Chapter Text
For several minutes after the door closed, neither of them moved.
Sieun still had one hand around Seongje’s wrist.
His grip had weakened, but his fingers remained there, resting against the pulse beneath Seongje’s skin as though he needed to confirm it more than once.
Alive. Warm. Real.
Seongje stood just inside the apartment with snow melting in his hair and along the shoulders of his coat. A small pool of water had begun forming beneath his shoes.
Sieun noticed.
It was an ordinary thing to notice.
That made it unbearable.
For twenty years, Seongje had existed without weight or temperature. He had been an unfinished memory, incapable of tracking snow across the floor or standing awkwardly in a quiet entryway.
Now he was here, making a mess.
Sieun released his wrist.
“Take your shoes off.”
His voice sounded calm.
Seongje looked down.
“Right.”
He bent to untie them.
Sieun watched his hands.
They were older too.
There were thin scars across his knuckles and one pale line near his thumb. His fingers moved more carefully than they used to, without the impatient violence Sieun remembered.
Sieun wondered how many injuries he had never seen.
How many times Seongje had bled while Sieun was asleep on the other side of the world.
The thought came with the same instinctive anger it always had.
Then Sieun remembered he had no right to ask.
That realization hurt worse.
Seongje straightened and placed his shoes neatly beside the wall.
He had never done that when he was eighteen.
Back then, he kicked them off wherever they landed and waited for Sieun to complain.
Sieun almost wished he would do it now.
He wanted something familiar to be irritated by.
Instead, Seongje stood there politely, like a guest.
“Your coat,” Sieun said.
Seongje removed it and looked around for somewhere to place it.
Sieun took it from him.
Their fingers brushed.
Seongje pulled his hand back first.
That frightened Sieun.
The boy he remembered had touched him without hesitation. He had leaned over his shoulder while he studied, rested his chin on top of Sieun’s head and caught his wrist whenever Sieun tried to walk away.
This man seemed afraid to occupy space in his home.
Sieun hung the coat near the door.
When he turned back, Seongje was staring at a photograph on the shelf.
It showed Sieun, Suho, Baku, Jun-tae and Gotak standing together during a visit to Seoul ten years earlier.
Everyone was smiling except Sieun.
Seongje looked at it for too long.
“You kept in touch,” he said.
It was not a question.
“Yes.”
“That’s good.”
Sieun heard the effort in his voice.
Seongje was looking at the life that had continued without him.
Friends who had grown older beside Sieun.
Birthdays, weddings and ordinary dinners Seongje had missed.
Proof that absence did not stop time.
“Suho visits,” Sieun said.
“I know.”
Sieun looked at him.
Seongje’s expression changed slightly.
“He told me.”
“How often do you speak to him?”
“Not often.”
“How long has he known where you were?”
“He didn’t know exactly.”
“But he knew you were alive.”
“Yes.”
The room became silent. Sieun looked away first.
He walked into the living room, because standing near the door made it feel possible that Seongje might still leave.
Seongje followed slowly.
The apartment was clean and quiet. Books covered one wall. A lamp near the sofa filled the room with soft yellow light.
On the coffee table lay the photograph from the spring festival.
Sieun had left it there that morning.
Seongje saw it immediately.
His footsteps stopped.
Sieun did not turn around.
“You found it,” Seongje said.
“Last month.”
“I thought you might find it sooner.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
Sieun faced him.
“How?”
“Suho told me.”
“Of course he did.”
Seongje lowered his gaze.
Sieun hated that.
He hated the carefulness, the lowered eyes and the way Seongje allowed every bitter word to land without defending himself.
“Sit down,” Sieun said.
Seongje sat on the far end of the sofa.
Sieun remained standing.
The distance between them was less than two metres.
It felt larger than the ocean.
“Why are you here?”
Seongje looked at him.
“I thought you wanted me to come inside.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
“Why now?”
Seongje’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Sieun waited.
He had waited for twenty years. He could wait through another silence.
Finally, Seongje said, “Suho told me you forgot my voice.”
Sieun’s expression hardened.
“So you came because you felt sorry for me.”
“No.”
“Because he convinced you?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“I don’t know how to answer that without making it sound worse.”
“Try.”
Seongje looked at the photograph on the table.
“I wanted to come every year.”
Sieun laughed once.
