By Zephyria ■
As is usual after sweating profusely and being ill, Choi Hong-seo felt refreshed upon waking. The feeling was clean, empty, and clear. The room was as quiet as a tomb, and Lee Hae-sung was nowhere in sight. Suddenly anxious, Choi Hong-seo sat up.
Tiffany, who had been curled up near my side, lifted her head and looked up.
“Tiffany, did you sleep here?”
Nyaa.
“You stayed with me all night?”
I gently massaged her small face all over. Today, the usually indifferent creature purred contentedly and willingly climbed onto my lap.
Hugging Tiffany, stroking her glossy fur and warm body, I tried to recall last night’s memories. Was it really last night? Hadn’t that much more time passed?
It seemed I had lost consciousness after Chairman Jo left the restaurant. I couldn’t recall anything after that. Only a vague sensation of a strong, warm force lifting me gently remained. Even that, I wasn’t sure if it was a dream or not.
Choi Hong-seo rolled up the sleeve of his pajamas. Lee Hae-sung’s pajamas were generously loose, easily sliding up to his elbows. This time, I lifted the hem of my top and looked down at my chest and abdomen. As expected, more spots had appeared. It had been like this every time after ‘that symptom’ appeared. Starting with a few near the nape of my neck, the spots had now increased to a disfiguring extent.
It would be enough to be disgusted, but Lee Hae-sung didn’t seem to mind.
He applied the ointment without so much as a frown, the frequency of their sex didn’t decrease, and his method of caressing—kissing, sucking, and biting all over his body—remained the same. Yet, from Choi Hong-seo’s perspective, he honestly didn’t even want to show his naked body to him.
He looked down at the spots spreading from beneath the pajama sleeve to the back of his hand. Because the ointment had been applied meticulously, the spots gleamed even in the dim light filtering through the drawn curtains. Sitting blankly in the silence, Choi Hong-seo gently stroked the back of his hand.
“Tiffany, do you know where Daddy went? Let’s go look for him.”
Looking at the ointment-covered spots made his brow ache. Even though he knew he couldn’t have gone far, he missed him. As Choi Hong-seo got up, Tiffany also hopped off the bed. Whether she truly understood the words about going to find Lee Hae-sung, or simply assumed it was obvious who Choi Hong-seo was looking for when he got out of bed, the child led the way without hesitation.
The inner door connecting the bedroom directly to the study was open about a handspan. It was as if Lee Hae-sung had left a sign saying, ‘I’m here, so don’t be surprised if you wake up.’ Choi Hong-seo followed Tiffany, who had darted through the gap in the door.
In the study, connected to the end of the hallway, Lee Hae-sung was talking with Manager Kang. While the exact content of their conversation wasn’t audible, the heavy, serious, and urgent atmosphere pressing down on the study was palpable. No matter how much he suffered from anxiety internally, Lee Hae-sung was someone who rarely showed it to Choi Hong-seo. Yet, his voice, speaking with Manager Kang, carried a sharpness, a rage that couldn’t be fully concealed even when suppressed.
Tiffany ran into the study first and settled into the single sofa. The conversation immediately stopped. Both men’s gazes turned towards the entrance. Choi Hong-seo gave Manager Kang a slight nod in greeting and then asked Lee Hae-sung,
“May I come in?”
“Of course.”
His voice was playful yet kind and gentle. No different from his usual self. Standing behind the desk, he had been smoking but quickly stubbed it out in the ashtray.
“You could have just kept smoking.”
“I was just about to put it out.”
Lee Hae-sung hastily made excuses, fanning the smoke away with his hand. Even though the two air purifiers running in the room made it not particularly stuffy.
At Lee Hae-sung’s nod, Manager Kang left the study after his greeting.
“Were you working?”
“Mm, just this and that. Things to sort out before we go to America.”
Answering vaguely, Lee Hae-sung closed the cover of the tablet spread open on his desk. Then, he turned from behind the desk and stood facing Choi Hong-seo. The atmosphere, which had felt somewhat nervous moments before, was gone, replaced by Choi Hong-seo’s affectionate lover with an embracing smile and gaze.
In these moments, Lee Hae-sung looked like someone who had never raised his voice in his life, never killed a bug. At least, that’s how it appeared to Choi Hong-seo.
Lee Hae-sung, who had wrapped his arms around Choi Hong-seo’s waist, lightly bumped his forehead against his.
“Is my Baby awake?”
Though he was treating him like a child more than usual, Choi Hong-seo didn’t feel shy; instead, he hugged him back. He wrapped his arms around his broad back, clad in a thin knit, resting his hands on his shoulders and leaning his temple and cheek against his neck. Touching his faint scent and body heat, a sense of nostalgia washed over him, as if he had rediscovered something precious lost long ago.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t beside you when you woke up. I had something urgent to take care of.”
As he stroked his lover’s hair, which was leaning against his face, Lee Hae-sung pressed his lips to his forehead.
“Your fever seems to have gone down. How are you feeling?”
“Good. I don’t feel nauseous either.”
