I thought and thought. Several days of pondering passed before I could bring myself to speak the words I had been hesitating to say.
“Thank you.”
“For what? Replacing your tutor?”
I had struggled to voice out my gratitude, yet he immediately dismissed it as trivial. The way he asked that back was as if implying that was the only significant event between us warranting a talk. Even though I knew he was far from being a petty person, I wondered if he was being sarcastic.
“No, it’s for the chocolates.”
So, I corrected my words explicitly. It was a gratitude I hadn’t had the chance to express since he hadn’t come home right after that incident.
“……Is that all you have to say?”
My heart tightened at his response. The memory I had tried to push aside as nothing big surged forward.
“Pardon?”
I responded dryly, trying to calm my tingling heart. I shouldn’t act like I knew or was conscious of it. I was asleep then, and he knew I was asleep, too. It would be fine if I didn’t show it outwardly. I decided that unless I had the courage to ask why he had done that, I would pretend I knew nothing. He probably wasn’t hinting at that incident anyway. Sure enough, after silently gazing into my eyes for a while, he changed the subject to something far from recalling that day.
“Your empathy is quite weaker than how you look.”
I realized he was referring to the chocolates. I felt relieved, thinking I had worried for nothing. I took another bite of the apple slice and pondered.
It was true that I was as dry and emotionally barren as a drought-stricken land. Forgetting to chew on the apple, I wondered what he meant by saying that it didn’t match my appearance? I had heard him say something similar before—when I was studying for an exam, he remarked that I was smarter and more reckless than I looked. Did that mean I looked foolish and slow-witted? Saying my appearance didn’t seem emotionally dry was another way of saying I looked easily impressed, perhaps implying I had no pride. At the end of a chain of thoughts, I concluded that he meant I seemed easy to impress over trivial matters, those were the words that I often heard.
“Yes, I do look like that.”
She said I looked crude.
“What do you think you look like?”
However, he frowned at my answer, seemingly disturbed by it. I was the one who was surprised by the question. He didn’t need to ask that, he had already said “than how I look”, so he must have known exactly what it was. He didn’t need to hear it directly from me.
But I opened my mouth obediently. I thought he wanted me to answer and enlighten him on the subject.
“Like someone who bewitches… people.”
Since I was small, that was the only opinion I had heard about my face. I was shunned by kids my age and avoided by the adults in the neighborhood. The only adult besides my mom and dads was my grandmother. She never called me cutely or prettily like ‘my grandchild’ or ‘my little puppy’ as in TV dramas. She never fed me once, and her only words, with a fierce look, were ‘the brat who ruined his mom’s life’ and ‘the child born to bewitch men.’ I had to tone it down since I couldn’t say I looked like I could bewitch men in front of this man.
Back then, I couldn’t understand why I, a boy, was said to look like I could bewitch men. But now, I knew. My grandmother was cursing me for ruining her daughter’s life. The important part was not ‘men’ but that I looked like I could ‘ruin’ people’s lives. I now understood her feelings. Despite my mom drinking herbicide to induce a miscarriage, I survived. How awful my existence must have been to her. Ultimately, my grandmother wasn’t wrong. With the insight of an old person, she must have been able to see the bad luck that I brought. She might have even foreseen that I would end up living comfortably off her daughter’s life.
“What?”
His face hardened as he frowned, making me feel puzzled. It was an emotional reaction I didn’t expect from someone who seemed to want me to give out that answer myself. I couldn’t understand why he looked as if he had heard something distasteful.
“Did your mom say that too?”
“No, it was my grandmother.”
This wasn’t my first time confessing that I received such insults, and it didn’t feel shameful to answer plainly. But after hearing me, his eyes grew cold, more so than a moment ago.
“Where does she live?”
“…She passed away. A few years ago.”
“What a shame.”
His tone didn’t sound as if he was lamenting the loss of my relative. Looking at his grim expression, I had no idea what he found regretful.
“Anyway.”
And then, he switched the topic.
“You think I’ll be bewitched under your spell too?”
This was not the direction I expected the conversation to take.
However, I was actually relieved by his cold tone. His resolute assertion that he wouldn’t be captivated by me was akin to confirming that we could regard what happened in the study that day as something that never occurred. It was nothing significant. His assertive words made it seem like I could conclude it as something not worth worrying about. I blinked slowly, finished chewing my apple, and replied flatly.
“If I tried to bewitch you, would you fall for me?”
It was something that made no sense in the first place.
“I wouldn’t prey on you, Director.”
After all, the relationship between him and me…
“Even so, at least on paper, you’re my only family left.”
That was all it was, right?
A silence followed my words. It was a chilling silence that felt suffocating.
I sensed something was wrong when I lifted my eyes from my plate of apple slices and met his gaze. I realized that my words had irritated him. I had let my guard down too much, forgetting to not cross my line. I made a mistake.
“Song Yewoon.”
His firm voice called my name.
“You’re not a younger brother to me.”
I knew that.
“…I know.”
I knew it without him having to spell it out.
I momentarily forgot that he despised the idea of accepting me into the family. Ji Yewoon was my name only on paper, but he never once called me Ji Yewoon. It was always Song Yewoon. Even when we were a family of four, he never thought of me as Ji Yewoon on my name tag.
He kept a distance, always not forgetting to call me Song Yewoon.
I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t consider me his little brother.
“I have no interest in incest.”
But then…
“Do you understand that?”
The following words took my breath away.
I was so shocked that I dropped the fork I was holding.
“No, I asked the wrong question.”
His frozen, unmoving gaze slowly lifted.
“Do you think I don’t know?”
His icy gaze could freeze the blood flowing through my veins.
“You weren’t sleeping, I know that.”
I couldn’t look away from the eyes of the man filled with bitter reproach, accusing me of cowardice for pretending that nothing happened.
“Don’t make a fool out of me.”
I couldn’t say anything in response.
“Stop pretending to be so innocent, playing a person around.”
With that, he stormed out of the room, and I couldn’t stop him.
I sat still, clenching my fists tightly. The pain of my nails digging into my palms was nothing compared to the pounding in my chest.
On that day when he got angry at me for the first time, the meaning of the chocolate he had given me that time was not an apology. The reason he had called me foolish and stormed out when I said it was fine now became clear. My reply to his chocolate should not have been an expression of gratitude. I should not have taunted him with the notion that he and I were family.
The fact that he let me use his space, him becoming my guardian, cupping my face affectionately in his study that day, and kissing me secretly on the lips.
All my questions were answered, like a puzzle coming together.
Everything that seemed unusual fell into place.
‘Song Yewoon sounds prettier.’
To him, I had always been Song Yewoon. From the beginning.
‘This one doesn’t suit you much.’
From the very start, he had always called me Song Yewoon not to maintain a distance between us but because he desperately wanted to get our distance closer. But I… With those kinds of words, how could I….
‘I don’t want to have you as my little brother. With that said, it doesn’t mean that I don’t like you.’
…How could I have understood his intention?
“How could… he just confess to me like that…?”
I felt like I was going to cry. My chest tightened, making it hard to breathe. It tinged and hurt. The pounding of my heart echoed in my ears.
I had trampled on his feelings.
Knowing I was awake, he had still kissed me secretly.
My obliviousness now tore at me instead.
* * *
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