The sound was sharp and empty.
“Every year?”
“Yes.”
“How fortunate for me.”
“Sieun—”
“Do you know how many years that is?”
Seongje went quiet.
“Say it.”
“Twenty.”
“Twenty years.”
Sieun folded his arms, not because he was angry, but because his hands had begun trembling.
“You wanted to come every year. Was there something preventing you from using a telephone?”
“At first, yes.”
“And later?”
Seongje said nothing.
“Was someone watching you for twenty years?”
“No.”
“Were you imprisoned?”
“No.”
“Did you lose my number?”
“No.”
“Then what stopped you?”
Seongje stared at the floor.
“I was ashamed.”
Sieun waited for more.
Nothing followed.
“That’s it?”
“No.”
“It sounds like it.”
“I kept thinking too much time had passed.”
“So you allowed more time to pass.”
“I know.”
“Every day you stayed silent made the next day easier?”
“No. Harder.”
“But you still managed.”
Seongje flinched.
Sieun saw it.
He felt no satisfaction.
“You managed to wake up,” Sieun continued. “You worked. You travelled. You met people.”
“Yes.”
“You had relationships.”
Seongje’s eyes lifted.
“Suho didn’t tell me that.”
“He didn’t have to.”
Sieun’s voice had become dangerously quiet.
“You disappeared, Seongje. I had no body to bury and no reason to believe you had survived. Do you understand what that does to a person?”
“I think I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
Sieun stepped closer.
“You knew I was alive.”
Seongje’s face tightened.
“You knew where I was. You knew when I left Seoul. You knew I came here.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I was alive the entire time.”
“After the first few years.”
“And I knew nothing.”
Seongje looked away.
“Look at me.”
He did.
Sieun felt the years between them all at once.
Every birthday.
Every winter.
Every night he had lain awake and tried to decide whether Seongje was dead.
“You left me with nothing,” Sieun said.
His voice broke on the final word.
Seongje’s expression changed.
He leaned forward instinctively.
Sieun stepped back.
“No.”
Seongje froze.
“You don’t get to touch me because I’m upset.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“I have.”
“Not all of it.”
Seongje pressed his hands together between his knees.
For a moment, he looked young again.
Not in his face, but in the way he sat under Sieun’s anger as though waiting for punishment he believed he deserved.
Sieun hated him for making guilt look like vulnerability.
“Did you love me?” Sieun asked.
Seongje stared at him.
“Then?”
“Yes.”
The answer came immediately.
“Did you love me when you left?”
“Yes.”
“When you called Suho on my graduation day?”
Seongje’s eyes widened slightly.
“He told you.”
“Years later.”
“Yes.”
“When you found out I had moved?”
“Yes.”
“When you were with other people?”
The silence lasted too long.
Sieun looked away.
“That’s enough.”
“No.”
Seongje stood.
Sieun’s shoulders tightened.
“I did,” Seongje said. “I loved you when I left. I loved you when I called Suho. I loved you when he told me you had gone to Canada.”
“Don’t.”
“I loved you when I met other people.”
“Stop.”
“I loved you every time someone asked why I never seemed completely present.”
Sieun turned toward him.
“That isn’t romantic.”
“I know.”
“It’s cruel.”
“I know.”
“To them and to me.”
“I know.”
“Then stop saying it like it means something.”
“It means everything to me.”
“That was always the problem.”
The words silenced them both.
Sieun’s breath was shaking now.
He pressed one hand against his mouth, but it was too late to hide it.
Seongje stood motionless.
“When I first came here,” Sieun said, “I couldn’t sleep if there were footsteps in the hallway.”
Seongje’s face went pale.
“I thought it might be you.”
Sieun looked toward the window.
“Every time someone stopped outside my door, I thought you had found me. Sometimes I would stand in the entryway and wait.”
His voice weakened.
“I never opened it first. I was afraid that if I did, nobody would be there.”
Seongje’s eyes filled.
Sieun had never seen him cry.
Not at eighteen.
Not when he was injured.
Not when he spoke about Baekjin or the Union or the people who had used him.
Now his face remained still, but tears gathered along his lower lashes.
Sieun continued because stopping would mean never saying it.
“I hated winter because you disappeared before the cold came. Then I hated summer because that was when you used to wait outside Eunjang.”
“Sieun.”
