Chapter 6: I Am (Not) Hurt

“You left, I thought I should check on you, but I didn’t know your number,”

Himchan looked at the source of his agony. He was right at his doorstep, looking like a lost boy with his hoodie and cap. He had hoped he could just run away from him today but he remembered that the man actually knew where he lived. After all, he had been walking him home every night, it had become quite a routine already and he knew of the ways like the back of his hand.

The man didn’t know his number, but the circumstances were not at all mutual. The truth was that Himchan had long known the man’s number after creepily taking his phone and calling his own number. He deleted every trace of the act, but he never once tried to call him or at least give him his number. After all, the original plan was that Yongguk would want him and fall for him desperately – not the other way around. And the other way around really did happen.

“Yeah, I’m alive, yay,” he mocked an enthusiastic face, Yongguk smiled at his feet and Himchan berated himself for once again – getting the feeling of frustration being washed away with that single smile.

If he had come earlier, Himchan could have saved a hundred bucks on two gallons of ice cream, a pack of snickers candy bars and two bottles of soju which he can’t even stand tasting. If he came earlier, then he could have made Himchan feel better. The image of the whole thing felt like it had engraved itself unto Himchan’s mind. There was no escaping the fact that he had just seen Yongguk with another man. With a man that was not him. It was so picturesque that it hurts. It felt like it a scene snatched from a movie, a kind of secret love that could only thrive in the deepest and darkest corners of the underground scene. Himchan mused that he could write a full screen play about it and it would probably be worth millions.

“Did you want to come in?” He asked, although he knew already that he would politely decline.

“Yeah, no, actually,”

“Yeah?”

“I was hoping I could spend the night…?”

Himchan wondered if he had too much to drink and this was all in his head.

- - -

Yongguk just had gone out of the shower when Himchan tried his best to avert his eyes. He just learned that the man followed a strict hygiene routine and would always shower at night. He borrowed some of his stuff to spend the night and Himchan was quick to oblige. However, he had a hard time hiding all of his quirky underwear out of sight before he could hand over some stuff the boy could wear. When he stepped out, Himchan felt a pang of dismay seeing that he was quite the shy type and emerged from the shower fully clothed. However, he took a minute to appreciate the man looked. Man, he was not going to admit it but Yongguk looked better on his own clothes.

Honestly, it was not like he had a hard time deciding if he would let him spend the night. He had been spending quite an effort these past few months just to get him into his home, he just didn’t think it would come just like this.

“Thanks, man,” Yongguk greeted as he took a seat next to him.

“So… mind telling me why you’re here?”

For a minute there was silence, Himchan wondered if they would spend the night in this silence as the man continued to dry his hair. Then a sigh.

“They… they don’t approve of it. My parents, I mean.”

“Oh.”

So they knew about it.

Secret love.

It would have been tad romantic if it was him. If it was him who shared this secret with him. If it was for him that Yongguk would run away for, and would rebel for. If it was for his sake that Yongguk would spend the night away from home, if only to protect him and the affair he was keeping under wraps – he would have found it romantic. But as it stands…

“How long have…?”

“Three months,”

Just three months?

“How long have you known him?”

“…eight months?”

“You’ve known me for how long… a year?”

“Yeah, a year,”

"Man," he smiles at him, with that fond expression on his face. Probably recalling that man in his head, invoking such feelings.

Goddammit.

Himchan mentally hit himself for the nth time that day. What went wrong? He had known him earlier, four months earlier to be exact. What did that man have that he didn’t? How far superior was he that in the span of five months… in the span of five months, he claimed Yongguk as his.

Why wasn’t I enough?

Himchan felt defeated. There was something about that man that Yongguk found special, there was something about him that Yongguk didn’t see in him. He wasn’t enough. It was a violent stab for someone who had always been regarded highly. Never had Himchan felt like he was lacking – never, until there was Yongguk.

“I just… I just wish they would understand,”

Yongguk continued. He had a pained expression on his face. Over the months that he had known him, there were only few expressions – emotions maybe – that he had seen on him. This was something new, he was hurting, and it pained Himchan to see him like this.

“I wish they could just let me be,” he finally says, sighing, longing for freedom as it is.

The other man could not say a word. He wanted to ask things but it pained him to ask these very words. It was not the question itself that hurt him, it was the answer that he feared.

“Are you happy…?”

“I don’t kn… I guess… no, yeah, I am happy.”

He wanted him to stop from speaking.

“Really happy.”

But the anvil dropped. He was happy.

And he was happy – not because of me.

“Thank you for understanding, Himchan, I didn’t think you would,”

Don't thank me.

Countless times tonight I've only plotted to steal you away.

“Yeah, don’t sweat it,”

We’re on the same boat.

Truth be told, I would have shared the secret with you. .

“When Maslo-hyung discovered, he flipped, asking why not him,”

The .

That hyung. I wouldn’t have known.

“Yeah?”

“It was… it was a mess. I didn’t think… but you,”

And he reaches his hand, clutches Himchan’s and looks at him. Any moment and Himchan thought he would melt. It looked like Yongguk had a tear in his eyes. It was precious. Too precious.

Bang Yongguk, you are – too precious.

“Thank you, you have been wonderful to me,”

Don’t look at me like you’re going to cry.

Don’t. Stop.

I just might.

“Actually, Yongguk, I—”

And the doorbell rings.

“The hell?” he stands up, painfully letting go of the hand that held his.

Abruptly, he gets stopped, as Yongguk holds on to the hem of his shirt.

“Wait, it might be him,”

“Him?”

If it’s him, I’ll surely break his face in.

So he walks off, proceeding to the door, and he opens the door with the man standing before it.

“Hi, Is Yongguk there?”

You…

“What the ?”

---

Note: Early update! Because you have all been so wonderful!