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Manyang in summers is hot and unyielding.
The sun, ever-present in the cerulean blue sky, infuses its light in every being: living or nonliving, making the scars of yesterday shine out with a vengeance.
For Han Ju-won, Manyang’s summer is a curse spelt out and cast, keeping him, especially in mind. Gone are the layers he feels invulnerable in. Instead, he wears his defenceless light pants with his even lighter shirt, walks towards a road, a house, a man that makes him feel the most vincible, the most assailable.
To an outsider, Han Ju-won might be seen maintaining his poise and structure, might be seen as an indestructible and an unshakeable force. But, only Ju-won knows that his is a very trembling architecture — emotions and thoughts and memories balanced precariously over each other; one word from Lee Dong-sik and it would spill everywhere for everyone to see. He won’t have his long jackets and even longer coats to stuff them in.
Flexing his hands and blinking rapidly, he firms his steps and makes his way towards Lee Dong-sik’s house, regardless.
If he wants his trembling architecture to no longer be rootless, if he wants to tell Lee Dong-sik that his life is the only soil Ju-won’s roots want to settle in, he is going to have to see him, and talk — no matter how quickly his arms sink down to his feet in front of him — no matter how much the thought of being unarmed scares the fuck out of him.
Han Ju-won is going to have to take the first step forward to tell Lee Dong-sik, to tell the only person allowed to make him feel this way, that he is waiting for him on the other side of things, and he will wait as long as it takes for Dong-sik to be ready to meet him in the middle.
***
When Dong-sik opens his front door, a flicker of surprise intermingled with relief flits through his face with such celerity that if Ju-won had not dedicated his life studying it, it would’ve disappeared into thin air without any notice.
Ju-won catches that emotion, holds it as a balm against his chest, breathes in sync with its pulse, makes no effort to hide his very apparent relief that blooms from his heart to his face.
Dong-sik looks good. He always looked good, but his face was always haunted to house the ghosts of the past that accumulated in it. The spirits are settled now; the bags under his eyes are lesser than what Ju-won saw those months ago under the kind February sun, his hair shinier and longer, his cheeks a healthier shade of pink, his eyes twinkling as he blinks up at Ju-won.
“Detective Han Ju-won,” says Dong-sik, his lips curving in a familiar smile, him fully opening his front door to let Ju-won in. “Have you forgotten how to break in?”
Ju-won steps in. “No,” he says, smiling too.
He wants to say, I am so relieved to see you so well. I am so relieved to see you looking happy. I saw the plants outside — have you been taking care of the garden again? Has anyone been taking care of you? Have you been taking care of yourself?
Ju-won then realises that he has no reason to snuff out those words now, no reason to put a blanket over the fiery pit of want that arises within Dong-sik’s vicinity, so he trims those words down and mutters them regardless.
“You’ve come to check in on me, then,” he says, nodding his head over to the couch. “Worried that I am getting up to no good?”
“No,” replies Ju-won, not explaining himself more.
Dong-sik’s surprise stays etched in on every crevice of his face. “To what do I owe this pleasure of your company, then?”
“Can’t I just want to see you?”
Dong-sik’s wide smile quietens into something more earnest. “Inspector Han Ju-won,” he says, his eyes sparkling with something heady. “You have become so much cuter than the last time I saw you.”
“You’ve become so much cuter too,” Ju-won quietly says, suddenly feeling bashful.
“Much more cheeky too,” Dong-sik says, his tone amused. “Your visit is nothing formal, nothing related to a case you might currently be on. The only possible reason for your visit might be that —”
“I really wanted to see you,” Ju-won says, now leaning forward. He does not say, I always want to see you or the road feels so empty without you by my side or I know I have a purpose and a dream but you, Lee Dong-sik, you are the epicentre of that purpose, the main actor in my dream. “Do you not believe me?”
Dong-sik does not blink before he says, “I do,” in disbelief at the certainty of Ju-won’s words. “I am relieved to see you too,” he says, answering Ju-won’s first set of questions. “I have been taking care of the garden. It was… I used to take care of it when I was younger. Mistreated them for an eternity. Putting my hands in their soil felt like coming home.”
Ju-won had not expected Dong-sik to open up — not quite like this. He takes in Dong-sik’s words, files them in a cabinet that has his name etched on it in the centre of his brain.
“Was asking if I have someone taking care of me, your way of asking if I was still single?”
Yes. “No,” says Ju-won. You deserve to be taken care of too. “You look well.” Can I be the one doing that?
“I feel well,” Dong-sik says, before taking a deep breath. “We take care of each other here. That is all. Enough about me. Tell me about you. What brings you here?”
You. “I want to buy a home here.”
“A home,” Dong-sik says, slowly. “Here.”
“Mn,” Ju-won replies in agreement. “Here. In Manyang,” he says. A little afraid to sound extremely pathetic, he does not say, my life feels too empty without having you to come home to . Ju-won does not remember wanting to live with someone; there is no print of anyone’s hands on his sculpture. He’d always assumed that he would live alone and die alone, just how he was born alone.