“I couldn’t listen to my old messages for years.”
“I never sent voice messages.”
“That’s why.”
Seongje looked as if he had been struck.
“I kept checking them because I thought maybe I had missed one. I thought there had to be something. A message, a photograph, anything that proved I hadn’t imagined the way you sounded.”
The tears reached Seongje’s face.
He did not wipe them away.
Sieun laughed again, but this time the sound collapsed halfway through.
“I was afraid I had invented you.”
Seongje’s breathing stopped.
“The longer it went on, the less real you felt. I could remember facts. The places we went. The things you did. But I couldn’t remember how you said my name.”
Sieun’s legs weakened.
He sat in the armchair opposite the sofa, gripping the edges with both hands.
“That was the last thing I had.”
Seongje remained standing.
His tears fell silently.
“You were the only person who said it like that,” Sieun whispered. “Everyone else made it sound ordinary.”
Seongje covered his mouth.
For a moment, neither of them could speak.
Outside, snow pressed softly against the windows.
Traffic moved far below.
The city continued without noticing that two people had finally reached the conversation they had been avoiding for half their lives.
Seongje lowered his hand.
“I used to say your name when I was alone.”
Sieun looked at him.
Seongje’s voice was barely audible.
“I didn’t want to forget it either.”
“You knew where I was.”
“Yes.”
“You could have said it to me.”
“I know.”
“You could have called once.”
“I know.”
“You could have let me choose.”
“I know.”
Each answer sounded smaller than the last.
Sieun stood again.
Anger was easier while moving.
“Did you think I would forgive you?”
“No.”
“Then what did you expect when you came here?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Did you expect me to be grateful that you were alive?”
“No.”
“Were you hoping I would understand?”
“No.”
“Then why knock?”
Seongje looked directly at him.
“Because I realized dying in your memory was another decision I made for you.”
Sieun went still.
“I thought staying gone would be easier for you,” Seongje continued. “Then Suho told me you found the photograph. He said you cried.”
His voice cracked.
“He said you thought I was dead.”
Sieun’s face hardened again.
“You let me.”
“Yes.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“And you still waited until now.”
“Yes.”
The honesty was unbearable.
Sieun crossed the distance between them and struck him.
The sound filled the apartment.
Seongje’s head turned to the side.
Neither moved.
Sieun stared at the red mark forming across his cheek.
His palm burned.
At eighteen, he had imagined hitting Seongje many times.
He had never imagined it would feel like this.
Not satisfying.
Not relieving.
Only late.
Twenty years too late.
Seongje slowly looked back at him.
He did not appear angry.
That made Sieun want to strike him again.
“Say something.”
“I deserved that.”
“Don’t.”
“I did.”
“Stop agreeing with me.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Fight back.”
Seongje stared at him.
“Tell me I’m wrong. Make one of your stupid jokes. Smile like none of this matters.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because it matters.”
Sieun pushed him.
Seongje stumbled back against the sofa.
“It didn’t matter enough for you to call.”
“It mattered too much.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know.”
“You always say that.”
“Because I know there isn’t an explanation that fixes it.”
Sieun pushed him again.
This time, Seongje caught his wrists.
It was instinctive.
The moment his fingers closed around them, both men froze.
Seongje loosened his grip immediately.
Sieun did not pull away.
Their hands remained between them.
“You promised you were still there,” Sieun said.
Seongje’s face changed.
The memory had reached him too.
Those nights in Sieun’s bedroom.
Sieun lying awake, counting every breath until Seongje mumbled without opening his eyes:
*I’m still here.*
“You said it whenever I couldn’t sleep,” Sieun continued. “You knew what it meant.”
“I meant it when I said it.”
“That makes it worse.”
“I know.”
“You were supposed to be there.”
Seongje’s hands fell away.
“I know.”
Sieun struck his chest with both fists.
It was not a real attack.
There was no strength behind it.
Only grief.
“You were supposed to be there.”
Seongje stood still.
Sieun hit him again.
“At graduation.”
Again.
“When I left Seoul.”
Again.
“When Suho visited me.”
Again.
“When I turned twenty.”
His voice broke.
“Thirty.”
Seongje’s hands hovered near him but did not touch.
“Every time I thought I saw you.”
Sieun’s fists weakened.
“Every time I realized it wasn’t you.”
