The suffocating standoff ended more quickly than expected. It was because two people completely unrelated to this situation appeared side by side, with truly peaceful faces.
“Appa. You’re awake?”
The child who spoke walked over with small steps and clung to his waist. When his body swayed, a stiff pain rose from his waist. Saehyeon, who endured it by putting strength in his legs, asked as if nothing was wrong.
“Yeah… what about you? Did you sleep well?”
“Yeah!”
His soft cheeks wiggled cutely in tune with the child’s mood. Unable to hold back, when he tapped them, the child giggled.
Seeing that face, the irritation surging up subsided slightly.
“Oh, baby’s dad is up too. The meal is just ready, so I can bring it up now.”
The middle-aged woman who followed the child out also contributed to calming Saehyeon down. Saehyeon and the man were the child’s guardians and the woman’s employers. If they fought, it was obvious how much those two would have to read the room.
Saehyeon, who avoided eye contact, answered vaguely.
“…Yes.”
Then he eventually walked over fidgeting and sat obediently at the dining table. Seeing that, Gil Taeseo smirked. It was an unexpected employment benefit he hadn’t anticipated.
Eventually, the meal began in silence. Since the housekeeper lady started commuting to this house, the menu changed from lunchboxes to home-cooked meals.
It wasn’t the feeling of the high-end traditional Korean restaurant he’d been forcibly dragged to by Gil Taeseo. But the feeling of home-cooked food with light seasoning and modesty suited Saehyeon better.
Saehyeon ate leisurely with his guard down. Gil Taeseo didn’t say anything at least while eating. Perhaps it was a lesson learned after getting omija tea dumped on him at the Korean restaurant.
Besides, if he got indigestion, only he would lose out. It wasn’t polite to the person who made the food either.
“Just move in and live here.”
But as expected, the problem came after that. At the end of the meal, around the time appropriate tea and fruit were brought up. When Gil Taeseo seemed to start a conversation, the woman tactfully moved toward the window with the child. Her skill at smoothly coaxing him, saying things like let’s think about what they could go out and do in a bit, was considerable.
There was no way Gil Taeseo would miss the stage set like that. Rather, it was clear he’d brought it up aiming for this flow.
As a result of spending the past few months together. One of 28-year-old Gil Taeseo’s specialties that Saehyeon experienced was exactly this. Gauging the other person and situation to stab in exquisitely. It was a kind of experience that the 20-year-old Gil Taeseo didn’t have.
“…Why should I.”
Saehyeon, who retorted sharply, slightly lowered his head avoiding eye contact.
He felt like he shouldn’t make eye contact. Saehyeon still hadn’t completely shaken off the remnants of emotions stemming from his dream. Moreover, if they made eye contact and talked, who knew when he’d be completely fooled again.
Being tricked by the man’s schemes and suffering at the office was just yesterday. In other words, it was too short a time for the memory to fade.
In that lowered field of vision came neatly arranged fingertips. Regularly tapping the table was also a habit of 28-year-old Gil Taeseo.
Saehyeon unknowingly began comparing the man before his eyes with Gil Taeseo in his memories.
“You keep coming and going every time. So fucking annoyingly. I thought it’d be better than going in and out all the time.”
Since they got involved somehow, they knew each other, and in the process, they slept together. They kept sleeping together because it wasn’t bad for either. The 20-year-old Gil Taeseo he’d encountered through gradually recovered memories was basically this kind of attitude. He was someone who acted like he had nothing to lose in everything.
That became especially severe when entering this kind of relationship. His irritating and cold attitude only intensified as time passed, never subsiding.
In both his speech and actions, it felt like a bitter north wind was blowing. If he wore a fur coat or cloak and just carried a sword, he’d be just like that thing that was popular back then… what was it. Northern Grand Duke? It seemed he’d look fitting like that.
“Isn’t this something that wouldn’t happen if you didn’t move here in the first place?”
Saehyeon glared at Gil Taeseo before him. The way he kept blurring the point was annoying in a different sense.
The real Gil Taeseo spectacularly missed Saehyeon’s expectations from the moment they met in his 28-year-old body. He continued to do bizarre things and also kept… clinging. He didn’t know if it was okay to express it this way, but it was really exactly like that.
If Gil Taeseo hadn’t acted proactively, the relationship wouldn’t have come this far in the first place.
Saehyeon would have continued to hesitate, and the body left neglected like that might have suddenly died like a sunfish.
