18. Chapter Eighteen #3
He tried to get me to tell him what caused it.
I could see the gears turning behind his eyes, the way he was trying to piece together a logic for something that had no logic, searching for the trigger, the catalyst. Seyeon’s brain worked that way.
He needed reasons, causes, something he could trace back to a root and pull out.
But he couldn’t find one because I wouldn’t give him one, and each time he pushed I just closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep until he stopped.
I slept and relearned how to breathe without feeling like my chest was full of broken glass. Let Mrs. Nam peel apples for me and Seyeon’s mom smooth the blankets over me with hands that trembled when she thought I wasn’t looking. And I said nothing.
A week and a half later Seyeon’s arm is around my waist and we’re shuffling through the doors of Mrs. Nam’s store like a pair of old men.
He has my hospital bag in one hand and the other pressed firm against my side, taking more of my weight than I’d admit to.
Every step sends a dull, rolling ache through my ribs that makes me clench my teeth, but I keep moving because the alternative is asking him to carry me and I’d rather crawl on my hands and knees through the street.
The cast on my arm is white and already smudged with fingerprints from where Seyeon’s been grabbing me to steady me.
The ribs are wrapped in bandages beneath my shirt that creak with every inhale.
My face still looks like someone used it to test paint swatches in shades of purple, green, and a sickly yellow that’s blooming along my jaw where the first punch landed.
Mrs. Nam’s already set the courtyard up.
Seyeon steers me through the back of the store into the open air, the low table wiped clean, a cushion on the wooden platform, her good blanket folded beside it.
She appears from the kitchen, her face creased but composed, and points at the platform with authority.
“Sit.”
I sit. My legs have had enough. Seyeon lowers the bag beside the platform and hovers, his hand lingering on my shoulder before he pulls it away and drops down next to me. Mrs. Nam disappears back inside and I can hear pots clanging, the tap running.
Seyeon’s quiet. He’s been quieter since the hospital, the rage banked but not gone.
I can feel it simmering off him, his jaw sets when he watches me try to do anything with my cast, the flex of his fingers against his knee.
He’s holding it in because yelling at me didn’t work and punching walls didn’t help and he’s run out of strategies for making me do what he wants.
Mrs. Nam comes back with a tray loaded down with enough food for six people. She sets it all down and gives me a pointed look.
“Eat. All of it. You look like a scarecrow.”
“Thank you, Halme.”
She humphs and settles at the edge of the courtyard, lowering herself onto the step. Her eyes stay on me as I pick up the spoon with my good hand and start eating.
I eat slowly because swallowing hurts, because everything hurts, but I eat because Mrs. Nam is watching.
The arrangement’s been decided, though nobody asked for my input on it.
I’m staying here, at the store, in the back room where Seyeon and I were born.
Mrs. Nam offered and Seyeon’s mom offered too, but I turned that one down.
Couldn’t stomach the thought of taking up space in Seyeon’s house.
Mrs. Nam’s store felt different. Neutral ground.
A place that already knew me, had sheltered me a hundred times before.
I’ll stay until I save enough to find a rental. That’s the plan anyway. Something to work toward so it doesn’t feel like I’m just drifting.
Seyeon watches me eat. His food sits in front of him, barely touched.
His jaw is clenching again, his knuckles pale where his hands grip his knees.
I know what’s coming. I’ve known since the hospital that he wasn’t going to let it go forever.
Seyeon’s patient when he needs to be, but his patience is strategic and not infinite.
He waits for the right moment and then he strikes, and apparently my third bite of mackerel is the right moment.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?”
His voice is flat and controlled. He’s holding himself on a leash and I can hear the strain of it in every word.
I keep chewing. Swallow. Take another bite.
“Ryowoon.”
I put the spoon down.
“I know he doesn’t need a reason,” Seyeon continues, his eyes fixed on the side of my face because I won’t turn to look at him.
“I know that. But it was behind closed doors. He kept it inside. Where nobody could see. Whatever happened, he did it outside, in public, bad enough that people heard. That’s not like him.
Something set him off and you won’t tell me what. ”
I stare at the table, at the bowl of rice, at the little dish of pickled radish.
The bruised side of my face is turned away from him but I can feel his gaze boring into the back of my skull.
