CHAPTER 38
Chung-Hee lifted Noeul carefully and carried him to the bedroom. He laid him on the bed with meticulous care, pulled the blanket over him, and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. Noeul’s face looked peaceful in sleep, almost untouched by everything that had happened.
Chung-Hee knew better.
His gaze lingered on him before he finally turned away and walked toward the kitchen. He paused outside the doorway and took a long breath, preparing himself for the conversation he had known was waiting.
His mother sat at the table with a drink in her hand. She set the glass down with a sharp clink.
“Is this what you wanted to show me, my son?” she asked. “Is that why you called me here tonight?”
Chung-Hee said nothing at first. He walked toward the refrigerator, took out the wine bottle, and poured himself a glass. Then he laughed bitterly.
“Exactly.”
Ms. Lee’s expression hardened.
“Didn’t you enjoy the show?” he asked. “Did I hurt him enough for you? Or would you prefer me to be harsher next time?”
“Chung-Hee.”
“Should I let him die?”
Her face changed.
Chung-Hee lifted the glass to his lips. “But understand one thing, mother. If he dies, I will follow him.”
Ms. Lee stared at him. She had known her son had never been the same after Haneul’s death. She had watched him become colder, stricter, almost obsessively controlled. But this frightened her.
“My son…” Her voice softened. “What are you saying?”
Chung-Hee sat across from her. He felt disgusted with himself. Drained. Heavy with a sadness he no longer knew how to carry. He closed his eyes for several seconds, then emptied the glass in one swallow.
“I’m saying that I can’t lose him.”
Ms. Lee’s mouth tightened. “You will.”
Chung-Hee looked up. “What?”
“I will never accept this.”
His expression hardened. “I don’t need your acceptance.”
Ms. Lee shook her head. “His brother caused Haneul’s death.”
“His brother,” Chung-Hee corrected quietly. “Not him.”
Ms. Lee studied him. “You didn’t always believe that.”
Chung-Hee said nothing.
“Haneul wrote that he didn’t think Noeul knew,” she continued. “He asked us not to blame him.”
“I know.”
“And yet you blamed him.”
Chung-Hee’s jaw tightened. “Haneul loved him. I believed he was protecting Noeul, regardless of the truth.”
“Or perhaps he was telling you the truth,” she said, though she had never believed that herself.
Despite Haneul’s final plea, she had blamed Noeul as fiercely as Chung-Hee had.
But she was terrified of what her remaining son was becoming.
If suggesting Noeul’s innocence might change Chung-Hee’s mind, she would say it.
She would say anything that might still reach him.
Chung-Hee looked toward the hallway. He had considered that possibility many times and rejected it just as often. If Noeul had truly known nothing, then Chung-Hee had punished an innocent man because he needed somewhere to place the hatred Gong had left behind.
He wasn’t ready to face that.
“He knew enough,” he said, but the certainty no longer came as easily.
Ms. Lee stood and began pacing the kitchen. “Why, my son?” Her voice cracked. “Why him?”
Chung-Hee looked away.
“How can you do this to our family?”
A humorless laugh escaped him. “What family?”
She stopped.
Chung-Hee looked back at her. “Only you and I are left.”
Ms. Lee’s face tightened.
“If something happens to Noeul…” Chung-Hee continued, his voice lower now, “I don’t think I’ll survive it.”
“Don’t say that.”
“The pain is unbearable, mother.”
“Chung-Hee.”
“I mean it.” He lowered his gaze to his hands. “I don’t care whom I hurt anymore.” He paused. “Even him.”
Ms. Lee stared at him.
Chung-Hee’s fingers tightened together. “Letting him go feels like letting Haneul go a second time.” He swallowed. “Maybe… it feels like letting myself go.”
“You could find someone else.”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
“Chung-Hee.”
“I’m not interested in anyone else.” He lifted his eyes. “Haneul loved him.”
Ms. Lee went still.
