By Zephyria 
Tae-un, who had been muttering blankly, soon denied it firmly.
“I did like him; he was my first love. Not anymore.”
“……Then why do you say you want to sleep with him?”
“Because I want to.”
Pi Min-hyeong was confused.
If he had said he was only interested in the body and wanted to have sex, he could have understood. But to show that kind of behavior and then claim he doesn’t like him, yet is only interested in sex… isn’t that just being a total bastard?
“That sounds like some real bastard shit.”
“I know. But he’s not rejecting me because of that, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Your hyung is truly a saint.”
To think they were still living together and getting along after hearing things like that. Pi Min-hyeong gave up on trying to understand. He had a fair amount of dating experience himself, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of the relationship between Tae-un and Kim Si-baek, so he didn’t have any appropriate advice to give.
“Just try acting right in front of him. Maybe his heart will soften.”
“What do you mean? Like ‘cute Un-i’ behavior?”
“……You fucker. I mean acting modest and fake! Pretending to be weak! Hey, you’re not actually doing that bullshit where you refer to yourself in the third person in front of him, are you?”
“How can I act any weaker than this? I used the ‘fainting from anemia’ trick too much in the past.”
“You crazy bastard. Anemia with your build…… No, if it’s hyung, he’d probably worry and carry you away in a princess carry. Yeah, he probably would.”
Pi Min-hyeong hurriedly erased the vision of ‘Kim Si-baek princess-carrying Tae-un’ that had popped into his head. It was a video Seo Gae-un had shown him, saying she couldn’t be the only one to die. Even recalling it now, it was a sight so terrifying it might appear in his dreams.
“Anyway, I’ve given you my advice, so I’m leaving. And whether you succeed or not, don’t even think about giving me a follow-up report! I don’t want to know!”
Fearing what else he might hear if he stayed any longer, Pi Min-hyeong hurried to leave the CEO’s office, but Tae-un’s voice caught him again. Unlike his previous indifferent tone while tossing Pi Min-hyeong around, his voice was now slightly subdued.
“……Pi Min-hyeong. Why do you think I love him?”
“You shameless prick. Put your hand on your heart and think about it.”
With those words, Pi Min-hyeong vanished. Once the door opened and closed, Tae-un was left alone in the office.
Tae-un pressed his temples and frowned. Put his hand on his heart and think about it?
Kim Si-baek is the only existence that keeps Tae-un alive. In that semi-basement room, Kim Si-baek was engraved into the child’s soul. He gave a name to a hideous monster, adored him, and loved him.
Every emotion Tae-un had lost was awakened by Kim Si-baek. Passion. Attachment. Sadness. Deprivation. Confusion. Hope.
And love. Love. Love.
The child had no choice but to love him. That raw, budding first affection could certainly be defined as first love.
But was it still so now?
A voice that was neither man, woman, child, nor elderly—a layered cacophony—giggled.
「You seem to be burning with impatience. Since that man returned, your clown-like appearance has been truly rewarding to enjoy.」
“Shut up.”
Tae-un growled lowly and fiddled with the area around his shoulder blade with his palm. Quite some time had passed since he was hit by Kim Si-baek, so he could no longer feel any pain in his skin. He found that deeply regrettable.
Tae-un’s gaze shifted to his left arm. Rather than Kim Si-baek touching him with bare hands, tearing or cutting this area would leave a more distinct sensation. Pain was already meaningless to him, but if it were Kim Si-baek, he would surely bring it back to life. Only Kim Si-baek. There was no one but Kim Si-baek.
Tae-un briefly entertained the tempting thought of asking him to cut it off if he didn’t want to have sex, but he soon dismissed it. Not only would Kim Si-baek never agree to it, but he only had two arms.
In contrast, sex only consumed stamina and time. Furthermore, it was the deepest form of skinship humans could share. It would surely be deeply engraved. Both in Kim Si-baek and in himself.
“Do I love Si-baek hyung……”
He softly murmured the question he had heard from Pi Min-hyeong. Love. Love. Love. A good word. Beautiful, too. Therefore, he was certain.