Then, he met Lee Dong-sik.
Then, his mind started having wild ideas of having someone to come home to. Having someone to take care of, and if he is feeling a little too vulnerable: having someone taking care of him.
“You want to live here,” Dong-sik repeats, blinking rapidly, quite unlike him.
“I do,” Ju-won replies. “Would you…”
“Would I…?”
“Come and look at houses with me?”
“You want me to help you select a home,” Dong-sik says, “because you want to live here, in Manyang. Are you transferring to the Manyang substation again?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I left it.”
“You left the police force,” Dong-sik deadpans.
“I want to open my own private detective agency,” says Ju-won. With you , he does not say — not yet, anyway — because Dong-sik looks at Ju-won like he should be stopping him from making an impulsive decision, and Ju-won wants him to believe that this decision was borne out of intent and the realisation that the police force in itself is corrupt and crooked no matter the good intentions of the person: there can be no reformation, only demolition. “I want to help people within the confines of the law, but without the corrupt people in power looming over me. I need a place to settle in when I do that. What place is better than Manyang?”
The smile falls off of Dong-sik’s face. “Inspector Han Ju-won —”
“No longer an inspector.”
“Private Detective Han Ju-won…”
“Please call me Ju-won.”
“I thought I wasn’t allowed to address you informally.”
Ju-won shifts towards him, itching to hold Dong-sik’s hands in his. He presses his fingers in a fist and holds him in his lap. “I want you to,” he says.
“Ju-won ah,” Dong-sik breathes out, shifting towards him, his hands hesitating where it would tap him on his cheek.
With a splurge of courage, Ju-won holds Dong-sik’s fingers and they remain pressed against his cheek; he holds them and presses them until he feels warm all the way to the base of his spine. Dong Sik’s touch is warm enough to melt the sheets of ice accumulated over the years. His is the only touch his skin welcomes without hesitation. This is the warmth that he has been chasing ever since. This is it.
“Will you help me stay here?” Ju-won asks.
Dong-sik purses his lips. “Why do you want to live in this town?” he asks.
Ju-won does not say, I never experienced a feeling at home before I let myself be accepted by people who were made of Manyang’s blood. He does not say, there is no place for me but here . Ju-won does not know what Dong-sik wants him to say. “You’re here,” he says. Where else would I go?
This time, Dong-sik does not hide the glaring surprise that looms over his face. His thumb idly rubs Ju-won’s cheekbone.
Before he can give some space to Dong-sik to respond to his heart laid out bare for him to either accept or kick, Ju-won feels something moving at his ankle.
He startles, jumps, cusses, his heart pounding, and looks down on the ground to see something big and warm, furry, black thing, moving . Dong-sik’s hand falls off his face.
“Ai, Sae-kki ,” says Dong-sik, bending down only to come up with the furry black thing, a round one-eyed cat that looks at Ju-won with vengeance, the size of a sack of potatoes.
“ Where did it come from?” Ju-won asks.
“Won’t you say hi to the only lady in my life, Ju-won ah?” Dong-sik smiles, completely at ease with a cat that looks like the devil incarnate, her green eyes gleaming. “This is Sae-kki.”
“You named your cat sae-kki ?”
“A name in line with her character,” says Dong-sik fondly, looking at Sae-kki with all the love in the world. Ju-won is suddenly, irrationally, jealous of a cat. “Found her wounded a couple of weeks ago. She still does not trust me, but I am slowly gaining her regard.”
Typical , Ju-won thinks. Taking in stray animals with apparent wounds and being patient enough to gain their regard, distrustful as they may be.
“Sae-kki, say hello to Inspector— oh wait, Private Detective Han Ju-won, who wants to uproot his life and settle in our dusty old Manyang town.”
Quite predictably, Sae-kki turns away from Ju-won and focuses on climbing onto Dong-sik’s shoulder.
“You once told me that I’d go back to where I belong, remember?” Ju-won says, his hands inching towards Sae-kki’s fur. She turns to look at him with unconcealed hatred but does not move away when she acknowledges Ju-won’s hand. Taking this as his cue to continue, Ju-won settles the flat of his palm on her fur, slowly rubbing it back and forth. “That’s what I am doing,” he says, completely casually as though he isn’t just offering his heart on a plate in front of Dong-sik. “Coming back to where I belong.”
Sae-kki does not hate him; she does let him pet her but also does not acknowledge Ju-won’s existence which is fair , he thinks.
“You really have thought it through.”
“Have you truly forgotten so much about me to expect me to do something else?”
“Quite the contrary, Ju-won ah,” Dong-sik says. “It is impossible to forget you. You only want to believe that you’ve prepared for the unexpected. What really happened that led you to your decision?”
Ju-won blinks. “I was naive to think that I could make a difference in a system that is broken,” he says, but his fist feels hot with the phantom brute punch he’d wanted to throw his superior’s way after his insistence that a case is closed when the missing woman’s family couldn’t bear it. Involuntarily, his hand flexes. Dong Sik’s attention is pulled to it, but he does not comment, does not ask for clarification.
