Hansol pressed his hands into the nape of Seobin’s neck to warm them up as the chilly spring air came through the door propped open wide with a broom.
The tables were all empty, and most of the chairs were upturned on top. The floor still smelled of lemons from the mop as the air swirled around to dry it.
The space was clean and empty.
It looked as it always did. Perfect.
Filled with all his favorite scents and his favorite person sitting in that chair, watching the sunset through the windows and the open door. Watching the golds and pinks dance across his skin, the light peaked in streams through his abode.
It was peaceful. ‘Everything is the same as before.’
Except it wasn’t.
Except it couldn’t be.
Because they had faced a monster together on their own home grounds, Seobin had come out victorious. Except he hadn’t.
Hansol could tell from how Seobin propped his right ankle across his left knee. From the way he tapped his toes into the air restlessly, his whole body rigid and uneasy.
He could feel the ache from Seobin’s breaking heart. He could feel it in every microfiber of movement inside himself.
The rejection of the very essence of his core. Of what made him who he was. And yet he couldn’t understand it at all. Because his family had chosen to love him. Had decided to see that he was Hansol. No matter who he chose to be or who he was with. They had chosen to see the simple fact that who he loved and how he felt inside did not define his soul. Did not define his entire existence.
It was simply a big part of a small part of who he already was. That was how they had come to accept him. Because he simply had always been and always would be Hansol to them. But for Seobin, he didn’t have that. He never had that and would never know what that acceptance felt like. So the yearning ache inside Seobin was something he wished he could hold him through and give more than a simple. I hurt for you, but it will be okay. Because he didn’t know if it could be for Seobin. He didn’t know if there was a time in all of forever when that would stop hurting him. Maybe it never would. Perhaps the rejection of his very essence went too far and deep to ever “fix.”
And inside himself, he yearned and ached, wishing he could take away that vile feeling that someone in this world had hurt his darling with.
It was the harshest of realities for some. Those feelings and words stemmed from the people in the world who were supposed to look past everything and love you, despite it all. It was a betrayal and pain he could never understand.
But he wanted to. He tried to erase it from Seobin.
But love didn’t work that way. It wasn’t there to erase your past pains and aches but to hold you and help you see that as you ride through the terrors and waves life put you through. Even though it’s disgustingly brutal, you didn’t have to be alone.
Hansol let go, walking till he stood before Seobin, blocking his view. The rays of light streamed past his body, and Seobin looked at him, his exterior regally calm.
But to Hansol, he was oh so clearly chewed up inside.
Hansol paused for a good long while, leaving them in a comfortable silence. But before he could speak, Seobin broke it first.
“Back when I met you… I was really in love, you know.” His voice was thick and unsteady.
“It was the first time. The first time in my life.” His voice cracked, and he actually laughed wholeheartedly.
Hansol listened to it echo in the empty room. It felt out of place when he knew how much he was hurting inside. But the laughter was honest and genuine.
“I felt so dumb, like a puppy wagging his tail just waiting for you to notice me. But I was too scared to step out from the shadows. So I stood waiting alone, watching this bright ray of sunshine that I could only look at and admire. Like a beautiful ray of splendid colors, you would always touch my world. Yet you seemed so far away. I stayed there. Hurting and admiring you, then slowly all on my own I began loving you as well. Back then, loneliness was my only friend and your brilliance. It was blinding.”
“You were everything that I wanted, everything that I needed. So unapologetically you.”
Hansol reached out and touched Seobin’s cheek as a tear glittered down it.
“If I had come out sooner. If I had seen you before and noticed your pain sooner. If I had said the things I was holding inside, maybe your memories wouldn’t be peppered with this much pain. But I can’t take back the past. I can’t see you sooner. I can’t alleviate the holes, the damage others have done to you. But I wished I had seen it sooner. I wish I hadn’t been so caught up in my world.” Hansol sighed.
“You say I blinded you, but I see you hurt now and know how I must have been blind not to see it then.” He said.
Back then, he had noticed Seobin’s solemn shadow following him for months before he ever got up the courage to sit down and say hello to Seobin. ‘Even someone like me can feel shy, worried, and apprehensive.’
