The words landed hard, sinking deep. His eyes filled before he could stop them, moisture blurring his vision as guilt and longing twisted painfully in his chest. He hadn't realized—no, he had realized, but hearing it said out loud shattered whatever fragile hope he'd been holding onto.
Min-woo didn't look away.
He watched Tae-won's eyes fill with tears, watched his composure falter, and for a moment—just a moment—something raw flickered across Min-woo's face.
Not satisfaction.
Not victory.
Just pain.
Tae-won couldn't stop himself from looking at Min-woo's lips as he spoke.
They were soft, faintly pink, trembling just slightly as each sharp, burning word left them. Tae-won had seen those lips before—had once watched them smile without restraint, had once waited for them to speak his name. Seeing them now, tight with anger and pain, pulled him backward in time without mercy.
Back to high school.
Back to when everything had been simpler—and far more dangerous.
Tae-won was two years older than Min-woo. A senior, already tall, already confident in a way Min-woo wasn't yet. Min-woo had first seen him in middle school, in a small comic book store tucked between a stationery shop and a bakery. Tae-won had been standing in one of the aisles, flipping lazily through a comic, sleeves rolled up, expression calm and focused.
Min-woo remembered thinking—he looks like he belongs somewhere else.
Not long after that, Min-woo transferred schools.
No one ever said it out loud, but Min-woo knew why. He had followed Tae-won. Followed him with the reckless devotion of someone too young to understand how deeply feelings could carve into a person.
At school, Min-woo kept his distance. He watched quietly. Learned Tae-won's habits without meaning to. The way he leaned against walls. The way he laughed with his friends. The way his voice sounded when he answered teachers. Min-woo never planned to confess. He never wanted to. It felt safer to simply exist near Tae-won, to carry that feeling silently.
Until that day.
The library was quiet, dust motes floating lazily in warm afternoon light. Min-woo had been standing on his toes, reaching for a book placed far too high for him. He stretched, fingers brushing the spine but never quite grasping it.
Then suddenly—
A presence behind him.
Tae-won stepped closer without thinking, his taller frame casting a shadow over Min-woo. He reached up easily and pulled the book down.
In that motion, his skin brushed against Min-woo's back.
It was brief. Accidental.
But Min-woo felt it like electricity.
He turned immediately, too fast, heart racing wildly. Tae-won, sensing the movement, looked down at the same time.
And that's when it happened.
Min-woo's eyes—wide, unguarded, helpless—were fixed not on Tae-won's face, but on his lips.
Tae-won froze.
For a second, neither of them moved. The world seemed to shrink to the space between them. Min-woo realized what he was doing and panic washed over him. His gaze softened instantly, turning shy, innocent, almost pleading. His ears flushed a deep red, betraying him completely.
Tae-won started to pull back, confused, unsure.
But Min-woo didn't think.
He didn't plan.
Before fear could stop him, his hand shot out and grabbed the front of Tae-won's shirt, fingers trembling as he pulled him down—
Just enough.
A soft, fleeting peck.
Barely there. Light as a breath.
The moment their lips touched, Min-woo's eyes fluttered shut. He stayed there for a heartbeat—maybe two—burning with the enormity of what he'd done.
Then reality crashed in.
He released Tae-won instantly, stepped back, and ran.
He didn't look back.
He wasn't brave enough to see Tae-won's expression.
What Min-woo never knew—what haunted Tae-won even now—was that the expression on his face hadn't been disgust.
It had been shock.
And something else.
Something unspoken.
Standing in the present, staring at Min-woo once more—older, wounded, furious—Tae-won felt that same ache bloom in his chest, deep and familiar, as if time itself had folded in on him. It was the ache he had carried since high school, the one he had buried under responsibility, silence, and fear. Seeing Min-woo like this brought it roaring back to life.
And then Min-woo spoke again.
Hearing those words leave Min-woo's lips—sharp, final, unforgiving—felt like something inside Tae-won cracked cleanly in two. He had always known this meeting wouldn't end well. Of course he knew. Somewhere deep down, he had prepared himself for hatred, for coldness, for rejection.
But this—
This was worse.
He never imagined that Min-woo wouldn't just hate him, but detest him. That he wouldn't just be someone from Min-woo's past, but someone Min-woo associated with pain, with humiliation, with everything that went wrong.
To realize that the person who had once loved you the most in the world now looked at you as the source of their misery—
It was unbearable.
It felt as though Tae-won's heart was being torn into a thousand pieces, each one ripping away slowly, painfully, without mercy. His chest tightened so hard he could barely breathe, his throat burning as he struggled to hold himself together.
"Just get lost from my life."
The words were final.
Min-woo didn't wait for a response. He turned away, walked to his car, and got inside without a second glance. The engine started, loud in the quiet night, and within moments, the car pulled away—its red taillights disappearing into the darkness.
Gone.