Come Back

“mister.”

Choi Hong-seo grabbed his arm that was covering his cheek. He looked at him earnestly, asking him to listen to his story. Lee Hae-seong looked at Choi Hong-seo’s eyes with affection more than anything, but pretended not to notice his earnestness.

“My baby, that’s why I did that… I left you sweating in that living room and I… I made a sarcastic remark, asking if you were going to collapse in front of me again.”

His eyes, stained with deep regret, looked at Choi Hong-seo and softened. It seemed as if his heart was softening as well.

“You never would have imagined something like this would happen. That’s why it’s like this.”

He smiled bitterly at Choi Hong-seo’s consolation.

“Yeah. I’m not a romantic enough person to have such imagination.”

Lee Hae-seong’s gaze, which had been looking down at the feet of the two people standing face to face, turned back to Choi Hong-seo. Haa, his breath puffed out again after a sigh. He sighed unusually often today. Lee Hae-seong, who had let his hands drop, took off his gloves and put them in his jumper pockets. Then, he cupped Choi Hong-seo’s cheek with his bare hand and gently ran his thumb under his eyes. Unlike the leather gloves, his skin was warm. It was the warmth of a living person.

He often covered both of his cheeks with both of his hands, and each time, Choi Hong-seo felt as if he was carefully covering not just his cheeks but his heart.

“Yoon Hye-an, who always appears in places where there are memories with you… I thought she was trying to use that as an excuse to pique my curiosity. At that time.”

“I know. I really don’t blame you one bit for what happened back then… Don’t be sorry, sir. I…”

“Hongseo.”

He interrupted Choi Hong-seo. It was a very rare occurrence.

“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. And, can we just pretend that the shaman story never happened? Those places where Hongseo got sick, we just need to avoid those places from now on. Hmm?”

Lee Hae-seong knew that Choi Hong-seo was going to bring up the shaman story again. Choi Hong-seo shut his eyes tightly and opened them. The ‘Gate of Heaven’ was visible over his shoulder. The real ‘Gate of Heaven’ was said to be a popular tourist attraction that most tourists visiting Bali must visit. People who headed to the Rampooyang Temple from early in the morning received a number and waited in line to take a so-called certification photo. Lee Hae-seong said that some people were dissatisfied, saying that apart from the certification photo taken at the ‘Gate of Heaven’, there was not much else to see in the temple.

There were many places I wanted to go with my lover whom I had difficulty meeting again. I wanted to travel all over the world with him. I wanted to walk with my own two feet, see with my own eyes, and experience various tastes. I would leave my feelings, however insufficient, in lyrics, and he would leave them in photographs. I often imagined such things. Just because it was Choi Hong-seo, it wasn’t the case that the place I really wanted to go with him was a shaman’s house.

Even this spacious mansion in Bundang was cramped and like a prison compared to the rest of the world. I didn’t want to spend time locked up here, trembling with anxiety, embracing each other, and relieving that anxiety with sex.

Time and understanding were too precious to be wasted like that.

Choi Hong-seo took off his gloves and grabbed Lee Hae-seong’s two hands. He tried to somehow hold his hands, which were at least a foot longer and thicker than his own, in his hands and convey his warmth.

“Faith and devotion to invisible ideas.”

“……”

“You said that in the interview… doesn’t that mean you believe what Manshin said a little bit?”

“That’s different, Hongseo.”

Lee Hae-seong, who had been letting go of his strength and obediently placing his hands on Choi Hong-seo’s, suddenly exerted his strength and grabbed Choi Hong-seo’s hands.

“It’s not that I believed what he said, I just thought about what it meant. There was a time when I suspected that you might be Hongseo, but I wondered if I was crazy. I just needed a basis for believing that you were Hongseo. It has no other meaning.”

“Ghosts get bodies, and corpses get souls… That’s what he said.”

“……”

“Wasn’t the corpse the soulless Yun Hye-an, and the ghost the soulless me? Does that person really know something…”

“Hongseo.”

Lee Hae-seong interrupted Choi Hong-seo once again. Now he was holding Choi Hong-seo’s upper arms tightly.

“Those people are good at deceiving people with vague words. If you really knew that you were Choi Hong-seo and not Yoon Hye-an, wouldn’t you have just told them the truth? They just throw out vague words and wait for the other person to fall for them. That’s just their method.”

Lee Hae-seong’s eyes sparkled as he tried to persuade Choi Hong-seo by shaking his body.

