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It is Saturday when they lie two almost lifeless bodies on Heeseung's hardened bed. Jaeyun could barely find a break from the almost two-week breathless college marathon. It was like hell, it still is, being in such a mess that it will be hard to breathe again in a day or two is just suffocating Jaeyun. But he doesn't do anything except huff inside, he knows that it's okay to bend over and bear these difficulties as long as he doesn't break. Because that's what he has to do. He has to do this in order to be strong enough to give his father a piece of land outside the rotten town. He has to do this to offer his mother something more than a broken, cracked home. Being a good son, he thinks, maybe it's not just about that, not that easy.
"You're doing so well, you know that, right?"
Heeseung had sent a small message from his old phone with a cracked screen— come home, miss u, miss u sm, I'll cook, just be here— and that's how another lie Jaeyun served against his mother turned out to be. I have to go, Jungwon said he's having trouble with a few things, he needs me— Bullshit. Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense and foolish. He took a bus across the fucking town and killed hours, just because there's something about Heeseung's ugly and uncomfortable bed that smells like home.
“I… I’m not sure about that though.”
He forces himself to give his lips a little curve, a little x-axis expansion and y-axis lift—wait, is this good enough, vibrant enough to be real? No matter how well he plays, Heeseung is always the director of the play, so every expression he forces without being as real as he wants, breaks on his face, it continues for a wavelength.
"But you should be. You should be aware of how well you're doing, Jaeyun—ah," Jaeyun feels that the fingertips that were caressing his waist from the outside are now touching something real under his T-shirt, first his love, then his worries, and lastly his skin. "You're just too sweet, too sweet to figure out how much you bleed and hurt.”
Jaeyun waits, in Heeseung's arms, in the corner where the cold is trying to filter through the warmth and enter as something more cruel, with every step there is a little bit of brokenness in every way, reminding him of how far behind and at the bottom they are. He waits for more breaking, running, and sleepless nights—but Heeseung holds him, like a pretty doll that will soon be close to being real when its fancy and shiny packaging comes out.
And maybe Jaeyun can work with that, by just being pretty, for Heeseung, being divine and heavenly, something to be worshipped for him. But probably in another universe, somewhere where they hold some money along with a brighter, more vibrant love that is likely to last.
Heeseung takes a wet kiss on his neck, Jaeyun feels the tongue playing on his collarbones (his collarbones that pull a face inwards), it’s not something that has a colour, not has a smell or a sharp sound. But Jaeyun can see the smoky blue on Heeseung's tongue, on his lips, and in his being. He can still make out the mouth and hair that smell like hands holding a cigarette branch. He weighs the voices the most and they are there, almost as big as Jaeyun himself, united and one.
“You’re perfect, so pretty,” There are a few vulnerable, naive words, and then there are rapidly developing leanings, reaching, mouths hitting each other. It would be an almost cinematic sight if they weren't on Heeseung's old, creaky bed, with the sunlight unable to filter through the curtains that have lost their whiteness with dust—it shines on Jaeyun’s face, which now is at Heeseung's mercy. “Fuck, I did not make you up,” Jaeyun almost thinks he moans. But it feels like all his receptors have been replaced by each other, even his fingers that tremblingly touch the glass of water that sits on the bedside table while he reaches his hand comes as if it's fake. But it's not, and that's the scary thing, that's the great thing, they're still young with Heeseung on top of him. He's still young. “How are you even mine?”
It's so covert, like something said while drunk, with the warmth almost smeared on the lips of lovemaking, and Jaeyun wouldn't even have undermined it if he didn't know Heeseung well enough to know that he has a habit of picking daisies into the packs of cigarettes he finished. (But he does.)
How can a remedy like you belong in the mess of such a desperate prayer? It’ll leave a trace, mark you with the blight it has, and then you’ll be aching deep to your Achilles heel.
— —
They hold each other, they kiss, and they do a little more than that. Then a stillness hits, the urge to stop and slow down, to breathe and shiver under every threadbare fabric. It's easier for Jaeyun to fall asleep, where their skin meets he always tends to lose consciousness as if he's anesthetized. But Heeseung is awake, there is a desperation that does not leave him alone, that does not fall from his collar, that climbs to a higher place than his heart. It was always there, pressing down on his skeleton, causing him to crawl any further that could be taken.
