Not that I was trying to act like I knew everything, but I could at least guess and empathize to so extent with what it must have been. Thinking of how he had treated Shushu all this ti while carrying the weight of a guilt that was anything but light as part of himself, I dropped my gaze and spoke carefully.
"I'm sorry...."
"......."
My voice was very small, but he didn’t miss it. I felt his eyes on my face, but I couldn’t et them; instead I answered the question his gaze was handing .
"About Artist Shushu... I was stupidly jealous...."
He let out a faint laugh—the kind that said he’d never imagined I would react like that. When I lifted my eyes from around his knees, his face with its slight smile and warm tone was looking at . He wasn’t the man who had seed buried in the past while talking to himself for a long ti; he had co back to the present, to this mont, and was looking at .
"Choi Inwoo transferred into Minton during the middle-school division right after his manifestation, and we’ve been friends since then... but with Shushu, we were together from kindergarten."
HMIS, where the children of Asia’s wealthy gathered, didn’t officially call itself an educational facility exclusively for alphas and ogas, but to transfer in from the middle-school division onward you had to have proof that you had manifested as an alpha or oga, and to enroll in the kindergarten or elentary divisions at least one parent had to be an alpha or oga. It wasn’t an official line item either, but the implicit condition clearly existed.
There were the occasional beta students mixed into the middle and high school divisions, but only if their family’s influence was exceptionally outstanding, and in most cases, if they failed to manifest they transferred out under unspoken pressure. No, within HMIS that was practically a tradition—an accepted, natural procedure. Because of that, he explained, it was fair to say that anyone who completed even the high-school curriculum there could be regarded as an alpha or oga of the very top tier of the vested class.
"To soone like , who was so indifferent to others that people called cold and who was an only child, he’s practically a brother I grew up with. But... no one, under any circumstances, ever takes precedence over your feelings."
He nailed it down in a voice full of certainty. On that point, I already trusted him enough because of the way he had acted all this ti.
"I... don’t worry about that."
He smiled once more at my mutter and then simply looked at for a long ti. We had both had a tiring day and hadn’t even eaten dinner, but I didn’t feel hungry. Outside the window it had grown completely dark before we knew it.
"Everyone keeps an objective distance and a cool eye about other people’s affairs, cos to a plausible conclusion, and gives crisp advice... but when it’s their own affair... they hesitate even after the conclusion is obvious. The reason is simple. No matter how perfect a conclusion looks, there are always holes, and that tiny chance of failure you could casually erase in soone else’s life cos at you as an unacceptable fear in your own. The fear of even a one-percent chance of failure clamps a person’s mouth shut, ties their feet... and even as they know ti will only make the problem worse, it turns them into a foolish person who can’t decide."
I knew better than anyone what he ant. I was the one who, out of exactly that fear, had let my father’s silence stand and turned away from the problem.
Afraid of being rejected again, I hadn’t taken any action to pull my father out of his silence. I knew that if I didn’t try anything, nothing in the relationship would change, and yet... even so, I chose to stand by and watch.
As if he were chewing on his own words, he gazed at again in silence for a long ti. I couldn’t look away from the light in his eyes, paler blue than usual. The mont I turned away, it felt like I would collapse. It was the face of soone holding on with difficulty, and I understood how hard it was for him.
"I once cornered Shushu, saying he’d let his judgnt get muddy, swept up in sothing as fickle as love, which could disappear at any ti, but now...."
He didn’t finish the sentence. He turned his head as if to flee and took a drink. Then he looked back at , took a long breath, and spoke.
"I think every day about what would beco of if I lost you."
"......."
"That thought grabs by the throat several tis a day. Not only when you’re not by my side; even when we’re together like this... even at the peak when I’m inside you with knotting and completely drenched in the pleasure you give —honestly, even then, I’m afraid."
It was such an unexpected confession that I felt a jolt, light shock. It sounded like a confession of how deeply he loved , but I didn’t want the most overwhelming feeling he experienced through to be fear.
"Seo Ihyeon."
