The direction, the actors—everyone with just a challenging spirit of ‘let’s try it ourselves,’ working part-time jobs and pouring out the entire vacation period. They fought and cried, but finished with smiles at the end. It was such a fulfilling time.
“…You were there then.”
“I was. I remember the actor named Lee Muyoung who was listed as Ophelia.”
“It was a regular performance by a university club.”
“And yet there was someone who recommended it, so it must have been good enough, right?”
Theater wasn’t a solo endeavor. Though Muyoung also worked as one of the actors, ‘Hamlet’ particularly remained in his memory. Regardless of roles, whether stage equipment, direction, or other odd jobs, it was a work they’d made together without discrimination, combining their strengths.
Though it wasn’t an embarrassing past, his face grew hot at the past suddenly revealed. Muyoung, who had been roughly rubbing his face, belatedly spat out his answer haltingly.
“…I’m sorry. I’m just embarrassed.”
“Now I’ve clearly come to know even this aspect of your personality, Muyoung-ssi.”
“…Do you like theater?”
“I’m ordinary. I also live encountering various things because of work. Going that day was a coincidence. Even though I’d received the recommendation, I couldn’t make time, but that day an appointment happened to be set nearby and it got canceled right before the appointment time. Thanks to that, I stopped by the theater.”
“I see…”
“Though I never thought I’d see that person like this.”
That’s right. Muyoung, answering as if muttering, felt a bit deflated. At the time, university theater festivals were thriving in Daehangno, so Dowon’s words weren’t strange.
He recalled when he first met the man sitting across from him at the agency. He’d been flustered because he had such a strong presence, and the favorable words visible from the moment they met made him tense again, and with the pressure that he had to refuse, his words didn’t come out well. Muyoung awkwardly gave an empty laugh and lifted his glass to swallow the alcohol. The clean aftertaste with lingering fragrance was still good.
“I don’t know how this will sound to you, Muyoung-ssi… but when I say I’m interested, it’s sincere. I’m grateful enough to think the traits of Alpha and Omega are fortunate.”
“…We haven’t even met for long.”
“Just because you’ve met for long doesn’t mean every relationship is good.”
For a moment frozen, Muyoung remembered his long-time lover at Dowon’s words. A relationship that was long but couldn’t all be good. Could there be words that expressed it better than this? The color drained from Muyoung’s face, who had been listening to Dowon’s words with a serious expression, in an instant.
“That’s, right… Just because you’ve met long doesn’t mean it’s good.”
“Time isn’t everything in a relationship.”
“How can you know? That someone is good to be with.”
The self-deprecating voice and the face that had lost its expression made Dowon guess at Muyoung’s past. Dowon, who had been filling the glass showing its bottom without saying anything, opened his mouth after giving it some time.
“There’s nothing you can predict about people or relationships. Even if you’ve met for 10 years, if feelings cool, you could become strangers tomorrow.”
“Then, even if you meet for long, if one person’s heart leaves, does that relationship become nothing?”
I wonder. Dowon, tilting his head as if puzzled and thinking deeply, looked at Muyoung. Muyoung still seemed lost in other thoughts, his gaze blank. At the expression revealing his mind wasn’t here right now, Dowon let out a small sigh. Rather, at that, Muyoung came to his senses and soon collected his expression. At the gaze slowly returning to him, Dowon smiled slightly.
“You can’t know. Things like that.”
“…”
“But everyone makes efforts for the person they want to be with right now, don’t they.”
Dowon, who lightly clinked his glass against Muyoung’s filled glass, brought the glass straight to his mouth. Until he swallowed the alcohol and put down the glass, Muyoung’s gaze was caught on the prominent veins on the back of his hand. He vaguely swallowed his alcohol and finally exhaled.
“…I wasn’t blaming you, CEO-nim.”
“I know. I told you. Your face can’t hide anything.”
“I’ve just been, lately…”
Muyoung, who had been hesitating and moving his lips, rubbed his face. Perhaps because alcohol had entered, his reddened cheeks emitted a subtle heat.
He hadn’t intended to drag the past all the way to this place. The corners of his mouth twisting bitterly in a smile revealed his disturbed feelings enough to convulse slightly. At the same time, he felt sorry toward a man who knew nothing. There was no need to involve Dowon just because these were days of consoling himself that he was in the process of sorting out a past person.
“I thought I was good at enduring alone. But it must have been burdensome.”
The words spilling out weren’t because of the alcohol. It could be considered light complaining, but Dowon knew vaguely at least that Lee Muyoung wasn’t someone who could do that.