He doesn't know how much he should divide the money he gets this month, he will give some of it to his sister, he knows she still can't quite get things covered, Heeseung should help her, his mother would want it if she was still somewhere nearby, in the form of a living thing. He will set aside some of the money for bills—which is okay, Heeseung doesn't exactly need the lights and electricity unless Jaeyun comes home, he just makes sure he spends wisely on water, in the shower and kitchen.
He remembers the time he made a deal with the old man over the road for this house for a cheap price, the man who was almost blind in one eye was not cruel, he had some empathy but nothing more. Still, Heeseung is grateful to have four walls to stay in and to be able to afford it. With the old man's trembling hands and his transformation into something more colorless day by day, Heeseung thinks he can ignore the rent for a few more months.
The checklist in his mind already leaves him with a good amount of money. If he is called to work on the farm, it looks like the money will be enough for him this month (he hopes so) even if he buys a poor quality plastic boot that will last him a few months.
He curls a little more into Jaeyun's warmth, feeling softened in those seconds by some sense of being enough, turning into something more pliable as the pain hits his rough edges, making him wide awake and almost happy. Jaeyun is still with him, it's his birthday next month and Heeseung can buy him a gift for the first time. (And a pack of cigarettes for himself if he's lucky enough.)
He is poor, he is, but life is good, he may be under the bricks or in the mud, but Jaeyun is the closest— right there, life is good, and maybe it could be more than just that.
——
Jungwon never thought Heeseung and Jaeyun would last this long, and considering the fact that they were still holding on, Jungwon didn't think they would be this willing, vulnerable, and inclined to stay. What they carry is something unexpected, interesting and intriguing. Jungwon isn't sure where it will end, Jungwon isn't even sure it will end, and he knows that Heeseung and Jaeyun are too.
——
Jaeyun is far from town when Heeseung receives a wound in his soul. This is a blow to the already cracked core, it hits him, shatters him, surrenders to gravity and reveals the bottom. It bleeds, it flows thinly, leaking, as if to fill all the gaps it finds, it scratches and tears with its little claws.
While Jaeyun is chasing a scholarship and some money, Heeseung suddenly becomes much younger than 21, something softer and more breakable, demanding security and love—and when he becomes 21 again, he has one more body in the museum of dead bodies, bruised, silent, alive, estranged to life.
Jaeyun is 19, he wakes up one day and has a butterfly in his hand that could fly him to England, but Heeseung is 21 and has death wrapped around his wrist.
Heeseung's sister dies by drowning herself in silence one Sunday. That Sunday grows longer and longer, repeating itself, until it becomes something that completely covers Heeseung, wrapping itself around him.
——
When life began for them it was just two hearts—it was three, then it was short lived, their mother's departure came knocking at God's will, and it happened painlessly, she left them almost smiling—so when Heeseung was 17, he walked with two more hearts inside his heart, one that was dead and one that needed to be kept alive. This was where things began, how they were started, with a death, a cruelty that claimed to enter the home sharply and exit softly, to take then give.
It was just Heeseung and his sister, two hearts in one home, and the struggle to rebuild on the ridge everything that was broken under a roof that felt like ruin.
It was a small box, leaking water and cold, and perhaps a little sunlight, into which the two of them tried to fit. Two small bodies and hearts weighed down by something dead they carried. Everything was fine, everything was against the bone, but the knife was still far away, it wasn't cutting, nothing was bleeding. Then, where hearts began to remain light, mouths began to fill with something bigger, words began to be thrown like daggers. Everything was fine until nothing was fine, but then the earthquake came, shook the rib cages, they were both stubborn and this was where even the pain began to separate, next to the desperate grief.
Fights were fought, words were spoken, those who survived among those who were broken and ricocheted moved on, and also—togetherness, the family that was born from within, found its crumbs in the fist. But it was always two hearts, even for a room, even for a home, even for a life, always. When he ran out of road, it was always two hearts that brought him home.