This could not be love.
Kim Si-baek still keeps Tae-un alive. Since the age of fourteen, Tae-un has endured as a human, waiting only for Kim Si-baek’s return.
Tae-un hated the chaos. He resented the world. He felt disgust toward humans. Let the world perish. Let all humans be slaughtered.
……That destructive passion dominating him was a distant memory.
Tae-un no longer cared. Whether the world ended or humans died off.
But he didn’t wish for it either. For one reason only. Because Kim Si-baek wouldn’t want that. Because Kim Si-baek would strive until the end, regardless of his own injuries, to ensure the world didn’t perish and that people could be saved.
If any trace of humanity still remained in him, it was undoubtedly all because of Kim Si-baek.
For the sole reason of not wanting Kim Si-baek to be sad, Tae-un saved people and worked to move the world in a better direction. He did not wish for the destruction of this world where the people Kim Si-baek cherished existed. For this, there was nothing he wouldn’t do.
Even if it meant deceiving Kim Si-baek.
Yes. Tae-un was certain once again. This could not be love.
The embodiment of love as he perceived it was Kim Si-baek. A nineteen-year-old boy who, despite having his own life completely negated because of a snotty child he had barely met, didn’t hesitate to take the child’s hand—that was love. The bright smile of the nineteen-year-old boy who captured his soul was love.
Tae-un did not consider his own feelings to be love. The only love he knew was beautiful and radiant. He became certain once more upon reuniting with Kim Si-baek. The person who was sacrificial enough to push him out of a rift of unknown origin and be swept away in his stead, the person who smiled unchangingly at the end of countless long years, saying it was enough just to meet him now that he had grown up safely—that was love.
Kim Si-baek, his love, would never deceive his partner.
And since his own feelings, which deceived Kim Si-baek, were dirty, hideous, terrible, selfish, and disgusting.
Therefore.
Tae-un gripped his left arm as if to crush it and twisted the corner of his lips.
This is not love.
It cannot be love.
Tae-un does not love Kim Si-baek.
✽ ✽ ✽
In a press briefing regarding the Management Center incident, the Supernatural Phenomenon Response Agency revealed that Kim Si-baek was an S-class hunter who had recently registered. His profile was exactly as they had pre-arranged.
That he was a long-time acquaintance of Tae-un. That he had retired after secretly operating overseas as a government agent and had now officially begun hunter activities.
They didn’t explicitly mention the National Intelligence Service, but it was obvious if he was a secret government agent. Some people found the setting too excessive, like something out of a genre drama, but the prevailing reaction was that reality is stranger than fiction. A secret NIS agent was a subject that stimulated quite a bit of dopamine.
Gwak Yun-sang, the one who had crafted the character setting, felt a surge of pride.
‘If it weren’t for this world, I might have hit it big as a drama writer?! The era missed out on a talent!’
Honestly, more people were surprised that he was 49 years old with those looks than by the exaggerated setting of being a former NIS secret agent. Rather than comparing him to hunters of the same age, memes comparing him to celebrities became popular on the internet.
Once his identity was revealed and his close relationship with Tae-un became known, sightings of the two that had been subtly exposed began to surface or be brought back to the top.
⤷ Was it last month? Kim Si-baek sat next to me on the subway, and I happened to see him texting Tae-un lol
⤷ They both came to my store to buy phones once
⤷ Let me tell you the story of when I witnessed the younger guy acting cute toward his hyung
⤷ Remember when there was that chaos with the Id Portal at MA Department Store? Wasn’t the guy in the red hat with Tae-un Kim Si-baek?
⤷ Looks like he’s also the owner of that meme where Tae-un knelt lol
Unless it was a crazy killer threatening terrorism or mass murder, a new S-class was always a subject of interest. Among the sightings that helped fuel the public’s appetite for a noisy distraction, there was also someone relatively close to Kim Si-baek.
It was Bae Jihan, part of whose non-disclosure agreement had finally expired. Bae Jihan’s explicit stories were talked about by the public in a completely different sense.