He remembered the one day he had passed by. When he had seen the tears and sobs, Seobin had been gasping, breaking apart, and letting out behind the agriculture building on campus. The building he always had to pass to get to the culinary hall. That had been the catalyst. Until then, he could pass him by. But thinking about that moment brought back that same aching pain in his heart. ‘How could I leave you alone for so long because of fear? Maybe if I had stepped out sooner, you could have opened your heart to me faster. Maybe then could have changed the pain of now. I wish, maybe, and If. They were words that filled him with regret, and seeing Seobin ache, his maybes, his wishes, and his ifs were beginning to pile up.’
But Hansol and Seobin, three years ago, didn’t even know each other. For Hansol, it was a risk to open up and share himself with someone he didn’t know their feelings on relationships. He didn’t know if he was stepping into a friendship or something more. And yet, Seobin was already in love and didn’t know how to accept the part of him that already was. Just exactly what that meant for him and his future. And yet, their first time talking, Hansol felt like there had been so much more love and support in that exchange than Seobin had ever received in his life before.
Hansol walked over and stood in front of Seobin. He didn’t try to hide his tears or be brave. They were past that stage of their love. They didn’t have to feel shy or afraid around each other any longer.
But Seobin was slow. It took time to polish down those sharp edges like a stone in a river. For him, he held in his past a secret pain he carried alone. Everything else was an open book. But his feelings from that time. They had always been off-limits. Seeing her today. It must have broken the floodgates. Even back then, it took him a long time before Seobin had ever opened up about why he had been crying that day. A whole year of time. They had been together an entire year before he said what had made him cry the day Hansol had sat down. The day they had officially met.
“It must have been so lonely to feel everything and not even be able to say a word. Maybe you wouldn’t have had to suffer through it all alone. How can I compensate for all the times I stood by you without seeing your hurt? Can I cling to you so you never feel this way again? Can I?” Hansol asked. Stroking Seobin’s cheek gently with his thumb.
‘I want to. God, I regret not asking questions sooner. I regret letting you sit alone in anguish. Why was I so scared to pry when I love you? I was waiting for you to come to me, to open up on your own. I wasn’t sure. Was it friendship? Was it more? Were you following curiosity out of an experiment or a longing in your heart? I feel like I was blind because I was too afraid to ask. What pain could I have stopped you from back then if I had just been brave enough to push you forward?’
“I… am sorry I wasn’t there.” Hansol fell silent.
Seobin jolted upright and walked past Hansol, their bodies brushing gently as he went for the door and the reprieve of the cool air. Hansol grimaced.
‘Seobin.’
He couldn’t breathe again; he could tell. He always went for air the moment his own loss and grief became too much. The ache of his longing and rejection of who he was still tearing him apart.
Hansol watched the thin strands of Seobin’s hair flit gently in the light evening breeze. He watched the pained lines on Seobin’s face become a little less distressed than before. And he knew in his heart there was very little he could do to erase them.
Every table in the house had the chairs upturned on top of them since they had mopped the floor. Every table but the one next to the door and on it was a single vase of gum paste flowers that was their sweet specialty touch at the cafe.
The delicate purple flower petals shimmered from the luster dust that caught the light. Seobin picked one up, rolling the stem in his hands like a bad habit.
Hansol waited calmly. Hoping Seobin would come back to him and leave that horrible grief behind. Or, if not, at least say something of what he always held inside. Let out some of that Repression.
“I want to kiss you,” Seobin said. Seobin smiled, his face quivering with a sad ache.
“I always want to kiss you and hold you. I always want to. Always have. I think I will want to go forever. I miss you every moment you are gone, and I feel like I am back there every moment I can’t say a word. Again. Watching your splendor.”
Hansol’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘Of everything he thought Seobin would say after confessing his old sensitivities. After seeing his mother today. That was not what he thought he would say.’
Hansol smirked. His heart ached from the sadness.
“Then kiss me.”
