Shushu turned this way, smiled wryly, and offered Raou coffee as well, but Raou shook his head. What he needed now was alcohol more than caffeine, but there was no liquor kept in Shushu’s studio.
“You don’t know, and other people don’t know, the things between the two of us.... You slept with soone else and betrayed , but that wasn’t all there was between us, and for a while I tried to write everything else off as a lie because of that and tried to hate you... but it didn’t last long. Because deep down... I knew it wasn’t the truth.”
Stroking the surface of the mug, Shushu spoke calmly, wet his lips with coffee, and went on.
“While he was doing sothing like that, Hong Seonyu must have been in pain the whole ti with guilt and anxiety.... He chased a mont’s pleasure, but because he couldn’t refuse that brief pleasure, he had to suffer guilt for all the rest of the ti — I know that now. As soone who once showed each other the bottom and held each other anyway... I can’t pretend not to see his frantic attempts to sohow overco the situation.”
Either he would take this incident as a chance to accept where he stood and pull himself together, or he would break completely in an uglier ruin. What ca after would be Hong Seonyu’s choice.
After adding that, Shushu took another sip of coffee, then said to Raou in a steady voice and with steady eyes.
“You, who can’t understand that — you’re not going to dare hope that Lee Ihyeon forgives you.”
“......”
There was so much he wanted to say.
He couldn’t think of any plausible words that might turn Ihyeon’s heart, but he had an abundance of vicious lines for dumping bla on Shushu and taking out his anger... Once he confird that Shushu had deliberately spilled it out of revenge for obstructing Hong Seonyu’s activities in Seoul, he planned to hurl every sharpened word he had been forging.
If he didn’t do at least that, he didn’t know what else could hold him up. He still had a lot to do. It was too soon to collapse and let go of everything. Even if it ant holding on with the strength of resenting soone else, he had to wring out a way to win Ihyeon back.
But before he could even draw his weapon, just seeing what the other side held in their hands made his will to fight collapse. What Shushu said, astonishingly, reflected his present with perfect clarity. Just as Shushu had guessed at Hong Seonyu’s pain and lightened the weight of the past, he himself had desperately hoped Ihyeon would show him rcy.
The worst part, however, was that even Shushu had not forgiven Hong Seonyu completely, and had no thought at all of starting over with him. It was a generosity made possible only because it was now a past that had grown distant, no longer anything to do with him.
Looking at Shushu’s calm face, where no trace of bla could be felt anymore, Raou slowly shook his head like soone who had witnessed sothing unbelievable, took the hand he’d braced on the desk away, and rubbed his rough lower jaw wide, as if kneading it.
“You said what I did was worse than what Hong Seonyu did, right? Even you, who forgave Hong Seonyu, have no thought of starting over with him.”
“......”
“Even if you don’t worry about it, Seo Ihyeon won’t forgive — so relax.”
As if stripping off a useless husk and tossing it aside, Raou said that, raked his hair back roughly, and spat a short curse.
Over the past few days he had dragged in everyone he could bla and tried laying it on them, but the one he hated most in the end was the ghost and Alpha that was himself.
He had hated it from the start. Being an Alpha and being a ghost — he had never once thought of them as so noble specialness. If it were such a precious privilege, he wished it had gone to soone else who wanted it. He had repeated that useless complaining and self-denial over and over.
Since boyhood, when he’d finally thought he had sorted out how to accept and put away his own existence, he never imagined the ti would co again to dig up that problem — much less that it would be because of a yearning for another person.
“My opinion that what you did weighs heavier than what Hong Seonyu did hasn’t changed... but I’m not Ihyeon. I told you, I don’t know everything between the two of you. Where did that confidence of yours go?”
Noticing Raou mouthing his lips and fidgeting with the cigarette pack in his jacket pocket, Shushu sighed, ca closer, and silently set an ashtray in front of him. Shushu didn’t smoke, but he didn’t demand total no-smoking from visitors who did.
Raou lit a cigarette and dragged hard on the first pull.
“He says he’ll go to Paris.”
“Paris?”
And he told Shushu about the offer from The Hands. He laid out his own runaway — pretending not to know even while guessing Ihyeon had been approached, and throwing himself solely into rushing the New York branch project to keep Ihyeon tethered to him.