‘Seriously, why does he keep making a fuss?’
Chewing over the man’s bizarre behavior, the list was quite long. He didn’t know things he thought he’d naturally know, kidnapped him then took him to the hospital, he thought he’d have to cling asking to sleep together but he readily agreed. At the end, he confined him then even released him.
Moreover, starting from when his hair was grabbed, he also became a bit stranger little by little.
‘…Did he secretly receive a divine revelation somewhere?’
The man who saw his eyes naturally becoming drowsy laughed quietly. Matching his slightly heaving shoulders, a bit of trembling mixed into the end of his words too.
“Lee Saehyeon, don’t think weird thoughts again.”
“No? Don’t you think you’re the weird one?”
Look. He deliberately laughs like that and keeps acting like a mind reader.
“Why do you keep making a fuss… saying let’s live together.”
“You’re the one who’s being so stubborn when this isn’t even the first time you’ve lived face-to-face with someone.”
Though clearly the same person, the man was truly different people to Saehyeon depending on past and present. Sometimes he was similar enough to give goosebumps, but showed differences in exquisite elements. Like a doppelganger from a parallel world that looked exactly alike.
On top of that, past emotions added a spoonful, and the current Gil Taeseo played meaningless tricks, so confusion was perhaps natural.
‘But I at least need to come to my senses.’
Gil Taeseo was just temporarily out of his mind because of the peculiarity of the alpha trait. Or it was a whim due to mental illness. Whatever. He just needed to use that to take as much as possible and be done with it.
“I have my own house now, so why would I.”
So he absolutely would not fall for that pretty psychopath’s words.
“And is the dorm the same as now?”
Saehyeon, who solidified his resolve, consciously sharpened his tongue more. He lowered his voice conscious of a third party being in the same space and excluded curses, but unavoidably that bluntness and displeasure showed. Exactly as much as Saehyeon wanted.
At those words, the man’s fingers that had been tapping regularly paused.
“…Dorm?”
“Yeah. Even if you’re making a comparison, you should say something that makes sense.”
Saehyeon, who was about to shoot back more, trailed off at the sharp feeling. Saehyeon’s instincts were mostly on strike, but when they worked, they worked. True to the tactfulness he’d eaten since childhood, the accuracy wasn’t bad.
And at this very moment, it was sending a signal. Beep beep. You might be about to fuck up right now.
The effect of that signal was immediately revealed in Gil Taeseo’s very next words.
“No matter how shameless a bastard I am, still. Did you think I’d package the dorm as cohabitation?”
So what this means right now is… are you saying we’ve even lived together before?
‘Why on earth?’
The roommate life that he thought would end in a year lasted for a full three years. The first time was by chance, and from then on it was because they both had equally shitty tempers.
Needless to say, they fought the entire three years. At that point, even a dog at a village school would get sick of it and run away.
After entering university, Saehyeon had lived alone. It was a studio apartment his father had gotten for him as if doing a favor. There was a place to return to and no one to force him anymore, so there was absolutely no motivation to live together. Saehyeon couldn’t understand at all how that had happened.
But it probably wasn’t a lie. Because there was no need to.
Eventually, Saehyeon decided to break through the situation with an ambiguous answer.
“That or this, it’s the same.”
Saehyeon picked up his teacup. As if nothing was wrong, naturally. He put great effort into not fumbling. Slowly sipping from a teacup that had almost no contents left was quite a good action for buying time.
He could be confident that both the answer and the actions after were fairly natural. But was it not to the other person?
Gil Taeseo pulled back the body he’d been leaning forward loosely. At the same time as crossing his arms, he also tilted his head to the side. A sharp gaze poured directly onto Saehyeon. Clearly, it was a gaze that seemed to be searching for something.
“……”
Cold sweat instantly formed along his spine. It was really fortunate that the season had entered summer. Because he could blame the reason for this sweat on the season rather than nervousness or fluster.
Saehyeon muttered that it was hot and grabbed and shook the neck part of his t-shirt. Following that hand gesture, the area of white skin repeatedly increased and decreased. From the face playing dumb to the deeply sunken groove of his collarbone. Gil Taeseo’s eyes naturally moved there.
‘I let my guard down too much.’
He was so caught up in another person’s words and actions that he failed to control himself.
The moment Gil Taeseo’s lips parted again, Saehyeon shut his eyes tight in dismay.
