Alpha Trauma Novel (Completed) - Chapter 115. Side Story 17. Outsider (7)

“…”

He had a vague feeling that Dohyun had heard these words last night too. If they had simply fought, he wouldn’t have been drinking all night and calling him from dawn. He somewhat understood why Dohyun had been in a bad mood.

“So we fought. And then I left Oppa. Though I didn’t expect him to immediately call his lover and hang out.”

As soon as Jinah finished speaking, she aggressively ate the meat. It didn’t look delicious; it was merely an outlet for her frustration. Wooyeon quietly put the meat he was holding back on his plate.

“Did you say that to Hyung too?”

“What?”

“The part about acting like a stranger.”

“Ah.”

Her answer was vague, but it was an affirmation. Wooyeon looked down at the messy meat and chewed the inside of his cheek.

‘Did something happen to your younger sibling?’

‘We fought.’

The words he wanted to say piled up like a snowball. But the clumsily formed snowball broke before it could take proper shape. What he could say, what he shouldn’t say. He couldn’t gauge any of it.

“…Don’t you know why Hyung draws a line?”

At the sudden question, Jinah made an unreadable expression. She probably hadn’t expected him to ask that. Wooyeon, reading a hint of ‘perhaps?’ in her gaze, spoke in a calm voice.

“I heard he was adopted.”

Dohyun had previously explained his family situation to Wooyeon. Things like his relationship with his parents, and how he got along with his younger sibling. Wooyeon couldn’t fully empathize with the situation, but he could somewhat guess why Dohyun was so quick-witted.

“I’m not Dohyun Hyung, so I don’t know much, but…”

Various emotions tangled inside him. Along with that, Dohyun’s face, which he had seen for the last time just a moment ago, came to mind as clearly as if it were drawn.

So he chose his words carefully. He chose and chose them, fearing that a single word from him might cross a line.

“If I heard someone say I acted like a stranger, I wouldn’t get angry; I’d feel hurt.”

But having said this much, something surged up inside him.

“He really is a stranger, isn’t he?”

“…”

“Only Hyung.”

He shouldn’t have added that last part. Wooyeon thought so only after seeing Jinah’s expression. But since spilled water couldn’t be picked up, he lowered his eyes, trying to appear as calm as possible.

“Anyway, you… no, your sibling is a biological child, and if I were Hyung, I don’t think I’d feel good hearing something like that.”

The weight of words spoken by a real child to a fake one, and by a fake child to a real one, is fundamentally different. Even more so if Dohyun considers himself an outsider.

“Hyung drank all night that day.”

“…”

“He must have been upset.”

Jinah closed her mouth, her face as if covered in dirt. Delicious juices rose from the meat on the grill. Jinah mechanically flipped the meat and spoke in a low voice.

“He’s not a stranger.”

It was a firm statement. Or perhaps it sounded like a vow.

“Family isn’t just about blood, is it?”

Wooyeon deeply empathized with that. There were cases where even blood relatives didn’t feel like family, so how could the fence of family be classified only by blood ties?

“Don’t talk like that.”

Despite her words, it was Jinah who actually looked like she had made a mistake. It seemed she had only now realized what impact her words had on Dohyun. Wooyeon apologized, saying he was sorry if he had offended her, and then awkwardly turned his head.

For a while, no conversation passed between them. Jinah silently moved her chopsticks, and Wooyeon, without touching the meat or alcohol, pictured Dohyun at home. He shouldn’t have pushed him away and come. It was a belated regret.

“…There was one time.”

When the soju bottle was nearly empty, Jinah subtly began to speak. Despite drinking a whole bottle by herself, her complexion hadn’t changed.

“I went to Oppa’s school, and he was with a friend. Do you happen to know her? A really tall, somewhat scary-looking unnie.”

Just by the description, it was Garam. Jinah chuckled, as if not expecting an answer.

“Anyway, at that time, Oppa’s face, when he was annoyed with his friend…”

Her teardrop-shaped eyes drooped sadly. It was incomparable to when she had glared fiercely at Dohyun. Jinah sighed self-deprecatingly and poked her side dish with her chopsticks.

“Even though he was just being blunt, he looked more comfortable than when he was with family.”

“…”

“And after that, I could see the difference. The expression he shows us, and the expression that comes out when Oppa is truly enjoying himself.”

Wooyeon was someone who reacted sensitively to that difference more than anyone else. He could tell if Dohyun was smiling artificially, recognizing it as fake. So he fully understood the sense of deprivation Jinah must have felt.

“It wasn’t just a matter of friends being different from family. It was a fundamental problem. Oppa is still uncomfortable with us. He hasn’t accepted us as family.”

Jinah was talking about the resentment she felt towards Dohyun. Regardless of her slip of the tongue, it was true that Dohyun treated her like a stranger. It seemed she simply couldn’t accept that subtle distance.

“I’m not asking for much.”

Wooyeon silently picked up the soju bottle and ordered another. As soon as the staff brought the soju, Jinah uncapped it and filled her glass.

