#82

If he had known it would turn out like this, he should have gone to a nearby motel instead of home. If they had been there, he could have parted ways naturally, using the checkout time as an excuse.

Of course, bringing Shin Ho-jae to his house yesterday had been entirely his own will. He hadn’t wanted to spend his monumental first time with him in a place like a motel.

Jung-hyun violently pushed the useless, stray thoughts out of his head and forced a smile.

“It’ll be boring if you stay here. Being with me isn’t exactly exciting, is it?”

“I find it exciting.”

“…….”

“It’s actually very exciting.”

A deep crease formed between Jung-hyun’s brows, and the corner of his mouth curled crookedly. He wasn’t so oblivious as to miss the strange current flowing between them right now.

Apparently, he wasn’t the only one feeling a useless sense of responsibility after sleeping together once.

Jung-hyun’s expression stiffened slightly. If that were the case, it was all the more reason they couldn’t spend time together.

“It’s because I’m uncomfortable. My body feels a bit heavy, maybe because I went to bed late. I can’t relax properly on my own when there’s a guest.”

Shin Ho-jae gazed at Jung-hyun for a moment before slowly nodding.

“…I understand.”

“I’m sorry for only thinking about myself. You must be tired too, Ho-jae. I’ll call a taxi for you, so please take it. You’re going straight home, right?”

As he spoke, Jung-hyun picked up his phone. While he was accessing the taxi app, a slightly sunken voice reached him.

“No, that’s alright.”

Jung-hyun raised an eyebrow slightly and looked at him.

“If it’s okay, could we talk a little more?”

“…About what?”

Jung-hyun skillfully hid a flicker of anxiety in his eyes as he asked back. Shin Ho-jae hesitated, then took a seat on one side of the sofa where Jung-hyun was sitting.

The sofa sank deeply under his weight. Jung-hyun lifted himself up and shifted further away from him.

Ho-jae traced the distance that had opened between them with his eyes and moistened his lips. Jung-hyun didn’t have a good feeling about why he was hesitating so much before bringing something up.

“From now on…. I wish there would be no more sponsorship or contracts between you and me, Representative.”

“…….”

“What I mean is.”

“I understand what you mean. You want to terminate the sponsorship contract, right?”

Jung-hyun spoke, his expression already composed.

It was a contract whose purpose from the start had been to sleep with him. Since the goal had been achieved, he could fully understand Ho-jae’s desire to terminate the contract.

“Let’s consider the contract ended as of yesterday.”

“No, I mean, that’s true, but—”

“Dispose of the contract you have as you see fit.”

Perhaps frustrated that his words kept being cut off, Shin Ho-jae narrowed his eyes and looked at Jung-hyun.

“Why do you keep pretending not to know? You actually know that’s not all I want to say.”

“…….”

Jung-hyun fell silent. His observation was quite sharp.

“If I had known it would be like this, I would have brought this up before going to sleep yesterday.”

“Ho-jae.”

Jung-hyun hurriedly called his name. However, Shin Ho-jae ignored Jung-hyun’s stop signal and stepped on the accelerator.

“The reason I suggested ending the contractual relationship is because I felt there was a need to redefine the relationship between us.”

“…….”

“I want to try starting over properly with you, Representative.”

Jung-hyun crossed his legs and leaned back against the sofa. For some reason, he felt a craving for a cigarette.

“What is this ‘starting over properly’ that you’re talking about? Surely you aren’t suggesting we date.”

“…….”

There was no reply. When he turned to look at him, the area beneath Shin Ho-jae’s cheeks was slightly flushed. Then, he subtly avoided his gaze. Like someone who had been hit right on the mark.

At this unexpected sight, Jung-hyun’s mouth parted slightly.

Are you joking?

The words almost escaped his throat. He knew better than anyone that Ho-jae wasn’t the type of person to say such things as a joke.

Shin Ho-jae moistened his lips and struggled to open his mouth.

“…Honestly, our relationship hasn’t been the same as it was before lately.”

“…….”

Jung-hyun let out a light sigh.

How could he not know that Shin Ho-jae’s attitude had softened?

There were times when it felt as if the man truly liked him.

When their eyes inevitably met in a crowd, when he seemed to have been waiting for their meetings, when he initiated the kisses, when he seemed to be jealous, and when he came to him wanting him.

