# Chapter 09.
“Um, well, celebrities need to have a backstory to become popular. I’ve been practicing in front of the mirror to talk about it during interviews. Imagine how much the fans would worry about me if they heard such a story. The directors would like it too, right? But I was drunk, and I guess I accidentally told what I’ve been practicing to our Doha.”
Jaei, who had straightened up and sat on the bed, lifted Doha with all his strength and placed him on his lap. Then, while patting his back, he began to explain.
“An actor with a painful past and who gives off a precarious feeling like he could crumble at any moment. That’s my concept. Do you get what I mean? You don’t? Doha doesn’t need to know. What good would it do you to know such things? Adults do these things just to make a living.”
After skillfully distracting Doha, Jaei pulled him into an embrace and ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up. Thanks to this, Doha softened a bit but still showed that he was upset.
“I didn’t know that’s what it was, so I was surprised. I was really angry last night. I cried a lot.”
“Oh no, our poor baby. Poor thing, poor thing. Look at your swollen cheeks. I’ll put some moisturizer on them.”
“I’m not saying I’m not a baby, but I’m not such a huge baby anymore. My height is over 170cm now.”
Jaei held back his laughter, curling his lips inward, and replied after silently dropping the word ‘baby’.
“How long are you going to use formal speech? It makes me feel distant.”
Before returning to casual speech, Doha asked one last confirmation question with high hopes:
“Then is it also fake that your first love died? Is it all made up?”
However, Jaei didn’t deny that part and just smiled faintly before giving Doha a quick kiss on the forehead. Doha could sufficiently infer what that action meant. Even if it really was a concept for his acting career, the fact that his first love had died was true. Then there was still a possibility that he still loved them and his wish to die early was also true.
“I’m just going to keep using formal speech.”
“You just spoke casually.”
“Yo.”
There definitely needed to be an appropriate distance between him and Jaei. He absolutely didn’t want to become complete strangers, but he also didn’t want to remain just Lee Jaei’s adorable baby angel forever.
After that, Jaei began talking about his first love’s death and his desire for a short life in interviews. As if it really was a concept as a celebrity, but also as if it were a joke, yet somehow it always sounded sincere enough to make one anxious.
And exactly from that day onward, Jaei couldn’t read Doha’s mind as well as before. He couldn’t accurately predict Doha’s tastes either. It could be that Lee Jaei’s sharp intuition had run its course, or it could be because Lee Doha had desperately begun to hide his feelings for him. Either way, Doha thought it was fortunate. He couldn’t risk losing his place as a brother by having his love discovered.
While Lee Jaei transformed from a fennec fox with large ears to a fox with fifteen tails, Doha turned nineteen. And during that time, Doha’s favorite animal also changed from a fennec fox to a red fox with about 14-16 tails. It was a coincidence.
* * *
Twenty-six-year-old Jaei, brushing back his disheveled hair, fed the rest of the carrot to the minor standing in front of him. Standing face to face, he could more clearly feel how Doha’s eye level had risen. He seemed to have grown taller in the few days since they’d last seen each other’s faces.
“You’ve grown again. You’ll soon be 3m tall. I’m jealous.”
“Why are you so extreme? Just now you were saying I’m smaller than a squirrel. I’m neither 130cm nor 3m. I had a physical examination the day before yesterday, and they said I’m 185cm.”
Doha, who had only seen and learned from Lee Jaei in his life, moistened only his upper lip and told a lie. He was actually 189cm, but since Jaei had also added 4cm to his profile, he thought it was okay to subtract about 4cm. Of course, Lee Jaei, who had raised Lee Doha during his growth period with his own hands, wasn’t fooled by such an absurd lie. Lifting his arms to stroke Doha’s sturdy shoulders and arms, he spoke in a wistful voice:
“To think our household’s youngest baby is already over 2m tall. You’ve grown so big that it feels strange.”
“I’m not smaller than a squirrel, but I’m not 2m either. I’m just average. There are really many kids taller than me in my class. I’m about tenth in height order.”
Doha, who was by far the tallest in his class, slightly bent his knees and hunched his body to reduce his size. Jaei, looking at the grown-up Doha with eyes full of regret, happily reminisced about Doha’s childhood as he always had.
“You were really small when I first saw you. You were only half my height. You would fit right into my arms, and we’d sleep together every night.”
That’s why, from some point, Doha began to struggle with finding his proper position. He only wanted to grow up quickly to be recognized by Jaei not as a baby but as a romantic partner, but now that he had grown up, he was afraid that Jaei was diminishing his affection for him. He felt uncomfortable being called a baby, but also anxious when not called a baby. He was confused about what image he should project to receive love.
“Seeing as we don’t sleep together these days, I guess it was an 11-year love. I must have expired now that I’ve grown up.”
He spoke with a pouty lower lip and a resentful voice. After realizing that his love for Jaei wasn’t just fraternal, Doha gradually reduced the number of times he fell asleep in Jaei’s arms. Now they only occasionally slept in the same bed when the opportunity arose. It was just that, being in a period where his body was growing a lot and becoming more masculine, he was afraid something might happen that would make Jaei find him disgusting. Although he was the one who avoided sleeping together, he blamed Jaei.
“It’s because hyung is tired from earning money to support you. I don’t love so briefly. I’m a man who, once he starts loving, continues until one of us goes to the afterlife.”
“Then do you still love me the most?”
“Of course. I love you most in the world.”
