He could point out flaws. Lee Seongjo was a somewhat arrogant man. Sometimes that arrogance drew hostility from others. However, in truth, the fact that he was hated for his arrogance was paradoxically because he was someone who had reason to be arrogant.
He was the legitimate heir to a chaebol family, his external conditions were flawlessly perfect, he had a power that drew people in, and he was even good at his work.
He had admired and loved such a Seongjo. That much was certain fact.
It was just that he could never completely overcome his long-standing jealousy.
Yeongbeom was a man with strong pride. He had a desire to succeed and took pride in himself. That was a feeling that always existed separately from his feelings of loving someone. He wanted to be acknowledged by the person he loved, and he constantly wanted to assert himself.
It wasn’t that Seongjo hadn’t acknowledged Yeongbeom. He valued Yeongbeom’s abilities highly enough and even arranged a position at the company so Yeongbeom could display his abilities. He supported Yeongbeom’s dream of wanting to succeed and never once pointed out the inferiority complex Yeongbeom had.
And yet…
Yeongbeom always felt insufficient.
Why was that?
In truth, he knew the reason. Though before deciding on the breakup, he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it and kept it hidden.
Yeongbeom always admired and was jealous of Seongjo, his lover. Seongjo, who had so much, always felt like someone in a higher position than Yeongbeom himself.
Seongjo himself probably wasn’t aware of it, but perhaps even he thought so in his deep inner self. Because Lee Seongjo had always been that way. Because he was born with a position that everyone had no choice but to look up to…
That’s why Seongjo’s acknowledgment always felt charitable. Like the generosity the haves bestow upon the have-nots.
Yeongbeom’s need for acknowledgment didn’t simply end there. At first when he had nothing, everything Seongjo gave felt like opportunities to be grateful for, but as time passed, he felt thirsty.
Jo Yeongbeom was Lee Seongjo’s lover. His achievements were possible because Seongjo existed, and without him, they would have been impossible. Because of that, there were many who ridiculed or criticized Yeongbeom. Because it was a relationship that couldn’t be legally married, he was in a position where he couldn’t proudly flaunt the fact that he was Seongjo’s and Seongjo was his.
He wanted to be acknowledged more than anyone. By society, and by his lover too.
He had a premonition that if he stayed by Seongjo’s side, none of those things would be possible.
That premonition grew bigger and bigger…
That’s when he met Oh Seyeong.
By chance like a second stroke of luck from heaven, or perhaps fated.
Seyeong was the lover Yeongbeom had wished for. She satisfied the thirst that hadn’t been filled while meeting Seongjo. That was how she admired and revered even the most trivial achievements Yeongbeom made.
Even knowing that the author of <Cosmos> was Carl Sagan, knowing how to open a can with one hand, knowing very basic formulas used in economics, being able to fill in all the blanks of today’s newspaper crossword puzzle… all of it became something to boast about in front of Seyeong.
Unlike with Lee Seongjo.
He liked that fact. The relationship with Seyeong was extremely fascinating. His father, who had only sent looks of contempt when he was meeting Seongjo, began to treat Yeongbeom as a son for the first time when news came that marriage talks with Seyeong were happening. For Yeongbeom, who had lived his entire life craving his father’s acknowledgment, it was an irresistible temptation.
As time passed, the concept of loving Seongjo and the guilt of betraying him faded, and only what he would gain by leaving him remained in his head.
So he left. In the cruelest way he could.
It wasn’t that he had no hesitation before causing such a thing. He knew he had to end the relationship with him, but he simply couldn’t come to the best conclusion on what way to speak of the breakup.
Yeongbeom wanted to harm Seongjo as little as possible anyway. He thought that if he acted so that no lingering attachment would remain, he would get better faster. That’s why he chose a one-sided, harsh notification, but…
In truth, it couldn’t be said it was an action done purely out of consideration. In fact, he hoped Seongjo would suffer a little because of him. It was a complicated and gloomy emotion he couldn’t bear to voice.
