48.

After that day when Yongguk hyung took me to his father’s grave, I thought about a lot of things. I am happy that he took me there. It makes me feel reassured that Yongguk hyung would show me the weaker sides of him where he would never want others to probe into. It was special. And it makes me feel special somehow. It makes me love him even more. It showed me that Yongguk hyung entrusted a lot in me to bring me before his father whom he loved so much. I remembered the hospital visits I paid to his father when we were still young. But we’re still young, aren’t we? But doesn’t it feel very much like a long long time ago.

It seems that the few years we weren’t together were stretched into half a lifetime. It was such a long long time. We seem to have grown up a lot. Yongguk didn’t change but he grew up. It’s so strange because the Yongguk hyung now would never be the same as the Yongguk hyung then but they’re both the same person. I’ve been thinking too much and too deep lately I think there’s something wrong with my head since I don’t have much to do.

I don’t think I’m going back to the states so soon since I’ve met Yongguk hyung and I don’t plan to go away again so quickly. I want to stay here and be with him especially since I love him even more now. How do you measure how much you love somebody? I don’t know. But I think I love Yongguk hyung even more than before. It feels like he’s really a part of me now, a part of my family which didn’t exist until he came along after I left home. It seems like family is only left with Yongguk hyung. Isn’t it funny that my family isn’t really related by blood to me? I remember feeling really happy meeting Yongguk hyung’s father because he’s that kind of Dad I want. And my own father was never around, even when I graduated with straight A’s.

Oh god, straight A’s. If my relatives would see me now they would look at me with gauging eyes saying how wasted it was for my straight A’s, saying how I could’ve become a doctor instead of a skinny mannequin dressed in all different kinds of clothing and walking down the runway like I’m an expressionless zombie. I can’t help but laugh imagining. Even though I do feel bitter.

I kind of miss Mom even though things never did went well after she moved away with her new boyfriend. I remember how lonely and sad I felt. I remember how I thought to be a good son and let her have her share of happiness for once. How did I forget how to be a good son later on? I guess people are still selfish after all. Even if they were family. And that makes me kind of sad.

I think I really am too skinny now because Yongguk hyung keeps telling me to eat more during dinnertimes. We eat at home, at his house, during dinner all the time now. I think he misses having family dinners too, even though our current family feels a little small. And too homogeneous with two men. Hahaha. Yongguk hyung said I became cheekier and he said that he didn’t like how I learned grown-up jokes while I was in the states. I told him I am already in my twenties. And he said he’ll always see me as the Zelo back then. I think I will start to gain some weight now because Yongguk hyung wants me to.

The other day, I was flipping through a magazine and saw a really skinny model. Back then I would’ve thought nothing about it besides the posture she used but what I saw that day was just how awfully thin she was. I thought she would look more beautiful and more like herself if she weren’t so skinny. I was shocked by my own thoughts because I have never thought this way before. I went to the mirror and wondered if I’m really ill. Many of the other models are ill because they think too much about their weight and they overdo it. I never become like them but I think I am partially so.

The weeks staying with Yongguk hyung were like a medical therapy. I felt like a kite finally going back to where it is and Yongguk hyung is the one gathering my string. I’m going back to where I came from and it feels like I’m going back to reality, going back to the true reality where we should be living. I don’t want to be a skinny mannequin. I don’t want to be part of the vicious industry that makes some of my counterparts give up their happiness and health to be printed on a page or a board and some of them don’t have people who care about them as much as Yongguk hyung care about me. I don’t want to be part of the bad things. I wish the runway could be less cruel. It changed me and Yongguk hyung doesn’t say it but I know he feels it like I do. I’m not that nice boy anymore. I think I’m still fine but I have sharp edges now. Like a broken marble that rolls perfectly but cuts when you touch it the wrong way and you can’t see where its glass is chipped.

