Chapter X

“I want to fall asleep, and wake, knowing my heart is safe.

 I want to love, and be loved.” Shana Abe

Seunghyun opened his eyes to the sound of a quiet screaming. He gazed through the darkness, still fighting between sleep and wakefulness, blinking his eyes to adjust them to the faint lighting inside the room. Another whine came from somewhere inside the room. He pushed his body up, supporting his weight over his right arm and looked at his right where Jiyong’s body was curled in a fetal position crying and shivering in his sleep.

“Jiyong. Ji,” he called him whispering his name over his neck, and with his left hand shook softly his body in an attempt to awaken him. But Jiyong kept shivering and wailing incomprehensible words.

Laying his body closer to him, he surrounded the mourning body between his arms, now with his mind a bit clearer. And, incapable of doing or thinking about something to do, he started to sing. Those songs that when younger he used to serenade himself with, on those times of sorrow when he was left alone, without a family or any expectations. He cooed Jiyong with those back to sleep, whispering them over his ear.

“Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart?”

He fondled Jiyong’s black hair in slow motions, taking pleasure in its silkiness. Then brushed his fingers over the skin of one of his cheeks, cleaning those tears rolling over Jiyong’s skin.

“Does your memory stray to a bright sunny day? When I kissed you and called you sweetheart? Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare? Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?”

He kept singing whilst tasting a thwarting sensation when he recalled Jiyong’s begging that night. “Can you stop it? Can I stop loving him?” He did not want Jiyong to forget the one he once loved, but sometimes, like this night, he wished he could vanish the pain of that memory.

“Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?
Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?”

Eventually Jiyong eased his crying and Seunghyun made an attempt to move away, but realized Jiyong had interlaced his fingers with his own during the song. He had to remain there, falling back to sleep holding Jiyong between his arms.

Jiyong woke up hours later with the sound of the phone ringing down at the first floor. His eyes felt dry but there was something that morning; a comfortable stupor of tranquility and easiness inside his heart, which made him stretch his body inside the blankets and exhale, as if everything was just right.  The reminiscence of a pair of arms holding him at night came back to his mind, and turned his face to his right to meet untidy blankets and empty spots. He remembered the last day, what had he asked the man to do, and pangs of shame and regret cut through him.

Nearby at the back of the bed, over the counter was a piece of paper and a cup of coffee still with a delicious steam coming out from it. He stretched his arms and took both with his hands.

Good Morning. Went to run, will come back later.

Lee Seunghyun.

Jiyong lifted his lips in a faint smile and uttered the name of the man as if tasting how it felt to pronounce those words, “Lee Seunghyun,” and then approached the mug to his nose and inhaled the aroma of coffee with a hint of cinnamon, as he used to take it every morning. His smile grew wider.

The phone rang again, once, twice; at the third time Jiyong pulled his body off the bed with sluggishness and not really willing to break that captivating morning. He forced himself to go out from his room and stepped down the stairs towards the library.

“Who?” he asked picking up the handset to his ear in an unsteady manner, and waited for an answer from the other side of the line, drafting an annoyed grin when the answer did not came back.

“Who?” he asked again, this time more angered. “I said, who!” he shouted before hanging up with a violent movement and stared at the phone for a long time in silence, his eyebrows tightened. Only the sound of his mobile ringing at the living room took him out of his frozen spot. Jiyong let out a deep sigh of frustration and ran a hand over his face before walking away.

“I’m heading to pick you up for work. Be ready in 20 minutes,” Youngbae announced at the other side of the line with his characteristic serious voice.

Jiyong merely answered with an imperceptible “Hmm,” and hanged up. His beautiful morning was over.

Youngbae arrived exactly 20 minutes after. Dressed in clothes that seemed too short for his short stature, if that was even possible, and waited for Jiyong cross-armed and leaning over his gray car with fluorescent green decorations. Jiyong shook his head at the sight. Youngbae was an eccentric man.

