세상의 끝: End of the World

First Glimpse

Back when they had been kids, Lee Minho used to drag Han Jisung everywhere. Jisung was like his puppy. He showed him off to his friends, ran around with him in the park, and wouldn't go anywhere without Jisung at his heels. Even when Minho was playing with the other kids in the neighborhood, Han Jisung had been there with him-but not playing with them.

Lee Minho had tried including Han Jisung. He'd taught him how to kick around a ball, how to play the customary children's games. But the only one Jisung really ever joined was hide and seek. Most of the time, Han Jisung lingered in the shadows by the side, curled up in the shade of a tree or a bush, watching the other kids played. He'd only ever look up when Minho came near.

Jisung only ever had him in his eyes, and Lee Minho had loved that.
So he'd never pushed for the other kids to include Han Jisung, or get them to understand him. He'd never tried to bring Han Jisung out of his shell around his other friends. Him being the only one in Jisung's world was perfect.
But then, when they'd been about ten or eleven, another kid moved to their neighborhood.

He was quiet, like Han Jisung. But in a different way. More like he was thoughtful. He was the grandson of some famous calligrapher, and all the girls had talked about how elegant he seemed. He was a little sickly, too, which meant that he couldn't join the boys in any of their sports matches.

That also meant that when the kids in the neighborhood gathered around to play, that boy sat on the sidelines, right next to Jisung.

They didn't talk at first. Lee Minho had been watching them from the corner of his eye ever since the new kid had come over to check out what was going on. But a couple of weeks later, Minho saw the new kid talking to Han Jisung, and Jisung was listening to him.
At that point, Lee Minho had called for a break in the game. He'd been sweating with exertion, and panting a little bit. But he wiped off his sweat, put on a casual smile, and walked over to the two of them.

Lee Minho didn't remember what exactly he'd done and said. But he remembered sitting between the two of them, ensuring that Han Jisung wouldn't pay any attention to that new kid anymore.
After a while, the new kid found some other friends and didn't come around as much. Some time later, he moved away again.

If Lee Minho hadn't gotten between that guy and Jisung, they might have become friends. Something about that had made Minho afraid, though he hadn't wanted to admit it. Once Han Jisung made other friends, once other people entered Jisung's world, would he still have the same place in Han Jisung's heart?

It was Lee Minho's selfish possessiveness. He couldn't stand the idea of someone else being closer and more important to Han Jisung than himself. And that hadn't been the only time.

Even when they were older, Minho kept Jisung closely guarded. He'd kept Lisa from getting close to Han Jisung, blocking her from including him in her research. He'd seen the way the girl they'd rescued, Rosé, had managed to touch Jisung and act so intimately with him after just a single day, and he'd nearly wanted to assign her to a group that would take her as far from Han Jisung as possible.

This kind of behavior-wanting to keep Han Jisung all to himself, wanting to make sure no one else could get close to him-was something dark, a deeply twisted desire that Lee Minho had never closely examined. He'd rationalized it by telling himself that only he could fully appreciate and understand Han Jisung. And Jisung had seemed more than happy with it, so what was the harm?
People couldn't survive alone. Cutting Jisung off from anyone who could possibly be his future friend, or even... a future lover, was nothing more than Minho's selfishness.

It wasn't up to him who Han Jisung fell in love with, or who he wanted to be around. Even if he felt his adrenaline spike at the thought of Jisung being with someone else, he wasn't in the right to act on it. He was lucky, especially now, that Han Jisung had feelings for him. Acting like he had sole claim and ownership over Jisung meant not really respecting Han Jisung's choices at all.