Maybe, even knowing only a destructive ending awaited, once he set a foot on that path he could only go forward. Like Ihyeon’s shout — what difference is there between thirty-five percent and fifty — once it had begun, the weight of it could never be lightened no matter when he confessed.
So maybe when Ihyeon learned the truth first and ca to him... sowhere inside he had felt, it’s co, now I can finally end everything, I’ll accept the sentence.
Because he had no courage to let Ihyeon go on his own, perhaps he had been waiting for soone else to stop him in his place. Even if they had to smash him to do it, to halt this runaway....
Hearing him out, Shushu bit his lips and released them several tis with a heavy look. Then he slowly let the tension out of his shoulders, set his mug down, ca up behind Raou, and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“That... is undeniably a good opportunity for Ihyeon. But the opportunities you can open for him aren’t inferior to that.”
“Jeong Sein.”
“......”
“Jeong Sein.”
“Yeah, I’m listening.”
Facing Shushu after turning around, Raou shook his head. His tightly closed mouth and thinned gaze looked as if he had chosen resignation.
“It’s unfortunate for , but Seo Ihyeon isn’t the type who welcos help from a lover. He’s not soone who thinks the best choice between lovers is sacrificing each of their own lives just to be together.”
“I know that.”
“Just because I helped him start drawing again doesn’t an ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) he has an obligation to stay by my side at Phantom. To begin with... I’m the one who made the low thought that I could pretend to help and bind him with a debt.”
With a bitter little laugh, Raou drew deep on his cigarette and turned his body away from Shushu. He crushed out the shortened cigarette, picked up the pack, took another one, and rolled it between his fingers.
“Raou Wikun. You can’t fool .”
He held the cigarette to his lips, glancing at Shushu in the mirror. The dry skin on his lips stuck to the filter.
Shushu set his hand on Raou’s shoulder again. This ti his grip carried force.
“Ihyeon is the love of your life. It was a mistake... too big to call just a mistake, but if you keep trying to convey your true heart, with Ihyeon... you’ll move him. You can’t let him go to Paris.”
Raou slapped Shushu’s hand away as if annoyed and turned.
“Why? Because I need Seo Ihyeon? Because you’re the love of my life, and without you I’m just a wandering ghost who can’t set foot anywhere and isn’t accepted by anyone — so forgive , give up even the opportunity you won by your own worth... and ekly accept the fate of becoming an Oga at my side. Is that what you’re telling to say?”
“......”
“Like you said, to the love of my life?”
Looking down at Shushu, who couldn’t react hastily, Raou put the cigarette back to his lips and muttered coldly.
“How would that be any different from a second chaining.”
“Going to Paris doesn’t have to an you have to break up. You won’t be able to see each other often, but once a month you could fly to Paris and....”
“Jeong Sein. Why are you doing this, all of a sudden?”
Raou turned toward Shushu and raised his voice. Heat flared again in his eyes.
“Weren’t you hoping a piece of trash like would lose love and be miserable and pay for his sins? Huh?”
Shushu t Raou’s eyes in silence. They knew each other well enough that there was no need to spell out that these were words spit under siege. He had condemned the chaining itself, but he did not wish for Raou to lose Ihyeon.
“Before you were judged a ghost and left for Arica, you said it — that you’d fix it and co back. When I went to Boston once to check on you, you said it was almost healed. Awi, that’s not an illness. That you’re a ghost, and that this situation happened.... I know it’s a special case that’s hard for both of you to accept, but, Raou — you have to hold on to Ihyeon.”
“Maybe it’s too late now.”
Swaying as Shushu shook his shoulders, Raou muttered and lit his cigarette.
“He said... he feels like a monster. Not an Oga or a Beta — a monster, nothing at all. How could he forgive the person who made him a monster.”
Staring with empty eyes at his wretched reflection in the mirror, he added:
“I know better than anyone what it feels like to beco a monster... so how can I ask him to love again.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“......”
Instead of an answer, Raou ground out the cigarette, still long with only a few drags taken, without hesitation, shrugged, and showed a smile worse than crying. That was all.
