By Zephyria ■
The bodyguard assigned by Lee Hae-sung was waiting in the parking lot in front of the building, not the underground parking. Choi Hong-seo, lost in deep thought, got out of the elevator, passed through the hotel-like officetel lobby, and exited the main entrance.
Haa. He raised his head with a sigh, and his breath appeared as white mist.
“……”
The RV car that should have been waiting was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Lee Hae-sung’s sedan was parked in its place. Lee Hae-sung, who had been leaning against the car, straightened up and slightly opened his arms. He didn’t want to disappoint his smile. Looking around, Choi Hong-seo walked towards him with a firm grip on his cross-body bag strap.
As the distance closed, his smile widened. He presented himself gently in front of his chest, holding the bag strap. Choi Hong-seo’s feet, clad in sneakers, stopped between Lee Hae-sung’s neat loafers. It was Sunday, so his attire was generally casual.
Mmm. With a sound of exertion, Lee Hae-sung hugged his lover tightly. As if he had missed him for days.
“Let’s do it in the car.”
He whispered, burying his lips in his shoulder. The response came back, “That sounds a bit naughty, doesn’t it?” Releasing his lover from his embrace, Lee Hae-sung, though looking disappointed, readily opened the passenger door.
The sedan left the front of Park Dong-ha’s officetel and quickly merged into Yeongdong-daero.
“You didn’t go to the after-party?”
“Ah… it was boring without Mr. Who-knows-who. You know I can’t stand boredom.”
“I’m waiting at home, why?”
“I happened to be on my way home and passed by that officetel, so I stopped by. And sometimes, the Hong-seo security team should get to go home early too.”
Lee Hae-sung deflected the question playfully without giving a proper answer. But Choi Hong-seo guessed the reason.
He was afraid Choi Hong-seo might suddenly break out in a cold sweat and collapse again, that the spots might increase, or that the terrible event of Choi Hong-seo’s soul leaving Yoon Hye-an’s body might occur. Even with a bodyguard, Lee Hae-sung was afraid of such things happening when he wasn’t there.
And one more thing. He was afraid that if Choi Hong-seo blinked for a moment, he might go see a shaman.
Lee Hae-sung was no longer satisfied with just assigning a bodyguard. He couldn’t stand being in different spaces for long, even in the same house. Even with Choi Hong-seo in front of him and being together, he wasn’t fully at ease.
It was different from distrust. It wasn’t distrust, but anxiety. He was being consumed by a pathological, extreme anxiety. He only tried to hide it in front of Choi Hong-seo with his playfully crafted conversations and smiles.
“Are you mad because I waited?”
Lee Hae-sung, who had stopped the car at a red light, noticed Choi Hong-seo’s steady gaze and looked back. He then playfully tugged at Choi Hong-seo’s hood. Choi Hong-seo shook his head.
“Why would I be mad when you waited for me?”
Lee Hae-sung’s hand, which had been pulling the hood, now cupped Choi Hong-seo’s cheeks. His large hands always extended beyond his cheeks to touch his ears. With a gentle stroking motion on his earlobes and auricles, as if sculpting a new ear, Choi Hong-seo felt some of his pent-up frustration ease. He buried his face in the inside of his wrist, which smelled pleasant, and heard a low, pleasant laugh.
“You were red like a startled rabbit earlier. Now you like it?”
“You did that on purpose earlier…!”
Choi Hong-seo recalled the incident in the hallway before the script study, where Lee Hae-sung had deliberately touched his earlobe while Park Dong-ha was clearly watching. Choi Hong-seo, who had been about to confront Lee Hae-sung about it, suddenly stopped and grabbed his arms with both hands.
His hands, large in proportion to his height, were also quite thick. When he was completely relaxed, they were so heavy that Choi Hong-seo had to hold them with both hands. Nevertheless, due to his long, straight fingers and overall sleek, sculpted beauty, they didn’t look clumsy at all. His well-shaped, large fingernails were neatly trimmed. Every strand of Lee Hae-sung’s hair, the combination of his suit, shirt, and tie, even his fingernails, were meticulously managed as part of the ARA Group’s image. Rough cuticles or slightly overgrown nails were unacceptable. He was a walking ARA Group billboard.
Forgetting his original purpose, Choi Hong-seo admired his hands, moving them around, but soon came to his senses and lowered his head.
Sniff sniff. Sniff sniff. He brought his nose to his fingertips and sniffed several times. Lee Hae-sung’s shoulders shook with great amusement.
“What are you doing? So cute. Are you imitating Tiffany? Should I stroke your chin too, Hong-seo?”
“Did you smoke, Mister?”
“Ah…”
For a moment, the smile vanished from his amused face. Ah… He rolled his eyes, avoiding Choi Hong-seo’s gaze, and started the car as the light changed.
“30 minutes ago. I washed my hands and gargled, but is the smell unpleasant?”
He raised the hand holding the steering wheel and sniffed his fingertips, looking like an ordinary man for a moment. A normal man in a normal relationship, embarrassed at being caught by his lover, who thought he had quit smoking, still smoking. Setting aside the car he was driving and his appearance.
“No, that’s not why I said it…”
“Once I started touching them again, it’s hard to stop. I’ll quit. Okay?”
“It’s better to smoke when you want to and gradually reduce it, rather than being too stressed.”
“You know well. Did Hong-seo also quit after smoking?”
Choi Hong-seo shook his head.
“I never had much curiosity about that sort of thing. I saw people around me trying to quit, so I know.”
“Given Hong-seo’s personality, you would have stayed even further away from it since preparing for your debut.”
“I wasn’t trying to nag. I just hoped you wouldn’t smoke for your health; I don’t particularly dislike it if you do.”