You, Sweet Creature, now you’re running through the garden, oh how you’re so little, so so little, even more little than me. But you lost, where you pull your fingers with your knuckles there is no life, there is no movement, you are just a big renunciation. You’re in the garden, Sweet Creature, I’m with you there—where nothing bothered us. But now we’re not young. You’re dead, but I’m almost about to say ‘I always think about you and how we don’t speak enough.’
——
Heeseung would like to have a beautiful cemetery built for his sister, even if it's not magnificent, he would also like a tombstone that would keep her name alive and bear her name, but at the end of the day, he has nothing but his sister's ashes and a bag full of vomit that is constantly held up to his chin by Jongseong so that he can throw up.
When sadness turns into a mouthful of bile, he knows that he is penniless and homeless, and thanks to God's abundant pity, he survives with Jongseong’s sympathy all the way. (And as he vomits and sleeps, all he thinks about is that his sister should be in his place. Alive.)
——
Jaeyun is crouching in front of the worn-out dining table of their house, his family has just gone out to the center of town to visit a relative, so the house is quiet, empty, almost deserted, and still old. It's like the house is drawn and strained so much that Jaeyun can hear his heart rushing as it tries to jump forward and break free from its cage. It’s just so open and real, it catches him so close, sticking to his spine and curling up— I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know what to do.
The silence doesn't help, it only increases the weight he carries, Jaeyun retreats into himself where he is crouched, he shrinks with the desire to disappear completely—he is shrinking, shrinking, and shrinking until he can't anymore, with the purpose of leaving no trace of himself.
I can't go. I can't go. I can't leave. I can't leave him alone, here with so much dead and broken. Far away… I can’t, I know. He can’t, I know.
Jaeyun cries almost under the dining table, where the tablecloth covers his head like an ugly veil. Jaeyun cries until his poor little heart falls out of his tongue, he cries until he vomits out with all his pain, because that's what love requires - to step out of the shapes you can get into and choose something sacred, to abandon yourself and choose a whole, choose the ‘us’. Love requires love, with all its beauties and cuts.
——
It is a Saturday when Jaeyun gets sick (probably due to his terrible sadness). His color fades, his skin becomes lighter and yellower, like the color of a pair of brown converse under the sun, and when he looks at his face, he feels that he is sick, and maybe even more than that. Because it's almost like it’s written on his face. Just sick, sick, sick and sad. In mourning, as if feeling the passing of something that still endures. (And that thing is very close to being love, because of its softness and crushing weight.)
Almost fatal, convincing his family that he's fine and running out of the house, then going downtown and waiting for the bus, convincing his own self on the bus that he's fine too—but feeling like he's spinning on edge, then sitting in the lecture hall as an inanimate thing whose life has been drained from him, trying to bear himself, not knowing what he's getting into, losing focus and finding silence in the sound—it's just hard— acting like he's fine, acting like he doesn't need to be pushed and pulled to keep going, acting like Heeseung is all he needs.
When class is over, he is invited to speak privately with his professor, Jaeyun is too sad and tired to bother remembering even his own name, so he doesn't have the energy, he doesn't have the strength to worry. He's just following his professor like a lost person would. On the one hand, he's lost too, so he does what he has to do.
The professor first asks him a few useless questions about his life, then gauges his psychological vulnerability, Jaeyun does his best to avoid breaking down, and when it works, the professor is ready to point out his real ache.
“So, what do you plan to do about the scholarship Jaeyun? We think and hope you'll accept it obviously."
Obviously. A word that was never under Jaeyun's skin, and on his tongue rotting from lack of use.
“Uh, I, I did not decide yet, I mean—” I don't know how to go, how to leave, how to leave a ruin behind with the promise of being transformed into something more sacred in the future. “There are some people I need to talk to about this, but I hope to get back to you about this matter soon.”