“Just small things. If he’s annoyed that I’m coming home, tell me he’s annoyed. If he has something to discuss at home, discuss it. If he needs to meet his lover, tell me he’s going without worrying about my reaction.”

Am I throwing a tantrum, telling him not to meet anyone? Wooyeon had something to retort to her grumbling addiction.

“He said his younger sibling would be waiting at home.”

“Oh, of course, I’d wait. Because I’m bored! But do you really think I’d tell him to cancel a date and come? That’s something only elementary school kids do.”

Did she do that in elementary school? Wooyeon was about to ask but decided against it.

“Oppa tries to be overly perfect. Going to the foreign language high school, going to this university now, he didn’t have a single opinion of his own. He just said yes, yes, to whatever Mom and Dad told him to do. But annoyingly, he can’t do anything wrong, so Mom and Dad scold me again…”

He remembered Dohyun once mentioning that Jinah’s fights with their parents were related to him. Perhaps this time too, Jinah, having been compared to Dohyun, had left home and come to Dohyun’s place.

“You heard it earlier, right? Oppa has a tattoo on his back. He’s been drinking and smoking since high school. Everything he does well at home is just an act, but on the flip side, it makes me wonder how suffocating home must be for him to act like that outside.”

Wooyeon was surprised by how much more Jinah worried about Dohyun than he had thought. It was surprising that she knew about his misbehavior, but he hadn’t expected her to even guess the reason for it. And quite accurately too.

“I don’t know why he’s so cautious. Why does he keep acting like he’s going to leave? He’s clearly family, my older brother, but I know his true feelings less than the dog next door.”

Wooyeon chuckled a little at the mention of the dog next door. Amusingly, he couldn’t deny it at all. A dog at least wags its tail, but Dohyun just quietly smiles.

“Oppa doesn’t act like that towards you, does he?”

Unlike Wooyeon, who pondered over how to address her, Jinah had no qualms about calling Wooyeon “that person” . Of course, Wooyeon didn’t mind at all and replied.

“He was like that with me too.”

Jinah’s eyes widened. Her dense eyelashes curled upwards. Wooyeon thought she was a person with a lot of facial expressions and fiddled with his soju glass.

“Hyung never told me anything about himself.”

If there was something he didn’t want to say, Dohyun would gloss it over with an incomparably sweet smile. He would beat around the bush so as not to upset Wooyeon, only showing the superficial shell.

“We were clearly dating, but I didn’t even know what he was thinking. What he was worried about, what he was anxious about, what he was hiding from me.”

“…”

“I even thought I was the only one who liked him.”

It was a relationship driven by nothing but caution. He liked Dohyun, but he was so afraid of being disliked that he simply let the inexplicable uneasiness pass, not even attempting to find out. As a result, the emotional part was a false alarm, but their relationship was messed up beyond repair.

“Then we broke up.”

Jinah’s jaw dropped. She probably hadn’t expected them to have broken up, trailing off with, ‘No, how did you get back together…’

“Right after we broke up, it felt like the world was collapsing…”

At that time, Wooyeon was sure he would never trust Dohyun again. He hated himself for being anxious even while liking him, so he thought running away was the best option. He thought whatever Dohyun said was just sweet talk.

“Once the resentment faded, curiosity arose.”

“What curiosity?”

“Why didn’t he say a single word to me?”

“…”

“Did I not give him enough trust? Was I just that to Hyung?”

This was what Wooyeon thought about all night under his blanket after returning home. His resentment towards Dohyun was brief, and the arrow soon turned to himself. Of course, his selfish mind ultimately placed more of the blame on the other person.

“At that time, Hyung apologized to me and told me something.”

Oppa initiated it, then. Jinah seemed surprised only by that fact. You could tell by her murmuring in an astonished face. Wooyeon, instead of reacting, recalled what Dohyun had said.

‘Yeon ah, I…’

Should he even say something like this? That question arose. Even if he was her lover, wasn’t he meddling too much in her family affairs? That worry also came up.

But despite that, Wooyeon hoped his nosiness would be an opportunity to clear up misunderstandings. If Dohyun drank alone out of loneliness again, even those embarrassing rabbit ears wouldn’t be able to comfort him this time. He didn’t want Dohyun, who had been his salvation, to fall into overwhelming loneliness.

“He said he was just scared.”

Yeon ah, I was just always scared. That one phrase still occasionally echoes in his ears. The trembling voice was raw, filled with Dohyun’s fear.

“He didn’t want to be abandoned.”

“…”

Jinah’s eyes trembled greatly. She clearly remembered something at the mention of being abandoned. Jinah couldn’t possibly not know that Dohyun had been abandoned in front of the orphanage.

“He tried to be more careful and put in more effort to only show a good side, because he didn’t want to ruin the relationship.”

“…”

“I don’t think I could ever do that.”

Understanding isn’t based solely on reason and thought. There were countless times when the mind accepted something, but the heart didn’t follow.

“How hard it must have been for him.”

That’s why he realized later. That Dohyun must have been more exhausted and lonely than anyone else.

“Every day must have been a struggle.”