Jaei nodded with a kind smile, but his eyes conveyed the message that ‘among the living, Doha is the best, but still can’t beat the dead.’ Doha recalled his lonely past of searching for ‘how to beat a dead person’ on the internet every day, with a resigned expression. The content that Doha found on a blog at that time was as follows:
Today, we’re going to look at ‘how a living person can beat a dead person’~ There are many people who suffer because the person they like can’t forget someone who’s died, right? You’ll want to beat that person. ㅠㅠ In such cases, you can become a dead person just like that person~! Because the person who dies later will be remembered more than the person who died first~ That’s all about how a living person can beat a dead person~
Unlike Doha, whose heart was saddened because he still hadn’t found that method, Jaei reminisced with a happy expression while stroking Doha’s head and face.
“When you were young, you would eat anything and sleep anywhere. Not that I fed you just anything or let you sleep just anywhere. You would laugh brightly at the slightest fun thing, and if someone else cried sadly, you would sob along with them. Your anger would quickly fade, and you rarely got sick. You played pranks well and were honest. You couldn’t study consistently though.”
Jaei’s large eyes were full of love for the young Lee Doha. Doha didn’t like that look at all. Probably now he didn’t look as cute in Jaei’s eyes as before. Because he was nineteen, bearing and enduring a lot while trying to hide his desperate, unrequited love that could never be realized.
“You were really kind and cute!”
Jaei praised the young Doha with an excited voice, his pretty hands clasped together. When Jaei briefly finished reminiscing and turned around, Doha impulsively pulled and hugged his thin and slender shoulders as he was leaving. And in a low voice without any playfulness, he whispered:
“Why do you keep speaking in the past tense? As if I’m not like that anymore.”
“Sorry. It’s a mistake because I didn’t study Korean properly. You’re still kind and cute.”
Since he had been an affectionate younger brother who often engaged in physical contact since childhood, his impure feelings wouldn’t be discovered. Hoping that Jaei wouldn’t notice his heart beating strongly and quickly, he slightly detached his chest that was pressed against Jaei’s back. That’s when Jaei gently wrapped his hand around Doha’s hand and asked:
“But why is your heart beating so fast?”
Unfortunately, he was discovered in just 3 seconds. Lee Jaei was more sensitive than ordinary people. He could probably take a pulse better than a Korean medicine doctor. Jaei reached his hand backward and mumbled while feeling Doha’s cheek and neck with his delicate fingertips:
“It seems like your body is a bit hot too…”
“…”
This was the low-grade fever of love. It was a big problem. The one-sided love that had lasted for more than half of Lee Doha’s life was in danger of being discovered. If he uncovered his true feelings, what should he answer? Deny it? Or admit it?
If he admitted it, what would happen? Could Jaei think of him as more than a big baby or a precious younger brother? Or would this completely sever even their relationship as brothers? Would he then have to live just as a fan, not as a brother?
Pay 1 million won to attend a fan signing event to talk with Lee Jaei for about 2 minutes, book tickets for fan meetings to see his face from a distance, prepare coffee trucks for the filming location… While the money needed to love him could be earned, the problem was that it would be difficult to actually meet him more than 5 times a year. Moreover, the other person was a top-class actor who maintained an air of mystery.
While Doha was imagining an eccentric future, Jaei moved his fingertips to check his forehead. The human thermometer, certain that Doha’s body was developing a low-grade fever, firmly asked:
“You’ve done something terribly wrong to me, haven’t you?”
Doha inhaled sharply at Jaei’s pointed question. It is indeed a sin to have one’s unrequited love discovered without the other’s permission. Lee Doha, a sinner harboring ardent love for someone he could never have, lowered his head with a sorrowful expression. Jaei, with a face holding back anger, slowly turned around and said:
“You can be honest. I’ve already noticed everything.”
“Hyung, it’s not like that.”
“How much did you charge this time? 1000? 2000? I can forgive up to 3000.”
Doha, who only bought products related to actor Lee Jaei with Jaei’s card and never exceeded his monthly average allowance of 200,000 won, put his hand on his forehead with a pitiful expression and leaned his face against Jaei’s chest.
“It’s not that, I’m sick. It was raining earlier, right? My head feels like it’s going to split after being hit by the cold wind on the way to the department store.”
He looked up at Jaei, blinking his large eyes prettily. Jaei, whose anger immediately subsided due to Doha’s prettiness, caressed his hot cheeks with a sympathetic gaze.
“That’s why you should have just taken a taxi. Why did you walk in the rain? It must have taken over 40 minutes. It’s far from school to there. When I was in my third year of high school, the sole of my shoe came off while I was walking to the department store after school.”
“I remember. That day, you bought new sneakers at the department store, wore them home, and gave me the shoes with the detached sole as a gift.”
“I was just joking, but when you say it like that, I sound really mean. You were in elementary school then, and your feet were only as big as my palm, so those shoes didn’t even fit you.”
Lee Jaei, both a senior high school alumnus and guardian of Lee Doha, searched through the first aid kit with familiarity and found a headache medication. As his tension eased and his heartbeat began to return to average levels, Doha rested his chin on Jaei’s shoulder and brazenly suggested:
“Hyung, will you hold me while we sleep today? Since your body is cool, I think my fever will go down if I’m in your arms.”
Doha thought that Jaei’s face right in front of him was incredibly beautiful. Sharp, sensitive, with vibrant skin that was sexy, yet somehow he looked precarious, as if he had a sad story, and desolate. Jaei, who handed Doha the headache medicine, nodded slightly to allow him by his side.
