Yukyung chattered on for a while in a tone where I couldn’t tell if he was talking to himself or explaining to me, then looked at me suspiciously again with narrowed eyes.
“Still, hyung isn’t Kwon Jukyung’s lover, right?”
I was briefly at a loss for words. Am I his lover? Am I not his lover?
I don’t really know either. The cohabitation definitely started when we weren’t lovers, but now we also sleep together and sometimes give off a vibe like we’re real lovers. We haven’t said we’re dating since the words first came out during an argument, but honestly, even if it wasn’t at first, I sometimes think maybe he’s come to like me now.
Though Jukyung said he had someone he liked separately, he said the other person didn’t like him back, and well, they say love moves, so his feelings could have changed by now, right? Aren’t people who love only one person for life rare?
I pretended to swallow the food in my mouth to buy time, then shook my head. Even if we were dating, I couldn’t say that. We’re both betas and men. At the very least, Kwon Jukyung is really a beta. And normally, people think beta men date beta women and get married, right? Thinking that, my heart strangely constricted again.
“We’re just friends. What lover talk between men.”
I tried to respond lightly.
“Are you a beta, hyung?”
He casually asks a private question that everyone generally refrains from. Is it because he’s still young?
“Yeah.”
“Whoa. I thought you were an omega when I first saw you, hyung.”
My heart sank. Is this kid an alpha or omega? Did I unknowingly leak pheromones or something? That can’t be, right?
“Why, why?”
“No, well, it’s just prejudice.”
Yukyung swept his cheek as if embarrassed.
“Because hyung is really prettily handsome.”
“Oh, r-really?”
Fortunately it seems he just said it. I couldn’t tell whether I should take that as a compliment or how I should react, so I hesitated for a moment. After racking my brain, I barely managed to recall the first question again.
“Anyway, why did you say you were Kwon Jukyung’s lover?”
“Uh… well, you see.”
Yukyung’s cheeks turned genuinely red. Looking away as if avoiding my gaze and seeming to think about something, he continued as if testing the waters.
“Uh… since you’re saying you’re not hyung’s lover, do you also know that Kwon Jukyung has someone he likes?”
Why is the conversation flowing this way? It’s not even a topic I particularly want to talk about. Was Kwon Jukyung’s one-sided love so obvious that even his young brother knows about it?
“…Yeah. I do know.”
“Do you know who it is too?”
“No, not that far….”
“Actually it’s a complicated story, but you absolutely can’t tell Kwon Jukyung, okay?”
Whatever story he was trying to tell, Yukyung made me promise repeatedly. Even then, after hesitating for a long time, he opened his mouth with a tense face as if making a big decision.
“Actually, there’s a hyung I like separately, and he’s close with Kwon Jukyung. And….”
In the house with just the two of us, Yukyung suddenly brought his body close and lowered his voice as if telling a secret.
“Kwon Jukyung likes that hyung too.”
“……”
I was at a loss for words for a moment.
Kwon Jukyung had a man he liked. It was a fact I knew. It was a fact I knew, but… why does my heart feel like it’s sinking like this?
The person Kwon Jukyung likes actually exists? He was really a real entity? If even his brother knows, just how close are they? Could it be… he’s in Korea?
“It’s like some trashy drama, right? Brothers liking the same person.”
Yukyung sighed deeply again. I still didn’t know how to react. But Yukyung didn’t care about my reaction and continued his story with a dejected expression, absorbed in his own emotions.
“The moment I heard hyung was living here together, I wondered if you were Kwon Jukyung’s lover. I couldn’t help but think that because Kwon Jukyung is absolutely not someone who would let just anyone into his space. But Jehyun hyung—that is, the hyung Kwon Jukyung likes—when I thought he was cheating with another guy despite saying he’s liked Jehyun hyung for several years, I got strangely angry.”
Yukyung started rambling on with his story, and though there were things I couldn’t understand in between, I didn’t ask questions. I was too shaken up inside to ask questions. I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, my voice would come out strangely twisted.
“So without realizing it, I thought I should drive a wedge between them, so I said that nonsense about being Kwon Jukyung’s lover or whatever. It’s a funny reaction, right, when I say I also like Jehyun hyung? I don’t know why I felt betrayed and angry. It’s not like those two are dating.”
Yukyung drooped his round shoulders with a dispirited expression.
“Now that you’re saying you’re not Kwon Jukyung’s lover, I don’t know why I feel regretful again. If hyung were dating Kwon Jukyung, I’d be lucky anyway since I’d be getting rid of one powerful competitor. Since I’m still young, I can’t compete with hyung right now anyway. I don’t even understand my own feelings.”
