By Zephyria 
Just when Joo Tae-hyun was sick of feeling like he was stuck in a loop, Seo Baek-han’s anxious expression, which he had never seen before, and the way his fingertips twitched as if he wanted to grab him at any moment, caught his eye.
There wasn’t much time left until boarding, and if he thought of it as their last meeting, the end of which was already foreseen… he could listen to him. Joo Tae-hyun decided to quietly wait for Seo Baek-han to spill what he had prepared to say.
“First, let me ask for your understanding…”
Seo Baek-han, who was about to rush into the conversation, suddenly let out a hollow laugh. Perhaps it was because of his slightly furrowed brow, but it felt more like a sigh than a laugh.
“Maybe this habit of mine hurt you, Tae-hyun? ‘Understanding,’ ‘regret’… words that pretend to be polite but only think of my own face.”
Joo Tae-hyun’s eyes widened slightly in surprise.
“I don’t know, I can’t be sure yet… I hate saying things like that, but lately, I keep thinking about it. I don’t even know what my own feelings are.”
He carefully chose his next words, then laughed hollowly, saying, “Ah, this is a disaster. I really don’t know.”
“Tae-hyun. I don’t want to divorce you.”
“……”
“That’s for sure.”
Seo Baek-han, who had been constantly washing his face with his hands, said firmly as if he didn’t want to drag it out any longer.
“It’s not because I like your conditions the most, or because you’re a good spouse, or because I can use you comfortably because you like me, or… because I like having sex with you.”
His voice grew stronger as he spoke, like someone who was finally realizing his own thoughts and feelings as he spoke them out loud. He took a deep, long breath to calm himself.
“I’m not so crazy that I’d take a knife for you for such trivial reasons.”
“……”
“It may be hard to believe, but I really didn’t calculate anything at the time I was stabbed. No, I couldn’t.”
Seo Baek-han asked if he didn’t seem strange at the time. It didn’t seem like a question he expected an answer to.
“The attack route itself was very sloppy. So I think I could have avoided it somehow. The bodyguards were nearby, too.”
“……”
“But at that time, all I could think about was that you shouldn’t get hurt.”
Looking back, that’s how it was, he muttered softly, his voice very bitter.
Joo Tae-hyun had been listening quietly, but the questions in his head were only growing bigger. So what the hell was he trying to say?
Listening to what he was saying now, it sounded like Seo Baek-han was…
“Back then, in the hospital room, I suspected Cheon Seung-pil out of the blue. It wasn’t something to think about so extremely, but when I saw you two together, I couldn’t stay calm.”
Like he liked him or something.
“Cheon Seung-pil was the only friend whose name you clearly called out, without saying ‘acquaintance’ or ‘someone I know.'”
He even dropped the surname when calling him. Seo Baek-han himself seemed embarrassed as he added that.
“I know how childish I sound right now. But that was my honest feeling at the time.”
“……”
“Then… I think I realized it.”
Ah… Joo Tae-hyun’s heart felt like it was about to burst with a sense of foreboding.
No way. He couldn’t be about to say ‘that’ now. He was already so exhausted, and his timing with that man was so out of sync that he didn’t want to make any more effort…
“No, that’s not it.”
Joo Tae-hyun shook his head, trying to ignore the conviction that was growing anxiously.
“Whatever Hyung is about to say, or whatever he realized, it can’t be.”
“What do you think I’m going to say?”
Seo Baek-han smiled blandly as Joo Tae-hyun’s expression turned sour at the question.
“But it’s true.”
“……”
“I was making excuses to myself that something was wrong because of the pheromone, or the imprinting phenomenon… but it wasn’t.”
When you were hit with raw eggs by those people, when people who didn’t know the situation spat out words of condemnation… I was so angry that I couldn’t stand it.
When I saw Kang Bu-nam talking nonsense at the police station, I dragged in the Second Prince, even though I knew that my actions could put the person I follow, Second Prince Lee, in danger.
I know how dangerous it is to spout off with only circumstantial evidence and no proof, and I know that I may never be able to gain the upper hand against the Crown Prince faction again, but I didn’t have time to worry about that. My body moved and my mouth opened on its own.
“My actions were out of character… I’m confused because this is the first time this has happened to me, but this is as certain as the fact that I don’t want to divorce you. It wasn’t because of imprinting, or because I was swayed by pheromones.”
Seo Baek-han declared in a calm but firm voice.
“I don’t want to end things with you like this.”
“……”
“I’m sorry for saying I still don’t know…”
But I wanted to be honest, not to force you, but because I don’t think I’ve ever shown you this side of me. I wanted to show you everything now, even if it’s late.
Seo Baek-han spoke, no, confessed, in a voice that seemed to be burning and boiling, as if sparks were hanging from every word.
“What should I do? What can I do to change your mind about getting a divorce?”
Joo Tae-hyun clenched his fist so tightly that the inside of his palm tingled.
Sorry? How can I change your mind? Now?
After I’m so exhausted that I can’t even stand up, after I lose the child I didn’t even know I had in such a futile way, after I’m beaten black and blue by your cold words?
“No, no. Hyung, you’re mistaken.”
“Tae-hyun, I-.”
“Hyung may have had some feelings for me, too. But we lived under the same roof and ate the same food, so we must have grown fond of each other. So I must have felt more comfortable with you than with other people.”