“I have my own car, you know?” Jiyong complained the moment he stepped out of the house and eyed Youngbae's car and his own, attempting to seem annoyed but the smile that had arose over his lips that morning refused to leave him yet.

“Oh Come on! I’m trying to be a good friend,” Youngbae protested, smiling as he entered his car, not without staring at him longer than usual as if wondering what made Jiyong so happy that day.

Once inside his friend’s car, Jiyong kept checking back at the rear-view mirror, expecting to see the figure of Seunghyun running down the street. But when Youngbae reached the intersection and turned to the right, stopping any possibility to see anything more, Jiyong left out an unconscious sigh that did not go unnoticed by his friend at the other side of the car. He wanted to see Seunghyun again, the reasons he did not know; but maybe he wanted to apologize for last night, or maybe say thank you.

“Ji?” Youngbae broke their silence and gazed at him. “Whose car is the black car in front of your house?” he asked directly.

Jiyong turned to see his friend rather hurriedly to appear casual. “N-No one,” he sputtered, conscious Youngbae could see through his lie quite easily.

“I don’t mind if you are seeing someone else. In fact,” Youngbae added, smiling at him light-heartedly. “That’s a good thing.” His smiley eyes almost resembled a second pair of thinner eyebrows.

Jiyong gulped and looked back again through the rear-view mirror kind of expecting to see Seunghyun’s face staring directly at him. Jiyong was intrigued by how rapidly he had changed his mind. Now he felt less willing to give information about Seunghyun, less to reveal his identity. For a reason still unknown to him, a kind of protectiveness overwhelmed him.

“I’m not seeing anyone. Probably someone parked his car at the wrong place,” he lied again, this time avoiding making eye contact with his friend. Youngbae only nodded, squinting his eyes, not convinced at all, and focused on the traffic again.

“I’m sorry,” Jiyong said too suddenly, “I’m sorry for leaving you without saying anything. I’m sorry you had to carry all the burden of my leaving.”

Youngbae only turned to see his friend and gave a half smile, stepping on the brakes at the sight of the red light.

“Don’t,” he stated. “That’s what I’m here for, Ji. I’m your friend.”

Jiyong nodded and stared outside the window to the busy streets. How much had his depart affected others? Was it the best decision?

They soon arrived to the CHOI building. Youngbae distracted himself by engaging in an argument with the new boy from the valet parking, who seemed to be having the worst of his days at work. Jiyong’s phone vibrated inside his pocket. A message from his secretary.

“Sometimes I think they try harder every day to do things wrong,” Youngbae complained, approaching him whilst shaking his head from side to side in consternation.

“Must go. Stockholders meeting,” he explained vaguely before he rolled his eyes. Those meetings were never fun at all. His friend nodded understandably.

“Ji!,” he heard Youngbae screaming when he had already walked a few steps away, he turned his head around. “He trusted in you. You are good enough for this,” his friend cheered him up. Jiyong smiled and kept walking, until he faded behind the closing glass doors.

“So now you are declaring your love for Jiyong, Youngbae? Now that Seunghyun’s gone…” Youngbae heard the voice of Soo Hyuk behind his back. He changed his smile for an annoyed gesture before turning back.

“Nice to see you,” he mumbled, everything but pleased to see that man, and brushed past him.

“So you still trust in him?” Soo Hyuk asked, following him through the entrance of the building.

“I will always trust in him,” he replied, accenting the “always” and walking faster trying to lose the other man’s annoying presence.

“Who is Lee Seunghyun then? The man sleeping with Jiyong recently or maybe not so recently…” Soo Hyuk implied, changing the tone of his voice to a suggestion. The sound of his shoes against the pavement stopped. And Youngbae’s imitated them, stopping suddenly and turning back, with his small eyes widened.

“Excuse me?”

“So now I have your attention,” Soo Hyuk mocked and crossed his arms with superiority. Youngbae pierced him with his eyes and clenched his jaw, growing annoyed.

