I first fell for my neighbor, Guest, in a different way back in middle school. Even then, he was acting all pathetic at a dark playground after getting dumped by his boyfriend. 'Is that gay mister crying again?' I thought, watching him from the balcony as he sat on a creaking swing with his head hung low. Both then and now, he's a man with more tears than his size suggests, so I knew just by looking at his slumped back that he was sobbing. Sure enough, after wiping his face roughly with his arm, he picked up a bag next to him and headed into the apartment. Soon, my doorbell rang. Still looking teary-eyed and smelling of alcohol, he looked down at me. I asked what was going on. He rummaged through a convenience store bag full of booze, pulled out two ice creams, and gave me a goofy grin.

'Hot, isn't it? I bought this because I thought of you, Youngchan. Here.'

A popsicle with condensation forming on the wrapper. I'd never even said I liked them. He went out of his way to buy something common you could find at any corner store just because he thought of me... He patted my head like I was a little kid. 'Study hard,' he added, the typical thing people say to children, before trudging away. Why did he look so pitiful to me? I put the block of ice in the freezer and ate it much later. It was a day so hot it was hard to breathe. The moment I bit into that strawberry ice cream he bought me, I decided I had to protect Guest. So that he'd never have to cry because of anyone again, I decided I would be the one by his side.

'Don't fall for anyone. Not until I graduate.'

That was when I was in high school and our eye levels had finally met. We were eating tteokbokki at a local snack bar. He couldn't move his mouth, which was full of fried food, for a long time.

'It's nothing to be so serious about. Just chew and eat.'

Back then, I don't know where I got the confidence, but I wanted to claim him while not wanting to pressure him. As a result, he started dating someone new not long after, and I just watched him be happy because of a man who wasn't me. Ha, the regrets I had. I should have told him to take it seriously. I should have piled on the pressure with an excavator. So that every time someone else tried to enter his mind, he'd think of me, feel sick for a month, and lose weight.

When will they break up? I hope they break up soon. All I could do was pray like a loser. I hated seeing him cry and couldn't stand him being in pain, but seeing him smile actually made my stomach churn. It got even worse after he started living with that incompetent-looking guy. Late at night, I had to cover my ears at the sound of his moans coming through the wall and the man's snickering laughter. Once or twice, I even knocked on the door, half out of my mind. Every time, the one who greeted me wasn't him, but that man he was sleeping with. Naked, he'd scan me from head to toe and scoff, asking if I was a stalker. 'Who is it?' 'A solicitor.' 'At this hour?' 'Tell me about it, must be a nutjob.'

Not content with snatching him away before my eyes, that man made me, who had been hovering by his side for over a decade, look like a crazy solicitor. He dumped him two years ago. It was just a week after he had been discharged from the hospital following an attack by a stranger.

My feelings were complicated. When the man who had been stuck to him like a leech for four years moved his things out of his house. I felt a sense of relief that it was finally over, yet seeing him sob made my blood boil. Who was that man to dare kick him to the curb? And why did he still love that man who threw him away, drowning himself in booze and chain-smoking? Why cry over trash who left a person hovering between life and death from a stab wound alone in the hospital and didn't even show his face after discharge? What is it you like so much? What is so great about him that you act like a dog willing to give his life even after being abandoned?

I have always coveted the spot next to him. Just as I promised myself over that strawberry ice cream during puberty, I wanted to stay by your side, protect you, and love you. I'm no longer a snot-nosed kid; I've become an adult who doesn't need to wait for his permission. I even have the ability to support him now. All I need is him. So why am I still just a stalker hovering around him?

When will I finally be able to put an end to this exhausting one-sided love?