‘I feel so uneasy not knowing what’s inside your big head. I wish I could read your mind. Just what is going on inside there?’ Hansol wondered.
“I might have looked as bright as that sunset. But it was just a mirage. What you saw was a mirage, Seobin… I have always had love and support, so I suppose it might not make sense to you. But that sunshine was to hide the burning flames of searing pain that each tendril of energy shooting out caused me. To be that happy all the time was a pain in itself. You think you want to be like this. But there is a cost to even this sort of happiness.” Hansol said, hoping to ease up Seobin’s pain.
He wanted him to know that even his own happiness cost him something. To show him that this aching void didn’t have to stay so vacant. So fresh that it would break open and become a chasm again every time his mother came and showed up.
“Before you came along, it scared me to be myself. To say aloud what I was thinking, I couldn’t let my ideas come out. I didn’t believe I could achieve my dreams. No, actually, let me rephrase that. I didn’t even believe I could deserve to dream of them. Let alone achieve a dream I didn’t feel I had a right to have.”
“When I met you, I saw how unapologetic you were. You would just step forward and say, let’s do it. I’ll do it. I will try. You would always know that life was hard, but you would still try it. My shiny light was a distraction from my lack of confidence to even dream. Everyone knew what they wanted to do. I still felt like a child playing with his Barbies, unsure of who I would be. But even though you were a shadow shrouded in pain. You had a dream to start this cafe, to be a chef. It was brilliant. You had your future planned out. You have no idea how cool you were to me back then, Seobin.”
Seobin paused. He turned slowly and looked at Hansol, staring into his eyes.
Hansol gulped. “I was out. I was gay and not afraid to show it. But being gay wasn’t something I could hide. I tried, but I just failed. I had to come out. There was no other option for me. But anything I wanted, anything I thought I would dream of. I didn’t have the strength to face it. I was a coward, afraid that everything in my life could fail if I dreamed. My hopes, my dreams, my talents. Wasted because I couldn’t bring them to fruition.”
“I think we found each other because we felt so alone and broken. We kinda stuck together. I found you when you couldn’t express your love, and you found me when all I could do was shout loudly but accomplish nothing. You found me when I was a waking zombie with no future because I was too scared to take the first step forward. To hang tightly to dreams I couldn’t make happen despite everyone telling me I should be able to was a really hopeless feeling.”
“I felt really useless until you came along, meandering through life as people looked at me, expecting me to be more. All while I had no idea how to do that… You kinda gave me a purpose. You gave me dignity, and you gave me hope to try. To be someone more. Even now, the steps to follow you here was an easy path because I was just supporting your dream, not creating one of my own.”
Seobin put down the fragile gum-paste flower he was holding.
“You are really cool. Being around you makes me a better person. Because of you, I became better in every possible way.” Hansol said softly.
Hansol chuckled. ‘It’s funny. I feel like I have been following you around like a lost puppy all these years. Just trying to keep up with you. Wearing this shroud, I don’t deserve and can never quite harness properly. Like your greatness and beauty are some intangible ideas I can’t grasp and hold on to. Yet, you were feeling so alone and hurt inside all this time. Even with me by your side. Even after all this time. I still can’t touch you the way you touched me. I wish I could help improve your life like you did for my life. But I suppose if hopes and dreams were less expensive, we would all have them come true.’ Hansol looked at Seobin.
“But over the past three years, I found a dream I wanted to fight for. You. You became my dream. I would do anything to help you, so if you need to run away where she can never find you if you need to stay and fight. I will be there beside you through all of it.” Seobin’s tears fell down his cheeks, tears welling in his eyes as the previous tears fell and the last sparks of light shattered across the room.
Some would say light scattered, but to Hansol, it seemed more like it shattered across space and time. The world was a disturbance to its radiant path of splendor it longed to take before it got caught and cast on this dismal world around it.
Scattered, shattered, either way, it casts far away to leave a mark on the world. Kinda like them. Kinda like how they were meant to be. But all alone, they were just a tiny speck of light in a rather large, rather dark place. Just hovering around each other. That may be all they needed to be. Maybe, just maybe, that could be enough.
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