“Sae-kki is only friendly to me because it’s her mealtime,” Dong-sik says, standing up. Ju-won follows suit. “Are you going to stay for dinner?”
“Are you going to feed me ramyeon?”
“Are you being ungrateful to the food you’re provided?”
“Frequently eating it is not good for you,” Ju-won says, memorising the brand of cat food that Dong-sik pours out for Sae-kki, so he can buy some later.
“Am I going to have to be used to your nagging?”
“If you want me to stay here, then yes,” Ju-won says. He doesn’t quite crouch down in front of the cat for the fear of getting creases on the only light pant he can survive wearing, but he observes her just the same.
Dong-sik looks up, his gaze searching Ju-won’s with inscrutable meaning. “Stay,” he finally says, looking away from Ju-won. “I missed your nagging.”
***
Upon Dong-sik’s silent insistence, Ju-won ends up cooking them noodles. He insisted on making hand-pulled noodles from scratch, but there Dong-sik was, rubbing his shoulder blade as though he had to knead the dough and pull it, saying, “You should feel lucky that I am letting you use my kitchen.”
“You don’t use your kitchen, not even now,” says Ju-won, not even thinking of the dust-covered mortar and pestle, the singular mismatched plates and bowls — a clear indication that only one life roams these hallways. “Are you truly taking care of yourself?”
“I cook for myself these days. I have been forced to cook homemade food that does not involve instant noodles at least thrice a week,” he says, leaning against the refrigerator. “Today was my day off. You’re lucky I am letting you make me something else.”
“Good,” Ju-won says, cutting the fresh vegetables diligently, instead of the snappier, by whom . His days of soaking in vinegar are left behind, he insists on believing. Jae-yi and Ji-hwa are both fierce — only they could’ve forced Dong-sik to do this.
“Ju-won ah, do you truly cook for yourself every single day?”
“Do you truly think that I would survive on eating take out and instant noodles every single day?”
“Answering my question with a question,” he says, coming closer to where Ju-won stands, Sae-kki in his hands, “is this how you treat an old colleague?”
“Is that all we are?” Ju-won asks, chopping the carrots exceptionally hard with the weakest knife he has seen — the only knife Dong-sik owns, “old colleagues?”
Dong-sik, from beside him, inhales sharply. Inexplicably, Ju-won finds his mind providing him with an unhelpful memory. A memory that Ju-won holds close to his heart, thinks about every night that he arrives at a lifeless apartment, every morning that he wakes up on a cold bed. It hits him with such force that for a moment, Ju-won forgets himself and he is suddenly at another apartment, more than a year ago, nauseated and repulsed at the ghost touch of blood lathered on his face, unmoored until Dong-sik holds him, pats his head and then his face, reminds him with his gentle touch that he is home in Dong-sik’s presence. Ju-won, at that moment, threadbare and peeled open, had done the only thing he could think of to feel human again. He had taken a hold of Dong-sik’s hands on his face and pulled him in for a kiss. Dong-sik, who had kissed him back with equal fervour, had pulled away, patted his face, laid him on his bed and made sure he slept. They’d woken up holding hands and had never spoken of it again.
Ju-won is pulled out of the memory at a cold, sharp pang of blade ripping open his skin on his thumb. He drops the knife, stares blankly at the blood dropping on the floor, unmoored until Dong-sik lets Sae-kki down and comes to him, holding his thumb between his fingers.
“Aren’t you grateful that the knife was weak?” he asks, pulling his thumb under the fresh stream of water from the tap. “It isn’t a deep cut, thankfully.”
Ju-won tries pulling his hand away, but Dong-sik is stronger. He inspects the shallow cut, pulls him from the kitchen towards his couch, makes him sit and takes out the first-aid kit from under the table.
“You have a first-aid kit,” notes Ju-won, drily.
A spirit becomes unsettled in Dong-sik’s face again. “Park Jeong-je had insisted, once upon a time. Guess it came in handy.”
Ju-won hums inches in closer until their thighs touch and forgets every inch of his soul whilst gazing at Dong-sik. Ju-won had been aware of his feelings for quite some time now; ever since he’d seen Dong-sik for the first time in person, every atom in his soul instantly came alive within his cosmos at merely recognising Dong-sik’s soul as their own. But it was only on a rainy night that he became sure of them.
Ju-won had always thought of himself as an atheist, unwilling to pray and beg on his knees — selfishly to a God, whoever that may be: but his faith had changed since that night where he prayed and begged on his knees selfishly for love and mercy in front of the only being he’d consider God.
Ever since that night, he’d decided that he would not make an attempt to hide the enormity of love that he feels for Dong-sik. He may be unfamiliar with the concept of surrendering himself to love, but he wasn’t unfamiliar with Dong-sik. That was enough.
Ju-won doesn’t make an attempt to hide it, even now, as he stares at Dong-sik, who focuses with his lower lip in between his teeth, as he wraps a pink bandaid with tiny cartoons around his finger.
