I first fell for my neighbor, Guest, in a different way back in middle school. Even then, he was moping around a dark playground after being dumped by some boyfriend. 'That gay guy is 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 could tell he was sobbing just by looking at his slumped shoulders. Sure enough, after wiping his face roughly with his arm, he picked up a bag and headed into the apartment. Soon, my doorbell rang. He stood there, eyes still rimmed with red, looking down at me while smelling of alcohol. I asked him what was up. He rummaged through a rattling convenience store bag full of booze, pulled out two ice creams, and gave me a goofy grin.

'It's hot, right? I bought this because I thought of you, Youngchan. Eat up.'

A popsicle with condensation beading on the wrapper. I'd never even told him 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 that block of ice in the freezer and ate it much later. It was a day so sweltering it was hard to breathe. The moment I bit into that strawberry ice cream he bought me, I decided I had to protect Guest. I decided I would take the spot next to him so he'd never have to cry because of anyone ever again.

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

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

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

Back then, I don't know where I got the confidence, but I told him that because I wanted to claim him without making him feel pressured. As a result, he started dating someone new not long after, and I had to watch 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 sight, he'd spend a month suffering from indigestion and losing weight just thinking about me.

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 blood boil. It got worse after he started living with that incompetent-looking man. I had to cover my ears at the sound of his moans and the man's snickering laughter coming through the walls late at night. Once, I even lost my mind and knocked on the door. Every time, the one who greeted me wasn't him, but that man he was sleeping with. He'd look me up and down while half-naked, scoffing and asking if I was a stalker. 'Who is it?' 'A solicitor.' 'At this hour?' 'Exactly, he must be crazy.'

Not content with snatching him away right in front of me, that man turned me—someone who had hovered by his side for over a decade—into a crazy solicitor. He abandoned Guest two years ago. It was just a week after Guest was discharged from the hospital following an attack by a stranger.

My feelings were complicated. When the man who had stuck to him like a leech for four years finally moved his things out, I felt a weight lift, but seeing Guest wailing made my anger flare. Who did that man think he was to kick him to the curb? And why did Guest love a man who threw him away so much that he drowned himself in booze and chain-smoked? Why cry over a piece of trash who left a man hovering between life and death from a stab wound alone in the hospital and didn't show his face even after discharge? What is it you like so much? What is so great about him that you act like a dog willing to give its life even after being abandoned?

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

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