By Zephyria “Can you hold me like Choi Hong-seo?”
Despite his seemingly calm demeanor and tone, his face and eyes were contorted. Though his posture didn’t collapse, he looked like someone begging.
Choi Hong-seo wet his lips with his tongue once, then asked with trembling lips,
“What… do you mean…”
“Meaning… For Yoon Hye-an, it honestly wouldn’t mean anything.”
He mulled over the word ‘meaning’ in his mouth and spoke honestly.
“What I want is a stand-in for Choi Hong-seo.”
It wasn’t a harsh tone meant to deliberately inflict more pain. His dry, parched voice held no emotion.
In the distance, thunder rumbled low, as if about to unleash rain again. The low-hanging clouds that covered Seoul seemed to reach his crown. Lee Hae-sung, with one hand shoved into his pants pocket, ran the other through his hair, disheveling it. His gaze had once again fallen towards the tip of Choi Hong-seo’s foot.
“I know that proposing to sleep together while pretending to be someone else might be an uncomfortable offer for Yoon Hye-an. Even if you refuse, there will be no repercussions…”
“I’ll take mine back too.”
“……”
I cut him off. Clenching my fist inside the coat he had draped over my shoulders and fastened at the front, I spoke as firmly as possible.
Lee Hae-sung, who had been speaking in a tired, heavy voice, looked up only to see Choi Hong-seo.
“What I said about having no expectations from the Vice President. I’ll take it back.”
“……”
“Actually, I wanted to sleep with the Vice President.”
“……”
“It doesn’t really matter if it’s for someone else or not. After all, unless we’re lovers, it’s the same whether you pretend to be someone or do whatever, isn’t it? We’re not sleeping together out of love.”
“Are you serious?”
Lee Hae-sung looked straight at Choi Hong-seo, and this time, Choi Hong-seo’s gaze dropped diagonally. Staring at his right hand, which came into view, Choi Hong-seo slowly nodded.
I could touch that hand again. There was no way I could refuse that.
“I was originally… that kind of person, you know. Maybe that’s why.”
He emphasized once more, his eyes fixed on the large hand with its distinct, dark blue veins, yet possessing a neat shape.
“I’ve wanted to sleep with you for a long time.”
It was meant to say, so don’t feel any unnecessary guilt. While you might feel sinful thinking the person proposing to sleep with you is Yoon Hye-an… I, who intend to sleep with you while you’re under that delusion, am also accepting this proposal as an opportunity.
I didn’t know if he believed ‘Yoon Hye-an’s’ words, which claimed he wanted to sleep with him, as a sign of being sexually promiscuous.
His earnest gaze, staring intently, seemed like it would demand the truth and threaten me fiercely at any moment.
But he didn’t. He pushed himself up from the railing and gestured with his chin towards Choi Hong-seo’s back.
“Then let’s go.”
Turning around, I saw the traffic light had turned green.
He had apparently sent his escorts away entirely, as he drove himself with Choi Hong-seo in the passenger seat. He first found his phone and tapped away at it, then soon started the car.
After driving straight for a bit, the SUV made a U-turn and headed back the way it came. It entered H Hotel, located at the entrance of Sowol-ro, and descended into the underground parking lot. It was the same hotel where, on our first date walking Sowol-ro, I had resolved to go for entertainment.
It was unlikely for him to do so with Yoon Hye-an, but I was relieved it wasn’t his home. It seemed that when I revisited past emotions in a space holding Choi Hong-seo’s memories, symptoms of fever and nausea would arise.
In the parking lot, someone who had been waiting guided his vehicle. As he parked in a spot that had been cleared with barriers set up, he said casually,
“It might be inconvenient, but please turn your face that way for a moment. I need to get the key without checking in.”
He pressed the parking brake button and picked up the coat Choi Hong-seo had placed on his lap, draping it like a veil.
“Though they’re trustworthy and won’t gossip, it’s better for you if your face isn’t seen in the first place.”
As I awkwardly turned my head, I heard the sound of the driver’s side window rolling down. After a brief exchange of words, the window rolled back up, and a moment later, his hand reached in and pulled the coat down.
“It’s done. You can get out now.”
His actions, though seemingly kind, were a far cry from the kindness of when he was Choi Hong-seo. Back then, every touch, every word, every glance, and even the end of his smile was imbued with a sweet fragrance.
Even though it was so different, I still liked it just the same.
Every time his hand reached out and touched me, my heart still contracted fiercely like a coward and expanded explosively.
I hurried to keep pace behind him. We used the staff elevator and arrived at the room without encountering anyone.
Entering the room, he bypassed the living area and headed straight for the bedroom. Then, adjusting the curtains, lights, and room temperature, he said without looking back at Choi Hong-seo, who had followed him in.
“You’ll need to prepare some things, so take your time and wash up. I’ll use the bathroom over there.”
Finally, he lowered the lighting and turned towards me. He looked at Choi Hong-seo, who stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. Following the direction of his gaze, I lowered my head and only then realized. I had been holding his coat tightly all the way here.
He left the bedroom without a word, closing the door.