But after causing all those things, Yeongbeom ultimately worried about Seongjo. He worried that he, whom he’d loved with all his might unlike himself, might not be okay. He also regretted the method he’d chosen. If he’d truly wanted to do his last duty, rather than remaining as the perfect villain, it might have been better to honestly open his heart—he kept thinking that.
And yet…
‘Seongjo, were you really okay?’
Just how had Seongjo been?
‘Was our breakup such a trivial thing to you that you could overcome it so quickly?’
Seongjo had a new person. Since he’d directly seen him getting in a car and leaving with another man, it was an undeniable fact, but Yeongbeom still hadn’t completely accepted that fact.
How could he do that? It had been a full eight years. If he could feel attracted to a new person so easily, then what had his relationship with Yeongbeom himself been?
‘I really agonized for so long…’
The worries he’d had thinking of him even after breaking up felt meaningless. The thought that for his sake too, they should have had a more sincere and deeper parting seemed pointless.
However, even while thinking that way, he found himself wondering what if they’d broken up a little less cruelly from the start. Then perhaps Seongjo wouldn’t have met someone new this quickly. Perhaps lingering feelings toward Yeongbeom himself would have remained…
“Ahaha, this is funny.”
While Yeongbeom was lost in thought, Seyeong, who had finished eating, was looking at her phone with a smile. After muttering while looking at the screen with an interested face, she soon called Yeongbeom.
“Yeongbeom-ssi, look at this. What would you do if I became a zombie?”
“Huh?”
“There are people’s answers here and they’re all so funny~ Yeongbeom-ssi, think about it too.”
Seyeong tended to like these kinds of things. Hypothetical situations. However, the questions she brought saying they looked interesting were usually ones whose trend had already passed and weren’t new.
Like questions such as ‘What if your lover peels perilla leaves for someone else?’, ‘What if they peel shrimp shells?’
It was probably partly because not much time had passed since she’d returned from abroad, and partly because rather than actively searching the internet, she only looked at what caught her eye at any given moment.
Yeongbeom didn’t enjoy such questions in the first place, thinking they had no meaning. But if he refused, it was obvious Seyeong’s feelings would be hurt. While inwardly sighing at the wave of fatigue, he opened his mouth and answered carefully.
“Let’s see. Until a cure comes out, I’d protect you safely…”
He voiced a model answer that came to mind, one he’d seen somewhere, as if he’d just thought of it. Since he couldn’t bear to kill Seyeong after she’d become a zombie, he’d gag her and take her around while waiting for a cure to come out… Seyeong looked quite satisfied, but she didn’t stop with just that question.
Questions like ‘What if even after a long time passes, no cure comes out?’, ‘What if you get bitten while going around?’ continued. Yeongbeom somehow kept finding things to answer. He would still wait without losing hope, but if he got bitten, he would shoot Seyeong with a gun then commit suicide the same way—he mechanically laid out such soulless answers.
As he did so, at some point he couldn’t hold back the fatigue that washed over him. Yeongbeom couldn’t hold back one question that suddenly came to his complicated mind and voiced it as is.
“What would you do if we broke up?”
It was the first time he’d thrown such a question at Seyeong. In front of Seyeong, he’d always only shown a fabricated version of himself. He’d planned to act as the perfect man who didn’t deviate even slightly from her ideal type all the way to marriage. He only did his best for questions she wanted to ask or wanted to hear, so this was the first time asking something he was genuinely curious about.
At Seongjo’s question that was unlike him in various ways, Seyeong contorted her expression as if flustered.
“What? What kind of question is that? Are you saying this because there’s something you don’t like?”
It would be terrible if she took his impulsive question as meaning he wanted to break up. Yeongbeom quickly managed his expression and calmly shook his head.
“No, of course not. No way. I just wanted to ask Seyeong something too after listening.”
Watching Seyeong soften a bit, Yeongbeom asked carefully again.
“…Do you think you’d be okay even if we broke up, Seyeong? How long do you think it would take after breaking up to meet someone else?”