His voice was calm and steady, without any tremor, but strangely there was sothing in it that made feel a vague dread about what would co next. Like a misaligned door rattling in a strong wind, my chest felt unsettled.
"......."
"...Should we get married."
But what ca out of his lips with that composed face wasn’t a threat.
If it were an impulse, there would have been so faint lift to it, but his voice, his eyes, and his expression as he looked at were undisturbed and quiet, like he was voicing sothing he had prepared for a long ti.
It felt like all the many things he wanted to say and had to say were filling his chest, and with that one line he was trying to stand in for them all... there was even a sense of humble care.
Separate from how earnest he was, it was such a sudden thing that I looked at him with a dazed smile.
He leaned forward, loosely holding the rocks glass in both hands.
"Whether it’s the UK, France, Germany, the US, anywhere... in any country where marriage between an alpha man and a beta man is legal, we can do it. It isn’t hard for to get permanent residency or citizenship in any of them. If we do that, all the rights I hold will be legally guaranteed to you too... and if sothing should happen to , I can turn all those rights safely over to you."
As if the possibility that sothing might happen to him were right in front of us, my expression stiffened a little; seeing the rigidity with his own eyes, he closed his mouth for a mont and looked away, as if he had misspoken.
"I’m not trying to chain you to under the pretext of so paltry material perks...."
No—maybe not entirely not, either. He muttered in self-mockery and ran a broad hand along his jaw. Then he tangled his fingers through his hair, which had dried as-is after a shower with nothing put in it, and mussed it.
"To bring up marriage to you when you’re only twenty-two... it’s insane, isn’t it."
Because I showed so little reaction, he seed to decide I was taking this proposal negatively—or that I wasn’t taking it seriously. He set the glass down, raked his face roughly with his palm, then took out a cigarette and lit it.
I thought I could see now that the composure with which he had raised marriage wasn’t calm at all, but a blankness born of tension and anxiety, a stiffness that had frozen solid.
He bent forward, propping his elbows on his thighs, and for a while he did nothing but bring the cigarette to his lips again and again. Watching his bowed head, which looked despondent at my response, I twisted the beer bottle in my hand.
Even though I believe I’m running toward him with all my heart, his love is always a few steps ahead of mine. I don’t an it’s too hard to catch up. Only... if he has to stop and wait for , who am slow, over and over, then at so point won’t he get tired—an indistinct fear rose.
I worried my lower lip, looked down at his face, and slowly opened my mouth.
"If you could say this... not like words pushed out as if sothing were chasing you... but after you’ve fully considered your future and your life plan... then I’ll answer you with all my heart, too."
He straightened and spoke in a dry voice while watching .
"It’s true the words were impulsive, but that doesn’t an there’s no weight in them."
"......."
"And it definitely wasn’t sothing I said lightly or just on a feeling."
Watching him grind out a cigarette only half-smoked in the ashtray, this ti I felt a little anxious.
It wasn’t that I was pretending not to see his sincerity. How could I not know that when a man like him uses the word marriage, there can’t be any trace of flippancy mixed in.
It makes happy that he wants so much he feels impatient... but I didn’t want marriage as the thod chosen to soothe that.
Now the beer bottle in my hands was beaded with water. I gripped it tight with both hands.
"This is my first ti having a relationship like this with anyone... so maybe in so way I made you feel insecure. But... my feelings are anything but light."
Looking back, he had always asked for deeper affection—sotis like a joke, sotis with serious eyes. But he had never once forced it on , so I had taken it as nothing more than one of those small emotions that make up a romance, like my jealousy about Shushu.
Unlike him, I don’t have much... but even if feebly, the feelings in that had started to grow again, and even the past I’d buried and turned away from—I thought I was laying all of it bare to him.
Am I still, without realizing it, clutching sothing inside and not giving it to him? Is that why he feels afraid?
I know in my head that the balance of love between two people has nothing to do with their objective conditions... and yet sotis I can’t believe it when soone like him—who seems like he’d have no reason to be insecure with anyone—shows his restlessness with . Compared to him, I’m a kid who knows nothing, and like this... I’m completely gone on him....
