Come Back

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The body that had been hanging heavy like water-soaked cotton rose into the air.

The lifting movement was extremely careful and cautious, as if he was extremely afraid of even the slightest scratch by mistake.

Baby. Yes, it was as if the parents were holding their first baby in their arms with extreme affection. I don’t remember being treated with care by my parents, but I knew what a typical parent’s touch was like.

From the very beginning of his memory, poverty was a natural environment like air, sunlight, and wind, and his parents’ irregular income made the family even more unstable. His three brothers and one daughter grew up in a haphazard manner, neglected by their parents. His older brothers often took out their anger on Choi Hong-seo, and his younger brother was not very gentle. His other brothers and Choi Hong-seo had to spend their childhood and adolescence without being able to build a thick and strong love relationship, sociality, or basic rules to protect themselves, which would become the foundation for their future lives.

Choi Hong-seo was a child who got scolded for not doing his homework and was a child who got scolded for not preparing his school supplies properly. During art class, he was a child who drew pictures with a torn sheet of a sketchbook and three or four borrowed colored crayons while watching the situation.

The child was not happy about the situation either. However, he did not even think about overcoming it. He just thought that it was his role, his place. Since no one valued him, the child did not know that he was valuable.

As the nickname Glycol given by fans later, the child accepted the given environment as it was thanks to his mild temperament with low boiling and freezing points. The brothers who resented, were angry, and rebelled seemed even more difficult in the child’s eyes. He just kept his mouth shut and stayed in a corner. The house was less noisy if at least one person was silent. The child learned that.

That doesn’t mean that the child didn’t have a longing for affection and care inside him. He just didn’t cry out for it because he had given up on it long ago.

I think I was in first or second grade.

There was a child in my class who had the opportunity to speak in English in front of the whole school. He always wore neat clothes, had nice bags and school supplies, and had a cheerful personality, so he was popular with his friends. He was a child who always raised his hand actively when the teacher asked a question during class, and he was not embarrassed even when he gave the wrong answer.

The child was particularly good at English, so the homeroom teacher often called the child up to the desk and had him speak a few words of English in front of his friends. Choi Hong-seo would always steal glances at the teacher’s proud and happy expression as he looked at the child. It felt like the most ecstatic taste in the world. If he received such a look from his parents or teachers, it might taste like eating chocolate milk, strawberry milk, ice cream, and cake all at once. The child had vaguely imagined it.

‘Teacher, I’m so nervous! I can’t do it! I don’t want to do it! Please call my mom!’

Before the presentation in front of the whole school, my friend seemed more nervous than usual. It must have been a daunting task for a first or second grader. My friend had clung to the teacher and burst into tears. I envied the innocence of my friend who could act like a spoiled brat to the teacher. That was a privilege only for children who were accepted. A privilege only available to children who did not know the pain of rejection.

‘Once we actually start, I’m sure I’ll do just as well as I practiced. I’m just nervous about the waiting time.’

The teacher lowered his body to be at eye level with the child.

‘In times like this, let’s fold our fingers one by one and count slowly. Don’t think about anything else, just think about counting. Can you do that?’

The friend nodded, and the teacher held the child’s small hand and folded each finger one by one. The simple child focused only on folding each finger one by one with tearful eyes.

It was a magical moment for Choi Hong-seo, who stood in line with his classmates and watched the scene.

To a child, teachers and parents are like saviors, heroes, and gods who know everything. Every secret of the world that such beings reveal to the child has absolute power.

Throughout his childhood, almost the only thing that remained for Choi Hong-seo as a ‘result of education’. Even that was something he had picked up from others. Nothing was given to Choi Hong-seo for Choi Hong-seo.

But Choi Hong-seo still relied on that habit. Even when it was his turn to run during physical education, even before he changed grades and entered a new classroom, even on his first day at the host club with a reluctant heart, even on the day he went out to refuse a second round to the ‘Gucci customer’ who wanted to sleep with Choi Hong-seo and was hanging himself…

After debuting, I always counted numbers before going on stage. And it always worked. I believed it. In fact, I knew that it was not because of counting, but because of practice and effort. Even though I knew it, I couldn’t break the habit. Because I couldn’t feel safe alone. I wanted to believe that the method taught by someone absolute would save me.

