Chapter XVI

“To be fully seen by somebody, then,

and be loved anyhow -

this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.” 

Elizabeth Gilbert

Cold. A gust of icy wind crawled through his bared feet and cramped his twisted ankle joint, forcing him to open his eyes to the mellow light of the morning sun. Seunghyun turned his face confused as to why everything seemed stranger than normal and got his answer when he sighted Jiyong, cuddled against the sofa next to him, two wine glasses left empty over the table between them and a dozen of CD boxes scattered all over the floor and the surface of the table. The music player remained , without emitting another sound but a low buzz, typically happening when a disc ends but no one is interested to take it out or stop the record. Seunghyun looked at his wristwatch, it was seven in the morning and it seemed they had fallen asleep at one moment of the night inside the living room. 

He let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes again, feeling his aching throat that he could swear was the consequences of singing too much the night before. A silent laugh crept through his lips and he turned to look at Jiyong again, who still was in a deep slumber. He could get accustomed to this, he thought, in fact, he already had. The ringing of the phone forced him to pull himself off the comfortable warmness, rushing –and limping- to answer, trying to avoid it to awaken Jiyong.

“Jiyong?” an unknown voice asked. “Jiyong? Is that you?” asked the voice again, as if the person was surprised to be even able to ask those questions.

“Who is this?” Seunghyun asked a bit more aggressive than necessary. And the voice at the other side of the line seemed to hesitate for a little.

“Is my son home?” the voice finally asked with decisiveness.

“Son?” thought Seunghyun. Could it be Jiyong’s father the one calling? He felt dubious as of what to believe and those doubts let him out of words.

“I just want to know if he is ok. Is Jiyong home?”

“He is sleeping,” Seunghyun finally answered after listening to the worry in the other’s voice, a kind of anguish none could fake, an authentic suffering.

The other sighed and then murmured a request to Seunghyun, something close to a desperate plea.

“Could you tell him we miss him? Tell him his mom and sister are worried and need him back. Could you, please?” asked the voice and then stood in silence, as if somehow hiss voice had broken before been able to continue. Seunghyun hung up with the words “mother”, “father” and “sister” swirling inside his head. Certainly Jiyong had a family, something he until now realized. It felt as if he had unconsciously attributed to Jiyong his same story. But Jiyong, contrary to him, had a family… a family that missed him.

Jiyong woke up an hour later to the sight of a tidy living room, breakfast already cooked and not a single evidence of what had happened last night. Scratching his head he sat at the kitchen counter and pasted his eyes to the sleepy figure of Seunghyun, who welcomed him with a familiar smile.

“Good morning,” Jiyong whispered with raspy voice when Seunghyun placed, like a routine now for them, their plates over the counter and sat in front of him.  How had they reached this familiarity between them? wondered Jiyong.

They had breakfast in a comfortable silence. Sometimes smiling to each other, as if they no longer were disturbed by their mutual presence. Somewhere during their meal Seunghyun broke their silence.

“Jiyong, have you seen your family recently?” asked Seunghyun acting as casually as possible, playing with the chopsticks between his fingers.

Jiyong froze and lifted up his eyes and shook his head faintly. “Not really. Not since that happened,” he murmured with a hint of frustration and took a sip of his water trying to hide his nervousness unsuccessfully for his trembling hand disclosed him.

 “You haven’t told me about your family yet. And actually I would love to know, I’m curious, you know me,” Seunghyun smiled and rested his chin over one of his palms, looking at Jiyong with innocent curiosity in an attempt to stop Jiyong of backing away from him.

“Haven’t I? They are a normal type of family,” he answered imitating Seunghyun’s posture and shrugged, but quickly recognized his mistake at Seunghyun’s darkened eyes and added, “I’m sorry… of course you are curious. What do you want to know, Seungri?”

The other man rolled his eyes at the mention of his nickname but gave no attempt to correct Jiyong. “I don’t know much about families actually. What are you supposed to say first about a family?” he questioned jokingly.

Jiyong laughed amused and pushed Seunghyun’s shoulder. At least he wanted to give that little part of him to Seungri. He deserved his trust, so Jiyong gave up his hiding.

“They live in a village back in Gyeonggi. They have a hotel, well more like a pension that Seunghyun and me bought for them. My sister Dami works as a fashion designer, last time I heard about her she was studying a master in Hong Kong. My mom and dad, they are good people, sometimes they are kind of exasperating, but they are nice people,”

“Since when haven’t you seen them?”

“Eight months,” Jiyong said ashamed and explained. “When that happened I ran away to Japan. I was afraid of their opinion. I’m still afraid. I want you to understand.” He said afraid of Seungri’s judgment, “Back then you weren’t here, I have no one to convince me about this, about acceptance. I was lost and I thought my family would be suspecting and ashamed of me too. I haven’t spoken with them since then.”

“I’m sure they want to know about you.”

“I will visit them soon, but I still have some things to deal about myself first,” Jiyong promised and searched with one of his hand one of Seungri’s. “Will you come with me?”

