By Zephyria “It was all I could do for you.”
“Don’t say ‘all you could do.’ You were the only one who treated me like that.”
As he was embraced, he embraced him in return. When they were like this, he wasn’t anxious even if he couldn’t see his face with his eyes closed. With someone holding him so tightly, it felt like he couldn’t simply disappear. Yet, he couldn’t understand what kept shaking his emotions.
Perhaps the memories he tried hard not to recall were precisely the memories he, in the present, had to face most squarely.
Choi Hong-seo continued to clutch the back of his knit. He clung to him without hesitation, like a desperate plea. Then he rubbed his face against his shoulder and neck. It was an act of indulgence, or perhaps an attempt to leave his own scent. These were all actions he hadn’t readily taken in the past.
“To you, who had to smile like a toy, with no self-respect or emotions, while catering to VIPs, you… you called me a VIP…”
As if to cut off his breath, Lee Hae-sung tightened his grip. His breath, touching his ears and below his cheeks, was rough.
“It’s literally true, Hong-seo-ya. A very important person. Who else would be my VIP besides you? You are the only important person, and if you are someone working for me in my house, you are the person I should pay the most attention to.”
With his forehead against his shoulder, Choi Hong-seo shook his head vigorously. Was it the lingering scent of the perfume? He couldn’t avoid the attack of memories. The boiling hot emotions finally poured out as tears.
“That’s not it. Not now… before, when I was the old Choi Hong-seo…”
Feeling the dampness on his neck, Lee Hae-sung carefully let Choi Hong-seo go. His hand, wiping his cheek as he looked at his face, was as delicate as ever, as if handling something precious.
“If there’s something you want to say, tell me slowly. It’s okay. Okay?”
“The first time, the day I slept over at the guest room in Seocho-dong. When I woke up, you weren’t there… but someone was in the second-floor dressing room… I overheard you talking to Manager Kang.”
“……”
“To Manager Kang, that I… was the VVIP of this house.”
Upon hearing that, as if he had secretly left the dressing room and lain back down in bed, hot tears flowed uncontrollably. Lee Hae-sung, who was cupping Choi Hong-seo’s cheeks with his palms and listening intently, suddenly lifted Choi Hong-seo’s face with a rough movement.
A moment before his death.
A moment that Lee Hae-sung himself didn’t know Choi Hong-seo was overhearing.
It was another powerful piece of evidence.
Even though he already fully believed it was Choi Hong-seo, he was violently shaken by proof that reaffirmed that fact once more. His large shoulders heaved, and his ragged breaths touched Choi Hong-seo’s cheeks. His hands frantically fumbled over his face, and then, unable to bear it, he fiercely embraced his lover again.
“You were listening to that?”
“That the real VIP called me a VIP… just that alone felt like it compensated for my entire past.”
Sigh… A deep sigh, unlike his usual sweet ones, escaped from the depths of Lee Hae-sung’s lungs, as if his heart was breaking.
Hugging Choi Hong-seo’s broad, hunched back tightly in his arms once more, Choi Hong-seo blinked rapidly to hold back tears.
“I really wanted to tell you. Oppa… as far as I know, you were the only one the word VIP suited.”
“……”
“That’s why I respected you, and that’s why I fell in love with you.”
But it was impossible not to cry. Lee Hae-sung, his expression bewildered as if he had heard an unbelievable confession, slowly pulled Choi Hong-seo away from him.
As tears flowed from Choi Hong-seo’s eyelashes and the corners of his eyes, Lee Hae-sung quickly wiped them away. As if the moment his tears fell to the floor, everything he had gained would shatter. Tears welled up in Lee Hae-sung’s eyes too, but he never let them fall.
“I loved you because you were someone who loved me that way, Hong-seo.”
“……”
Seeing his lover’s face, looking up like a child who had heard a difficult lesson, Lee Hae-sung forced the best smile he could. He traced Choi Hong-seo’s tear-moistened, glistening lips with his thumb, and stroked his cheek with his other fingers.
“We don’t have much time left until our appointment, so you should stop crying now. I’ll wash your face with a wet towel. Come here.”
Lee Hae-sung led Choi Hong-seo towards the bathroom, pulling his hand, but Choi Hong-seo clung to Lee Hae-sung’s waist. This was very rare for Choi Hong-seo, who was generally a well-behaved child.
“You don’t want to let go? Then, do you want some water? Let’s drink some water.”
“The last thing I did in my room before leaving the hotel… was spray this perfume.”
Lee Hae-sung, with Choi Hong-seo clinging to his waist, froze as he reached for the mineral water from the minibar.
“It smelled like you… it felt like we were together, so I was okay. So… don’t feel hurt thinking about how scared I must have been.”
Choi Hong-seo recalled what Lee Hae-sung had called ‘unresolved feelings.’
Myeong Do-hoon, whom he had reported himself before jumping, was imprisoned after being sentenced. The photos in the camera Lee Hae-sung lent him—photos he had to delete one by one through his tears—were all recovered and decorated Rampas’s photo exhibition,
After waking up as Yoon Hye-an and moving to a small officetel, he had replaced the original posters Lee Hae-sung gifted him in the Sanctuary he set up there with crude imitations. Next to them was a bottle filled with a different perfume than the one Lee Hae-sung had gifted Choi Hong-seo.
