19. Chapter Nineteen #2
“All I want, all I ever wanted, was for you to be here with me.” I sound rough, the words struggling against the tightness in my throat. “I know you. Better than anyone. Probably better than you know yourself. So you can trust me when I say you are nothing, nothing like that man, Ryowoon.”
His jaw clenches under my grip, the muscle jumping, but his eyes don’t leave mine.
“You don’t have to worry about turning into him.
It’s not possible. Because I’m going to be right here to remind you when you forget that it’s not who you are.
” I loosen my hold on his jaw, let my thumb brush along the edge of the scar at the corner of his mouth.
“So stop running from me. That’s all I ask.
All those other things, we can figure it out together.
I can teach you.” My voice falters. “As long as you stay.”
Ryowoon’s face crumples. Not the way it did before, like the last wall giving way.
His shoulders sag, the tension draining out of him in a long exhale, and he leans forward.
His forehead meets the crook of my neck, his arms sliding around me, and I pull him in close, pressing my hand to the back of his head, my other arm locked across his back.
He doesn’t cry this time. He just breathes, slow and uneven, his face pressed to my skin, his body warm and solid against mine. I can feel his heartbeat where our chests touch, still too fast, still trying to settle. I hold him and don’t let go, and I keep holding him for a long time.
I wake to sunlight warming the side of my face and Yuro’s wet nose pressing insistently against my forearm. I blink, squinting against the brightness flooding through the window, and stop to listen.
Ryowoon’s breathing beside me. Slow, steady. Asleep.
My jaw throbs when I shift, a dull ache when I press my tongue against the inside of my cheek where my teeth cut it. I reach up carefully, prodding at the swollen spot along my jawline. It’s tender, bruised for sure, but nothing that won’t fade in a couple days.
Yuro whines softly, nosing at my hand again, and I shush him, scratching behind his ears as I ease myself upright.
Ryowoon doesn’t stir. He’s on his back, one arm thrown across his chest, the other stretched toward where I was lying.
His face looks younger when he sleeps, the permanent tension around his eyes and mouth smoothed out, the hard lines softer.
But even in sleep there’s a fragility to him this morning. Bruised on the inside.
I let him sleep.
I clip Yuro’s leash and take him out through the courtyard. The sky is clear, the air still cool. It feels good against my skin. Yuro pads along the wet pavement, sniffing at everything, and I follow him without really paying attention to where we’re going.
I’ve seen Ryowoon in pain plenty of times.
Seen him bruised and bloody and broken. Watched him put himself back together with nothing but stubbornness and grit, patch over the cracks with sarcasm and deflection and a wall of indifference he wears like armor.
But last night he wasn’t wearing any of it.
There was nothing between him and me but skin and fear and ten years of silence. But he stayed.
Something has changed, I think. Maybe not everything, maybe not enough yet.
But a crack in the foundation he’s been standing on for a decade, the one built on the lie that he’s better off alone, that closeness only leads to damage.
I felt it give last night when he reached for me instead of pushing me away.
And I’m not going to let that crack seal back over.
I stop at the corner where the hill drops toward the harbor, Yuro tugging gently at the leash. The morning light bounces off the water below, turning it bright, till it hurts my eyes to look at it. I stand there for a minute, letting the breeze pull at my hair.
Seeing him like that, the way he looked at his own hands like weapons he couldn’t put down. It broke something in me too. But not to weaken. To bring clarity. Like wiping fog off glass and finally seeing what’s been on the other side all along.
I’m done waiting.
Done tiptoeing around what happened between us, done swallowing the questions that have been sitting in my throat for years like broken glass.
I’ve been patient. I’ve given him room, let him set the pace, let him come to me on his own terms. And he has, in pieces, in the touch of his hands and the heat of his body and the tattoos he won’t explain and the silence.
But I want the words. I want the truth, the last of it. I don’t need him to suffer through it, but I need to understand.
I think I know. After last night, I think I’ve always known. But knowing isn’t the same as hearing him say it, and my gut feelings aren’t the same as Ryowoon’s honesty.