“Joo Tae-hyun.”
“But that’s all it is. No, that’s all it is.”
Yes, that’s all it would have been.
It may sound like Seo Baek-han likes him, but no. That can’t be. Liking someone is not an ambiguous feeling that you can gloss over by saying you don’t know.
He’s just confused because he’s anxious about how things have turned out. He’s added familiarity, comfort, and even guilt, so he must be thinking, ‘Maybe I like Joo Tae-hyun?’ That’s definitely how his thoughts have gone.
“Even when we lost Hyung’s, no, our child, all you could say was ‘I’m sorry’… That’s the extent of the feelings you have for me.”
Joo Tae-hyun relaxed the muscles in his jaw that he had been clenching and turned his eyes to a distant place for a moment. He had never lost or been deprived of anything that was once his until he threw it away himself, so it was understandable that he was mistaken.
It stung that the direction of that delusion was once what he had so desperately wanted, but thinking about it that way, he could understand Seo Baek-han’s sudden confession.
Only a heavy silence hung in the unnecessarily large lounge for the number of users. Even the soft classical music felt bleak.
“… Hmm. I see what you’re trying to say.”
Seo Baek-han caught Joo Tae-hyun’s attention with a slightly fresher voice than before, as if he had finished organizing his thoughts on his own while he wasn’t making eye contact with him.
Was he trying to force himself? Only his voice was like that, but his eyes and mouth weren’t smiling at all. Rather, they seemed to be more deeply sunken than usual.
“It takes off after midnight, so you’ll arrive in the early morning. Get some rest on the plane.”
Seo Baek-han, who had already closed the distance, arbitrarily straightened his clothes.
‘It’s easier if you fix your collar like this. And the sleeves like this… yeah, it’s good to hold them like that. They don’t get in the way when you move.’
Like he used to do when they went out together in the early days of their marriage.
“So you, Tae-hyun, can’t believe anything I’m saying right now, right?”
“……”
“To regain your trust, I need to prove that my feelings are more than ‘that much’ you said, right?”
Then Seo Baek-han laughed briefly, whispering, “Right.”
Unlike before, when he was revealing his inner thoughts as if he was at a loss, his voice now had a slight sense of certainty.
Seo Baek-han acted like someone who had just walked out of a thick fog and could finally see clearly. Even though he knew that an endless journey of hardship would soon begin, he seemed simply happy to be able to take in the scenery that was unfolding before him.
“Hmm, I hope you can at least be comfortable. Not in Pyongyang, not in Korea.”
“……”
“Ah. I’ll say this in advance because I think you’ll misunderstand, but I’m not going to accept the divorce as it is and quietly stamp the papers. Until then, we still have… yeah, we still have time, right?”
“…… Hyung.”
“Don’t make that face.”
Seo Baek-han gently rubbed Joo Tae-hyun’s furrowed brow with his thumb, saying, “Why are you making that face?” Only then did Joo Tae-hyun realize that he was frowning as if he was about to cry.
“You can be even meaner. I’ll make excuses about pheromones and ask you to meet me if I need to. You’re a soft person even if you pretend not to be, so I, being selfish, will try to take full advantage of that side of you.”
I might be hanging around in America every weekend as soon as I get my work sorted out. Even if you don’t meet me, the Korean community is small anyway. Even if you don’t watch the news, the word that Seo Baek-han is clinging to Joo Tae-hyun will spread quickly, so I’ll be lurking around, hoping it reaches your ears somehow.
“I’ll accept whatever you say. You’ve endured me for a while, so of course I can endure it too. However.”
However, Seo Baek-han carefully took Joo Tae-hyun’s fingertips. Instead of his pheromones, which he could no longer recognize, an unfamiliar warmth briefly lingered on his skin before disappearing.
“I just hope you don’t cry like you did back then, when we lost our child… when you were angry at me.”
His voice was bitter, as if everything had burned down and only the smell of burning remained. It was hard to imagine that it was the voice of a man who had always been like the scorching summer sun.
“… Yeah, even back then, when I was confused because I didn’t know why I was doing this, I really hated seeing you cry.”
At the same time that Seo Baek-han slowly released Joo Tae-hyun’s hand, the panel inside the lounge flashed. It was a notification that boarding had begun for the flight to New York.
“Hmm, anyway. I’ll find a way to persuade you again in a way that you like, and I’ll realize it myself.”
“……”
“I’m really sorry for just saying these things and leaving… no, that’s not it. Uhm… sorry, the habit is so scary.”
Seo Baek-han smiled awkwardly and made excuses.
“The most polite apology I know, and the one I’ve received, always started like that. By putting the word ‘sorry’ first.”
Was he trying to explain the reason why he had to think that way, or the atmosphere of his family? Seo Baek-han never told such stories, so Joo Tae-hyun had to figure out the atmosphere on his own after their marriage.
However, as if to prove that this was Seo Baek-han’s first time, he kept his mouth shut at the very moment when he could have dug into someone else’s weak spot.
No, no. It’s more like Seo Baek-han to cut off any room for self-pity by making long excuses.
“I’m sorry.”
Seo Baek-han ruffled Joo Tae-hyun’s hair like he did that day when they first met at Changgyeonggung Palace. It was a more cautious touch than back then.