“A penny for your thoughts?”

Yongguk smiles at his father who looked up from his book. Weeks passed and Yongguk’s prayers have been answered.

“Nothing.” He fiddles with his necklace.

Finally, whoever’s controlling his life decided that the only person he has left in his life wouldn’t be taken away from him. Even though it’s a tough fight, Yongguk’s father has been making progress, slowly but definitely. It’s a miracle, Yongguk knows and he doesn’t want to take it for granted again.

However, something’s been bugging him, tormenting him to no end.

“What is it, Yongguk?”

“Just leave him alone. It’s just another teenage problem.” Maria looks up from the apple in her hands, stopping the knife to roll her eyes at Yongguk.

Yongguk groans. “Thanks, Maria.”

Sure, life’s taking a better turn, his father is getting better much to Yongguk’s relief and ecstasy, his teachers finally gives him approval because he’s been getting more serious about school and perhaps partly because they know about what happened back at home.

The grades come easily to him and every time he goes back to the hospital, he is greeted with encouraging news.

Life seems so easy and simple. So much easier than before. Everything’s going perfectly.

Except.

Yongguk visits the 7-11 outside the station and does his weekly routine of grabbing a magazine off the shelf before walking school as he flips through the pages, searching for the only reason why he spends his money on a book he isn’t even interested in.

He finds the familiar face.

The photos get more and more feisty and fierce and the flawless face on the pages seem even more distant from him.

Despite so, he smiles to himself. He is somewhat happy for that somebody. But this isn’t what he should be doing. This is unhealthy. Feeding on just purchased pages of that somebody he shouldn’t be thinking about. Sometimes, he thinks he is going crazy. He’s behaving like a mad man, obsessing and drowning in infatuation but scrambles away when that somebody appears in front of him.

Sometimes he lies in bed, unable to sleep because his mind keeps lingering on that somebody. And one time, he wakes up in sweat and a dry throat, panting in the darkness, wondering what’s wrong with him until he feels the unmistakable arousal in between his legs that he realizes what sin he’s actually committed.

That was when he starts doubting himself. He should’ve known. He should’ve known that the playful kiss he placed on top of those lips isn’t just playful.

It was definitely something else.

The same things occurs every once in a while and Yongguk knows nothing else to do other than run into the shower and stand there for a long time until he’s rid himself of all the impure thoughts he has for that somebody, that somebody that is not supposed to be tainted, that somebody who is absolutely pure and innocent.

And that somebody definitely shouldn’t be touched by him.

And just like this, Yongguk’s morals and guilt and cowardice and whatever other weaknesses keeps him at a distance away from that angel he can only gaze upon from afar now.