I should tell him. I’ve been telling myself I should tell him since I woke up in that hospital bed and found his face above mine for the second time, tear streaked and terrified.
Should’ve told him years ago, probably. Should’ve told him when I figured it out myself, back in high school when the girls batting their eyelashes at him made my stomach curdle, when the boys in the locker room made me avert my eyes and my mouth go dry.
Should’ve told him when I kissed Park Yoonmin behind the gym in second year and felt the puzzle piece click into place.
But I didn’t. Because telling Seyeon meant making it real.
Meant letting it out of the box I’d locked it into.
And I was afraid. Not of Seyeon, but of what his face might do, how his eyes might change when he looked at me.
What if something shifted? What if knowing this about me put a crack in the foundation we’d built our whole lives on?
Seyeon’s the only person I have. If I lose him, I lose everything.
There isn’t a backup. No second option. It’s him or it’s nothing.
And now there’s this other thing too. The echo of my father’s voice in the alley, the word he spat at me with the same venom he put behind his fists.
Disgusting. A perversion. I know those words don’t mean anything.
I know they’re the rantings of a drunk, bitter man who wouldn’t recognize love if it kicked him in the teeth.
But hearing something said with enough force, enough conviction, enough violence to back it up, makes it stick.
Burrows in like a splinter under the skin and sits there, infected, no matter how hard you try to dig it out.
But what’s the point in hiding anymore? What’s left to protect?
My father already knows. He’s already done his worst. And if I can’t tell Seyeon, who the hell can I tell?
If there’s one person in this world who has earned every truth I’ve got, ugly or not, it’s the one sitting next to me right now with his fists white-knuckled on his knees and his jaw locked tight and his stupid stubborn eyes burning holes in the side of my head because he won’t stop looking at me, won’t stop trying to understand, won’t ever stop.
I sit up straighter. The ribs protest, an ache that steals my breath for a second, but I breathe through it. I turn my head and look at Seyeon. Meet his eyes.
“My dad saw me in the alley with Heetae-hyung.”
Seyeon’s brow pinches. Confusion pulls at his features, his lips parting slightly. He doesn’t get it yet.
I hold his gaze and say, “He saw me and Heetae kissing.”
I watch Seyeon’s face like my life depends on it.
His eyes go wide first, the surprise moving through him in a visible jolt, his mouth dropping open.
I can see the understanding, see the pieces rearrange behind his eyes as everything he thought he knew shuffles and resettles.
His lips move like he’s about to say something and then close again.
His brows pull together. His head tilts slightly, the way it does when he’s thinking hard.
For a few agonizing seconds he just looks at me.
I can see every emotion cross his face in succession.
Shock, confusion, and then it moves through the confusion and clears it away like a hand wiping condensation off a window.
He closes his mouth. His brows are still furrowed, but with concentration.
He’s fitting the new information into everything he already knows about me.
I can see him doing it, reexamining conversations, moments, the fights I picked when he dated girls, the cold shoulder I gave him with Jiae, the way I always deflected when the guys talked about hookups.
He opens his mouth.
“So you like…”
“I’m gay. Yeah.”
Seyeon looks at me. I look back. My heart is pounding so hard it hurts my broken ribs, and I can feel sweat prickling along my hairline. The courtyard is dead silent.
A clank from behind us makes us both turn.
Mrs. Nam stands at the edge of the yard where the kitchen step meets the stone, a pot in one hand, her other on her hip.
She gives us both a look over the top of her glasses, her expression perfectly unimpressed, as if she’s been listening and hasn’t heard a single remarkable thing.
“And what about it?”
Seyeon blinks at her, then his mouth starts twitching. “You knew?”
Mrs. Nam scoffs, setting the pot down on the step with a thud. “I’m almost eighty years old, child. You get to my age and you see some stuff.” She waves a gnarled hand dismissively. “Doesn’t matter much to me one way or the other.”
A knot loosens inside me. My mouth quirks. First time it’s done that since before the alley.
Seyeon snorts softly through his nose beside me, and then he turns back to me. His eyes are steady, the confusion gone, replaced by clarity.
“She’s right,” he says. “What does it matter? Doesn’t change who you are.”