I Couldn't Tell You Who It Was

One could only recognize that one felt lonely and cold when one had times that weren’t like that before. Solitude had been part of my shadow since long before. When I spent time alone, I felt the fatigue and helplessness come to me unequivocally like hunger.

I could never be rid of those things, so I didn’t know that I could escape them at all. However, I never really tried to break free from them.

In any case, that was how I was, so I could say with certainty that not many people wanted to be close to me. The only people who approached me were those who I had to see steadily due to being blood-related and those who tenaciously tried to approach me to meet some end. My relatives who took care of me were the former, while the classmate who threw himself off the roof was the latter.

I had met countless people who were like that classmate up till now.

People were social animals. It was a given that, naturally, they would be wary of those who stuck out from the crowd. Now that my surroundings were filled with adults, such occurrences were rare, but that wasn’t the case when I spent my days with immature children. The kids who approached me mostly were full of spite and hostility, or they just had an interest in a bad way.

Among my uncle’s children when he took care of me, there was one cousin who didn’t welcome me. This was obvious, I would say. I was the child who saw his mom commit suicide before his very eyes. My behavior was odd and my personality was weird too. That cousin found it difficult to be with me, so I was thankful whenever they avoided being in the same room with me.

That was the kind of childhood I had, so Yeonseon’s existence couldn’t help but become special to me. Yeonseon was the only person who continued to approach me with just good intentions.

Like I mentioned before, I was afraid of those who were friendly and kind. Just like how the world saw me as unfamiliar, difficult, and scary, I felt the same way toward Yeonseon.

Every time Yeonseon was gentle to me, I felt miserable like he was chipping away at my soul. His tenderness was scary and scarring, so much so that I wanted to avoid it. I ended up using things Yeonseon didn’t even do as excuses to push him away. I thought that he would definitely become disappointed with me and leave me in the future.

I didn’t know how he withstood all of that.

Most people would stop at that point, give up, and leave me. Then, I would be relieved like a fool that my own world made up of my thoughts—my bizarre world filled with damned rubbish—wasn’t uncovered. If people found out about me, I had no doubt that they would hate me even more so.

However, Yeonseon didn’t give me strange looks even when I said something odd. He was also tense and afraid just like me, and yet he approached and talked to me—when I found out, my idiotic beliefs changed.

Why did I think that it was easy for Yeonseon to approach me? Was it because of his seemingly carefree personality? Or because he was a natural at it? Or was it because, unlike me, he had met several kind and gentle people throughout his life?

Being rejected by others would still be hurtful, no matter how many or how few scars one had.

It was then that I was cognizant of my narrowmindedness. I only saw others from my own perspective. The thing that I doubted wasn’t the other party who could change their attitude in the future. It was just me—me, who was lame and had nothing lovable to speak of. Embarrassingly, I only realized this after I had become an adult.

After the wall that I built to protect myself from others came tumbling down, I was dyed with the colors of Yeonseon’s kindness. I was like a child who tasted the sweetness of sugar for the first time. I could see why others became addicted to its sweet and smooth taste even though they knew it was bad for them.

I had another person’s warmth, gaze, voice, touch, and smile directed exclusively to me. After that, every single aspect of that person was targeted at me alone. And following that, the person’s breath, their clothing, the places we walked together, and the time spent greeting each other—love overflowed from everything.

I heard that when one fell in love, it felt like you were on top of the world. When one fell in love, one didn’t just fall in love with the person. The moments and places of that person’s existence all touched one’s heart, and affection overflowed as if everything belonged to you.

The person became love incarnate and rolled like candy over your tongue.

The reason I’m telling you all these boring things is that I wanted it to be known that I was in this state when I heard about Yeonseon’s fear of being alone with others.

Just like how I felt the affection that Yeonseon had for me, he felt my affection for him. We didn’t need to say it out loud as our hearts grew closer, and soon after, our bodies grew closer too.

Yeonseon wanted to kiss me.