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"I know you're lying. You remember everything." Kang Pio whispered.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Stop pretending!" Kang Pio shouted, childish and impatient.
You remember me, you remember us. I know it.. I know you. I could recognize you anywhere, everywhere. I lov..
"Fine. I remember." Choi Jeongyo leaned forward, admitting the truth.
Kang Pio paused, shocked, relieved.
“Why did you tell such a lie?” Kang Pio asked, pleaded.
Jeongyo-ah, I miss you so much, don’t you miss me? Why didn’t you come back to me? I died a thousand times without you! I waited for you, I’m still waiting… please come back to me. I am begging you. Please.
“And why would I tell you I remember? So that you could try to kill me again?” Choi Jeongyo spat, his eyes, an immeasurable sea of black.
And Kang Pio felt his heart give out. Suddenly, his tears dried out, his hands stopped shaking. Ah, the relief of numbness. The utter clarity of defeat slammed into him, merciless and exact.
“I could have tried to kill you?” Kang Pio whispered, stunned.
“Don’t play dumb!” Choi Jeongyo bit out, his whole body vibrating, his pulse throbbing in his head.
Kang Pio couldn’t utter a single word. He felt his world collapsing right in front of his eyes. His best friend, the only person he loved in this wretched world, thought that he had tried to kill him.
Maybe he deserves this.
“I know you’re the one who ordered my abduction all those years ago. I saw you meet with them with my own eyes. I couldn’t believe it, at first! But they said your name. I saw you hand over money to them.. Kang Pio.”
Choi Jeongyo felt he was bleeding out once again, his emotions getting the best of him. He felt his heartbreak raw and painful in his voice, his disbelief that this happened to him. That his own friend, the one boy he wanted to protect from the world, had wanted him gone from it. He shuddered at the thought.
“I went to your performances many times. You performed as if.. as if you forgot all about me. As if I never existed. You performed as if nothing had happened.” Choi Jeongyo continued, sitting there, rage and despair evident in his voice.
Kang Pio couldn’t look at him anymore. No no. No!! That’s not what happened, Jeongyo-ah. I was dying. I died the day you disappeared. You don’t understand. You really don’t understand. I kept seeing you everywhere. You were everywhere. You are still everywhere for me. The only reason I performed was because I thought one day, one day I would find you sitting there in the audience, that somehow, you would listen to my yearning for you in my pathetic music and you would come to find me again. It was for you. It was all for you.
“So how has it been? Was life easier for you with me out of the picture?” He scoffed, his words meant to cut, cut deep and sure.
“Did you love it when you performed as the winner?” Choi Jeongyo snickered, his eyes betraying his feelings. It was a good thing Kang Pio wouldn’t look him in the eye. His laugh faded away. Tears gathered in his eyes, unbidden.
Say it Pio-ah. Say it wasn’t you. Say you didn’t know anything about this. I would believe you. Give me an explanation. I had always believed in you and no one else. If you say it, I’ll believe it.. Say it was a misunderstanding. Tell me you looked for me. Tell me it wasn’t you. Please. Please tell me you don’t want me dead. Don’t break my heart all over again. Say it, my love.
“Why did you do that to me?” Say it, Pio-ah.
Kang Pio straightened his shoulders, sat up properly, ready to face his judge and jury, his mother’s hysterics fresh in his mind.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. It was me.”
I destroyed your life. I destroyed mine too. I destroyed my mother’s. I wonder if I die, will it all stop?
Unable to meet his eyes, Kang Pio continued, “It was the finals and I hurt my finger. I couldn’t think straight. I felt that I couldn’t win because of you.”
You’re lying. You have to be lying. This cannot be true. Why are you doing this? What the hell is this? Where is the Kang Pio I knew? Where is my friend? My Pio-ah?
As if he could hear him screaming in his head, Kang Pio looked up, finally. His bottomless eyes were blank and resigned. “I’ll turn myself in and the face the consequences. I’ll take responsibility for everything.”
Choi Jeongyo could feel himself slipping. He could feel his stomach twisting, his tears came without prompting. This man he had loved, this man who had tried to kill him before, had succeeded today.
“You completely destroyed my life.” Choi Jeongyo spoke, and it was another blow that Kang Pio knew he deserved to hear.
“Listen carefully. I’m the only one who gets to judge you. I’m the only one who gets to kill you.” Jeongyo hissed, his hands tightly clasped together, stopping himself from doing something he would later regret.
“If I die, will it all end?” Kang Pio asked, rhetoric, but meaning it.
Just you try.
“No. I’ll not let it end that easily. The second you take the easy way out, I’ll tell the whole world about what you did. What your accomplice of a mother did!”
So don’t even think about dying, Kang Pio. You know how many times I had wished I had died? Alas, I’ll not let you take the easy way out. We’re here to burn in this hell together. Together, or not at all.
“Just wait. I’ll show you what real hell looks like. And it’ll be more than what you can take.”
Choi Jeongyo smiled at Kang Pio, a predator looking at his prey.
Unbeknownst to him, Kang Pio has been ready to be caught for a long time now. Kang Pio didn’t feel any fear. Looking in the eyes of his beloved who hated him now, he only felt his heart beating loudly in his chest, alive.