1.1 | Desiderium ✓

43|forty three

To Shin, JaeHwan's face was nothing short of a grotesque horror. The boy leapt up to his feet and stumbled backwards, only to fall down on the grass with a loud thud. The garden cats came up to Shin, swishing their tails and meowing, licking his mortified body. 

"Shin-ah, it's me, JaeHyung." JaeHwan tried to smile, his best effort to keep his friendly facade up and not let the storm inside out accidentally. 

"Why are you here?" Shin barked, instinctively backing away. 

"Shinnie, why are you being like that, he is supposed to be your friend," Shin's grandfather said.

"No… he isn't. He will take me away." 

"Of course I will," JaeHwan scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest, "you practically ran away from school. Come back Shin, everyone's missing you." 

"No you are not, you are not missing me," Shin said, eyes wide with paranoia. "You were just swindling me all this time." 

"I was what?" 

"You said it yourself." Shin pointed his shaky finger at the Head Boy, "I should wake up, because I have places I should be." 

"Hah?" Shin's grandfather snapped to look at JaeHwan, alarmed by his child's sudden accusation. 

"I said that," JaeHwan swallowed thickly, "but I don't understand what you mean." 

Shin's face, his eyes full of doubt and unshed tears, sparkling so bright with anger and pain, Shin's anger rivaled JaeHwan. 

Despite its gentleness, it rivaled JaeHwan. 

"You're here to take me to that man, are you not? I saw you, don't lie, I saw you talking to him… Halabbeoji," Shin turned to the old man, "I don't want to go to that man." 

"What?" Rather than confusion, it was agony that JaeHwan felt. "I… I, as in your best friend JaeHwan, was duping you all this time to just dump you on JeongSuk's feet?" 

"Shin-ah, what are you saying?" Grandfather gasped softly, his thin brows furrowed tightly in intense thought.

"He lied to me!" Shin screamed, his fragile voice cracking in an ugly, cacophonous mess. "He told me to count! I counted!" The boy pressed his palms flat on his ears and yelled louder. Rubbish. Ungodly sounds to drown himself in. "Liar! Eomma didn't come back… he lied!" 

Only then, only then he would tone down those deafening numbers inside his head. 

"Now you are lying! Just like, just like him!" 

JaeHwan stood stunned. He didn't care about how Shin felt at that moment, or what he was thinking, JaeHwan just felt rage. All this time, he didn't spend all those years unwillingly being in love with this person who was accusing him of something so horrible. 

Not being loved by the person JaeHwan loved was torture. 

"Hey," said JaeHwan, calm and composed, "is that what you think of me?" 

Shin's expression did not change. His apathy annoyed the hell out of JaeHwan and he stepped forward, watching in anger how Shin stood up and ran away from him to the farthest end of his garden and hid behind a large sycamore tree. 

"Shinnie, son come back here. No one will hurt you, see? He is your friend." Shin's grandfather waddled over to him. His worn out expression said he had been trying to console Shin for hours without any luck. 

"No he isn't! He knows me… he knows…" Shin yelled, oblivious to the twisted angst inside JaeHwan. "He will take me back there… I don't want to go…"