“He was the only person mentioned in Haneul’s suicide note.”
“I know.”
Chung-Hee’s voice began to tremble. “And I love him too.”
His mother closed her eyes.
“Differently,” he continued. “But no less.”
“You don’t know what love is anymore.”
For a second, he remembered Noeul standing near the elevator. Then why does what you want always matter more than what I ask for?
Chung-Hee looked down. He no longer knew.
“Our relationship is difficult,” he said. “Maybe impossible for anyone outside it to understand.”
She gave a small, bitter laugh. “That is what people say when they know something is wrong.”
Chung-Hee ignored her. “His life was destroyed too. You heard him tonight.” His voice cracked. “Noeul lost his best friend and his brother. He has lived inside the same grief we have.” His eyes filled. “We feel the same things, Mother.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, Chung-Hee.” She shook her head. “You are both suffering.”
For the first time since Haneul’s funeral, Ms. Lee saw tears in her eldest son’s eyes.
Not the controlled grief he allowed at ceremonies.
Not anger disguised as mourning. For one brief moment, she saw the child he had once been beneath the man sitting across from her. Then fear replaced everything else.
“You will destroy each other.”
The words came out almost as a plea.
“You can’t break something that’s already broken.”
Silence settled over the kitchen. From somewhere down the hallway came the faint sound of Noeul breathing: slow, even, exhausted.
Chung-Hee turned his head toward the bedroom. Noeul was sleeping peacefully. And he had no idea what kind of man was sitting in the kitchen deciding his future.
Chung-Hee looked back at his mother. “There is only one thing you must never do.”
Ms. Lee frowned. She leaned against the counter and watched him warily. “What is it?”
Chung-Hee held her gaze. “You must never give him the forgiveness he wants from you.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Never. Under any circumstances.”
“Why?”
Chung-Hee didn’t answer immediately. He looked toward the hallway again, then back at her.
“Because if you forgive him…” His voice dropped. “I lose the only alibi I have for keeping him beside me.”
Ms. Lee went completely still.
Chung-Hee continued before she could respond. “He believes your forgiveness means everything.”
“You know that because you exploit it.”
“Yes.”
Something in his mother’s face changed. Disgust. Fear. Perhaps both.
“You would really use something so vile to keep him?”
Chung-Hee looked down at his hands. For a moment, he seemed almost ashamed. Then his expression closed again.
“You have no idea what I’m willing to do to make sure he stays.”
“He is not yours.”
Chung-Hee slowly looked up. “No,” he said with strange calm. “He isn’t.”
Ms. Lee seemed surprised.
“He told me that.” Chung-Hee swallowed. “He belongs to himself.” His jaw tightened. “But knowing that doesn’t mean I know how to let him go.”
Ms. Lee stared at him. “Then learn.”
“What if I can’t?”
“Then you will destroy him.”
His eyes shifted toward the bedroom. “Perhaps.”
“And yourself.”
Another silence.
Chung-Hee’s gaze hardened again. “If you forgive him, you’ll give him wings.”
Ms. Lee frowned.
“And if he realizes he can live without us…” His voice weakened for only a second. “Without me…” He stopped. Then whatever vulnerability had surfaced disappeared.
“If he flies, Mother, I don’t know what I’ll become.”
Chung-Hee leaned back in his chair. “If you ever forgive him and he chooses to leave me because of it, I will follow him to the ends of the earth.”
His eyes were cold now, but his voice was not. There was fear beneath it.
“Or we will fall together.”
Chung-Hee had always thought of himself as moral. Kind. Controlled. A man who solved problems rather than becoming one. Now he was asking his own mother to preserve another person’s guilt so he could keep him close.
“This isn’t love,” she whispered.
Chung-Hee’s gaze shifted once more toward the hallway. He thought of the painting. The café. Their first kiss. The fear in Noeul’s eyes. His own hands around him.
He looked back at his mother.
“I know.”