Dark Academia

Chapter 11: Jeonghan's duty

It was supposed to be a steady year. It was supposed to be a boring year. Get my diploma, get a PhD, and get married. Everything to please my parents. Of course I knew Shua would give me some trouble, like he always does. Honestly, I don't understand how he can be my brother. He's nothing like me – insubordinate, and vulgar. It's very likely that he's got the right to be all these things because I'm already the designated, abiding heir. I've never wished for roles to be reversed, mind you – the little bugger annoys me but I'd do everything to protect him. But right now, I wish I could live how I want, and love who I want.

My whole life was planned from birth, and I didn't see Choi Seungcheol coming. With his rough tongue and his shy smile. I don't exactly know how I fell for him. Perhaps it was when I saw him shirtless at that party in the chapel, or perhaps it was because Shua kept talking about him for months. My brother is good at match-making. Too bad he's too much for anyone to bear. He never shuts up about that Junior Dean from SM who keeps cleaning after his mess and finding him excuses. He says it's just a crush and he won't attempt anything, but I thought the definition of 'crush' was that it didn't last, and it's been months. Anyway, I might just get an appointment with that Junior Dean. Not to talk about Shua because their relationship is none of my business. But to talk about myself. Because everybody takes me for granted (my parents and my fiancé first) and I'm not sure I want to let them anymore.

Now in the morning, I don't think about being "always on top", I just think about a lovely countryside boy who sleeps with a teddy bear. It makes me smile. I'm not a boy who smiles – I've learnt to stop smiling at around three, when I understood this world would eat me up if I did. But for some reason, Seungcheol stole my lips like he owned them, and turned me into someone who blushes, someone who smiles like a fool, and who gives in.

But he also makes me stronger. He makes me believe I can stand up for myself, and stand up to my parents. I don't know why I thought it would go well, announcing to my parents over the Christmas break that I'm not marrying Park Seonghwa and that I'm in love with a commoner. I guess I was imagining that our family and traditions may have evolved through the centuries, that perhaps they would understand. Our parents have never been in love with each other and we've always known about it; I was maybe hoping they would relate to my star-crossed love for Seungcheol.

Instead, they forbade me to see him, and sped up the whole wedding process. I should've been free until the end of my PhD, but now I'm marrying Seonghwa in August. How did my life become hell? Or has it always been this way and I never noticed?

I'm not certain they were expecting me to disappoint them. I'm the perfect son, after all. Until I decided I didn't give a f*ck about anything. They weren't expecting my "rebellion", but I was expecting the slap. It wasn't the first time – I know how the back of Father's hand feels better than I do his caresses. Shua seldom gets the slaps. There's no use with him, and anyway, I'm the eldest, so I have to take responsibility for his mistakes.

I've been hit so many times I don't even count. I've grown indifferent. But the bruises show. And I think that's perhaps why my adolescent self decided to let his hair grow. To hide the bruises on my cheeks, and my slit lips. Father wouldn't buy me make-up to cover all that up – he marries his son off to a another boy but he doesn't want him to put make-up on, go figure. His violence doesn't reach me. But this one time, it's something else. This time, it's as though he's hitting Seungcheol for stealing me away. And I can't bear it, and for the first time, I cry when his hand hits my face. Just one tear, it's all he gets.

I don't hide the bruise, and keep my hair tied in a bun, just so Father and the rest of the family have to watch my red cheek every day of the holidays. I can see how Shua looks at me – a mixture of pity and admiration. I know he loves me very much. And he likes Seungcheol a lot as well. He told me that, for Christmas, he asked for me to be married to Seungcheol. It's cute.

The bruise fades away before we go back to college, and in a sense I'm glad, because I don't know how Seungcheol would have reacted. He would've probably tried to kill the person who'd dared to touch me. The day we finally see each other again (it's been impossibly long and lonely without him), he's wearing the pink shirt I'd given him during that party where we first met.

"I missed ya," he whispers against my mouth, as I quickly scan SM's huge park to gauge whether we're alone.

That's what we have to do now. Kiss in secret, love each other behind closed doors. He has to watch me hold Park Seonghwa's hand and act as though he doesn't care. He has to sit there and shut his mouth, while I suffer, and he suffers back.

I look at him with my anxious eyes, because I don't want anyone to catch us red-handed, because I don't want anyone to take him away from me again, and he holds my chin tight so I don't glance around me. "Don't worry. It's jus' you and me."

We weren't supposed to meet today. I'm the one who doesn't want to meet in broad daylight. Only at night in his dorm, when Joshua agrees to leave us alone. But today, I had to see him, no matter the time of the day. Today, I left my seat at the library for fifteen minutes – no more. Within fifteen minutes, someone had stolen my PhD folder, which was lying on my desk, freshly printed and signed in all the right places. It was nowhere to be seen and there was no visible culprit – it could've been anyone.

But of course, it wasn't just anyone. After I cried for an hour, I had lunch with Seonghwa and he told me Choi San had just submitted his PhD folder in Law and it looked exactly like my own subject. Right then, I just knew. Choi San had stolen my folder and replaced my signatures with his own. F*ck him. F*ck this PhD thing. I never even wanted to start one.

I didn't even finish my plate. I left Seonghwa in the hall, and met with Seungcheol in the park at SM. Because I needed someone to tell me they loved me, that I was fine, and that Choi San was a bastard. Seungcheol told me all those things, and held me on a bench. His embrace rumpled my suit, but I didn't care. I had hundreds of suits.

I have hundred of suits, millions of pounds, and a brighter future than anyone else in this world, and still, I want that one thing I can't have. I didn't have to introduce Seungcheol to my parents for them to picture him exactly like he is – rustic, vulgar and destitute. They wouldn't make a difference between him and a leper. He's so below their standards that they wouldn't even notice him if they met him.

But he's all I can see. All I think of. His body against mine, his hands in my long hair, his holey words that glide on his rough tongue. Just for me to hear, just for me to take. If only I had the right to own anyone. But instead, I can only be owned. By my parents, by Park Seonghwa, by this life. When you have money galore, all it does is put a price on you.