I knew he didn’t believe in anything supernatural. I didn’t think he would easily agree to go to a shaman. But he was more determined than I expected. Maybe that meant he was more afraid than I expected.

Regretting his urging actions, Lee Hae-seong quickly removed his hand that was tightly holding Choi Hong-seo’s shoulder. He then swept away his lower body as if crushing it and grabbed Choi Hong-seo’s bare hand.

“I know you want to grab onto even a shred of hope. I’m the same way. If there’s a surefire way, I’m willing to give up the name ARA. I want that way too.”

“……”

“But I won’t try to solve this problem by religious means, whether it’s shamanism or anything else. How could I believe in such a method, Hongseo?”

“Sir, I woke up in Yoon Hye-an’s body. That’s unbelievable.”

Choi Hong-seo spoke as if he was pleading, as if it was almost his last moment.

He was the kind of person who would listen to anything he said. He knew that. He knew that his current refusal was not simply due to his own beliefs of not believing in shamanism.

Lee Hae-seong, who had been silently staring at Choi Hong-seo for a moment, moved Choi Hong-seo’s hand that he had been holding onto to his left chest. He could feel his heartbeat throbbing under his palm that was pressed tightly against his chest.

“I confirmed it with my heart.”

“……”

“Even if I can’t see your old face, I believe that this person in front of me is you. I look at you now with the same sincerity I used to treat you with. Whatever the shaman meant by that… that’s my faith, that’s my love.”

He couldn’t say anything more. Choi Hong-seo lowered his head. One side of the glove he had carelessly stuffed into his jumper pocket fell off. Before he could even bend down, the glove was blown away by the strong wind. While he was futilely following the glove rolling along the stone road, Lee Hae-seong strode over with long legs and picked it up.

As we headed into the late afternoon, the temperature seemed to have dropped even further than when I had left the room.

Lee Hae-seong returned to Choi Hong-seo, who was standing with his head down, and warmed Choi Hong-seo’s hands, which had turned red from the cold wind, with his breath. Then he put on the gloves he had picked up.

“Did you read all the interviews in the Spanish magazines?”

Choi Hong-seo nodded.

“Yes, that ‘story’ we were talking about there. It’s the Hongseo story.”

“……”

“Because after losing you, I started to think again about life itself.”

Lee Hae-seong, who had put on the left glove he had picked up, took the right glove out of Choi Hong-seo’s jumper pocket and put it on as well.

“Meeting you and developing feelings for you like other people, having you taken away from me by those dog-like guys, and then… miraculously getting you back.”

“……”

“You are my story, you are my circumstances.”

Hae-seong Lee’s voice, which had been shaking for a moment with anger toward the ‘dog-like guys’, immediately regained his composure and became calm. Hae-seong Lee, who had put on both gloves, faced Hong-seo Choi with a faint smile, as if he was finally relieved and pleased to see him.

“It’s good to have a man with a story, but isn’t this enough?”

I forced the corners of my lips upward, but it was a dreary smile, like this garden that had lost its greenery. It was a miserable smile, as if admitting that I had become empty.

Choi Hong-seo approached him, clearing the distance of a step or so. He wrapped his arms around his sides and hugged his torso. With his eyes peeking out over his shoulders, he looked beyond that at the ‘Gate of Heaven.’ He was thankful that Yoon Hye-an wasn’t that tall. He had always liked looking at the world from this position.

“That’s right. What you said is right. You just have to avoid places like Bongandang, Hannam-dong mansions, or Seocho-dong villas.”

“……”

“I was wrong.”

Haa, he sighed, pulling up his shoulders and then letting them fall. Then he hugged Choi Hong-seo.

“You did nothing wrong. You didn’t do anything wrong. You just… just watch over one thing. You won’t make me anxious, right?”

“No, I won’t do that.”

He repeated the same promise he had made in Malibu.

The arms holding Choi Hong-seo were strong as if they were squeezing his body.

“You won’t go to that shaman without my knowledge or anything like that. Do you promise?”

I nodded several times.

“I promise.”

If there was even a little bit of my own desire in my return, it wouldn’t be for revenge, and it certainly wouldn’t be because I was curious about how the ‘X-gun scandal’ would end after I died. It would only be because this person, this person, caught my eye. So all I had to do was reassure this person.

The goose jumper that felt cold at first touch soon became warm as he hugged it. Choi Hong-seo gripped the surface tightly with both hands.

It was around the time when the two of them turned their backs on the ‘Water Palace’ that they received a call from the dermatologist who had treated Lee Hae-seong’s younger brother’s atopic dermatitis.