“Do you like what you see?” Dong-sik asks, without looking up.
“I do,” Ju-won replies.
Dong-sik does not look in his direction, but his fingers linger on the band-aid and in turn, on Ju-won’s hands. He surges forward to wrap his own hands around Dong-sik. “Do you truly think I am making a mistake settling down in Manyang, where you are?”
“Ultimately,” says Dong-sik, “it is your choice. I have no say in the matter.”
“Do you not want me to stay where you are?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want.”
“Of course, it does,” says Ju-won, pressing his fingers tighter in Dong-sik’s skin, as though to make him believe that he truly is here and nothing will change that. Even if Dong-sik vows to never see him again, Ju-won would never leave Manyang: he knew that much. “I would not be sitting here, in front of you, holding your hand, pleading to answer my very simple question.”
“My answer should not influence your choice, Private Detective Han Ju-won.”
“You are my choice,” says Ju-won, this time in earnest fervour. Their thighs now touch when from where they sit, and Dong-sik finally turns to look Ju-won in the eye — imploring, exploring. “Without you, there would be no choice. Without you, I would not be living . I would only be existing — surviving. You think I am going to give up on a chance to be near you?”
“You are serious about this.”
“Did you think I wasn’t?”
“No,” says Dong-sik, slowly. His face then transforms into a grin, his eyes glinting against the light of the blood orange setting sun, his mouth wrapped around a smile too large to be contained by him. “Stay, then,” Dong-sik says, and does not elaborate.
“I have no intention of going away.” Not from Dong-sik, never again anyway. He has had a taste of that life, thinking that he can survive without having Lee Dong-sik as his partner who shares the very air that he breathes. Nothing compares to the taste he’s had for a life that he could grow beside Lee Dong-sik; with Lee Dong-sik. His wanting has only grown a stomach enormous enough to drown him whole unless it sees the epicentre of it.
***
Dong-sik does not ask Ju-won to stay the night. Ju-won does not ask to stay regardless of how calm his being feels surrounded by him.
It’s fine.
It’s all perfectly under Ju-won’s control.
***
“Aren’t you afraid that Sae-kki will run away?” asks Ju-won, dropping the bag of cat food at Dong-sik’s feet.
Dong-sik, who had been busy trimming the lifeless leaves from the plants, barely glances at Ju-won, attending tenderly to their wounds and withering decays, softly apologising when he snips a brittle leaf. Today, Ju-won feels inexplicably jealous of a plant. It’s somehow worse than yesterday.
“Pick up that bag of soil,” Dong-sik finally says, glancing at his bare legs for a moment longer before turning his attention to the plants anyway. Ju-won does as he’d told, suppressing a frown when his calf is tainted with the wet soil anyway.
“Aiyah,” Dong-sik says, without even looking up. “Is this clean prince afraid of a little dirt?”
“No,” says Ju-won, awkwardly standing beside Dong-sik. Sae-kki continues cleaning herself in the sun, barely glancing at Ju-won — very similar to her owner in that way.
Dong-sik cracks a smile at that. “Did you come here to tell me something even more groundbreaking than yesterday?” he asks.
“No,” says Ju-won. “I came here to see you.”
At that, Dong-sik gazes intently at Ju-won. His face has a sheen of sweat, a strip of mud on his cheek and his forehead. Ju-won wants to lean ahead and wipe it with his bare hands.
“Hence the shorts?”
“I figured you’d be taking care of your garden.”
“You don’t have my schedule memorised now, do you?”
Ju-won should feel admonished, embarrassed at being teased about doing so in the past; instead, he feels a touch warm, suppressing a smile on his face. He looks down, puts his hands in his pockets and says, “Not anymore.”
Selfishly, he is relieved — relieved that Dong-sik remembers their time together in a way that makes a secret smile bloom on his face instead of thinking of it as a nightmare he tries to forget.
“Should I be concerned that I don’t have your attention anymore?”
“You always have my attention,” says Ju-won, gazing up from the very interesting soil underneath his hiking boots to Dong-sik, who looks bemused more than anything. “You need not concern yourself with that.”
The stripe of mud on Dong-sik’s fae is distracting. Ju-won leans over and wipes it clean with his thumb and before he can indulge his baser instincts into doing something foolish like lingering his thumb on Dong-sik’s cheekbone, firming his gaze, and pulling him for a kiss, he swiftly moves his hand away, wiping it clean with the handkerchief in his back pocket.
“I am relieved, then,” says Dong-sik, after a beat. “To answer your question, I don’t control Sae-kki. She will go if she has to, stay if she wants to.”
“And if she never comes back?”
“I can’t hold it against her if she finds a home more suitable for her than this,” says Dong-sik, picking up his spade.
“What if she wanted to come back to you, but she got lost?”
“I’ll have to hold onto the hope that we find our way to each other again,” Dong-sik says, digging a hole beside his purple flowering plant with frilly petals.
“And that’s enough for you?” asks Ju-won. “ Hope ?”
“Why the tone of disbelief?”
“Not disbelief,” says Ju-won, disbelievingly. “Aren’t you attached to her?”
