By Zephyria Meeting his gaze, I asked again. A yes or no question.
“Beautiful?”
Yoon Joo-ho chuckled and averted his gaze. I felt like I understood it as an affirmative.
The impact was several times greater than anything I had heard from Yoon Joo-ho so far. Because I had finally understood why Yoon Joo-ho’s past bothered me so much.
As he brought the cigarette to his lips, Yoon Joo-ho said.
“Why are you so curious about that?”
If you ask me why… because it’s natural to be curious about who someone you like liked, how similar or different they were to me…?
Just thinking about that answer made my face flush. Like? A man, Yoon Joo-ho, me liking him. I’m going crazy.
To hide my flushed face, Song Hyun-soo became unnecessarily defensive.
“Why do you keep bringing up that guy from the old neighborhood so much, senior?””
“Me? Just joking.”
Yoon Joo-ho sat up from his reclined position and shrugged.
“Then let’s just call it curiosity. It’s natural to be curious about who rejected the superstar Yoon Joo-ho.”
From a distance where one person could sit, Yoon Joo-ho held the cigarette between his fingers and scanned my face. With a groan of “Ah…,” he looked back at Song Hyun-soo. His gaze held a hint of resentment.
“Are you really that curious?”
I nodded.
“Don’t you know the saying, ‘Ignorance is bliss’?”
“There’s also the saying, ‘Knowledge is power’.”
Yoon Joo-ho sighed deeply.
“Were they smart?”
Yoon Joo-ho, sounding resigned, quickly answered while sucking on the filter of the shortened cigarette.
“Probably? I think they spoke several languages.”
“They weren’t the type to order red wine with fish, were they?”
“Right. They were used to that kind of etiquette.”
A beautiful superstar, a genius who spoke several languages, someone accustomed to table manners and social graces. It was no contest, was it?
The sliver of hope I had harbored was shattered. It was as if Yoon Joo-ho had declared in his own words that I was far from his ideal type.
Besides, being a man was an insurmountable wall in the first place. Someone who doesn’t even set the mood for sex with men, could you imagine them holding hands, kissing, and dating affectionately with a man? It’s possible with women, but unimaginable with men. I knew that feeling too well. I was the same.
I felt like I had dug a deep hole and was lying in it. Yoon Joo-ho seemed even further away, viewed from my grave. Despite having been pressed against each other, panting just moments ago.
Yoon Joo-ho got up from the bed, stood in front of Song Hyun-soo, and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand.
“This conversation is over.”
Watching Yoon Joo-ho’s profile, which drew a line, forbidding further questions, Song Hyun-soo also got up. He was so dejected that he didn’t even want to hear more, even if Yoon Joo-ho offered. He properly tied the belt of his robe, which he had only loosely fastened, and walked towards the door.
“Can I shower before I go?”
I knew we weren’t the kind of people who would lie side-by-side until morning, looking into each other’s eyes, caressing each other’s skin, and sharing affection. I had never done that with any man. Yoon Joo-ho was probably the same.
I also knew he wouldn’t try to stop me if I said I was leaving.
So this wasn’t a test, hoping he would ask me to stay.
After showering in the guest bathroom, Song Hyun-soo headed to the practice room. All his clothes and belongings were there. The suit and shoes he had worn were neatly packed in a garment bag and a shopping bag.
My bare face after showering and my hair without any product. Wearing the expensive suit Yoon Joo-ho had gifted me, the two didn’t match at all. The reality I faced after waking from the dream seemed even more pathetic than before I had dreamt.
When I changed and came out, Yoon Joo-ho was waiting by the door. He was leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed.
“It’s my birthday. You’re going to sleep alone? That’s too much.”
“We’re not the kind of people who stay together until morning.”
“Don’t be so hurt.”
Hurt, my ass. I walked past Yoon Joo-ho and down the hallway leading to the entrance.
“Wow, a food thief.”
At the voice from behind me, Song Hyun-soo turned around in disbelief.
“Food th… I’m a food thief if I ate it!”
Yoon Joo-ho, still leaning against the wall, subtly cupped his crotch over his robe.
“You sucked it up. This.”
I couldn’t deny that the moment I saw his smirking smile and the deliberately vulgar gesture of his hand, I wanted to jump back into bed.
But going home now was the best option. If we spent the night together, I felt like my confused emotions would be revealed.
Besides, Yoon Joo-ho was probably half-joking. If he were serious, he wouldn’t have said it so casually like a joke.
“You’re so vulgar. I’m leaving!”
Yoon Joo-ho followed Song Hyun-soo towards the entrance.
“Should I give you a ride?”
“What are you talking about? You’ve been drinking.”
“Ah.”
“I’ll take a taxi.”
While I put on my shoes at the entrance, he kept whining, his hands shoved into the front pocket of his robe.
“I have to sleep alone on my birthday. Ah… how pathetic and lonely.”