"However it may sound to you, I... got this far because of you."
"......."
"With Morae and my brother, and picking up painting again... even being able to tell soone about my father... all of it was possible because of you."
If I’m the only one who can erase his fear, then I had to find the courage to break my silence. I drew in a deep breath and, as if swallowing it down in portions, continued speaking. The damp on the beer bottle in my hand felt like sweat seeping from .
"Even if I told myself you were speaking impulsively... when I heard the word marriage, setting everything else aside, I was happy first—enough that... I want Awi, and... I love you."
"......."
He looked like soone who had heard not a confession of love but a declaration of a breakup.
He looked like a man standing under a sky collapsing on him.
His lips parted in a sigh, and his knitted eyelids trembled fine, like soone who had just been stung by harsh words and felt the sting.
I drew a long breath I had been holding back, set the beer bottle on the table, and rubbed my wet hands on my pants. My lips pressed together of their own accord.
Was it too unripe a confession. After only a few months together, was the word love from a twenty-two-year-old too light to inspire trust.
But even if we hadn’t said it out loud, I was certain the feelings lted into the give-and-take of our connection had, before we knew it, naturally evolved into love.
What I felt for him had a shape too complex to fit entirely inside like. What I saw through him wasn’t only pink heart-thudding or flutter. If the definition of love is ultimately different for each person and each pair, then no matter how carefully I chose, the word closest to what I feel looking at him now was love.
"......."
"......."
Like soone trying to shake off deep sleep, he blinked and gave a few small shakes of his head. Then he scrubbed his face roughly with both hands. When he looked at again, the whites of his eyes were streaked red.
He stared at for a long ti with the face of soone feeling the sting after being hit by sothing sharp, then rose from his chair and moved into the seat beside . Hm... the breath seeping from his closed mouth was heavy.
He cupped my cheek to turn toward him and smoothed my hair back behind my ear with long, neat fingers.
"Even after finding out I’ve never had a serious partner—not once—and that I’ve been a shallow man... does Seo Ihyeon still love ."
He forced a joke out of a throat that was tight shut, and I smiled without sound. He rubbed my ear rim with his thumb and smiled back. When he smiled at , he was so warm. In those monts he looked happy, like soone fully enjoying what he wanted, and I thought I was getting my heart across to him well.
I bent my head and rubbed my cheek along his jawline, resting my forehead on his shoulder.
"If you knew my real greed, held barely in check under this sliver of reason... you’d be very surprised."
Not disappointed by the lightness of his past casual relationships, but relieved and glad that before he had never given anyone a serious heart—that’s who I was.
He frad my face again and turned it toward him. His face looking at overflowed with feeling, but the current didn’t point in a single, clear direction. Maybe my expression when I heard the word marriage had been similar—a complexity that couldn’t be sumd in a single word.
With his hands on my cheeks, his gaze traced my face; the distance closed carefully. His lips were drier than usual. After the light press that made the surface give a little, he pulled back, brushed his nose against mine, lowered his eyes, and spoke in a low voice.
"From where I’m standing—the man who can’t suppress it, and isn’t suppressing it—it might not be so surprising."
The hand stroking my cheek slid back to cradle my head # Nоvеlight # and went down to grip the nape of my neck. Forehead to forehead, he whispered again.
"Love in a way that shocks more."
"......."
"It doesn’t have to be the proper, healthy thod. I want you to the point that I’m truly shocked... at least when it cos to , forget self-control and dignity. I want you to be greedy for enough that people would point at you and call you a bad man."
"......."
"Nothing else will do. I don’t think anything else will do."
It sounded like he was saying that he himself already loved that way—beyond the proper bounds.
I carefully stroked his arms where they were wrapped broad around my neck. He pressed his lips to my eyelids and the bridge of my nose. Then he drew my neck closer, pushed our faces tight together, and laid a long kiss on my temple and my ear.
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