“My attachment is no cause of concern here.”
“Of course it is,” Ju-won insists. “If you’re attached, then you must fight for her to stay.”
“Even when she bears no attachment? How can I impose myself like this?”
“How do you know that she bears no attachment?” Ju-won asks, unsure whether he really is talking about the detached cat who rubs herself on Dong-sik’s legs, as he continues digging. “She may have left for a multitude of reasons, none of them related to you.”
Dong-sik stops then, leaning with both his hands crossed on the spade, gazing at Ju-won with glittering eyes. “Like what?”
“Perhaps she thought that she was imposing on you because she kept relying on you even after you saved her.”
Dong-sik looks at him with an amused expression, as if to say, do you think a cat understands the human constructs of imposition? But, he says, “In that case, I am imposing on her too. She saved me.”
Ju-won inhales sharply. Before he can interject, Dong-sik asks, “Why must we talk in hypotheticals? She is here right now. Isn’t that enough?”
Ju-won does not comprehend this. He has rarely ever lived in the present, rarely ever felt his mind comfortably numb from the weight of the past and the planning to clear enough space on his shoulders to carry the weight of tomorrow. He has rarely ever simply been alive, in the present.
“You’re right,” he says anyway, “it is enough.”
“Sit somewhere in the sun,” Dong-sik says, coming forward to hold Ju-won’s wrist. Mud from his thumb travels to the spot above Ju-won’s pulse. He wants the dirt, still warmed by Dong-sik’s touch, to seep into his skin until it remains warm inside forever. “Keep us lonely souls company.”
Ju-won does not say, I am lonely too. I thought I always sought to be alone, but it was never solitude that found me: it was the void of loneliness. You came in and lit a match; the void has felt less oppressive ever since.
Dong-sik smiles at him and resumes work. Sae-kki throws him yet another distrustful look but places herself beside Ju-won anyway.
After a while of lingering in the sun, she places a paw on Ju-won’s thigh, as if to say: I will tolerate you as well.
There is a new plant with orange flowers beside the one with purple after Dong-sik is done gardening for the day. Ju-won diligently helps him water the plants in the garden, muttering soft things at them the way Dong-sik does.
“Jae-yi and Ji-hwa are vacationing,” says Dong-sik when they’re finally inside, away from the summer heat, an explanation for why he’s having dinner at home instead of with them. He throws his thin cardigan over the couch, where Ju-won sees, with a start, an acoustic guitar resting, as though it had always belonged there. “I am supposed to cook dinner today. What would you like to eat?”
“Supposed to,” says Ju-won, dragging his eyes away from the well-loved guitar. “I will cook for you, you don’t have to.”
Dong-sik’s eyes crinkle. “I never refuse a free meal.”
You had, once , Ju-won does not say, but gets to the meticulous, therapeutic task of chopping the vegetables in Dong-sik’s refrigerator, the meat, and kneading the dough to make wonton soup.
They sit across from each other: Dong-sik eats with an odd smile, furtive glances, a kind smile on his face.
Talking while eating is bad manners, but Dong-sik only looks fully relaxed in front of a warm meal, so he has to ask. “Do you play the guitar?”
Dong-sik slurps the soup especially loudly. He hums in contemplation, then looks up, nodding his assent. “I used to. Once.”
All of a sudden, Ju-won realises what he means. “You’ve picked it up again?” he asks, eating his soup.
“Yes,” Dong-sik says. “I can play old songs for amma again. I think she likes it.”
“It must’ve been painful.”
“It is,” says Dong-sik, the flicker of surprise apparent. “But someone has been helping me through it.”
Ju-won stuffs two wontons in his mouth, pressing the back of his hand against his lips when it becomes too much so as to stop himself from questioning, someone? Who? Who is this someone you talk of, to his utmost chagrin.
“I have been seeing someone,” Dong-sik continues, and this time Ju-won almost chokes, his eyes burning. “She’s been helping me through it.” This time, Ju-won does choke. Dong-sik rushed to his side, holding out a glass of water and rubbing the flat of his palm along his back.
“You’ve been seeing someone?” Ju-won asks, his voice hoarse, gazing up at Dong-sik, who looks at him in concern.
“Are you alright?”
“You’ve been seeing someone?” Ju-won asks. He doesn’t know why he feels so betrayed, why his heart suddenly feels brittle, broken: it’s not as though they were bound by promise rings. They were merely bound by invisible threads putting them in each other’s gravity.
“It was Jae-yi’s idea,” says Dong-sik, frowning. “She’s the best in her field. And though I was sceptical at first, I am self-aware enough to admit that it’s been helping me.”
“That’s good,” Ju-won bites out, though he feels the opposite. Love is selfish, but it is not conditional. “I am… I am happy for you.”
“You should see someone too,” Dong-sik’s voice is kind and soothing, rubbing circles on his back despite the stone in his throat that Ju-won choked on, settling heavily in his stomach.
“You want me to date someone else ?”