His forehead fell against Seongje’s chest.
He stopped hitting him.
The anger left his body so suddenly that his knees nearly gave out.
Seongje caught him.
Sieun tried to pull away, but there was no strength left.
Seongje held him with both arms.
Not tightly.
Not possessively.
Only enough to keep him standing.
“I’m sorry,” Seongje whispered.
Sieun’s hands gripped the back of his shirt.
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“I waited for you.”
Seongje made a broken sound.
It was not quite a sob, but it was close.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I waited too.”
Sieun pulled back.
His face was wet.
“You had no right.”
“I know.”
“You chose it.”
“Yes.”
“You chose every day without me.”
“Yes.”
“And you expect me to care that it hurt you?”
“No.”
The answer stopped him.
Seongje looked at him through tears.
“You don’t have to care,” he said. “I didn’t come here to make my pain equal to yours.”
“Then why tell me?”
“Because you asked for the truth.”
Sieun stared at him.
Seongje wiped his face with the back of one hand.
“I woke up every day and chose not to call. That’s the truth. At first, I was protecting you. Later, I was afraid. After that, I was ashamed. Eventually, I didn’t know which reason was real anymore.”
His voice shook.
“But I chose it. You’re right.”
Sieun’s hands slowly released his shirt.
“I loved you,” Seongje said. “And I still abandoned you.”
The sentence broke something.
Not because Sieun had not known it.
Because Seongje had finally named it correctly.
Not protection.
Not sacrifice.
Abandonment.
Sieun turned away and walked to the window.
The glass reflected the room behind him.
Seongje near the sofa.
The photograph on the table.
Two men standing in a place built for one.
“When did you stop?” Sieun asked.
Seongje’s reflection looked up.
“Stop what?”
“Loving me.”
“I didn’t.”
Sieun closed his eyes.
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true.”
“I don’t want it to be.”
“Why?”
“Because then there was no reason.”
Seongje’s face crumpled.
Sieun continued staring at the city.
“If you stopped loving me, I could understand. People change. Feelings disappear. You could have met someone else and become happy.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then you threw away twenty years for nothing.”
The silence that followed seemed to fill the entire apartment.
Seongje sat down heavily on the sofa.
Sieun heard him begin to cry.
Not quietly this time.
The sound was restrained at first, as if Seongje were trying to force it back into his chest. Then his breathing broke, and he bent forward with one hand over his face.
Sieun did not turn around.
He had imagined Seongje regretting it.
He had wanted that regret.
Now that it was real, it offered no comfort.
“I thought you would be better without me,” Seongje said between uneven breaths.
Sieun looked at their reflection.
“Were you?”
Seongje lowered his hand.
“What?”
“Were you better without me?”
Seongje’s answer was almost soundless.
“No.”
“Neither was I.”
That was the tragedy of it.
There had been no hidden reward.
No life saved by their separation.
No happiness made possible by Seongje’s silence.
They had only lost each other.
Year after year, for reasons that had once seemed necessary and later became impossible to undo.
Sieun turned around.
Seongje was hunched forward, both hands clasped beneath his chin. Tears ran openly down his face.
At eighteen, he had looked invincible even when bleeding.
At thirty-eight, he looked tired.
Not physically.
Tired in a place sleep could never reach.
Sieun approached slowly.
Seongje heard him and straightened.
“I should leave,” he said.
Sieun stopped.
The words opened the old wound so quickly that he nearly could not breathe.
Seongje stood.
“I shouldn’t have come without warning.”
He reached for his coat.
“Don’t.”
Seongje froze.
Sieun hated how familiar the moment felt.
Another apartment.
Another doorway.
Another chance to say what he had failed to say before.
Seongje looked at him carefully.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know what happens now.”
“Neither do I.”
“I can stay somewhere else.”
Sieun looked at the clock.
It was after midnight.
Snow had thickened outside.
“You came from Korea.”
“Yes.”
“When is your flight back?”
“Three days.”
The answer hurt.
Of course there was already an ending scheduled.
“Three days,” Sieun repeated.
“I didn’t expect you to let me inside.”
“So you planned to knock on my door and leave the country?”
“I didn’t plan very well.”
“You never did.”
A faint, broken smile touched Seongje’s mouth.
It vanished almost immediately.
Sieun looked toward the hallway.
“There’s a guest room.”
