"...pissed off."

Blink blink.

"I'm pissed off with him. That's what I'm feeling." He starts pacing—they're in his kitchen, because for some reason that's where Tae-gun always goes for this kind of stuff, and so he's pacing back and forth in the kitchen. "I'm fucking pissed off that that guy fucked me up for no good reason. That that guy destroyed our relationship for no good reason. That he tried to kill my girlfriend. I'm pissed off that he thought I'd have forgiven him. I'm pissed off that I would have, before.

"Six years of my life, Woo-young. Six years of my life of being constantly affected by that fucking guy. Six fucking years that I'm never getting back.

"I'm angry with him, Woo-young."

"Holy shit, hyung."

"It's so fucking ridiculous that it took me this long to get angry. That it took all of this. That I was so goddamn terrified of that jackass, and that I refused to look at everything he did. That I was still in love with him. That I'm—" He stops pacing and covers his face with a hand. "I don't know if I'm still in love with him. He tried to have my girlfriend killed. And you know what? I am in love with her."

"I'm in love with Kim Hye-jin, and that jackass tried to have her killed, and she's better for me than he could ever be."

"Yeah. She is." Not that that's a high bar, but.

"...I thought I was going to feel more conflicted. That I was going to, to... want to talk to him. To ask him why he did what he did."

"You're not?"

"No. I'm not. I'm never going to talk to him again. I'm never going to see him again. I, I'll probably think about him again, he was such a—huge part—of my life—but. Was. Past tense.

"I don't care. Or—I do care, but it doesn't matter, why he did what he did. He did it. There isn't any coming back. I'm not going to get any closure from getting the answer. It doesn't matter. It's over. We're over. He fucked it up beyond repair."

"And if I know him he's definitely hoping I'm going to go visit him to talk to him and I'm not going to give him the satisfaction."

Woo-young cracks up again. "Ice cold, man."

"They don't call me ice king for nothing."

...he's gonna get up from the kitchen counter stool and hug his hyung.

Oh. Okay.

"I'm so proud of you, hyung. And I'm—sorry. For the part where I made it worse. Where you couldn't talk to me about it. You're my best friend, and I want you to be happy."

...man he'd been doing such a good job of not crying up until now.

"It's okay. It's over. It's really over. You don't have to worry about it anymore. You don't have to think about him anymore. You're free."

He's free.

That's it. He's free.

It's really over. He's never going to have to think about Kang Jaeha again. And if he does, he's not going to hiccup over Kang Jaeha's name anymore. Because it's over, and he's free. He can go have a life again, he can have a girlfriend, he can have friends, he can go to Queer Quasar meetups at bars, he can, can invite people over, he doesn't need to hide the location of his house like a state secret, he's...

He's free.

Hye-jin-ah.

Yes, dear?

I want to go on a date with you.

I want it to be somewhere outside.

Somewhere that we don't pick because we're worried about keeping our location secret.

Let's go to a park. Or a museum. Or a movie theater. Or the mall.

Or all of those.

Sounds good! I like all of those things, but lean park and museum today? I don't have a park or museum in mind though. Do you want it to be literally right now?

It does not need to be right now.

Or today.

I just want to do something nice that I couldn't do because of that guy.

And that guy isn't a problem anymore. And I want to do things I enjoy with people I love and have a nice life.