I tug Yuro’s leash gently and we head back up the hill.
When I push through the doors of the store Ryowoon is up, standing at the kitchen counter with his back to me, pouring water into the kettle dressed in a clean shirt, his hair still mussed.
He doesn’t turn around when I come in but I see his shoulders tense slightly at the sound of my footsteps.
Then relax. Like he checked, confirmed it was me, and decided it was okay.
I unclip Yuro and the dog trots straight to Ryowoon, pressing his nose against the back of his knee. Ryowoon reaches down without looking and scratches his head, his fingers moving gently through the fur, the smallest curve touches the corner of his mouth.
He glances over his shoulder at me. His gaze drops to my jaw and his expression tightens, guilt flickering behind his eyes. But he doesn’t apologize again. Just looks at me for a moment then turns back to the kettle.
“There’s rice left from yesterday,” he says. “I can heat it up.”
“Yeah. Sounds good.”
We move around each other in the kitchen, quiet, careful. Tonight I’m going to ask him. And this time, I’m not letting him dodge it.
Ryowoon
34 Years Old
It feels like someone reached inside my chest, found the drain at the bottom of the reservoir I’ve been filling for the last decade, and yanked it loose.
Everything that was stored up, all the grief and anger and guilt and fear, just poured out of me last night and now there’s nothing left.
I’m hollowed out. Running on fumes and the faint buzz of instant coffee I found in the kitchen cabinet this morning.
I sand down the edge of the shelf I’ve been repairing in the courtyard, Yuro stretched out in the shade beside my feet, his tail thumping lazily against the stone every few minutes.
My hands move on autopilot. Sand, check, flip, sand again.
The work is mindless, and my thoughts keep drifting, keep circling back to the bruise forming on Seyeon’s jaw.
Every time I catch sight of it, I have to look somewhere else. Anywhere else. He hasn’t mentioned it once today. Hasn’t flinched when I’ve come close, hasn’t held himself any differently around me. Acts like it isn’t there.
I pause, resting my forearms on my knees, staring at the half-finished shelf. The soreness in my body is familiar, settles in after a bad night. My shoulders ache, my neck is stiff, there’s a dull throb behind my temples. But underneath all the exhaustion, unexpectedly, I feel lighter.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I feel good, or happy. Just lighter.
I give up, I think. On the fight itself.
The one I’ve been waging since I was old enough to understand what I was fighting against. The one where I convinced myself that distance was the only gift I had to offer the people I cared about.
That the kindest thing I could do for Seyeon was disappear, remove the source of damage before the damage spread.
Because this was never a fight I was going to win. Not against him.
Maybe I never wanted to.
I pick up the sandpaper again, working at a stubborn rough patch near the corner of the shelf.
Yuro lifts his head, ears perked, looking back through the open door into the store.
I follow his gaze and catch Seyeon watching me through the glass from the counter, papers spread in front of him, pen in one hand, but his eyes are on me.
Like he’s checking. Taking note of my continued presence.
I can tell what he’s thinking. The fierce certainty that if he looked back and the courtyard was empty, if the shelf was abandoned and the tools left scattered, he’d be out the door and down the street before the dust settled.
That he’d run twice as fast this time, hunt me through every city and backroad and rathole apartment building until he found me, and then drag me back by the collar like a stray dog that keeps slipping its leash.
My mouth twitches. I duck my head so he can’t see it, bend back over the wood.
Seyeon. Stubborn, relentless, infuriatingly determined Heo Seyeon. Who decided that every one of my ghosts was his to fight too, whether I gave him permission or not.
So there it is. What else is there to do at this point? The man has his mind made up. I’ve seen that look enough times in my life to know there’s no arguing with it.
I’ll do what I’ve done since the day we were born.
What I was probably always meant to do, if you believe in that kind of thing.
Be his shadow. Hover at his side and watch his guard and make sure his light shines brighter than anyone else’s.
And selfishly, greedily, soak in all of that light until it fills the spaces inside me where darkness used to be.