Seongje blinked.
“You can stay there tonight.”
“Sieun.”
“Only tonight.”
Seongje nodded.
“Okay.”
Sieun walked to the linen closet and removed a blanket and pillow.
His movements were mechanical.
Seongje followed him to the guest room but remained near the door.
The room was small. A desk stood beneath the window, and several unopened boxes were stacked against the wall.
Sieun placed the blanket on the bed.
“I’ll leave in the morning,” Seongje said.
Sieun adjusted the corner of the blanket unnecessarily.
“You said you would stay three days.”
“I thought—”
“I didn’t ask what you thought.”
Seongje went quiet.
Sieun turned toward him.
“Do you know what I did after you left that night?”
Seongje’s face tightened.
“No.”
“I stood behind the door.”
Seongje stopped breathing.
“For almost an hour.”
Sieun looked at the floor.
“I thought you might come back upstairs.”
“Sieun—”
“I didn’t follow you because I thought you would return.”
Seongje leaned against the doorframe as though his body had lost its strength.
“I thought you would realize what you had said and come back.”
Sieun’s voice became distant.
“I kept listening for your footsteps.”
A tear slipped down Seongje’s cheek.
“You were waiting too,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
Neither had known.
Seongje had stood outside, waiting for the entrance door to open.
Sieun had stood inside, waiting for footsteps to return.
A few metres and one closed door had separated them.
Then twenty years.
Seongje covered his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Sieun looked at him.
This time, he did not tell him to stop.
Some apologies were useless.
Some still needed to be spoken.
“I’m sorry,” Seongje repeated. “I should have gone back.”
“Yes.”
“I should have told you everything.”
“Yes.”
“I should have called.”
“Yes.”
“I should have come sooner.”
Sieun’s face broke.
“Yes.”
Seongje stepped toward him, then stopped himself.
Sieun noticed.
After a long moment, he closed the remaining distance.
He rested his forehead against Seongje’s shoulder.
Seongje did not move.
“I don’t forgive you,” Sieun whispered.
“I know.”
“I might never.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
Seongje let out a trembling breath.
“Okay.”
Sieun closed his eyes.
The shoulder beneath his forehead was different now.
Broader.
Older.
But when Seongje finally raised his arms and placed them carefully around him, the shape of the embrace returned with devastating ease.
Sieun remembered everything.
The hospital garden.
The bedroom.
The way Seongje held him as though even affection had to be disguised as something careless.
Sieun gripped his shirt.
“I loved other people,” he said.
Seongje’s arms tightened almost imperceptibly.
“I know.”
“No, listen.”
Seongje stayed silent.
“I didn’t spend twenty years alone. I loved them. Some of them were good to me.”
“I’m glad.”
“I hurt them.”
Seongje’s breathing changed.
“They knew there was somewhere they couldn’t reach. I didn’t tell them your name, but they knew.”
Sieun pressed his face more firmly against his shoulder.
“One of them asked me whether I would leave if you came back.”
Seongje’s hand trembled against Sieun’s back.
“What did you say?”
“I said you weren’t coming back.”
“That wasn’t what they asked.”
“No.”
Sieun pulled away enough to look at him.
“I didn’t answer.”
Seongje’s eyes closed.
The grief on his face was quiet now.
Older.
“You should have chosen them,” he whispered.
“I tried.”
“You deserved someone who stayed.”
“I know.”
The answer struck Seongje the way his own repeated words had struck Sieun.
He looked away.
Sieun touched the scar near his eyebrow.
Seongje went completely still.
The gesture was instinctive.
Tenderness arrived before permission.
Sieun withdrew his hand.
“Who did that?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You’re lying.”
“Probably.”
The smallest trace of their old rhythm passed between them.
It hurt more than the argument.
For one second, they had sounded like themselves.
Then the years returned.
Sieun stepped back.
“You should sleep.”
Seongje nodded.
Sieun walked toward the door.
“Sieun.”
He stopped.
Seongje stood beside the bed, looking suddenly uncertain.
“What?”
“Can you say my name?”
Sieun stared at him.
Seongje tried to smile.
It did not work.
“You said you forgot my voice,” he explained. “I don’t remember yours saying mine either.”
Sieun looked down.
For twenty years, he had avoided Seongje’s name whenever possible.