Yongguk hyung says he has enough to feed me now so I can stop being a model and stay with him. I kissed him but I also said that I don’t want to become like a pet or something like that. He said I used the wrong word and it sounded weird but he still smiles that really bright smile. But I guess I could take a break from all that stuff. And I feel kind of weird to be on Yongguk hyung’s company’s advertisement because their boss lies beside me in bed every night. I feel like an actress who sleeps with her director so she could get the good parts—I think Yongguk hyung was right, I did learn a lot of inappropriate things in the states. It must be because of the gang of idiots I hang out around. And I picked up smoking too. Yongguk hates it. He really dislikes it but he doesn’t force me to quit. He only looks at me with a somewhat sad smile whenever he sees me doing it. He only says calmly and gently that smoking is bad for health. But that’s just enough for me to stop because one morning I was standing before the kitchen sink, the window pulled up as I knock a cigarette out of its box. I was about to put it to my lips when I saw two boys outside, the older boy teaching the younger one how to ride a bicycle. Yongguk never taught me how to ride a bicycle but the two of them reminded me very much of us. They stumbled but hardly fell and they looked really happy together. They were probably brothers and I guess Yongguk hyung was like an older brother to me. One I never had in my life to fill up the missing parts of my family when my father left. Maybe if I had a brother like Yongguk hyung, I wouldn’t have come to this point where I haven’t even seen Mom for years. But maybe I don’t want to have a brother like Yongguk. I want Yongguk to be who he is in my life right now.

Anyway, I saw the two boys that reminded me so much of Yongguk hyung and I suddenly didn’t feel the urge to smoke anymore. I used to smoke quite a few a day because I had nothing better to do besides being negative and all and also because smoking makes the hunger go away and I couldn’t eat in order to be a ‘skinny mannequin’.  I thought of Yongguk hyung as I put the cigarette back into its box and it went into the dustbin. And Yongguk hyung was looking at me all the while outside the kitchen. I smiled and he smiled back too.

I’m changing, I’m going back to the days when I still had Yongguk hyung around and he is around right now. I haven’t told anyone back in the States where I am and what I’m doing now. I guess they don’t matter much to me. But I guess my company doesn’t really care if I take a long break. The newcomers are endless and without me, the competition over there is more than enough to break necks. Besides, they probably wouldn’t mind since they’ve got part of my pay from Yongguk hyung’s advertisement and it’s huge. I don’t know why but I’m not surprised that Yongguk hyung is so successful now. It seems that his image is always that big in my eyes. I think I would still think he’s really important even if he didn’t have his company. Because he’s Yongguk hyung. That is all. Because he’s Yongguk hyung.

I hear the door. Yongguk hyung must be home. I think I just spent an hour just thinking while sitting on the spiral staircase. I do like watching out the window and I like this stairs. It reminds me a lot of the first time I came to Yongguk hyung’s house. That was the time I had my first time. It’s a little strange thinking about it now because I’m not really innocent anymore and the first time with Yongguk hyung didn’t feel anything like those fooling around I had. The memory just seems like some really foreign, like something I imagined but it’s truly something I’ve experienced. Maybe people only have that sweet nervous bubbling feeling once in their lifetime. I might never know.

I go down the stairs and Yongguk hyung’s smiling at me. His gentle smile reminds me of the sound of sea waves I heard the first time he took me to the beach. It’s pleasant and really vague yet I could smell the sea.

“How are you?”

Sometimes Yongguk asks funny questions like this even though we just met this morning.

“I’m fine.”

I just play along because Yongguk hyung is cute that way.

“I sat on the stairs for an hour.”

“Why?”

He comes over, throws his blazer on the couch and kisses me on the lips. I like that a lot but Yongguk hyung doesn’t like it when I overdo it. He gives me that funny look again like I’m being a ert.

“I was thinking about stuff.”

I circle my arm around his and his smile widens. Yongguk hyung likes to shower every time he gets home. I follow him as he goes to his bedroom, opening the closet for him as he watch me grab his clothes out of the stacks. He takes his clothes from my hands and I steal a kiss again. This time