The handsome face that sometimes made me forget everything and lose myself just from looking approached close. We’d lain on the bed together before, slept together before, but this was the first time lying together on one pillow like this. The familiar yet always unrealistically handsome face approached, and my stomach churned with a strange tension. Embarrassed to meet his eyes, I unnecessarily lowered my gaze and just fidgeted with the blanket edge when Jeonghan gently lifted my chin.
“……”
“……”
I couldn’t breathe. My heart squeezed tight at the gaze I couldn’t avoid and Jeonghan’s face that had lost its playfulness and become serious. The moment of falling in love was like this every time.
“How will you cherish me?”
I wanted to touch him. This time I wanted to touch Jeonghan. I moved my face a bit closer and placed my lips on Jeonghan’s lips. My heart relaxed a bit at the warm lips. My heart pounded like I’d die at the eyes meeting so closely, so I quickly closed my eyes.
At first, our lips without moisture locked together and released, then locked a bit deeper and released. The time locked together gradually increased, and without saying who went first, our lips parted. The moment our hot tongue tips touched, my shoulders flinched and my body reflexively pulled back. Jeonghan wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me forward sharply. The bodies that met again were very hot.
“Ah… mm……”
Everything became soaked—my lips, the thoughts filling my head, even the emotions flowing through my heart. I lifted the hand that had been gripping the blanket edge and touched Jeonghan’s face. As my hand caressed his cheek, Jeonghan smiled with our lips still locked. I received his smile and swallowed it past my neck while watching Jeonghan climb on top of me.
“…Haah……”
“The first time, ha… I tremble more when seeing you than when I stood in front of the camera acting.”
“……”
“You tremble so much that I felt like I shouldn’t let you see me trembling too, so I pretended I wasn’t, but I tremble like crazy when I see you too.”
“…You didn’t show it so I didn’t know. I thought it definitely wasn’t an emotion like love… because you always treated me like it was nothing.”
“I did it to look cool.”
“Hm?”
Jeonghan, who lowered his body flat on top of me, grinned playfully and kissed my lips lightly again. Only after ticklish sounds rang out several times did our lips separate.
“Until now I’ve only leaned on you. So this time I thought I should lead, not tremble, and look cool… ah, it only had the opposite effect.”
“You’re cool no matter what you do.”
“……”
“You’re cool as actor Cha Jeonghan, and also as the person I… like.”
Jeonghan just looked at me quietly as if watching the words I was saying. With no reaction at all, just our gazes touching in warm stillness, I became a bit embarrassed and just bit my lips repeatedly.
“…Why are you just looking?”
“Because you’re pretty.”
“……”
“Every time I see you, it feels like everything inside me is collapsing.”
“……”
“Why does this happen? It feels like my heart is all pouring out to you. That’s why I can’t stay still. Even now I’m going crazy… is this what it’s like when you like someone? Did you feel this way too?”
My heart poured out and poured out again, and afraid it might even wet Jeonghan’s feet, I always had to maintain my center so my heart wouldn’t pour out. Even when my heart flowed out without me knowing, I quickly wiped it without a trace before Jeonghan noticed, and only let my pouring heart flow freely when I was alone. The heart that wanted to pour out all along and thoroughly wet something completely soaked me, submerging me up to the top of my head.
“I did too. My heart wasn’t mine.”
“Did it hurt a lot?”
“…No. Still, it was good.”
Jeonghan, who looked at me with eyes that seemed about to cry, exhaled a breath that seemed to collapse and hugged me. With his weight and warmth fully on my body, recalling my past love didn’t hurt at all.
“From now on I’ll really make it good for you. I’ll make sure you don’t regret the time you liked me.”
I stroked Jeonghan’s hair, who spoke as if making a vow, and patted his back for a long time. Jeonghan looked at me with eyes that seemed to have cried a bit, raising his head only after a while.
“Yuhyeon-ah.”
“Yeah.”
“Can’t you come back home?”
“……”
“Don’t come and go like before, let’s… let’s live together. I’m not comfortable with you being here, and it’d be good if we both work and come back and see each other at home. We wouldn’t have to part.”
“……”
“Do you hate being with me? I won’t be like before. I’ll listen to you better, and I’ll definitely not let anyone come. If you hate that place, should we move?”