The current me was fake. A knockoff. That’s what he had thought.
But now, being loved again as Choi Hong-seo by him, he was living together in his house. In the study of that house, the original movie posters he gifted were hung side by side, and now, he held in his hand the exact same perfume he had given Choi Hong-seo, no longer just a ‘fake’ bottle.
He had no regrets.
Though he had no lingering sorrow, he did have one wish.
I hope this person never hurts again. If only he could be certain that this person wouldn’t hurt, he could pay any price for it. Wasn’t this the person who washed away all his regrets?
“No, Hong-seo. If you keep doing this, you might get sick again. Let’s not think about things like that right now.”
“Mister… I love you. Truly.”
“I love you too, truly. Why are you talking as if you don’t believe me? Hm?”
Lee Hae-sung cupped Choi Hong-seo’s face, who was clinging to him, in both hands, then lowered his head, bringing his face right up close to his.
“We’re holding each other like this right now, Hong-seo. Stop thinking about the past. Look at me. Think only of me. That way, you won’t get hurt.”
Still with tears clinging to the corners of his eyes, he tried to focus on his eyes. Without any effort, the world before him was entirely Lee Hae-sung.
“Choi Hong-seo, who do you love?”
“…Lee Hae-sung.”
A warm smile and the reward of a kiss followed. And then a firm embrace.
“There, that’s good. Good boy, our Hong-seo. You did so well.”
That’s all you need to think about. From now on, we agree not to think about anything else but that. Just us. Just thinking that we love each other and want to be together. We define what supports that as good, and anything that obstructs it as evil.
His whisper sounded like an auditory hallucination coming from somewhere very far away.
■
“To the guest room? Hmm… You don’t really have to.”
Lee Hae-sung was lying halfway stretched out on the four-seater sofa. Choi Hong-seo was draped over him, clutching tightly near the side of Lee Hae-sung’s knit.
Stroking Choi Hong-seo’s hair and rubbing it between his fingers, Lee Hae-sung was on the phone with his cousin.
“Yeah, okay. Since I’ll probably be alone for about thirty minutes anyway.”
He liked the resonance of the voice when he listened with his ear against his chest. And the strong heartbeat. It felt like it was inside his own body.
After ending the call, Lee Hae-sung lowered his head and kissed the crown of Choi Hong-seo’s head.
“Is your cousin coming over to say hello?”
“I didn’t intentionally tell him I was coming, but I guess the news got to him.”
The cousin Lee Hae-sung mentioned was Jeong Ji-in’s lover. Choi Hong-seo knew about him now, having heard it from Lee Hae-sung.
“Hong-seo? Have you calmed down a bit?”
Choi Hong-seo nodded.
“We can reschedule the meeting for another day.”
“The perfume, hmm, I got emotional suddenly because of the perfume… that’s why.”
The moment he had let his emotions run wild felt embarrassing. He cleared his throat to steady his cracking voice and sat up from where he had been lying prone. Lee Hae-sung, who stood up after him, pointed to the dining table and spoke in a serious tone.
“I should throw away all the perfume. For making our Hong-seo cry like that.”
His tone was like scolding an innocent stepping stone or a desk corner for making a child cry. Although he knew Lee Hae-sung didn’t actually intend to do that, Choi Hong-seo quietly got up and packed the perfume into the bag he had placed on the dining chair.
Lee Hae-sung, who had been secretly smiling while covering his mouth with his hand, rose from the sofa to see Choi Hong-seo off. He cleared the smile from his face with a cough.
“Call me as soon as you two have talked. I’ll come down right away.”
“I will.”
“You won’t worry me, right?”
“No.”
Lee Hae-sung smiled contentedly, gently rubbing Choi Hong-seo’s cheek one more time with his thumb as he gave a firm answer.
Lee Hae-sung’s cousin, and Jeong Ji-in’s lover, arrived just as Choi Hong-seo was about to leave the guest room. The three exchanged brief greetings inside the entrance hall. Even with just Lee Hae-sung and his cousin, the hallway, which was by no means narrow, felt completely full. Their height, build, and masculine handsome faces looked quite similar, even for cousins. In fact, Lee Seo-kyung had exuded a different atmosphere from these two. Compared to them, he was thinner, more nervous, and obsessive…
“Hyean-ssi, you remember the cousin I mentioned a few times, right? The Team leader at Nox Hotel… Ah, when did he get promoted to Executive Director? I keep messing up.”
Choi Hong-seo, whose stomach had started to feel queasy upon recalling Lee Seo-kyung, steadied himself with the gentle touch on his back from Lee Hae-sung, and looked at the man before him, a man as large as his own lover.
“It’s just hard to get used to saying. Nice to meet you, I am Yi-han.”
“Hello. I am Yoon Hye-an.”
The shape and size of the hand shaking his were also similar to Lee Hae-sung’s.
This person was Hyung Ji-in’s lover. And Lee Seo-kyung’s brother.
“I heard you’re working on a movie with Hyung this time. You’re one of the actors in