Yukyung let out a deep sigh and stared at me with a pitiful face as if wanting some reaction. I barely managed to ask one thing I wanted to pin down while trying to sort out my mind that had started to become entangled in confusion.
“That, the person called Jehyun hyung, doesn’t he like anyone? You or… or Kwon Jukyung….”
Yukyung’s cheeks puffed up sulkily.
“He treats me like a complete baby and won’t even pay attention to me. He treats Kwon Jukyung like a younger brother too, but still, since they’re similar in age, they’re at least at friend level… He doesn’t seem to like him in that way, but you never know. Seeing how Kwon Jukyung has been pathetically chasing after him for so long and he doesn’t flatly reject him but keeps accepting him, it seems like there might be something. Jehyun hyung is also a person whose mind you can’t quite read. Even now they go to the same company and see each other’s faces every day….”
“What?”
A loud voice came out without my realizing. This time I really felt like ice water had been poured all over me. A cold sensation swept from the back of my head down my back. They go to the same company? So even at this very moment, they’re seeing each other’s faces in the same space? During these few months when I lived in the same house with him, slept in the same bed, mixed bodies and kissed, Kwon Jukyung had been going to work and meeting his one-sided love the whole time?
My heart that seemed to stop for a moment suddenly started beating rapidly. I felt strange. In a word, it felt like shit. Suddenly the air around me warped hazily. A sense of betrayal swept over me.
No, a sense of betrayal? Me? Why? What am I to Kwon Jukyung?
I clearly knew that Kwon Jukyung had someone he had a one-sided love for. But since I’d never actually seen them, maybe I hadn’t realized it. At first, whether they existed or not, I honestly wasn’t that interested, and after our relationship became strangely different, I thought Jukyung had come to like me to some degree. I believed that the small silly things we did together were actually dating.
I had arbitrarily thought the object of his one-sided love was probably abroad, in England, and anyway since that person didn’t like Jukyung back, if they didn’t meet, a one-sided feeling like that would disappear someday. My ridiculous self-conceit had been doused with cold water.
“…Well, how could he not like Jehyun hyung? He’s so handsome and smart and cool and has a good voice and is sexy.”
Propping his chin with both hands, Yukyung talked as if dreaming with a strangely gloomy face.
“If you see Jehyun hyung too, you’ll definitely… Ah, should we go see him now? I’ll show you. Actually, I’m the one who wants to see him. He’s really handsome.”
Suddenly Yukyung jumped up and looked at me with sparkling eyes. The face that had seemed cute became irritating.
Fuck. Why would I go see that Jehyun or whatever guy?
***
30 minutes later, we were occupying window seats at a coffee shop on the first floor of the building where Jukyung worked. It was a direction where we could see clearly toward the building’s main entrance beyond the glass wall. Both Yukyung and I wore baseball caps with hoods pulled deeply over them. Since they were clothes Kwon Jukyung had personally bought for me, there was some risk of being recognized, but for now we ruled out the premise of being caught.
If caught, it would be a ridiculous situation anyway. If asked why I was here imitating a spy movie with his younger brother whom I’d just met for the first time, during time when I should be catching up on sleep and preparing for evening classes, I had no answer. I couldn’t say I came to see how great your one-sided love interest is. We absolutely must not get caught.
“Oh, he came out, there, over there.”
Spitting out the straw he’d been holding in his mouth, Yukyung urgently shouted. In the direction Yukyung was pointing, I could see Kwon Jukyung with his hands thrust deeply into his trench coat as if slightly cold. And next to him was a man similar in height to Kwon Jukyung but with a slightly larger build. My heart pounded.
“Next to Kwon Jukyung, tall, can you see?”
I narrowed my eyes and examined his face as if glaring, focusing. He definitely had a handsome face. Sharp features and a manly, mature atmosphere. I’d heard he was only two years older, but the atmosphere was definitely different. In front of him, even Kwon Jukyung had the feeling of a prickly young master somewhere.
I bit my lip. What the hell. He’s the complete opposite type from me? Is that the kind of person he likes? Then why the hell does he sleep with me? Because I’m the easiest? Because I just happened to be there?
“He’s handsome, right? Right?”
Yukyung whispered urgently. His eyes were ready to turn into hearts at any moment.
“Handsome my ass. Kwon Jukyung is way more handsome.”
I muttered spitefully without realizing.
“What? What did you just say, hyung?”