“…I’ll think about it.”
“No, don’t think long, right now, I want to hear what you want to do right now. You should decide these things a bit impulsively, you shouldn’t think deeply.”
As if afraid I’d refuse flatly, Jeonghan didn’t give me a chance to speak. Even while I was thinking, he looked at me with an anxious face as if a negative answer would come out.
“Or if you find a place, I’ll move in there.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter to me where I live. If you say you’ll live here, I’ll move into this room.”
“…Could you live with me in this room?”
“Of course I could.”
“Even though it’s this narrow and cramped… and there’s no bathroom so you have to go up to the top of the building to wash?”
“Well… it would be a bit cramped, right? It’s a bit awkward for me to use that kind of shower room since I’m recognizable… but still, it’s okay. You’re here. If you’re here, of course I can be here too. If I can just be with you, I’ll do anything.”
Seeing Jeonghan answer with a serious face while knowing it was ridiculous, I laughed because he was cute. Jeonghan looked down at me laughing with an even more serious face.
“I’m serious.”
“I know, you’re serious.”
“……”
“I know you’re serious too. I know, but… it’s hard for me to tell you what love is, Jeonghan, and even if I tell you, it’s not like you’ll fall in love with me… so I’m still a bit anxious. So while living together… on the off chance that……”
“It’s because liking and loving are different, right? I do like you, but that doesn’t mean it’s love.”
“……”
“I know too. I’m greedy so I have to have everything I want to be satisfied. It might be like that with wanting to have you. I naturally thought of you as my person, but when you said you’d distance yourself from my side, I might have turned around and done this. I know, all possibilities exist.”
My heart tingled at Cha Jeonghan’s serious eyes. Not because of anxiety or upset that followed the fear he might not love me, but because Cha Jeonghan’s eyes saying those words to me were wavering.
“I know and understand everything…. But I… feel a bit hurt that you’re saying that.”
“…Jeonghan-ah.”
“But I can’t hate you. You’re too pretty.”
“……”
“Stay with me. So when I suddenly realize ‘ah, this is love’… I can confess to you anytime.”
My heart swelled. Even if it wasn’t exactly love, this moment, Cha Jeonghan’s words right now were enough to make me think they were sufficient. Cha Jeonghan, whom I loved, was looking at me with his eyes, and this moment’s confession where his weight was completely pressing down on me was enough.
“…Okay.”
“……”
“Let’s live together.”
It was an extremely impulsive answer. Like Cha Jeonghan said, without thinking long, I decided to just say what I was thinking now. My answer right now would be the same no matter how many times I was asked.
That I wanted to be with Cha Jeonghan too. And that I wanted my heart to race while waiting for his confession that may or may not exist. That was all.
The dawn we spent sleeping with our bodies pressed together in the narrow bed was the first warmth I’d tasted since coming to this cafe. It was troublesome because Cha Jeonghan kept trying to put his hands inside my clothes, but when I said this was noona’s cafe and a room noona also used so I absolutely couldn’t do it here even if I died, Cha Jeonghan obediently nodded and closed his eyes saying he understood. And five minutes later he tried to persuade me that we should just do it and he’d completely remodel this room before noona came, and got hit on the arm.
In the morning, while eating morning coffee and paninis, he insisted he had to greet Hyeonwoo before leaving and was practically kicked out. He was so serious when he said he needed to strongly assert his existence to Hyeonwoo to feel at ease that for a moment I wondered if I really should let him do that.
Though they said it stopped at dawn, the world was entirely white and bright from the snow that fell all night. Instead of saying he’d come at closing time, Cha Jeonghan told me he’d come when I got off work. I nodded to him confirming I wouldn’t be staying here anymore. Cha Jeonghan got into a taxi with such a wonderful smile that made me wish the day that had just started would quickly end. I watched until the taxi became distant and invisible, even forgetting that my feet were buried in the heavily piled snow, taking several steps further forward.
I was sweeping all the snow piled in front of the cafe when I saw Hyeonwoo, wrapped tightly in a scarf, walking carefully so as not to fall. If Cha Jeonghan had insisted on staying, what kind of face would Hyeonwoo have made? I was a bit curious, but the conclusion was that it was good I sent him away.