After hanging the coat carefully in the dressing room and taking a slow shower, Choi Hong-seo couldn’t bring himself to leave the bathroom for a while. Closing my eyes, one to five. Then one to ten. No matter how many times I repeated the exercise, the tension, anxiety, and strange fear didn’t subside. It always worked well before going on stage…
In front of the mirror, I amusingly examined Yoon Hye-an’s face, which I had grown somewhat accustomed to. My water-dampened face, as some people said, did seem to resemble Choi Hong-seo’s. Choi Hong-seo also had large, clear eyes, but Yoon Hye-an’s were a bit bigger. Perhaps because of his long, dark eyelashes, Yoon Hye-an’s eyes looked more striking. Choi Hong-seo’s lips were redder. Still, the basic foundation was similar. Perhaps because Choi Hong-seo’s expressions were superimposed, he seemed to resemble me more than the Yoon Hye-an I knew in the past.
How could I make my eyes look a little smaller? Rubbing over my double eyelids, Choi Hong-seo sighed and let his hands drop.
The actions he showed me on the way down from the Gutdang in Gangwon Province… because of them, I had harbored a sliver of hope for a moment. In that moment, Lee Hae-sung was treating Yoon Hye-an entirely as Choi Hong-seo. It wasn’t a test, nor was it a role-playing game he was deliberately playing out of longing while his mind told him otherwise.
I felt as if he would call me ‘Baby’ at any moment, holding me close and stroking my shoulders and back.
That Choi Hong-seo’s soul could awaken in Yoon Hye-an’s body… who could have imagined such a thing? It was a truth no one would believe.
“When a giraffe wears a dragon’s mask, they don’t match, and it’s suffocating.”
Mulling over the shaman’s words, Choi Hong-seo shook his head to clear his thoughts. This was not the time to be lost in such thoughts. In the meantime, I wiped away the condensation that had fogged the mirror again with my palm.
Hoping to look even a little more like Choi Hong-seo, I bit my lower lip hard to make my lips look redder.
I stepped out of the bathroom after making a big decision, but he wasn’t in the bedroom. Instead, a set of pajamas was neatly folded at the foot of the bed.
“……”
The first night I slept over at his house. These were the pajamas he had given me.
I stopped in front of them and stared at them for a long time. On the pajama shirt, folded beautifully as if displayed in a store, a bottle of perfume also lay neatly.
It was the same perfume he had gifted to Choi Hong-seo.
What he had tapped into his phone right after getting in the car must have been instructions to his escorts.
He wanted me to wear this, to spray this. If I didn’t do this, he wouldn’t be able to hold me while thinking I was Choi Hong-seo…
Taking off my robe and placing it on the bench at the foot of the bed, I sprayed perfume on my bare body. The way he had taught me.
Inhaling deeply at the scent, which I hadn’t smelled in a long time, I closed my eyes without realizing it. Even without the perfume, he always exuded a pleasant scent, but this perfume was his scent that I remembered most vividly. My entire body trembled with a jolt, as if I were being covered by him.
I put on the pajamas over my bare, perfumed body. Yoon Hye-an’s body was frail compared to Choi Hong-seo’s, but since our heights and basic builds weren’t that different, the fit of his pajamas seemed reasonably similar. It was a relief.
It wasn’t until I started buttoning them that I realized my hands were shaking. It was difficult to fasten the buttons, fumbling several times.
Just as I managed to fasten the top button, the bedroom door, designed to open from both sides, creaked open cautiously.
He stood there in a robe, holding two glasses of Ondaroks.
Choi Hong-seo instinctively turned his body away from him and hurried with his buttoning. Behind him, I heard his dry chuckle.
It sounded like a laugh that meant, ‘Since we’ll be stripping it all off and rolling around together soon, what does it matter if you show a bit of your bare chest now…’
“If you think you can’t do it sober, would you like a drink?”
His breath, as he approached, carried the scent of whiskey. The strong alcohol had mostly evaporated, leaving a heavy, potent aroma of whiskey. This, too, was one of the scents of Lee Hae-sung that Choi Hong-seo remembered.
I wanted to remember every moment that followed with a clear head, but I felt the need to suppress this trembling and tension.
Taking a glass from him, I closed my eyes and gulped it down. My esophagus felt like it was burning.
As I took the third large gulp, he forcibly pulled the glass away.
“What are you doing? Do you want to collapse?”
“……”
Wiping the alcohol that had spilled onto my lips with the back of my hand, Choi Hong-seo stepped back a couple of paces. His gaze, after quickly scanning the appearance of ‘Yoon Hye-an’ in the loose pajamas, landed on my trembling fingers.
“You can’t do it unless you drown yourself in alcohol? Then stop now. I asked you to be a stand-in, but I have no intention of forcing myself on someone who doesn’t want it.”
His voice was as cold as his hardened expression. He turned and walked to the table by the window, placing his glass down.
Choi Hong-seo quickly followed and grabbed his arm. Shaking my head and looking him straight in the face, I vehemently denied it.
“No! It’s really not because I’m scared. It’s just… because I’m nervous.”
I was afraid he would send me away. I needed something to hold onto his heart. Words like Choi Hong-seo… I had to say them.
I buried my forehead on his shoulder, still looking down with a rigid expression. I clutched the sleeve of his robe as if I were squeezing it.
“When we… do it, I might not feel much.”
“……”
“Even so, it’s not because I dislike being with you, Uncle…”
Before I could finish speaking, he grabbed Choi Hong-seo’s upper arm and pulled him towards the bed.