■ ■ ■
The clouds hung low and the wind was strong, as if rain might pour at any mont. As usual on a day when the boats rested, Grandfather and Uncle had each gone out early to find soone to share soju with. On days like this both of them generally ca ho late, so Aunt had also gone out to a neighbor for once, and only Ihyeon and Father were at ho.
Ihyeon spent the whole day sketching. Since he had co here, he was already on his third drawing notebook. He had once given up drawing to protect himself, but now he clung to it instead.
What if he had chosen this back then, too. He knew it was a futile regret, but when he thought of the years his hand had been idle, he kept feeling it was a waste, and that made him anxious.
He had to admit that his desire for drawing hadn’t vanished, it had only been unnaturally suppressed. It wasn’t a comparative hunger — wanting to draw better than anyone. He wanted the freedom to depict what he wanted, the way he wanted. Ihyeon had never wished for branded clothes or generous pocket money, but the one thing he had been greedy for and obsessed over was drawing.
No — it wasn’t the only thing he’d ever wanted.
At first, he was certainly soone with whom he didn’t expect even a brush of sleeves. It was not he who closed the distance, but Raou who approached; it was also Raou who breathed conviction into their blurry relationship. Looking back, he hadn’t tried very hard, and before he could suffer from the craving of wanting and the pain of not having, at so point the other man’s heart was already in his hand.
It had taken ti for the wariness Raou showed him to ease, but once he had been careful in granting his heart, he never afterward unsettled or hurt Ihyeon with ambiguous behavior.
The cold that wanted to condemn him and the warmth that wanted to defend him still flipped over each other dozens of tis a day, unable to pick a final winner.
As such thoughts mixed in, his hand slowed. With a photo saved on his phone open, Ihyeon was sketching a view of Boston when he sensed Father, who had been reading a book behind him, stand up, and he turned. Father was taking down the jacket hanging on the wall and slipping his arms into it.
“It’d be better to skip the walk today.”
“......”
Father didn’t stop his hands and zipped the jacket.
Ihyeon nudged the door a little and peered outside. Jindori, the mongrel Grandfather had picked up from a neighbor while Ihyeon was away, was half-out of his house and lying there; when he saw Ihyeon open the door, he pricked his ears and rose. He was a sociable pup who had started following Ihyeon in less than a day.
anwhile the weather had worsened. But Father would not bend. Perhaps even this walk, repeated at the sa ti every day, had the aning of a sentence he passed on himself.
Giving up on talking him out of it and about to close the door to get ready for the walk, he heard a knock at the gate.
Unless all the family were ho at night, they didn’t usually latch the gate, but apparently the wind had blown it shut without anyone noticing. Pushing the gate further outward, Ihyeon raised his voice and asked who it was.
“......Is the old gentleman ho?”
At the answer that ca back after a brief pause, Ihyeon hesitated. For a short instant, he felt hope and then disappointnt, and even though no one had seen into his heart, he felt sheepish and bitter. Who had he hoped it would be?
With a wry smile, he slipped on his slippers and stepped down into the yard. When he pushed the gate, Mr. Im was standing there awkwardly, wearing a displeased look like he’d just swallowed sothing that left a bad aftertaste.
Bowing first, Ihyeon held the gate with his shoulder against the wind that kept trying to close it and squinted.
“Grandfather isn’t ho.”
“Could you... spare a mont?”
Clicking his tongue and saying so, Mr. Im looked like he had co to see Ihyeon rather than Grandfather from the beginning. Ihyeon stepped aside to make way. He had braced himself for this mont from the ti he decided to co here, so there was nothing to be flustered about.
He tried to guide him to the small room Grandfather used for receiving guests, but Mr. Im said he had business and had to go right back, and sat down on one end of the porch. The only drink they ever set out for visitors was instant coffee; he thought of bringing at least that, but soon dropped the idea. He opened the door and told Father to wait a bit, then sat on the porch as well, leaving a distance where two or three people could sit between them.
So the sea wind wouldn’t send things rolling around the yard, they had piled a washbasin, buckets, a broom, and other odds and ends on one side and thrown a tarp over them; the edge of that tarp flapped harshly. Looking at the pup’s guileless face — he didn’t even bark at a stranger, only cocked his head — Ihyeon fiddled with the fist he’d curled lightly, using his other hand.
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