By Zephyria Choi Hong-seo burrowed deeper into his embrace. He adjusted his grip on his upper body, clad in a vest over a shirt without a jacket, several times and rubbed his neck and shoulders exposed above the shirt collar.
Lee Hae-sung didn’t usually wear perfume, but when they were this close, he could breathe in all the scents emanating from him. Shower gel, cologne, aftershave, and body spray… Choi Hong-seo loved this unique scent created by the mixture of meticulously selected products with his body odor.
Thinking, It’s mine, he rubbed his dry lips against his neck.
“Are you feeling a bit better?”
Lee Hae-sung asked tenderly. But the headache continued to throb at his temples. Choi Hong-seo bit his lower lip hard.
“Baby, do you want to eat macarons? I picked some up from Hong-seo’s favorite bakery while I was in Hannam-dong.”
Lee Hae-sung, believing Choi Hong-seo had calmed down somewhat, tried to pull away. But Choi Hong-seo tightly gripped his vest with his hands, refusing to let go.
“Actually, back then, I didn’t want to leave you, old man.”
“……”
His embrace, formed by smooth curves of muscle, was firm yet not hard. But he felt that warm embrace momentarily stiffen.
“Ji-in Hyung, and you, old man… you said you were coming to Bangkok… I wanted to introduce you to Hyung. I even entertained the possibility that it might be possible… even after I had made up my mind, I held onto that hope. As if I wouldn’t die, as if a new day would keep coming for me.”
“Hong-seo-ya…”
Lee Hae-sung’s voice trembled. He couldn’t even muster the strength to hug Choi Hong-seo tighter this time.
“I didn’t care about anything else, but I didn’t want to let you go, old man. Honestly, I wanted to be happy, and I wanted to be greedy.”
Even after meeting like this again, even after being recognized as Choi Hong-seo and not Yoon Hye-an, even while talking about all their past stories… neither of them could bring themselves to mention ‘that time’.
‘That time’ when Choi Hong-seo had to stand on the 32nd floor of a rooftop bar in Bangkok.
“Even though I didn’t want to go… I thought it was my responsibility to disappear.”
“……”
“But waking up in a body like this… means that wasn’t it, right? Old man, am I… being punished?”
“That’s not true. You haven’t done anything to deserve punishment.”
Lee Hae-sung’s stiff body and lips finally moved. He gripped Choi Hong-seo’s shoulders with immense force, pushing him away with great strength. To see his face. As expected, Choi Hong-seo’s face and eyes were not normal.
“A member who suffered with me was desperate for his father’s surgery fees… and apparently, I didn’t even hesitate. Louis Vuitton this and that…”
“Hong-seo-ya, Choi Hong-seo.”
With unfocused eyes, rambling incoherently, Choi Hong-seo didn’t even realize he was referring to his past self, Yoon Hye-an, as ‘I’.
This time, Lee Hae-sung cupped his lover’s cheeks. They felt like burning coals. In an instant, a chill ran down Lee Hae-sung’s entire body. It was like that time at the Gutdang in Gangwon-do, when he had supported the trembling ‘Yoon Hye-an’ as if embracing him. With a body burning with fever, clinging to him, unwilling to let go, he had broken his heart. That was the time Yoon Hye-an no longer looked like Yoon Hye-an.
“Why would Dong-ha do that to me? I thought it was unfair to someone he doesn’t remember, but that wasn’t it. Rather, I wonder how he could have thought of trusting me again, even for a moment. If I were Dong-ha…”
“Choi Hong-seo!”
“……”
“Look at me. Meet my eyes.”
Choi Hong-seo, hearing his name called by Lee Hae-sung, stopped his frantic rambling. He fumbled his gaze around, finally managing to meet Lee Hae-sung’s eyes with difficulty. The face he longed to see was blurry, and he realized his eyes were filled with tears.
“Why is that something you did? You are not Yoon Hye-an.”
He blinked slowly. Thick tears streamed down, and his face became clear again.
“But I like it… even if it’s Yoon Hye-an’s appearance… old man, I… I don’t want to disappear.”
“……”
“Actually, I’m scared.”
His lips, confessing his fear, trembled. The tears that seeped into his lips were hot.
Lee Hae-sung’s hands, gripping his face so tightly they felt like they would push it in, felt like the only force holding him to this earth.
“Hong-seo, do you remember?”
Lee Hae-sung’s eyes, bloodshot and gleaming, met Choi Hong-seo’s almost as if glaring.
“I seem like someone who can do anything, who can control the whole world. You said that, Hong-seo. Remember?”
Between Lee Hae-sung’s palms and Choi Hong-seo’s cheeks, burning tears continued to seep.
“You’re right, Hong-seo. I can do that. I’ve lived without doing it even though I could, but not anymore.”
Lee Hae-sung’s thumbs slowly rubbed Choi Hong-seo’s cheeks. As if drawn in by a hypnosis, Choi Hong-seo gazed endlessly into his eyes.
“Everything is up to me, but my heart won’t let me send you away. So you will never disappear.”