Dong-sik’s palm curls in his back. “Date?” he asks. “How did you come to that conclusion?”
“You said you’re seeing someone—”
“A psychologist,” says Dong-sik, his fingers, a hot brand against Ju-won’s back. Cheeks burning with humiliation, Ju-won does not look back to know that Dong-sik is biting back a smile. “I have been seeing a psychologist.”
“I see.”
“Do you, Private Detective Han Ju-won?” Dong-sik asks. He pulls his bowl towards himself, taking a seat right beside Ju-won. Unwilling to look at his demeanour twinkling in mirth any longer, Ju-won starts eating in the least sophisticated way he’s ever eaten.
***
“Are you going to drive to Seoul again?” asks Dong-sik, leisurely strumming his guitar under the soft glow of the ceiling lights.
“Yes,” replies Ju-won, who has taken a liking to Sae-kki. She lets him pet her, and purrs when he pets her at the juncture of her tail and back.
“Are you going to come and see me tomorrow as well?”
“Lee Dong-sik ssi,” Ju-won says, “If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t looked for houses here. I’ll have to keep coming back until I find a place to stay here.”
“Hm,” Dong-sik says, strumming a note, “Stay here for the night, then.”
Ju-won’s heart thunders in his chest. “Are you sure?”
Another strum. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t be?”
“Answering my question with a question,” says Ju-won, biting back a smile. “Is that a way to treat an old colleague?”
A strum. A smile that he makes no attempt at hiding. “Is that all we are?” Dong-sik asks, and then looks up, “old colleagues?”
This is Lee Dong-sik flirting, Ju-won thinks, wildly. He has been flirted with even before he knew of Dong-sik’s existence — but it is only in front of him that Ju-won feels dizzy with it, tantalised beyond relief.
“What would you like to be?” Ju-won asks, without restraint.
“Hm,” Dong-sik answers again, strumming especially hard. “We’re partners, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” replies Ju-won without hesitation.
“Stay the night,” says Dong-sik, again.
“I will.”
***
The distance between them is large.
Ju-won tugs on to his t-shirt, somehow perfectly his size, despite Dong-sik being smaller in stature than he is. He should’ve carried clothes with him if he’d have known that Dong-sik would end up inviting him home.
Dong-sik’s snores are light — Ju-won gets used to it sooner than he had, in the past. It’s almost melodic now. It’s a sound he won’t mind falling asleep to. Ju-won keeps his left hand in the middle of the bed and falls asleep to the sound of Dong-sik sleeping.
Thoughts of being wholly at home lull him to sleep and when Ju-won wakes up, Dong-sik is still sleeping in the same position, but his right hand has found Ju-won’s hand in the middle of the night, holding it tight.
The distance between them feels nonexistent, now. Ju-won presses his own hand into Dong-sik’s once again and lets sleep consume him whole.
***
The problem with Dong-sik is — Ju-won thinks as he keeps seeing Dong-sik put the most delicious looking bites into Ju-won’s bowl — that he never thinks to ask things for himself. He has said it himself in the two days they spent together, the essence of which boils down to — it doesn’t matter what I want, which translates to, my wants are not important.
Ju-won holds his gaze when Dong-sik does it again, and very deliberately puts the other most delicious looking piece into Dong-sik’s bowl.
“What is this?” Dong-sik asks.
“Am I not allowed to do what you’re doing for me?”
Dong-sik only huffs but eats the bite regardless. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes,” Ju-won says. Thinks, I only sleep well when I am with you. “And you?”
“Me, too,” Dong-sik replies, his eyes crinkling in mirth.
“There’s a house I want to see today, Ju-won says, wiping his lips with the table napkin that Dong-sik had set out, especially for him. “Will you come with me?”
Dong-sik contemplates as he nods. “I will,” he says at last.
***
The house fails to meet all of Dong-sik’s impossible standards. Ju-won presses the flat of his hand on the perfectly-sized shirt yet again provided by Dong-sik and tries not to smile too much.
“A man like you, so full of vitality and life, needs sunlight to grow,” Dong-sik insists as they make their way back home.
“I agree,” Ju-won says. In actuality, he wouldn’t mind living with Dong-sik forever. But he can’t impose like that. So he books a tour for other houses, no more than fifteen minutes away from Dong-sik’s house to look at tomorrow and day-after.
Dong-sik and Ju-won both keep exchanging the best-looking bites, letting out self-satisfying smiles when the other indulges in them. They sleep in the same bed, wake up entangled in the bed together and do not speak of it again.
It is fine. It is all under Ju-won’s control.
“Where do you keep finding shirts that fit me?” Ju-won asks when Dong-sik yet again produces clothes for him.
“They’re mine,” lies Dong-sik, before pushing Ju-won out of the house, with him in tow.
Dong-sik yet again gets frustrated with the house, it is unsatisfying, he says, and they return home, have a light lunch, groom Sae-kki together, and meet Gwang-young and Ji-hoon for dinner.
They find themselves in a familiar routine quite effortlessly and Ju-won finds that he doesn’t quite want to leave.