“Get a cat or something.”
When I tied my shoelaces the way Jung Ji-in had taught me and straightened up. At that moment, his gaze seemed a little genuine. But I didn’t want to give in first, not until he genuinely tried to stop me.
I stood straight and met his gaze.
“Happy birthday.”
“I celebrated it grandly.”
“Thank you for everything… I feel like I received more than I gave, even though it’s your birthday.”
I said, looking down at the suit and shoes in my hands. Yoon Joo-ho just watched Song Hyun-soo. His gaze was unreadable.
Pushing the door lock and standing outside the door, I looked back at him one more time.
“You went twice, so sleep well today.”
From within the narrowing gap of the door, he gave a faint smile.
“BB gun too.”
Then he turned away. He turned before Song Hyun-soo, disappearing around the corner just before the door closed.
As soon as I got into the elevator, my strength drained away. I went to a corner and leaned against it. Only then did I realize how tense I had been, unknowingly, inside that house.
Even after relaxing my entire body, Yoon Joo-ho’s presence lingered in my lower half.
The hardness of his penis sliding between my thighs and the sensation of it brushing against my skin.
The force with which he pushed, panting roughly.
The thickness of his fingers that had been inside my ass.
And the sensation of his glans sliding over my lips, the obscene fullness invading my mouth.
All of Yoon Joo-ho’s secret bedroom affairs came back to me, more vividly than when they were happening, resurrected on my skin.
Song Hyun-soo touched his lips.
Yoon Joo-ho, whom he had admired and imitated since childhood, so it wasn’t unusual for Song Hyun-soo’s heart to race or for him to think Yoon Joo-ho was cool. Perhaps that’s why he was so oblivious.
But now that he realized it, there were more than a few things that clicked.
When Yoon Joo-ho said he had been rejected, the fact that he had genuinely liked someone was a shock in itself.
When he said that sleeping only with top stars was the secret to preventing scandals, the emotion he felt was clearly disappointment. Disappointment that he wouldn’t be good enough. Looking back now, it was so obvious.
Song Hyun-soo pressed the back of his head against the elevator wall and let out a long breath.
“We’re not dating, though.”
Yoon Joo-ho’s voice, the voice he liked, whispered in his mind.
He felt like he was standing at the starting line of a long and arduous adventure.
■■■
There was a wingless bird.
This bird could do nothing but fly.
When the bird grew tired of flying, it entrusted itself to the wind and fell asleep.
The only time this bird could touch the ground was on the last day of its life, the day it died. 1)
Song Hyun-soo wasn’t the type to linger in his seat, watching the ending credits after a movie finished. He always chose entertaining films with clear good-versus-evil narratives and straightforward plots, and even then, he rarely watched them all the way through. If he got bored, he’d leave the theater immediately or turn off the screen.
But that habit changed once he started taking acting seriously.
His taste in movies, and the way he watched them, both changed.
was the kind of movie the old Song Hyun-soo would have never gone near.
A vague, unfriendly film with no thrilling action, no heartwarming friendships, and no laugh-out-loud moments.
But it was a movie Yoon Joo-ho liked. So much so that he had a poster of it hanging by his bed in his private, secret bedroom.
Song Hyun-soo had watched and read countless interviews with Yoon Joo-ho. But he had never mentioned that movie anywhere.
That alone was reason enough for Song Hyun-soo to watch it.
He had been tense all day, and after a passionate night for the first time in a while, he thought he’d fall asleep the moment he lay down. But his eyes were wide awake, more so than usual. It made sense, though. Falling for someone was rare enough, and the object of his affection was Yoon Joo-ho… Even I would toss and turn for a day.
Since he couldn’t sleep, he found on an OTT platform and started playing it.
From beginning to end, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from a single scene.
The movie, before he knew it, became not just about the protagonist ‘Ah-bi’ but about Yoon Joo-ho, then about Song Hyun-soo himself, and at times, about Lee San and Baek Kang, and Lee Sol. It was a new experience.
After the red ending credits had all passed, Song Hyun-soo remained frozen on the screen, hugging his pillow for a long time. He hadn’t just sat on the mattress watching the movie; he felt exhausted, as if he had just returned from a long journey.
He looked down at his phone, which lay on the edge of the bed, and picked it up.
Even before he realized his feelings, he wouldn’t have thought of calling Yoon Joo-ho first at this hour.
But now… he felt he couldn’t bear it if he didn’t talk to him immediately. His desire and need for him had outpaced his hesitation and caution.
Let’s wait until the bell rings five times.
Let’s fold down one finger for each ring.
Just five times.
One, two…
[Yeah. What is it.]
His voice was slightly hoarse and raspy from not speaking for a long time.
He didn’t even need to count to two.
As if he had been waiting for the call. Or as if he, too, had been holding his phone, hesitating whether to call Song Hyun-soo. Yoon Joo-ho answered immediately.