“Me? I haven’t been too talented in my life dealing with families but I guess I can try,” Seungri joked and lifted himself up with their empty plates, thinking about what could be those “things” Jiyong had to deal with. But the question Jiyong threw to him next, took him completely of ward.

“Have you visited yours?”

He frowned incapable to believe Jiyong could have forgotten his past and story and the fact he had no family to visit in the first place. But when he turned his back Jiyong was looking at him with loving eyes that were intended to broke his walls and force him to answer with his true feelings.

“I mean if you have visited your mom’s grave,” Jiyong clarified and asked Seungri to approach to him with one of his hands. “She is your family, even though she is no longer here, she is still your mom,”

Seungri’s face changed from confusion, to uneasiness, to an innocent pain of a lost kid.

“I have not,” he whispered, lowering his gaze. But Jiyong caressed one of his arms and smiled.

“If one day you decide to, I would love to go with you and visit the person who I own you to be here with me at this very moment. She did some good work at taking care of your soul from wherever she is.”

Seungri smiled. Why hasn’t he gone to Kwangju to visit his mom? His mom. Until then he actually thought about it. His past years where so filled with strange events that at one point, during his childhood, he had forgotten from where he came, and, yes, he had a mom. And the tears pushed through him when that sudden realization hit him hard. He looked at Jiyong and smiled again, his way of saying thank you.

Youngbae picked up Jiyong at nine and had to pretend he did not notice the presence of Seunghyun and did not know who that man was, but he did gift him with a little smile of acknowledgment the moment Jiyong was more engrossed in arranging the papers inside his folder than presenting both of them. Seunghyun could allow all of that to convert into pain, but while he looked at the car vanishing at the distance, he promised he would cherish what he had and pursue what he wanted with patience. His wristwatch marked March, which mean winter was ending and what he had now with Jiyong after three months appeared to him as the best that had happened to him in his short strange life. He felt lucky.

“I need to talk with you, something really important,” said Youngbae reducing the speed of the car. Jiyong merely detached his lost stare from the window and gazed at Youngbae with subtle fear.

“Is about Soo Hyuk. How much do you trust in him?”

“Seunghyun trusted in him. He is, was, his best friend,” he answered as if that mere fact meant that he, as an extension, was obliged to trust in Soo Hyuk.

Youngbae shook his head. “No, Jiyong. Do you trust in him?”

“I… don’t,” he confessed.

“Look. I am not sure, not even now. But I need to tell you this, otherwise I’m going to get insane, I am not as strong as others” started saying Youngbae with an uncomfortable frown pasted over his face. He, then, proceed to tell Jiyong all the things they –he and Seunghyun- had discovered in the past days, obviously but not willingly omitting the name of Seunghyun in the whole story. “Soo Hyuk is hiding something. I am sure! And I am going to need your help to find out what that is,” he concluded and his eyes wandered over the completely silent face of Jiyong who appeared to have been knocked out by reality.

“They were best friends,” babbled out Jiyong, the only words that achieved to escape through his lips, before they tightened in a furious attempt to stop his own confusing thoughts inside his head. “How did you know this? Why until now? What is this?” he asked in a whisper to Youngbae.

Youngbae breathed out heavily and mid-answered Jiyong’s questions. “I suspected him, but I haven’t had the opportunity to investigate him until now,” he gave as an explanation –lied- when his lips wanted so forcefully to let out the name of Lee Seunghyun as the simple reason.

“Why are you doing this?” Youngbae asked to a pained Seunghyun, crunched at his side inside his car, grasping his ankle between his hands.

Seunghyun as he always did transformed his gaze into a mysterious grin. “We do lot of things for the ones we care,” was his answer with the tone of a lecturer, or more likely, with the tone of someone who is repeating a philosopher’s quote with apparent “respect”.

Youngbae studied Seunghyun’s profile again, as his eyes seemed always curious by him; by the way he carried himself. Seunghyun’s eyes had gotten suddenly a sad tone, one of a pain stronger than the one in his twisted ankle.

“Do you care about Jiyong?”

“Much more than what I would like to… for my own good,” Seunghyun answered with a heavy breath and closed his eyes. Could it be by the pain in his ankle, could it be by something more personal.

“Why?”

The eyes of Seunghyun opened again and stared at the distance in front of him, and Youngbae wondered if those eyes were looking at something real or something only them could see, a kind of memory or imaginary image.

“Is there a reason to love someone?” Seunghyun suddenly asked back without averting his eyes from their fixed invisible target. “I found loving Jiyong’s tears and wounded soul as the most gratifying thing I’ve ever done. The way his eyes reflected my pain… or his soul mine. I just. How to explain it? Is there even an explanation for it? I just started accepting my own weaknesses the moment I accepted his. I guess that’s what some call love.” He smiled and finally looked at Youngbae’s eyes. “I can’t tell you the why, but I know the how. And the how is beautiful.”

