok gulped down his coffee.

Soon after, another message came from his brother.

Planning to come up today. Leaving soon

Nanyoung is coming.

A strange light flickered in Lee Taerok’s eyes. He called Kim Saon.

“Let’s make a reservation. One table.”

Lee Taerok was a big-spending guest. Before being a friend, Kim Saon’s eyes lit up toward his very valued regular.

“Sure. How many people?”

Lee Taerok put his phone in his pocket and rose from his seat.

“Four.”

∞ ∞ ∞

On the way up to Seoul, Nanyoung kept checking his phone.

His parents were in high spirits, talking about how they had found the Korean scenery after so long, and how much they had missed the taste of the food. Sitting in the back seat, Nanyoung waited for Lee Taerok, who wasn’t replying, growing more and more anxious.

“Nanyoung-ah.”

Then, at the sound of his name being called, he raised his head a beat late.

His father, wearing an odd smile, asked in a suggestive voice.

“Are you dating, by any chance?”

If he had been drinking water or eating something, he would have choked immediately.

Startled, Nanyoung gasped, “Hup,” and drew in a breath, then cautiously asked back.

“Why…?”

“Why, you rascal. Is it strange for your father to be curious about how you’re doing?”

If Nanyoung had truly been in an ordinary, normal relationship, he might have answered with an embarrassed laugh instead, or carefully boasted about it.

But his partner was far from ordinary. There would never be such a thing, and Lee Nanyoung would forever be in a relationship that was anything but ordinary. When the mere fact that his partner was the same sex would likely shock them, and what’s more, if it were his father’s own younger brother.

“I’m not doing that kind of thing.”

Nanyoung mumbled.

“Why. Is there no one you fancy?”

“I’m not really interested.”

Nanyoung muttered like a child going through puberty.

And he fiddled with his phone. He had not the slightest interest in his peers. No, even if they weren’t his peers, he had no interest. He wasn’t curious about anyone. If it wasn’t Lee Taerok. He had set his standards too high. Both as an ideal, and as an ideal type.

“Maybe it’s because Nanyoung is still young.”

His mother whispered with a smile.

Nanyoung said nothing, one way or the other. A moment later, a call came. He thought it was his, but it was his father’s. When answered through the car’s connected phone, Lee Taerok’s voice was heard.

― Are you on your way?

Naturally, all his nerves focused on it.

He heard a faint sound of exhaling breath. It wasn’t a sigh, but smoke. Nanyoung could easily picture Lee Taerok’s figure. His gaze slightly lowered so his eyelids half-covered his eyes, and even the smoke spreading like a languid breath between his lips. He didn’t like him smoking, and Lee Taerok rarely even smoked in front of him, but that particular image was something he often recalled. He would even go blank while ruminating on it. As if spellbound….

“Yeah. We should arrive in about an hour.”

― You must be tired.

That characteristic tone, indifferent and nonchalant. Nanyoung ended up smiling a little. He grew tense at the sound of Lee Taerok’s voice after so long. Even though he wasn’t right in front of him at this very moment.

― How about having that meal we couldn’t have together last time, now. You remember Saon. I’ll treat you there.

“Right. He said he opened a restaurant. I remember hearing about it. That’s a good idea. Shall we meet there?”

He missed Lee Taerok terribly, but he had no confidence in meeting him together with his parents. Because even during that brief moment on the way back from the airport, he had felt suffocated.

Just as he was about to say he would just go home, Lee Taerok spoke.

― Bring Nanyoung along too.

As if he were watching him right from just in front.

― I miss him. Since we’re always together and now he’s not.

Nanyoung’s heart races madly. It’s to the point of pain in his chest. His breath catches as if he has indigestion. Fear and excitement are far too similar. It has always been like this ever since he took Lee Taerok into his heart.

“Your relationship is so good. At this rate, Nanyoung will come to like you more than me.”

Nanyoung silently picked at his hangnail. A habit he had almost broken while with Lee Taerok had come back to life. Ever since his parents had arrived, whenever he thought of Lee Taerok, whenever he felt suffocated because of it, he would pick, and his fingers were a mess.

“Shall I put Nanyoung on?”

Since the call was connected through the car anyway, there was no need to switch, but his father asked. Nanyoung unconsciously closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Without particular suspicion, his father said, “Oh my, Nanyoung is asleep. He must be tired.”

Lee Taerok made a sound, “Hmm.” Nanyoung felt as if he were standing before him. As if he were facing him directly, and no lie could ever work.

― We can see him once you come up. Don’t wake him.

“Oh my, it’s as if you’re the parent. Alright. Let’s do that.”

― Drive safely up.

With his eyes closed, it truly felt as if he were hearing Lee Taerok’s voice in his sleep.

Into the drowsiness that had begun with a lie, Taerok pushes his back.

Come safely. It feels like he’s whispering to him. Like words spoken to a lover driven out onto a river.

Cross over safely. Don’t fall in anywhere, don’t be bewitched by anything.

Nanyoung nods in his sleep and drifts into a light slumber.

It hadn’t only been Lee Taerok who hadn’t been able to sleep all this time.

∞ ∞ ∞

In front of Kim Saon’s restaurant, Lee Taerok smoked. The e-cigarette he had switched to since mid-last year didn’t have the taste of leaf tobacco, but it certainly smelled less. He was about to quit soon anyway. During a health checkup at the end of the year, he’d heard that Nanyoung had somewhat weak lungs. Not to the point of needing serious caution, but enough that if he caught a cold, they had to watch out for pneumonia. Lee Taerok himself, on the other hand, was impeccably healthy. Why did he take after his parents in that? Well, it was only natural, he supposed.

‘I should be careful. At this rate, I might end up sending my nephew off with my own hands.’

He had said it like a joke, and Nanyoung had laughed and let it pass, but those words had taken deep root in Lee Taerok’s consciousness. As if he had actually experienced such a thing.

Since then, he had put great care into managing Nanyoung’s condition and paid as much attention as possible to it. Now all that remained was smoking? At the thought, the taste in his mouth went completely flat, and Lee Taerok removed the cartridge and shoved the device into his pocket.

Checking his watch, it was nearing the expected arrival time. Not long after, a car could be seen carefully turning in at the end of the alley. Thinking of Lee Nanyoung, Lee Taerok pulled up the corners of his lips, then soon returned to his usual expression.

“You waited long!”

His brother said cheerfully as he got out of the driver’s seat.

He, too, was by no means of a robust constitution. In fact, if you asked who Nanyoung took after, you could point definitively to his father.

But his brother, who bore the features visible in Nanyoung, was someone Lee Taerok could only face with quite different feelings.

“You arrived right on time.”

As he approached and opened the rear door, Nanyoung, who had been touching his hair, looked at him with surprised eyes.

Were you nervous about meeting me?

It was a child’s transparent scheme. Cute. The feeling naturally seeped out of him.