“Speak, Soo Hyuk,” he hissed.

“The man living with Jiyong this days. Who wears Seunghyun’s pajamas and eats over Seunghyun’s counter,” he revealed. “Could he be the reason why Jiyong did what he did?” he challenged Youngbae, leaning forward and raising a sneering smirk.

Youngbae grabbed the collar of the shirt’s man fiercely and cautioned him. “Don’t you even dare.”

“I’m just repeating what has been said Youngbae,” the man excused himself, drawing an innocent gesture on his face, “Remind me, who was considered the first suspect in Seunghyun’s murder?”

Soo Hyuk face ended up over the floor, one of his lips bleeding. Youngbae stayed, looking at him from above with clenched fists.

“You, Soo Hyuk, for me that one is you,” he spluttered and walked away. The workers arriving at that hour looked at both of them puzzled and frozen at their spots.

Youngbae approached to the valet parking man, whom he had a discussion with before. The man cringed as if expecting to be hit too.

“Bring back my car!” he ordered. He was going to find out who was that man. The owner of that black car parked in front of Jiyong’s house.

Seunghyun turned to his left, finally at Jiyong’s house street. His shirt drenched in sweat, the muscles of his legs complaining and the battery of his phone already empty for having played a whole playlist nonstop. He had run for an hour more than usual. Particularly because he was not willing to return and encounter Jiyong’s dreamy eyes confusing him for someone he was not. Last night he felt he had almost touched Jiyong’s heart. And he would not allow anyone, not even Jiyong, to fade that refreshing sensation from his skin and soul. Yes, he had avoided Jiyong in a way, but only the Jiyong that kept denying his reality.

But before been able to reach his destination, where a comfortable cold shower was waiting only for him, he had to halt his rhythmic steps rather abruptly at the sight of a small man leaning out of his car window. The man, as if hearing him from distance, lifted his head and looked at his direction. Seunghyun hid himself behind one of the cars in the street moved merely by instinct.

“Now what?” he mumbled and crept his face again, staring at the man, who now was turned back and kept looking through his car windows.

Stealthily he approached to the figure, hiding behind every object he encountered in his way, from cars to small bushes, until he was only meters away from him. The man was small, but he was well built, probably much more than Seunghyun itself. He frowned and decided to ignore that fact and with a quick movement, he dashed his weight over the man, knocking him over the floor.

A surprise attack had seemed a good idea until the man easily pushed him off him with strength, cursing. A fast fist crushed onto his face and sent him all over the pavement. Seunghyun made an attempt to recover, but the hard blow turned him dizzy and only achieved to slip over the floor again. A surprise attack did not seem to have been a good idea after all.

“Who the hell are you?” roared Youngbae, lifting the man over the floor from the collar of his sweatshirt and pushed him against the car.

“Same question for you,” hissed Seunghyun, both his hands grasping onto the other man wrists as if attempting to release his clothes. But another punch over his face silenced him. He swore he heard the crushing of a broken bone and looked at the red stains adorning alarmingly his sweatshirt.

“ing hell!” he cursed and moved, managing to dodge his body from the man’s hands and touched his bloody face in pain.

“I think we need to start again,” he almost begged, lifting both his hands in the air, giving up the fight. “Lee Seunghyun,” he presented himself stretching one of his hands, the one stained with blood.

Youngbae stared at the red stained hand almost with revulsion and lifted one of his eyebrows, his fists still clenched dangerously. But his eyes flashed in recognition at the name of the one in front of him.

“I don’t trust you,” he only said.

“Fair enough,” Seunghyun accepted, trying to be as polite as possible. His face was hurt enough for the day and the whole year already.

“What are you? Why are you here?” inquired the man with the strange Mohawk that now looked quite dangerous. Seunghyun frowned. Why had he not seen the almost killer appearance the man had before enrolling in such an unfair fight?

“I live with Jiyong,” he answered, cautiously stepping back.

“Why?”