Just seeing Muyoung’s expression when he opened up about relationships as if lamenting showed it wasn’t easily brought up. It was no different from just overflowing because holding it in was too burdensome.
“…Even if I gave both time and effort, if it’s a relationship I couldn’t hold onto, what was lacking, what more effort should I have made… I had many such thoughts.”
“As I said, there’s nothing I can answer definitively. Just that the person who made efforts isn’t bad. Even the person who ultimately let go must have had reasons. Though I understand the feeling of blaming the result…”
Unlike the content coldly explaining the situation, the man’s voice was only gentle. The voice flowing out slowly was so much so that if a foreigner who didn’t know the content heard it, they could fully mistake it as words full of comfort or concern. And Muyoung felt himself becoming calmer at the indifferent and obvious words, unlike the voice.
“I like you right now, Muyoung-ssi. It’s also fortunate.”
“…Fortunate?”
Did he hear wrong? As the brown eyes widened while looking at Dowon, Dowon, who burst into small laughter, nodded.
“Of course it’s fortunate. You seem to keep forgetting, but we met for a date today.”
“…Ah.”
“So try doing things you’ve never done.”
“Things I haven’t done…”
“There must be things you absolutely wouldn’t try to do, Muyoung-ssi.”
What things wouldn’t he try to do? The only thing that came to mind was quitting work immediately and leaving far away. Moreover, rather than something he wanted to do, it seemed more like avoidance from not wanting to acknowledge the current reality.
“What about you, CEO-nim?”
“I live doing whatever I want to do anyway.”
Right. He hadn’t even thought they’d be similar in the first place, yet he’d asked a foolish question.
Muyoung thought quietly and then uncertainly counted a few things that came to mind. Traveling far away, ordering all the food he wanted to eat and taking just one bite of each, bleaching his hair white, lying down and doing nothing all day. Everything he listed was a bit childish and things he’d only thought about when very young, so he couldn’t bring himself to say them out loud.
“Rather than efforts like enduring or persevering for long, I mean acting spoiled, enjoying things, and even doing bad things if possible.”
The moment Dowon discussed doing bad things suited him excessively well, so Muyoung burst into hollow laughter. It was words from someone who could do the worst thing in the world and be forgiven in an instant, so somehow it was even believable.
He might have felt comfort from the sudden words. His loosened heart flowed down through his fingertips. Bad things. Didn’t society call doing contract dates like this a bad thing too? No, it actually was a bad thing. Something where doing more or doing less, he couldn’t avoid criticism.
“I’ll do the rest. Enduring, making efforts, holding on, all of it.”
This is the last glass. The hand filling the glass with alcohol was still refined and upright. But it also looked firm and strong. It was a hand that, once it grasped what it wanted, would never let go.
Should I grasp it, or not? No, after grasping it, I. Can I endure?
Muyoung knew well how frustrating a person he had been until now. At one time, he’d wanted to change. Wanted to forget. If he couldn’t do that, he’d wanted to throw it all away. During the days when he couldn’t do so, now that everything he’d thought was okay had been turned upside down, rather than being a person who couldn’t do anything and just let things flow, wouldn’t it be better to do things he’d never done? Anyway… he was someone he had to meet ten times.
“Can I do bad things?”
It could be called impulsive. It was enough that there was someone in front of him who could make him not himself.
He was swept into the dim room as if being dragged. From each other’s breath felt close, the scent of the alcohol they’d been drinking just moments ago flowed out, but neither was displeased. The hand that roughly wrapped around his body firmly embraced his back as lips overlapped. The man who immediately twisted his head and urgently sucked on his lower lip pushed him against the wall as if shoving him.
“Nngh…”
Thud, the sound of his back hitting the wall resonated through his body, and a weak moan burst out involuntarily. At the same time, the back of his neck was pulled as hot breath leaked between the lips of the man pressing firmly against him. After repeatedly biting and releasing in succession, a tongue gently penetrated inside his mouth and they became entangled as if snatching at each other. Then he reflexively chewed on the flesh.
Every time he turned his head to avoid their touching noses, he was swallowed deeper and harder, and just when he thought he’d barely escaped, their lips became entangled again. Trapped between the large body and the wall, as the area of contact gradually increased, Muyoung flailed while grabbing and holding onto the man’s body.
The kiss that felt like being devoured gradually reduced in intensity, then alternately bit and released Muyoung’s upper and lower lips as if soothing them. The soft and ticklish contact spread heat as it passed his mouth, cheeks, and cheekbones, brushing past his eyes and forehead. Before he knew it, he realized his face was captured as if confined by two firm hands.
“I can’t hold back anymore.”