It is fine. It is under Ju-won’s control.
***
At the height of the afternoon, they are out walking from the house that Ju-won wanted to see, Dong-sik helps a lost group of travellers find their way around Manyang.
“You’ve not changed,” Ju-won says. “At least, not when it comes to helping anyone and everyone.”
“Of course,” answers Dong-sik. “What will become of us if people don’t help people?”
Ju-won doesn’t exactly grumble in reply, but it is close enough. “You can’t always trust people to be good,” he says, and then winces. Dong-sik knows that better than anyone.
But Dong-sik only smiles lightly. “People like you exist, don’t they?” Dong-sik asks, “how can I not believe in good people when you exist?” and Ju-won’s heart stops.
“What do you mean? When we first met, I was—”
“A menace. I am well aware,” Dong-sik smiles. “So was I. But our meeting, our choice to continue meeting. It changed us, don’t you think?”
It changed him, Ju-won knows that — a fact as certain as the sun rising every morning and setting every evening. Lee Dong-sik was his saviour. Had their meeting not forced him to unlearn and relearn everything he knew, he’d still be a shadow, restlessly staying in the same place forever.
Before Ju-won can question him any further , Dong-sik stops him with his hand on Ju-won chest, coming to stand in front of him. “You really are serious about settling your roots here?”
“I am.”
“And you really want to move to a house here.”
“I am willing to do that, yes. But if all the house-seeings go the way it did today—”
“The house was optimal at best,” Dong-sik says. “Not enough to suit your tastes. The kitchen was cold and empty. The kitchen should always be full of life—”
“No matter the place, yes,” Ju-won completes the sentence. “You’ve mentioned that just a couple of dozen times.”
“Ultimately, it depends on whether you liked the place or not.”
“I value your opinion,” says Ju-won. “If you’re not satisfied with it, I will not choose it.”
Dong-sik sighs. The weights on his shoulder remain heavier than ever. “Why do you want to live here?”
“You are here,” Ju-won simply answers, suddenly weary.
“Manyang has nothing to offer to you.”
But Ju-won hears the underlying: I have nothing to offer to you. It pains him much less than it angers him.
“How can you say that?” Ju-won asks, making no attempt to hide his tone of anger and bewilderment.
“ I have thought of leaving Manyang on several occasions. I don’t even know if I want to stay here forever. What happens then?”
“Then I will come with you,” says Ju-won simply.
“Just like that?”
“Is this a trial?” Ju-won asks. “Are you testing me to know how far I would go with you?”
“Four days ago, you were sure of settling here, in Manyang,” says Dong-sik. “And now, you’re willing to come with me if I were to leave Manyang?”
“Yes,” answers Ju-won. There is nothing for him to hide anymore. His heart is always bare, making a mess in his hands in front of Dong-sik. That’s how it’s always been, ever since he saw him for the first time.
“ Yes ?” asks Dong-sik, as though that answer personally offended him. “How do I know that you won’t come to regret this sometime in the future? Leaving everything that you’re used to, to settle here!”
“I have regretted a lot of things in life,” Ju-won says slowly. “Choosing to be with you is never, and will never be, one of them.”
Dong-sik puts on the mask of incredulity with such speed that Ju-won almost does not catch the sliver of fear peeking from underneath. “Ju-won ah—”
“What can I say to make you believe?” asks Ju-won, feeling his tone rising, suddenly so tired, so exhausted. “I have been perfectly clear about what I want.”
“And what is that?”
“You!” screams Ju-won, his heart thundering, his blood buzzing. “I want you! And it is perfectly fine if you don’t, but please do not invalidate my feelings for you! Please don’t tell me that I’d regret making the one choice that I am making out of my free will, and that is to stay with you ! You can say no, you can refuse and never see me again, but none of that is going to change the way I feel. Nothing will change that. Nothing will change my decision to stay in Manyang too.”
Dong-sik’s bag falls from his hand. He unblinkingly stares at Ju-won, as though he cannot comprehend what Ju-won said.
“Ju-won ah—”
“I am not going to apologise for how I feel,” he says. “You must have known how deep my feelings run for you. After all that we’ve been through. You must know.”
“I—” Dong-sik says, completely at a loss for words, and breathes heavily. His hands from Ju-won’s chest — behind his chest swirls a storm larger than him — falls, and he looks down. “Fuck!” he exclaims and looks up with red-rimmed eyes.
“You don’t have to return my feelings,” says Ju-won, taking a step back. “Neither do we have to talk about it. But do not, for one second, doubt them. Whether you want me or not depends heavily on you but I would never, ever regret it. Not for centuries to come.” It’s a fact, etched into the very skeleton of his body: I am in love with Lee Dong-sik. Ju-won is not the same without it.
Unable to bear Dong-sik’s silence, Ju-won takes a deep breath and walks past Dong-sik, back to his home.
***
It is when Ju-won hears small footsteps behind him, signalling Dong-sik’s everlasting presence, that he realises once again the demerits of his myopic behaviour.