"Let me be frank with you about this," the Professor begins to pack his bag as if preparing to leave, his voice sounding unhurried and grandiose, almost as if he were giving advice with the impulse of a close friend. "It's a shame that you're even vague about this, you're in hell here, a swamp, but you've been handed a chance at a new life on a silver platter Jaeyun, save yourself, go, run away from here kid,” When the professor gets up from the table, Jaeyun reflexively slides back in his chair. When he looks down at Jaeyun, the professor is much younger now, he is— but like a wrinkled piece of cloth. “And don't think too much about what's left behind,” Family. Home. Love. Myself. Heeseung. Heeseung. Love— “Cause you'll never learn how to leave a war until the youth is over.”
——
Jaeyun's family is packing two full suitcases for him, a picture of the guarantee that he will go, and they think he will get his passport done next week — no, they are sure. But Jaeyun is not, he doesn't even know how to tell Heeseung. He doesn't want to leave him like a lonely heart in a home again.
But this has already been determined, Heeseung will tell him to choose himself as usual. Just himself, as if he wasn't a part of Jaeyun.
——
Jaeyun goes to college, spends nights with puffy eyes in the far corner of the library, takes numerous pills, lies to his mother, to his father too — that he wouldn't be here soon, that the distance between them would grow longer on a plane— and he returns home—only to find Heeseung warmer but more whacked than the day before. Jaeyun wants to tell him to stop it, to take care of himself, to get rid of the dirt and grime, and to be put in a place he deserves.
But Heeseung is still in mourning, a young soul dependent on God's generosity, and the only thing that feeds him is love. So he does nothing but comfort Jaeyun. "Promise, I'll find a better job this time."
And when his words come out like something about very lies, Jaeyun's heart does nothing but tighten from the inside, folding and twisting because Heeseung doesn't deserve any of this. He doesn't deserve to be alone, helpless, cold, a ruin. He deserves to be in the shape of love, soften with it and having the most gentle curves one can have on the lips.
But Heeseung is still broke, still in love, and still smells like cigarettes—which is fine, because Jaeyun is a fool, and he still hopes.
——
“Of course,” He hears something in Heeseung’s voice that is breaking and falling, trying to rise up on its own. “Of course you’re gonna go, darling.” It's a quiet Wednesday when Jaeyun tells Heeseung. And when Heeseung, after a brief bitterness, is filled with deep understanding and happiness, Jaeyun realizes that he must stay, more than ever.
But Heeseung is in love, more in love with him than with himself, too much in love with him to let him stay, to let him give up on himself. A look from him, the compassion, the softness, the trust and the love he offers to Jaeyun with his lashes extending below his eyes— Jaeyun knows he can't stay, he knows he should— has to go, he knows he has to grow up and come home again.
“I love you,” He buries himself into Heeseung until he's almost inside his chest. A shortcut to avoid running away and wandering away. To be remembered. “I love you so much Seungie, please don’t forget me, please.”
Now Jaeyun is crying because there is a feeling that burns his skin, clinging to him and telling him that he should be one with Heeseung. Because he’s the only thing familiar. But Heeseung smiles, it’s so gentle in everything that the shape and color of his lips look not bitter but beautiful, even where they are painted with something like gloom, blues.
“How could I? How could I Jaeyun—ah?”
——
Jaeyun's ticket is valid 2 weeks after his birthday. His now vacant room at his parents' house is filled with suitcases and bags. And this gives him bitterness, a corrosive mourning, even on his birthday.
Because the first gift he received from Heeseung no longer feels like a birthday gift, but like a goodbye, take care gift. A year, a year without Heeseung, just feels scary, but now his necklace hung around his neck by Heeseung is a reminder, a vow, almost a way of saying in its coldness that I wait and I will.
And the letter. The letter, is carried in ink, stained with Jaeyun's favorite scent— it’s shining, trembling, enduring for a better future in Jaeyun's hand.
“Sweet Creature, all this time when I wandered off the path home, you were there to guide me, to bring me home. Like a pendulum, you pulled me towards you, swinging in the right direction, towards home. For all this time, thank you, thank you, thank you for filling and softening my heart with gratitude, for believing that happiness can come even from a stained t-shirt, a creaky bed, a rotten closet. One year, Sweet Creature, just four seasons my Jaeyunie, and then I'll be at your heart's door to guide you towards me, I’ll bring you back to home.”