Evening Sky [JoongDunk]

[8] Even if you go, love will come again

"It's all because of my greed."

A man in his thirties looks down at his hand and then gazes up to the far far horizon in front of him. He reminisces about what was happening in this place. The place where Joong Archen ran to a broken Dunk Natachai to make him feel more alive just to break him again with much more pain in the next two years.

Joong Archen remembers it all well as if it was yesterday.

"The reason why Dunk Natachai ended up hating me so bad."

"What did you do?" His company asks him in a careful tone.

"I should let him go... but I couldn't, I love him so much I didn't want him to disappear from my life. And my love ended up corrupting him to the point he started to resent what we had."

Joong takes a deep breath and continues talking without looking at his company. "When we had our three day trip to that beach, I thought it was the happiest moment in my life. It was my peak happiness and everything went downhill after that. My mother came back to search for me to inform me that my father suddenly went ill in China and I needed to go there to start assisting him with his company. My family is rich, we have several hospitals and educational institutions including my and Dunk's school. My mother brought Rein as a reminder of who I was and why I couldn't be with Dunk Natachai. It was crystal clear... the messages from my parents."

"Did they know about you and your... preference?" His company asks again and Joong can only smile.

"I think they knew, but they didn't want to talk about it to make it more real than it should." There is a bitter taste in Joong's mouth after he said that.

"All of a sudden my teenage days were over and I had a huge responsibility on my shoulders. That time, even though I knew how much it broke me inside, I should let him go. We had no hope, my parents won't allow me. The society back then won't allow us." It still pains Joong so bad to talk about this. Even after so many years have passed between them.

"But when I saw him again, lining up in his row when my father gave his opening speech of the new school year, I just knew that I couldn't let him go. He was so desperate to search for me. But I couldn't bring myself to reach for him at that moment, so I ended up ignoring him while secretly looking for him behind his back. I miss him, but if I came to him, I owed him an explanation. And I couldn't say anything because it would hurt him. How could I say to him that we had no hope because I was starting to learn that my life is much bigger than my will?"

"So, you didn't try to explain anything to him, blatantly ignoring him, but still kept him and his feelings for you."

Joong remains silent as he understands how evil he was to Dunk Natachai.

"You are an asshole, you know?"

Joong closes his eyes. "I'm more than that. I was so stressed with my family situation, with my own feelings, and I was only a teenager. Everything that suddenly became my responsibility was too heavy till it blinds me. I can't think straight and Dunk Natachai is the only one my heart desires, my consolation."

Joong opens his eyes again as the sun starts to settle down in front of him, just like how Dunk Natachai is walking away from his life. And that sun is never coming back to him again.

He deserves it.

"At the end.... I used him."

"What were you doing?" His company looks at him cautiously as if he will listen to a horror story.

And Joong Archen is too ashamed of his wrongdoings to answer that question.

The story from the past.