Seunghyun frowned again in frustration. “That is something he has to tell you,” he answered in resignation and closed his eyes, expecting another hard punch towards his face. But Youngbae only snorted.

“I don’t think he is ever going to tell me something… Who are you?” he repeated and moved forward threateningly.

Seunghyun sighed, “Lee Seunghyun. Supplanter,” he said, again stretching his hand towards the man in politeness. A hand that remained ignored, too.

Youngbae put on a face that read completely confusion. “What?” he managed to blurt out.

“Big fists, small brain huh?” mocked Seunghyun amused by the bewilderment over the other man’s face. Yougbae lifted one of his fist angered.

“Ok. Let me get this straight,” Seunghyun said in effort to brighten the mood, lifting his hands in the air again and stepping back, feeling rather scared, “Are you maybe worried about Jiyong?”

The way a rush of tenderness and worry appeared inside the other man’s eyes gave Seunghyun the answer he wanted. He smiled, relieved.

“Look, big fists. We are on the same team so stop looking at me as if you would gladly kill me,” he clarified, “I’m not thinking of hurting Jiyong in any way.” Yet the man still looked at him with distrust so he added, “I’m a supplanter, he hired me. I act as if I’m someone already dead,” he explained quite slowly as if Youngbae was kind of mentally retarded.

Youngbae gradually changed his threateningly posture to a softer one, and studied him with his eyes from head to toes.

“Who are you then?” asked Seunghyun, finally relaxed enough to touch his face and scan for the possible damages.

“Dong Youngbae. Jiyong’s best friend,” said proudly Youngbae and looked at the man’s face with something close to regret.

“Oh Youngbae! I heard about you before,” smiled Seunghyun under his hands and glanced at the man. “I suppose he has not talked about me?” he implied rather sarcastically.

“No.”

“Shall we start again? We started quite brutally,” Seunghyun said, his smile growing wider.

Youngbae studied him and frowned. “You tackled me first,” he complained, pointing at the pavement floor. Seunghyun scratched the back of his head and nodded, accepting his fault in the whole mess.

“And you broke my nose. Deal?” he said and stretched his hand for the third time. This time finally it was shaken by the other one’s hand.

“Sorry about that,” Youngbae muttered, his face reddening whilst studying the danger his fists had made over the other one’s nose and jaw.

Seunghyun shrugged and grinned. “It’s just a nose, big fists,” he spurted out and beckoned Youngbae to follow him inside the house.

Youngbae smiled. He liked the man, whoever he was. But he had to stop calling him “big fists”. 

“So you are a supplanter?” Youngbae asked, intrigued, as he now sat over one of the sofas and watched the back of Seunghyun moving inside the kitchen. He stared at the walls of the living room, which seemed to be lacking of something. But he could not decide what could possibly be.

“I am.”

“I still can’t believe Jiyong hired you. It does not sound like the Jiyong I know,” Youngbae confessed, looking at the man who now was placing two glasses of water over the table.

“Well, he did,” Seunghyun let his tired body fell over the sofa and gazed at Youngbae equally as intrigued. “Why were you stalking my car?”

“Just wanted to find who the hell you were.”

“Smooth,” Seunghyun teased, half smiling.

“I think I just let myself be overwhelmed by Soo Hyuk. I should know better,” Youngbae snorted out, more for himself than for Seunghyun. But the name he pronounced made Seunghyun look at him interested.

“Soo Hyuk, as in the Choi Co. Vice president?” he asked leaning forward.

Youngbae eyed him suspiciously, “Yes. You know him?” he asked, lifting one of his eyebrows.

“Let say I have my own problems with him, too,” Seunghyun said, shrugging his shoulders. To what Youngbae smiled widely and rose his glass of water.

“You are officially my friend now,” he declared, pleased by the obvious disdain he shared with Seunghyun for Soo Hyuk.

“So what problems do you have with him?”