He called him *him*, *that person*, *someone I knew in school*.
Names kept people alive.
That was exactly why he had stopped using it.
Now the name felt fragile inside his mouth.
“Geum Seongje.”
Seongje’s eyes filled again.
Sieun said it more quietly.
“Seongje.”
The room became still.
Seongje closed his eyes.
A tear rolled down his cheek, but this time he smiled through it.
It was not the careless grin Sieun remembered.
It was smaller.
Almost grateful.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “That’s me.”
Sieun left before the words could destroy him completely.
---
He did not sleep.
For hours, he lay in his bed listening to the apartment.
Every sound travelled through the walls.
The heating system.
A car outside.
The faint movement of sheets in the guest room.
At eighteen, Sieun had counted Seongje’s breaths while lying beside him.
At thirty-eight, a wall separated them.
Still, he listened.
Sometime after three in the morning, the guest-room door opened.
Sieun sat up immediately.
Footsteps moved down the hallway.
Not toward the front door.
Toward the kitchen.
Sieun remained still.
A cupboard opened. Water ran briefly.
Then nothing.
Minutes passed.
Sieun got out of bed.
He found Seongje sitting on the kitchen floor with his back against the cabinets.
A glass of water rested untouched beside him.
His knees were pulled toward his chest, one arm draped across them.
He looked up when Sieun entered.
“I couldn’t find the light.”
“The switch is beside the door.”
“I know that now.”
Sieun leaned against the doorway.
“Why are you on the floor?”
Seongje stared at the glass.
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“So you sat in the dark?”
“Yes.”
Sieun turned on the small light above the stove.
It illuminated the room without being too bright.
Seongje’s eyes were swollen.
“You were crying again,” Sieun said.
Seongje looked offended by the observation.
“You’re not supposed to notice everything.”
“I always have.”
“I know.”
Sieun’s chest tightened.
He sat on the floor opposite him.
For a while, they listened to the refrigerator hum.
“Did you ever come close?” Sieun asked.
“To calling?”
“Yes.”
“Many times.”
“How close?”
Seongje looked at his hands.
“I dialled once.”
Sieun waited.
“It rang.”
“When?”
“Your twenty-fifth birthday.”
Sieun’s breath caught.
“I answered an unknown call that day.”
Seongje looked up sharply.
“Nobody spoke.”
The silence between them changed.
Sieun remembered.
He had been living in a smaller apartment then. It was raining. His friends had taken him to dinner, but he had returned early.
His phone rang shortly before midnight.
An international number.
He answered.
For almost ten seconds, there had been only silence and a faint sound like breathing.
Then the call ended.
Sieun had called back three times.
The number stopped working the next morning.
“That was you,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you speak?”
“I heard your voice.”
“That was the reason to speak.”
“It became the reason I couldn’t.”
Sieun stared at him.
“I said hello four times.”
“I know.”
“I asked whether it was you.”
Seongje’s eyes closed.
“I know.”
“You heard me.”
“Yes.”
“And you ended the call.”
“Yes.”
Sieun stood so quickly that the glass beside Seongje tipped over.
Water spread across the tile.
Seongje reached for it.
“Leave it.”
Sieun walked out of the kitchen.
“Sieun.”
He continued down the hallway.
Seongje followed.
“I’m sorry.”
Sieun turned.
“You heard me ask.”
Seongje stopped.
“I said your name.”
“Yes.”
“You heard me say it.”
“Yes.”
“And you let me think I was losing my mind.”
Seongje’s face twisted.
“I was a coward.”
“You were cruel.”
“Yes.”
“I called the number back.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“I stayed near the phone.”
Sieun stared at him.
“Why?”
“I wanted to hear it ring.”
The answer was so pathetic, so selfish and so full of longing that Sieun could not speak.
Seongje’s voice broke.
“I wanted proof that you wanted me to answer.”
Sieun looked at him as if seeing a stranger.
“You already had proof.”
“I know.”
“You always had proof.”
“I know.”
“I waited at the door. I checked hospitals. I answered your call.”
Each sentence made Seongje fold further into himself.
“How much proof did you need?”
Seongje began crying again.
“I don’t know.”
Sieun pressed both hands against his face.
There was no punishment large enough for twenty years.
No sentence that could return the missed birthdays.
He wanted Seongje gone.