Lee Hae-sung slowly wiped away the tears on Choi Hong-seo’s cheeks, then pulled the body before him into his embrace once more. As if to prove his words of not letting him disappear, his arms and embrace were so constricting that Choi Hong-seo’s breathing became labored.
This was perhaps the moment Choi Hong-seo was most honest in front of Lee Hae-sung.
Thinking that if he struggled, this person would struggle even more, that if he knew his feelings, this person would hurt more than him, he revealed the emotions he had buried deep inside to bear them alone. He realized that was showing the raw flesh of his heart to him.
Even while undressing and making love with him, he had never truly shown the naked flesh of his body or his heart.
That day, Choi Hong-seo burned with fever, vomited, and spoke nonsense with parched lips. However, this time, Lee Hae-sung did not take ‘Yoon Hye-an’ to the hospital. Instead, he took him to the bedroom of their home in Bundang and stayed by his side all night, watching him.
Because he knew the symptoms were meaningless to take him to the hospital.
■
“Ugh, ghk! Ghk!”
Kneeling on the mat, Lee Hae-sung gripped the cable machine’s rope with both hands and pulled with all his remaining strength. Looking at his navel, he curled his body and repeatedly pulled down the rope. The cable crunch posture was like a prayer begging God for a fervent wish. His upper abdomen was subjected to tearing pain, but he welcomed the pain.
“Forty-seven, forty-eight… forty… nine… fifty.”
When the trainer’s count ended, Lee Hae-sung released the grip and collapsed forward, gasping for breath. Sweat poured like rain from his body, which had just finished two hours of high-intensity exercise. The sleeveless shirt he had thrown off was already soaked with sweat, making its original color unrecognizable. With every breath Lee Hae-sung took, the muscles all over his body bulged as if about to explode. He looked like a giant beast suppressing its rage.
“Good job. Wipe your sweat and rehydrate.”
At the trainer’s encouraging pat on his back, Lee Hae-sung sat up and took the towel and tumbler the trainer handed him. While roughly wiping the sweat from his bare upper body, he drank an electrolyte drink made from a special powder.
It wasn’t until late at night that Choi Hong-seo’s fever finally subsided. Even adding up all the times he dozed off during the night, it wouldn’t be more than an hour. He hadn’t canceled his appointment with the trainer, thinking he had to exercise if he couldn’t sleep or eat properly, but his thoughts were constantly with Choi Hong-seo. He kept feeling anxious, wondering if he might wake up. Even though the private gym where he was exercising was directly below the third-floor bedroom where Choi Hong-seo was sleeping.
“Are you busy with work lately?”
“Work? Why?”
“You have dark circles, your skin is rough. You don’t seem to be sleeping well.”
“Haha… you’re really a professional. I asked you to make it high-intensity, and I wasn’t keeping up today, was I?”
Wiping the sweat flowing down his chest and abs, Lee Hae-sung laughed self-deprecatingly.
He had been training with an American trainer, whom he met for the first time on a business trip in his early thirties and personally persuaded to come to Korea, for 7 to 8 years now. The trainer, with whom he had become friends over time, still only knew basic Korean like ‘Hello, Thank you, Hurry, How much?’ despite his long stay in Korea. Although he lived in Seoul, he remained a perfect American, and all his other clients besides Lee Hae-sung were foreigners. Lee Hae-sung liked that.
“No, that’s not it. You’re still at the level of active athletes. It looks like you’re trying to compensate for sleep deprivation with exercise.”
“Thanks for the advice. But it’s not because of work, it’s because we’re newlyweds.”
The trainer shook his head and laughed as if he couldn’t be helped. He looked like he didn’t know if it was a joke or serious.
“To hear you say something like that. You’ve never been like this with anyone you’ve met before.”
Lee Hae-sung shrugged and evaded the question, and the trainer patted Lee Hae-sung’s tensed deltoid muscles.
“Well, in any case, it’s happy sleep deprivation. That’s good then. Let’s do some final stretching.”
After the trainer left, Lee Hae-sung called Manager Kang while walking on the inclined treadmill.
“How is the VIP?”
“Still sleeping.”
“That’s good. Then let’s talk quickly now.”
Looking out at Mount Taebong through the treadmill’s front window, Lee Hae-sung spoke without hesitation.
“Prepare for me to get a comprehensive check-up at the Mayo Clinic. The cost doesn’t matter, and use all available means to make it happen as soon as possible.”
“Are you referring to the VIP’s examination?”
“……”
Ascending the treadmill at a 15-degree incline, Lee Hae-sung turned his head to look at Manager Kang. His expression was one of reproach, as if asking why such an obvious question was being asked.
“Understood.”
“It doesn’t matter how long the waiting list is, or who the other patients are. I can’t wait more than two weeks.”
Wiping the sweat from his face and neck with the towel draped over the treadmill, Lee Hae-sung set the incline even higher.
“And, how is Chuncheon these days?”
Chuncheon meant Chuncheon Prison. It was where Myeong Do-hoon, the former CEO of UB Entertainment, was incarcerated.