I Couldn't Tell You Who It Was

Act 12

Whenever he came to meet me, Yeonseon always came with Hyehyun. Yeonseon could come to my house alone, but the problem arose when we were together. Even if he came alone, he would loiter outside my door where there were people, unable to enter.

However, that day, Yeonseon was completely alone.

“Haeseo, I need to talk with you,” Yeonseon said.

I checked that Yeonseon was alone and hesitated to open my door. Funnily enough, it wasn’t because of the black eyes. It was because of the state Yeonseon was in.

At the time, I was living by myself in a small and old apartment building. I got that place using the money my grandmother left me. There weren’t many residents in the building, so aside from rush hours, there were very few people in the hallway.

Perhaps it was because Yeonseon was talking to me alone, despite having a door between us, he sounded raspy. He was breathing rapidly. My heart started to pace quickly. I knew that his condition would worsen if I opened the door. I wanted to send him back quickly.

“Don’t come here without contacting me. Plus, aren’t you busy these days? Does your brother know you’re here? If he doesn’t, call him…”

I was going to tell him to call and ask him to come, but I heard Yeonseon’s sharp cry through the door. “Stop letting him butt in!”

My hands stopped in the middle of searching through my contacts, and I stared at the front door. Then, Yeonseon knocked lightly and continued with more difficulty, “This is our problem, you know? I’m sorry. This was our problem, so we should have figured it out ourselves. I was wrong to drag in another person. So please, open the door.”

Unfortunately, Yeonseon thought that I was avoiding him because of the incident at the motel. He must have thought that I suddenly grew cold at the recording studio because of that as well. It was inevitable that he concluded that this was the cause, given that I didn’t give him any sort of explanation.

“Please. I want to talk while facing you. I want to see you.”

“…”

“I want to see your face once when nobody else is around.”

I had already found Hyehyun’s contact information. This could all be over if I just pressed the call button.

Yeonseon found it difficult to be alone with me anyway. I could just call Hyehyun and make Yeonseon go away. If he had something to say, it would be better if he could do it in Hehyun’s presence. It was better for Yeonseon that way.

But the minutes ticked by, and I couldn’t press the call button. I clutched my phone and blinked hard. “…You don’t sound too good. You might hyperventilate if I open the door.”

I wasn’t sure if it was Yeonseon’s stubbornness or my greed that forced me to say that. Over the door, I heard Yeonseon say, “I’ll try to bear with it.” Was this something that could just be borne with? I grimaced. I couldn’t tell if Yeonseon being stubborn was good or bad for me.

“What… if you fainted? If something ever happened to you—” I was scared.

I remembered the time he was alone with me in the car. There was nothing near the parked car. If Hyehyun had been a few minutes late, I couldn’t imagine what would have happened next. I heard that people with peanut allergies could die even if they just smelled peanuts.

Before I could finish my sentence, Yeonseon asked, “…You’re saying that because you’re worried for me, right?”

I couldn’t answer.

“You didn’t come to hate me, right?”

I still couldn’t reply to Yeonseon, who sounded slightly brighter in his joy. Yeonseon kept taking his time to calm down his ragged breathing.

“Haeseo,” he called me continuously, making me unable to say anything else. “Haeseo, I hate it so much, meeting you when we’re with that b*stard, Hyehyun.”

Perhaps he was saying this to appease me because he sounded calmer than before. “I don’t want to share you with anyone. I can’t stand when others look at you.”

“…”

“So, help me, please. I want to be with you.” What Yeonseon said was something that I always wished for him to say. I always wanted to help Yeonseon. I wished he wouldn’t be miserable, and I wanted to let him know that his emotional emptiness wasn’t his fault.

If I didn’t open the door then, Yeonseon would turn back with wounds in his heart. The fact that I couldn’t understand him would remain as a scarring truth. That result was contrary to my wishes.

No.

To be honest, that was all an excuse. Just… I just wanted to see Yeonseon again. I missed him so much. I didn’t think of the black eyes. My mind was dominated by Yeonseon’s plea.

‘Yeonseon, I can listen to whatever you desire. Just like you, I can listen to you too.’