“Then let’s eat something. My Baby has been on an empty stomach for too long.”
Choi Hong-seo slightly pulled away from his embrace. He met his face, which was looking at him with a smile, focused entirely on him. With his arms still loosely around Lee Hae-sung’s waist, Choi Hong-seo also focused solely on his smile.
“There’s something I want to talk about first.”
“Aren’t you hungry? It would be good to talk while eating something simple, though.”
“I just woke up, so I don’t have much of an appetite yet. Let’s talk, and then we can eat together. You haven’t eaten yet either, right, Daddy?”
“Is there anything you want to eat? Should I have them prepare egg porridge? And some pan-fried tofu. You like it, Hong-seo.”
Even after the conversation ended, he didn’t think he’d regain his appetite, but to reassure him, who was so eager to feed him something, Choi Hong-seo nodded. Lee Hae-sung sat Choi Hong-seo on the sofa and then used the intercom to request a meal and some warm tea.
Watching Lee Hae-sung’s profile as he gave a few instructions, Choi Hong-seo unconsciously began folding his fingers one by one on his lap. It was an unconscious action. One, two, three… Then he unfolded his fingers and clenched his fist tightly. A self-deprecating laugh escaped him. He felt that at the most crucial moments, the power of this habit wasn’t needed.
“What are you thinking about that you’re laughing by yourself?”
Lee Hae-sung asked, coming to sit beside him. Instead of answering directly, Choi Hong-seo brought up another topic.
“Daddy, back then, at the 32nd floor…”
“……”
“I didn’t count with my fingers. Because I wasn’t scared.”
A crack appeared on Lee Hae-sung’s usually gentle face. Tension filled the air. Choi Hong-seo gently placed his hand over Lee Hae-sung’s. The broad back of his hand, with its prominent blue veins, possessed the strength to crush anything, but for some reason, at this moment, it looked soft to Choi Hong-seo.
“But now, I regret that choice.”
“……”
“I was more precious to you than I realized. But I didn’t know that.”
“Hong-seo-ya.”
“So, I won’t do that anymore. Instead of me acting alone to protect you, isn’t it better for you if we roll around in the mud together… right?”
Lee Hae-sung swallowed dryly, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Then, he suddenly tightened his grip on Choi Hong-seo’s fingertips, which were covering his hand. With a face full of emotion that he showed to no one else, he looked at his lover and nodded several times.
“That’s right. That’s all that matters. Mud? That’s just temporary. It can be resolved. But a life without you… that’s an unsolvable problem. Just don’t leave me with a problem that can’t be solved and disappear.”
Choi Hong-seo also nodded. The more he listened, the more he felt Lee Hae-sung was right. Problems could be solved by being together. But if they lost each other, those problems would remain unresolved.
He felt he could say it. He would say it.
“You know Chairman Jo Seong-hyeon, right? President of JS Construction.”
“……”
“He has Yoon Hye-an’s sex tape.”
Lee Hae-sung’s expression didn’t change. With unwavering eyes, he quietly listened to Choi Hong-seo’s story.
“He plans to use it as leverage to call you out and threaten you.”
His gaze, which had been fixed on Choi Hong-seo’s eyes the whole time, loosely drifted down towards his chest.
“Daddy, did you know?”
“Look at me,” Choi Hong-seo urged, pulling his hand.
“Chairman Jo appeared at that place yesterday, and he said whatever he said. You knew all of it, didn’t you?”
“I told you I would love you badly, selfishly. I already said it.”
His voice carried an unyielding firmness. It was a will not to apologize, nor to promise that he wouldn’t engage in tailing or eavesdropping in the future.
“Pretending to be a gentleman and waiting patiently? I’ve tried it all. I only suffered great losses.”
His face, chillingly cold, mocked his past self.
“Investigating your present and even your past, having people follow you 24 hours a day… even if it was surveillance rather than protection, I wish I had acted like a madman back then. Hundreds, thousands of times. I dreamt of going back to that moment and cutting off the sprout of petty conscience.”
His tone grew increasingly agitated, and his eyes, which had been glistening as if doused in oil, suddenly softened, pleading for Choi Hong-seo’s understanding.
“Even if it’s your life, I dreamt of not letting you have control over it. Of not letting you leave me.”
Whether it was tailing or eavesdropping. Or kidnapping or imprisonment, which he had mentioned jokingly in the past. Choi Hong-seo didn’t care. He wasn’t trying to get a promise to stop such surveillance. Lee Hae-sung was misunderstanding.
“Then why, when you knew Chairman Jo appeared in that room, didn’t you barge in immediately?”
“……”
“You waited for me to tell you myself. So I could make a different choice than before.”
Because you are someone who wants me to come to your side on my own two feet, rather than chaining me and making me your doll. Even if it means following me, worrying that I might fall and get hurt.
Lee Hae-sung, his face contorted as if enduring labor pains, looked at him wordlessly, sweat beading on his hands. Choi Hong-seo gently rested his forehead on his shoulder.
“Any love you give me, Daddy, cannot be bad or selfish… That’s what I mean.”