CRUSH

Jinhwan wished he had the heart to ignore Hongseok’s messages after Jinhwan announced in their group chat that he was going on a vacation and wouldn’t be back until days before school starts. He wasn’t going on a vacation but it was the perfect excuse as to why he wouldn’t be able to hang out with his friends once probed. Kind of like how people know you’re untouchable once you put up a relationship status that says you’re taken…but that was a whole different story.

Jinhwan just didn’t want to deal with what his friends had to say once they find out that he was just lazing around the house instead of hanging out with them. He wondered why he didn’t think of this sooner. After all, all he really did in the house was lock himself in his room for fear that his family would see the state of his face and start asking questions. Jinhwan didn’t want to invent answers so he just made sure that no one saw him step out into daylight, but he still couldn’t consider himself safe since it had only been a day or two.

His phone beeped, and it was a message from Hongseok again, telling him to ‘come out’ because ‘I’m outside’. Jinhwan plopped face down on his bed, and the bruises on his face were still purple that it still hurt to do this. This wouldn’t have happened if he told everyone that he was already on vacation. But alas!

His phone beeped again and when he checked the message, he grunted.

[I’m coming up.]

Jinhwan got up at once, paced back and forth his mother’s room to look for his mother’s makeup bag but it wasn’t there. In the end, he just took one last look at his face on the mirror before deciding that it wasn’t that bad. But who was he kidding? It was still literally-in-your-face obvious that he got beaten up. At the last minute, he just opted for the cloth mask in their medicine cabinet. It was better than nothing.

“ it,” he muttered under his breath before he went to meet Hongseok.

Hongseok looked happy to meet Jinhwan, if the huge smile on his face was any indication.

“You really can’t keep anyone waiting! I actually just got here.” Hongseok called as he saw Jinhwan come out the door. It even looked like he was laughing. That was, until he saw Jinhwan from up close.

“What happened?” Hongseok eyed the bruise on Jinhwan’s cheekbone, right below his eye. Hongseok’s eyebrows met on his forehead as he reached out, taking the mask off jinhwan’s face at once. Jinhwan turned away, although belatedly, and he heard Hongseok gasp. “Who did this to you?”

This is what Jinhwan had in mind when he thought up the lie. He didn’t want this to happen. He didn’t want his friends fussing over him.

“Who did this to you?” Hongseok asked again, his voice more urgent, and Jinhwan hated it when Hongseok turned his face to him and he winced in pain. He didn’t want to anyone to see him like this. But more than that, he didn’t want to see the look of worry on his friend’s face.

“Did you go to the hospital? Or the police? Does your mom know about this?”

Jinhwan turned his face away from his friend’s hand, so Hongseok dropped his hand to his side.

“What happened, Jinhwan?”

Hongseok pressed for answers, and although Jinhwan had answers, he didn’t have answers to give. He fixed his stare on Hongseok’s chest and hoped that the boy would stop asking questions.

Jinhwan released a sigh. “It just happened that way.” He just happened to see me. I just happened to be there. Jinhwan closed his eyes when he realized how much he sounded like Mino in his head. In the end, he didn’t even have the answers to his own questions-the whys. How could he try to satisfy Hongseok’s curiosity if he didn’t know the answers himself?

“I didn’t go anywhere. No one knows about this.”

“Your attacker?” Hongseok prompted. “Is it someone from school?”

Jinhwan shook his head. That was code for I don’t want to talk about it. And when Jinhwan wasn’t sure that Hongseok got the message, he looked him in the eye and pleaded with his gaze.

Jinhwan saw the questions in Hongseok’s head and he doubted they’d ever disappear at this rate. Then again, it wasn’t new that Jinhwan came to Hongseok with bruises littered all over his body. In a sense, he was used to this, to violence, and he wished he wasn’t. But back then, their questions had answers: Who? His father. Why? He was drunk. Again.

Back then, he didn’t have anywhere to go; Jinhyeong’s hiding place was the kitchen cabinet where the gas tank was. And kitchen cabinets with gas tanks were nowhere near ideal hiding place but their mother deemed it safer than anywhere near their father. Jinhwan had to fend for his own, and Hongseok’s place was just across the street, so he’d stay there until their front porch light switched off—it meant that his father had already passed out. He’d come home, expecting the same blues and purples on his mother’s face and body, and expecting they’re concealed the next day, when his mother would leave for work. It was like magic.

“Why did you come here?” Jinhwan asked, changing the subject.

Hongseok raised his eyebrows before he responded, “You say that like I’m a stranger.”

Jinhwan had nothing to say to that.

“Because you’re leaving tonight, and I haven’t seen you at all for these past few weeks, so I thought we could do something.”

Jinhwan was not convinced. He even toyed with the idea of choosing the comfort of his own bed over Hongseok’s company, but it would be mean if he outright rejected Hongseok. He was leaving tonight after all, according to the boy.

Jinhwan was beginning to question why he was so against the idea of being outside. He hadn’t seen Hongseok and the rest of their friends for weeks yet he didn’t at all feel excited about the idea of hanging out. All he did was hole up in his bed, anyway. What was so good about that? He thought that was because of his bruises, but now that he was outside, it somehow felt like he wanted to crawl back into his cave. This wasn’t about the bruises at all. This wasn’t normal, even for Jinhwan.

Hongseok threw an arm over Jinhwan’s shoulder, began walking and in the process, pulled Jinhwan with him. “I want to check out this newly opened snack stall and you’ll come with me.”

“Is that all?”

“I also need new paints.”

“Why didn’t you just ask Jiwon to go with you instead?”

Hongseok pulled Jinhwan with the arm around the latter’s neck. “You don’t sound like my best friend right now. Don’t you remember begging for my attention because I was always with Jiwon?”

Jinhwan struggled against Hongseok until the boy let him free, grinning. He disliked it when people used their height to their advantage. “When did I do that?” Jinhwan feigned ignorance, and Hongseok just laughed at him.

Jinhwan felt the same laughter bubble up, and it surprised him a little. This was starting to be easy. He decided to just enjoy Hongseok’s company for the day. It didn’t look like Hongseok would still ask questions about his bruises, anyway, so it relieved him a bit.

They walked to their favorite arts shop in silence, or at least, Jinhwan wished they did. But they hadn’t seen each other in so long that it was unlikely. Instead, Hongseok filled him in on the things he missed when he ‘disappeared off the face of the earth’. It turned out that Hongseok just got back from a vacation himself and the first thing he did was come to get Jinhwan because Hanbin told him about his best friend’s condition. Hanbin hadn’t seen much of the sun, either, but that he still went out with Yunhyeong and Jiwon even though all he did was space out then. Jiwon told Hongseok that Hanbin was in no place to be worrying about