To have a person so intimately connected to your past barge into your life and demand that he makes a home there must be overbearing, at the very least. Ju-won never asked what Dong-sik wanted — not even once. He only said out loud what he wants — the freedom of saying it made him feel light and relieved in a way he has rarely felt and so he never thought to… pen down the consequences it would have.
Dong-sik has a life here. A life marred and cultivated by years of history. For most of it, Ju-won was not even present.
Taking in a shuddering breath, he slows his steps so he is in line with Dong-sik yet again.
They’re close to Dong-sik’s home, now. Sae-kki must be getting up from her afternoon nap to bask in the sun and then she would want to eat.
It’s only when they’re well shielded from the blazing heat of the Manyang sun and Ju-won is busy pouring Sae-kki her food and water that Dong-sik breaks the oppressive silence between them.
“Ju-won ah,” Dong-sik says.
Ju-won’s heart thunders at the call of his name from Dong-sik’s mouth.
“Those clothes are not mine,” he says.
Ju-won breathes in deeply and turns to look at Dong-sik, who stands with a distance of a wall between them.
“I bought them,” continues Dong-sik. “For you.”
Ju-won blinks. In all honesty, he had guessed that they weren’t Dong-sik’s. They seemed out of place in Dong-sik’s usual wardrobe but he hadn’t thought they were for… him. “Why?”
Dong-sik gives him a long look. “I used to walk by stores,” he says, “and think, Ju-won ah wouldn’t buy his clothes from here but if he did, he’d wear something like that. Before I knew it, I was buying it. In the hopes that…”
“In the hopes that?” Ju-won probes.
“In the hopes that he stays. At home. With me.”
“With you,” Ju-won echoes.
Dong-sik takes a shuddering breath. Ju-won stands up and makes his way towards him.
“With me,” Dong-sik says, after a moment. “But I didn’t— I don’t want to be selfish. It was foolish to even think that you’d want to stay— stay with me. And yet, I kept buying those clothes for you. Kept wondering how it would be with you here. How this skeleton of a house would feel like home. How perfectly we would fit with each other.”
Dong-sik is just within a hand’s reach. Ju-won immediately holds him, not as close as he’d like, but it is better than remaining unmoored into oblivion.
“What do you want?” Ju-won asks. “I failed to ask you ll this while, but what do you—”
“You,” Dong-sik answers simply, a smile etched on his face. “Always you,” he says.
“Meeting you made me realise that it was you I was looking for, in all walks of life. A partner. An equal. Ask me to stay, and I will,” Ju-won says.
Dong-sik’s eyes seem heavy with ushed tears. The familiar pressure behind Ju-won’s eyes reaches its peak.
“Ask me,” Ju-won repeats. “Ask me to leave and I will do that. Ask me to stay and I will. But nothing changes how I feel for you.”
“And what is it that you feel?” Dong-sik rasps out.
Horrifyingly, Ju-won realises that he’s never put into words the feeling that superimposes his being in front of Dong-sik. With a sense of urgency, Ju-won comes closer, pulls Dong-sik closer, until what separates them is a whisper of air.
“I love you,” Ju-won says, just as urgently, feeling a boulder off of his heart. “I am in love with you,” he says again, breathing out those words.
Dong-sik looks at him in unabashed astonishment, which morphs into relief, and that mingled with layers of affection — something that Ju-won had never seen, not in such depth, ever.
“Ju-won ah—”
“I love you,” says Ju-won again. Now that he’s started saying those carefully concealed feelings out loud, he is not sure if he can ever think of not saying them. His heart bursts with fondness, with every sort of emotion. “I want to build a home with you. I want to linger in the sun with you, be with you every step of my way, cook for you, never be parted from you. I want all the things that you do.”
Dong-sik keeps looking at him like he’s hope, his laser-sharp eyes had always cut through the walls Ju-won kept his heart in, but now they hold a different kind of warmth to them, as though he is willing to keep Ju-won safe and cherished, with him, beside him.
He steps in closer, holds Ju-won by his face, looks at him in awe and wonder and says, “Ju-won ah, I am in love with you. There is no one I’d rather spend every single moment of my life with.”
Ju-won leans ahead, rests their foreheads together, takes Dong-sik’s hand from his face and places it upon his unsteady heart. “I love you,” he says.
Dong-sik closes his eyes and leans forward to press his lips against Ju-won’s. It is barely a peck, and Ju-won chases Dong-sik’s lips in a daze even when Dong-sik mutters, “I love you.”
Ju-won breathes in deep, and this time does not jump when he feels Sae-kki rubbing herself all over Ju-won’s calves, as though welcoming him home.
“Ask me to stay,” Ju-won says.
A sunny smile takes over Dong-sik’s face, “Stay,” he says. “Stay with me.”
Sae-kki purrs where she stands. “Stay with us,” Dong-sik says. “This is your home, too. It will be your home as long as you want it.”
Ju-won, his heart thundering, his stomach clenching, quickly reaches forward, pressing their lips together for what seems like an eternity but also never enough. “I will,” Ju-won says.
And so, Ju-won does.