“He convinced Jiyong that Seunghyun’s death was his fault, he still does. I don’t know why he is always trying to swamp his suspicions to every one out there,” Youngbae hissed and clenched his hand around his glass of water.

Seunghyun pressed his lips and frowned slightly before asking. “Why would Jiyong even believe that thing? I’ve heard him at night, he always cries the same thing –I did not kill you-,” he repeated the words imitating Jiyong’s voice.

Youngbae narrowed his eyes but did not ask why would he know what Jiyong said or whined at night. He did not want to know.

“For many reasons,” he began explaining. “Seunghyun’s parents prohibited him to assist to his son funeral. They blamed him for wanting to steal Seunghyun’s money and company. They called him an interested man, a murderer and so on,” Youngbae sighed, his eyes falling to the floor.

“That’s so cruel,” Seunghyun stated, his face frowned in disbelief. Things were dirtier than what he had thought. And know he started to understand why Jiyong was so affected as he was.

“That crumbled Jiyong. I could not convince him otherwise, he believed every word to the core. And then papers and headlines ran out calling him a suspect, a killer, people looked at him as if he was a monster. Two weeks later he vanished. He left everything. I had to assume responsibility for KJ entertainment. Choi Company become a mess, a financial mess,” Youngbae narrated, still looking at the floor with sadness.

“Where did he go?”

“I have no idea. I guess he just ran away from everything. I can’t blame him. Things were ing messy,” Youngbae explained, running a hand through his hair.

Seunghyun glanced at the photos pasted over the wall next to the stairs. Jiyong looked happy on them, with that pretty smile of his, full of life and hopes. And Choi Seunghyun smiled at his side too. They seemed happy and in love. It must have been difficult for Jiyong to be blamed for killing the only person he really cared for.

“How could he know? How could he even guess?” Yougbae whined, hiding his face between his hands as if he wanted to scream. “He sent him there, to the store department. It was a bad causality, a terrible one. He told him that night to pick his parents gifts for their anniversary.”

“Oh, God!” Seunghyun exclaimed, his face twitched in painful realization.

“He blamed himself. He believed all the lies. He did not accept it was just a ing stupid casualty,” Youngbae cried.

“Sometimes its difficult to believe in casualties,” Seunghyun nodded, and ran a hand through the back of his neck, growing tired for all the sudden information. “What happened that day? The day they killed him?” he inquired when Youngbae stared at him, puzzled.

“Three shots. It was at night, the store was supposed to be closed. They killed him and one of his bodyguards, and hurt the other one. It was so quick, so sudden,” Youngbae recalled, closing his eyes at the sudden flashbacks.

Seunghyun stopped moving over the sofa and looked quite shocked at Youngbae and what he just said.

“Wait, one of them survived?”

“Yes. He lost one of his eyes. But he was the one who declared to the police what happened that night,” Youngbae answered, nodding with his head.

Seunghyun merely nodded but tightened his lips. Something was off from that whole story. For some reason something did not seem right.

“Why are you so interested in this?” Youngbae asked suddenly, studying him with his eyes.

“I’m a supplanter. I’m a bored person,” Seunghyun hid the truth and averted his eyes towards the window.

“I might have a small brain Seunghyun, but I can see you are lying,” Youngbae laughed and lifted himself from the sofa. “You are a good man Seunghyun. We should be friends. I’m serious,” he said.

“We should,”

“You have access to aspects of Jiyong’s mind I have not,” Youngbae explained and smiled sadly. “You are helpful, now that he is back.”

“You have no idea how terrible is that sometimes,” Seunghyun suggested, and gained an apologetic look from the other man.

“Nice to meet you. Don’t even dare to hurt my friend or I’ll break your nose again and something else,” said Youngbae smiling, before leaving the house.

Seunghyun agreed and closed the door not before mocking Youngbae again.

“I’ll be your friend, big fists, if you leave my nose in peace from now on!”

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Soundtrack: Are You Lonesome Tonight - Elvis Presley