It wasn’t magic meant for me from the start.

In the arms that held him so preciously, Choi Hong-seo felt like he had returned to being a child. Back in those days, Choi Hong-seo was protected, cared for, and cherished in the boundless affection he had never received before.

You don’t have to take responsibility for anything, and you don’t become the target of any resentment or exploitation. You fall into a deep sleep, safe in the strong arms and loving embrace.

A comfortable smile formed on my lips as I felt a sense of full happiness that I had never felt before, but hot tears welled up from deep within my eyes. That deep place might be the distant past. It seemed as if something was filling up and pushing out the tears that had been piling up there. If so, then the tears that were flowing now would be the pus that had been gathered in the deepest place.

As far as Choi Hong-seo knew, there was only one person who could give him this kind of absolute affection.

In the vague boundary between dream and reality, I tried to look at him. I blinked slowly several times and lifted my eyelids with difficulty. The breath I exhaled was hot as fire.

He came into view of Hae-seong, sitting on the edge of the bed he was lying on. He smiled at him, but he didn’t notice because there was no sound.

He was applying ointment to Choi Hong-seo’s arm. Even though he knew that the medicine he had prescribed was completely ineffective, he did not give up. After showering, he applied ointment to every spot twice a day, morning and evening, with great care.

I thought it would be okay to stop. I had told him to stop several times, but now Choi Hong-seo obediently gave in. It was because he knew that the act itself was comforting to him. Like the habit of counting numbers while folding his fingers.

“…mister.”

His lips, mouth, and throat were so dry that it was hard to speak. At his hoarse voice, Hae-seong Lee turned his face toward him. He found Choi Hong-seo with his eyes open, and before anything else, he gave him a reassuring smile and patted his cheek with his palm. Then, he quickly moistened his lips and mouth with a gauze towel soaked in water.

“This is my home. It’s okay. Sleep a little more. Your fever is still high.”

“We… are opening a bakery.”

The moisture made it much easier to speak.

Lee Hae-seong tilted his head slightly, smiling as if he had heard something absurd. He felt Choi Hong-seo’s face and the back of his neck with his hand to gauge his temperature, and it seemed as if he had concluded that it was just a feverish babble.

“Why, do you want to eat our Hongseo bread? I’ll buy you as much as you want when I wake up after sleeping a little more. If you want the bakery instead of the bread, you can buy that too. Whatever it is, just get well soon.”

Lee Hae-seong wrapped his right hand around Choi Hong-seo’s with both of his hands and kissed the hand he was holding.

“You said you wanted to go to Mauritius and open a bakery.”

“……”

The smile slowly disappeared from his face, where his lips were buried in Choi Hong-seo’s finger. The eyes that were looking at him shook violently for the first time. It was always like that when Choi Hong-seo talked about the past before he died. He shuddered as he confirmed once again that this person in front of him was really his lover.

The child did not know that he was precious because no one cared for him. But now he knows one thing. He is extremely precious to him.

This time I won’t make a foolish choice. It would be better to tell him everything and run away together than to leave him alone.

“Yes, that’s right. I remember Hongseo well. But Hongseo, that was when something bad happened to Hongseo.”

Lee Hae-seong smiled warmly as he held Choi Hong-seo’s hand more tightly as if praying.

“Nothing bad will happen, so why would we run away to Mauritius?”

He kissed Choi Hong-seo’s hands, which he held in his two hands, several times.

“Hongseo, just get some sleep and your fever will go down quickly. Okay?”

“……”

“Nothing bad will happen. I promise.”

I thought I knew. What happened in the private room of the restaurant at the Knox Hotel, who showed up. Hae-seong must have known everything.

When he called Lee Hae-seong on the orders of President Cho, just as Choi Hong-seo never once called him “Mister,” Lee Hae-seong also never once said the name “Hong-seo.” Even though he called him “Hong-seo” much more often than “Ae-gi.” He already knew that at that time.

I wanted to say more, but I couldn’t overcome my fever. I blinked my eyes to watch him fix the blanket and caress my face, and then fell into a deep sleep again.

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