Lee Hae-sung smiled at Choi Hong-seo intermittently while driving. It was a smile of gratitude for his understanding.
“And, you were already caught smoking again.”
“Hmm? When? Ah… that time.”
Lee Hae-sung nodded and smiled, a little bitterly, darkly. At the time, he hadn’t been sure that ‘Yoon Hye-an’ was Choi Hong-seo. Lee Hae-sung had smoked in the car while driving him home after receiving ‘counseling’ at his suggestion. His heart had torn at the sight of him smoking again, after saying he had quit with difficulty. Because Choi Hong-seo, in the guise of ‘Yoon Hye-an’, knew why he had no choice but to pick up a cigarette again.
“It was real.”
“What was?”
“You said Yoon Hye-an seemed to know why I started smoking again. I said that, didn’t I?”
“……”
“You knew everything.”
Choi Hong-seo didn’t take his eyes off his profile. He didn’t miss the ripples of emotion covering his seemingly firm face, taking it all in. It felt new again that this ‘ordinary romantic date’ they were having together was neither ordinary nor a daily occurrence for them. He wanted to look at him as much as possible.
“Because you knew why I started smoking again… that’s why I brought up the topic of cigarettes.”
Lee Hae-sung, stopped at another light, muttered blankly as if talking to himself. Slowly turning to Choi Hong-seo, his face was wracked with intense emotion. The difficult, unbelievable process of recognizing the lover in front of him was resurfacing within him.
“So, from now on, don’t smoke in secret. Smoke in front of me instead.”
To pull him out of the emotional storm, even just a little, Choi Hong-seo smiled.
“Still… I do think I hope you’ll quit, even if it’s slowly.”
Lee Hae-sung’s hand, which had been resting limply on Choi Hong-seo’s thigh, reached out and covered Choi Hong-seo’s hand. Thinking he was just going to hold his hand, he linked pinkies.
“If you tell me to quit, I’ll quit. Whose words are they?”
Choi Hong-seo met his joke with a smile. The link, connected only by pinkies, looked so fragile that he held his finger and tightly grasped Lee Hae-sung’s hand. The light changed, but Lee Hae-sung started driving, leaving his right hand held by Choi Hong-seo as it was.
“When you said to smoke in front of you instead. It was thrilling. You had that kind of passion, my Baby.”
“You’re the only one who sees me as Baby.”
“Hong-seo probably sees someone twelve years younger as a Baby too.”
Hearing his words, it seemed plausible.
“I was bothered by the twelve-year age gap, but now it’s widened by another year. I’ve become an even worse thief.”
Lee Hae-sung clicked his tongue and shook his head. It was as he said. If Choi Hong-seo were alive, he would be twenty-eight, but Yoon Hye-an was currently twenty-seven. That made him thirteen years younger than the forty-year-old Lee Hae-sung.
“I’m not a thief. Back then, and even now, you haven’t stolen anything from me.”
He almost added, “If anything, I’m the thief,” but he closed his mouth. He felt it would only upset him.
“I’m grateful you see me that way… but can I steal a little of Hong-seo’s time?”
“Isn’t it too late for a date? Tomorrow is Monday.”
“It is a date, but a rather long one. I’m not going to work for a while.”
“You’re not going to work…?”
“Thanks to Mr. Seo Jun-yeong, the crank-in has been postponed, and I took a vacation because I wanted to go on a trip with Hong-seo.”
“Is that allowed?”
“It’s allowed. Well, I’ll have to handle some work during the trip, though.”
“Speaking of Seonbae Seo Jun-yeong…”
“I’ve booked a check-up for Hong-seo at a clinic in Minnesota, USA.”
As if he didn’t want to waste time and emotions on Seonbae Seo Jun-yeong’s story, or as if there was a more important issue, Lee Hae-sung cut off Hong-seo’s words. His voice was stiff, so Choi Hong-seo didn’t dare bring up Seo Jun-yeong again.
“It’s a top-tier hospital, both in the US and globally. We’ll conduct every test possible there.”
He seemed to know the purpose of the trip. Choi Hong-seo unconsciously squeezed Lee Hae-sung’s hand, which he was holding.
“I promised I’d find a way.”
Lee Hae-sung squeezed back.
“They’ll surely find something there. They’ll figure out something about those spots too. I’m not dismissing Korean medical standards, but we’ve done everything we can here.”
Choi Hong-seo recalled the business card of the shaman Lee Jong-ik, still in his cardigan pocket. He understood Lee Hae-sung’s desire to solve things with the power of proven systems and principles, like medicine and science, but… the fact that another person’s soul had awakened in the body of someone who was only breathing while unconscious was itself an error that couldn’t be explained by systems or principles. Could an error that occurred outside the realm of principles be corrected by principles?
“Mister.”
“It’s a thorough examination, so it will take time, but it’s just a check-up. There’s no need to worry. I’ll be with you the whole time. Okay?”
“Can’t we just go see that shaman one more time?” Choi Hong-seo, who had been about to ask that, changed his mind. Then, looking at him with a determined face, he nodded.
“But when do we leave?”
“We fly out in a week.”
“Then, before we go to America, there’s just one thing I want to ask.”
He would introduce Lee Hae-sung to Park Dong-ha as promised. However, he couldn’t let it be the ‘introduction’ Park Dong-ha wanted. He had no intention of sending Lee Hae-sung to such a place, nor did he intend to deceive Park Dong-ha by sending Lee Hae-sung, who had no such intentions.
Wondering what request his lover, who rarely acted spoiled, might have, Lee Hae-sung glanced at the passenger seat. It was late Sunday night. The express highway leading to Bundang was clear. They would reach their destination within 20 minutes, but that was enough time.
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