Kwon Jung-hyun had felt every single one of those things sensitively. He had no choice but to feel them. Because he was the one paying more attention than anyone else to every single expression and every tone of voice of Shin Ho-jae.

“To be honest, yes. I felt it too. You changed as if you were a different person, so there was no way I wouldn’t notice.”

“…….”

“To be even more honest, I enjoyed it. Who wouldn’t like it when a man like you shows interest?”

Of course, he liked it.

At the same time, he felt a strong sense of that something was terribly wrong. There was a clear awareness within him that his foolish greed and dirty desires were ruining a perfectly decent person.

It would have been better if he had applied the brakes appropriately the moment he realized it, but Jung-hyun didn’t. He didn’t want to.

And why wouldn’t he? It was the attention and kindness of the person he had wanted so badly.

So, Jung-hyun more actively ignored the warning signs.

Even at the sudden Christmas greetings, the phone calls that lasted nearly thirty minutes, and the conversations where the number of questions increased unlike before.

He had a rough guess as to the reason.

The simple Shin Ho-jae had likely opened the locks of his heart after finding out that he was ‘86’. Moreover, since it was right after his father passed away, his heart must have been fragile.

Also, perhaps he had decided to place him in the frame of a ‘good person’ based on a few overlapping coincidences.

While he actively neglected and enjoyed those feelings, a sense of responsibility must have begun to weigh on Shin Ho-jae’s emotions.

The fact that he brought up redefining their relationship immediately after sex proved it. Unlike him, Shin Ho-jae was a normal person with common sense, so he believed that one should formally date the person they slept with.

Of course, he didn’t think that pure affection wasn’t mixed in at all. It probably was. If not, Shin Ho-jae was the kind of person who wouldn’t have suggested sleeping together in the first place.

He had no intention of denying that he had been completely unaware of the man’s feelings now. He had felt it vaguely—no, clearly. He just hadn’t expected him to think as far as dating. Jung-hyun let out a small, hollow laugh.

Dating. Shin Ho-jae and him?

It was a premise he had absolutely never considered, not even once.

If he had thought such a thing was possible, he would have set the conditions of the initial sponsorship proposal as dating rather than sex.

And even now, after hearing the words ‘redefine the relationship’ from Shin Ho-jae, it was still impossible.

Shin Ho-jae had simply become filthily entangled with a human like him and drifted slightly off course. From the beginning, he was fundamentally different from Jung-hyun, who was sprinting toward a cliff.

“But that’s as far as it goes. I have no intention of developing a relationship with you beyond that, Athlete Shin Ho-jae.”

Jung-hyun paused for a moment before speaking again.

“From the start, I only had one goal. To sleep with you. You know that.”

As he finished speaking, Jung-hyun looked into his eyes.

For a moment, his heart sank.

Since he had rejected him to his face, it must be embarrassing, or perhaps a bit upsetting. He thought it would be to that extent, but the face he encountered looked like that of someone who had been deeply wounded.

He hadn’t said those words intentionally to hurt him. Plagued by a faint sense of guilt, Jung-hyun carefully chose his words.

“…You’ve always been a kind person, Ho-jae.”

Unlike his coldness from before, Ho-jae looked up at Jung-hyun’s face at the relatively warm opening. That face looked as if it held hope, making the inside of Jung-hyun’s chest ache again.

Now he felt he knew what had caused that lingering unpleasant feeling before he slept with him yesterday. He had intuited that once he slept with him, something would end.

“That’s why you felt that way. With your father’s passing recently, you might have simply needed a place to give your heart.”

“…What does that mean?”

“Since someone you kiss and sleep with has been by your side for a long time, you must have grown fond of me. And since I’ve shown you my bad side in various ways, I might have seemed a bit pitiful.”

The expectation on Shin Ho-jae’s face gradually faded until it vanished completely. Ridiculously, he found himself regretting that.

If he hadn’t slept with him yesterday, could he have ignored and enjoyed his kindness a little longer? It was a rather foolish thought.

“…So, are you saying that all my feelings were just a misunderstanding, Representative?”

He asked, his brow hardening. Jung-hyun did not explicitly confirm it.

Shin Ho-jae let out a hollow laugh.

“I haven’t even been able to properly tell you that I like you yet.”

83 – Puck Drop