He wanted him close enough to touch.
Both feelings existed with equal force.
“I wish you had stopped loving me,” Sieun said.
Seongje’s crying quieted.
“I wish I had been nothing to you.”
“You were never nothing.”
“That would have been kinder.”
“I know.”
Sieun lowered his hands.
“I built my entire life around the space you left.”
Seongje stared at him.
“And now you’re standing in it.”
The words emptied the room.
Seongje’s eyes moved around the hallway, the books, the photographs, the quiet apartment.
For the first time, he seemed to understand that Sieun’s life had not formed after him.
It had formed around him.
Like scar tissue around something that never fully healed.
“I can leave,” Seongje whispered.
Sieun’s face twisted.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Seongje did not move.
Sieun hated himself for it.
He hated the fear that had risen at the suggestion.
“I don’t know what I want,” Sieun said.
“Okay.”
“I might want you gone tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“I might never speak to you again.”
“Okay.”
“But don’t leave while I’m asleep.”
Seongje’s entire expression collapsed.
He nodded, unable to speak.
Sieun turned away.
Behind him, Seongje said, “I won’t.”
Sieun closed his eyes.
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
The word frightened both of them.
They had trusted promises before.
Seongje understood.
He stepped closer but did not touch him.
“I’ll be here when you wake up,” he said.
Sieun’s shoulders shook.
“Don’t say things you can’t keep.”
“I can keep this one.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m not eighteen anymore.”
Sieun turned toward him.
Neither of them believed age automatically made people better.
But Seongje stayed where he was.
No joke.
No smile.
No attempt to escape what he had done.
Sieun looked at him for a long time.
Then he went into his bedroom.
---
When Sieun woke, pale morning light filled the room.
For several seconds, he forgot.
Then everything returned.
The knock.
Seongje’s voice.
The years.
The call on his twenty-fifth birthday.
Sieun sat up.
The apartment was silent.
His heart began racing before his feet touched the floor.
He opened the bedroom door.
Seongje was sleeping on the couch in the living room.
He had fallen asleep with his head tilted to one side. A blanket covered his shoulders—the one from the guest-room bed.
Beside him sat the old spring-festival photograph.
Sieun did not know when Seongje had taken it from the table.
Two eighteen-year-old boys sat behind a gymnasium.
One looked peaceful.
The other watched him.
Sieun lowered himself to the same level.
Seongje woke at the movement.
For one panicked second, he looked around as if he did not know where he was.
Then he saw Sieun.
“I’m here,” he said immediately.
The same words.
The same promise.
But the voice was older now.
Rougher.
Real.
Sieun looked at him.
He had imagined hearing those words again for twenty years.
They did not repair anything.
They did not return the life they had lost.
They only proved how badly he had needed them.
Sieun reached for the photograph.
His fingers touched Seongje’s.
Neither pulled away.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Sieun whispered.
Seongje’s eyes filled.
“Neither do I.”
“You might have come too late.”
“I know.”
“I’m not the person in this picture anymore.”
“I know.”
“Neither are you.”
“I know.”
Sieun looked at the photograph.
At the way Seongje had watched him.
“How long can you stay?”
Seongje swallowed.
“As long as you let me.”
It was not a promise that everything would be fixed.
It was not forgiveness.
It was only time.
Three days.
Perhaps more.
Perhaps nothing after that.
But after twenty years of being given no choice, Sieun finally had one.
He placed the photograph between them.
Then, slowly, he rested his head against Seongje’s shoulder.
Seongje stopped breathing.
“Don’t misunderstand,” Sieun said.
“I won’t.”
“I’m tired.”
“I know.”
“And I still hate you.”
“I know.”
Sieun closed his eyes.
Seongje pulled the blanket around both of them.
His hands were careful.
Almost frightened.
They sat together on the floor while morning entered the apartment.
Two men holding the photograph of the boys they had failed to save.
Sieun listened to Seongje breathe.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
He counted every breath.
Not because he believed Seongje would vanish if he stopped.
Because some habits were made from love, and others from fear, and after twenty years Sieun no longer knew the difference.
Just before sleep took him again, he heard Seongje whisper his name.
Quietly.
As if returning something precious that he had stolen.
Sieun did not answer.
But his fingers closed around Seongje’s sleeve.
And this time, when he fell asleep, Seongje was still there.