“Why are you hiding this from him then? Why… I can’t understand, Seunghyun! Why don’t you want him to know all the things you are doing for him?” finally snapped Youngbae, raising his voice incapable to understand.

“I can give you two reasons; one is selfish, the other one is not. Which one do you prefer?” Seunghyun asked with that knowingly grin over his face.

Youngbae shook his head amazed by Seunghyun’s ability to turn everything into something complicated and muttered a silent, “Both.”

“The first one is because I selfishly want him to love me by who I am and not by what he owns to me. I don’t want to be his savior, Youngbae, nor his pillar. I want him to be “the someone” with whom he can share his thoughts… I want him to know me as someone weak, and human and capable of hurting too,” Seunghyun sighed and stood a moment in silence before continuing. “The second one is not about me, is the fact I don’t want him to be engrossed in more lies and half truths. I want him to know the truth as of what happened. But so far I don’t have yet any truth to give him,”

“Jiyong,” murmured Youngbae after his moment of silent remembering when the CHOI building had started to raise in its entire splendor over the other buildings at the distance, showing they were soon to arrive. “Who is Lee Seunghyun for you?”

The eyes of Jiyong opened widely, his lips parted loosely and his hands stopped playing with the buttons of his shirt, all in one second.

“How do you know his name?” was Jiyong’s answer and there were lot of conflicting emotions in his voice.

“I am your best friend, Jiyong.”

“Someone,” quickly answered Jiyong and averted his eyes. But his voice reflected not indifference but a lot of interest and precaution. As if him knowing the name of that man was trespassing something. As if he felt violated in his secrets.

“Someone?”

“Why are you asking?” shouted Jiyong abruptly and raised his hands. “I will not stop seeing him if that is what you are going to say. I will not, Youngbae!” added Jiyong, already tired by people so easily judging Seunghyun’s life as if the man have had any choice, as if what he was, was bad just by definition. But Youngbae looked pleased by his reaction rather than confused or angry, something Jiyong wasn’t sure how to interpret.

The rest of Jiyong’s day happened without surprises until the last hours of it. His work as replacement of Choi Seunghyun became less dreadful by the days. Though the word “replacement” and the way the office was decorated sometimes made him dizzy and nostalgic. He felt as if he was inside a spiral, in which every day he was closer to the end. He had reached a point in which he already accepted Seunghyun was no longer alive, but he still wanted explanations to ease his guilt. And even though Seungri had done a lot to convince him about his own kindness and innocence, deep in his core he wanted reasons, causes and explanations. The word he used to replace the lack of them was “casualty”, but it was becoming rotten and useless with time.

Someone knocked on his door at the end of the day and the vision of the past, smiling at him with cruelty was something he did not expect never to face again. With gray hair, crooked smile and the same style of clothes of Choi Seunghyun, his father was looking at him from the door of his office.

“Long time since I last saw you, Kwon Jiyong,” hissed Choi Seunghyun’s father with distaste, staring around and at the man who was sitting at the back of his death son’s desk. “Eight months, Am I right? Where have you been hiding?”

“None your business.”

The old man laughed sarcastically and nodded with his head, walked towards Jiyong and stamped a folder over the surface of the desk with evident wrath. Jiyong looked at the folder and then at the eyes of the man disconcerted.

“I opened a lawsuit of murder against you, Kwon Jiyong,” said the man spurting hate all over with his eyes. “I’m going to bring you down for killing my son.”

Something in Jiyong ignited after hearing those accusations. He lifted his body and stamped his hand over the folder with uncontained rage.

“I did nothing! Did you even love your son, Choi? As far as I know you are doing this for the money. You hated him for being gay. He hated you.”

The smile of the old man became murky, and that scary cruelty he had only saw once, during his and Seunghyun’s wedding, appeared again inside the man’s eyes.

“Did he even love you, Jiyong? As far as I know my son kept a lot of secrets from you. Are you sure you knew him, Jiyong? I’m afraid you are going to realize the truth soon or later, and I will be pleased by seeing you do so,” the man said, deriding Jiyong before turning and leaving the office without any other word.

And Jiyong stood in silence, flabbergasted. Looking at the back of the man, but his eyes clouding. His shoes felt heavier, his soul felt heavier. Pain. He welcomed pain again into his heart. “Seungri,” shouted his head for help, but his weak self was alone left to his own doubts and cloudy lies. 

Hello there! Thank you for reading ^.^  It wasn't as angsty as I had planned, but it does marks the start of some problems. 

Thank you to my new subscribers: MiuruMae, ccheryl, aricr0, Rapper99_, Daesungee, Reeyeon, choomtabiii, Oumaimaunnie. And to my new upvoter: t3nt3n. 

Special callout to Rapper99_, who contacted me asking if she could translate my fic to Tai... WOOT! Thank you! Of course you can, I feel grateful and super delighted by it! ^.^

See ya soon! And again sorry for grammar mistakes, it hasn't been beta read yet. It will during this week.  JessRa