What was he supposed to do when he’d cut off even the window to cling to? He himself back then had wanted to cling. He desperately wanted to find him and ask why they were breaking up. He wanted to know what he’d done so wrong to deserve just being notified without any warning, without proper conversation.
To say interest had faded, he’d continued living while blindly looking only at Jinho. If that had been heavy, he was the type who would have said so earlier, but he’d rather welcomed it. He’d said many times that it was rather fortunate only he knew with no one else. There’s no way Jinho didn’t know that.
“Well, you would have canceled the imprint because of marriage anyway.”
“Then…”
When he heard the word marriage just now, he’d thought no way. But there really was someone he was going to marry. He’d thought the story of a partner getting married not long after breaking up only happened in dramas. Well, what would he properly know when he’d thought even breakups were other people’s business? Muyoung’s expression, who had been thinking self-deprecatingly, hardened stiffly.
“The person you just saw will become my wife. I can’t enter the wedding hall while imprinted. It’s not like I’m marrying you.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t want marriage?”
“Did you think we’d get married? No, right? Who gets married over a youthful mistake?”
“…Mistake.”
The sound of music floating in the air momentarily couldn’t be heard. He felt like the axis of his body was completely broken and tilting.
Mistake.
It was something he’d always worried about. As an orphan and an actor struggling in the industry, he’d often felt there was some wall between him and Jinho, a son of a sound enterprise who was going strong, that they couldn’t get close no matter what method was used. But because he liked him, he’d brushed it off dozens of times thinking that much was anxiety and worry he could bear. He’d thought Jinho felt the same way. Was even that a useless belief to him?
He slowly exhaled. Along with the destructive impulse to really make it a mistake since he called it a mistake, he also just wanted to quickly get away from this place. Strength naturally entered his hands. Only after feeling his nails digging into his palms did his mind barely seem to return.
He knew well that sometimes he seemed pathetic in his eyes. It wasn’t that he didn’t read the bad signs in the expression shown whenever he seemed frustrating or acted passively. That Jinho showed reluctance every time he refused Muyoung who occasionally wanted to even go on trips, that he made excuses and changed the subject every time he tried to talk about the distant future – he knew it all.
But he wanted to first believe the attitude that quickly smiled, understood, and was considerate. He wanted to believe that if there were no feelings at all, even the excuse that it was for Muyoung’s sake wouldn’t come out. As Jinho said, he’d decided to think differently that secretly dating would help both their futures. If he thought of it all as slight discomfort that could be shared between people who’d promised a distant future, there was nothing he couldn’t keep.
It was his own mistake for believing only sweet words. If he argued that way, it was a mistake.
“…I’m glad. That I broke up with sunbae.”
“What…?”
He looked at him while moving a bit further away from him standing in front. Still formally dressed outfit, expensive watch, well-polished shoes. The outfit where everything seemed to exist to modify Yu Jinho was the easiest way for him to express himself. Besides that, Muyoung vaguely knew how much he changed his face and conducted himself depending on how he wanted to be seen in others’ eyes. He couldn’t not know.
But the moments he’d struggled to pass over because he was affectionate only to him now came back as regret. The efforts to keep only good memories broke apart pointlessly into pieces. Was this also where the long time spent together showed cumbersome traces?
“The imprint must have come undone easily. After it came undone, I realized how hypocritically you’d been acting toward me. In my own way, I tried to understand thinking there must have been circumstances sunbae was unavoidably placed in.”
“Lee Muyoung.”
“Should I rather be grateful? At least we could end it without going to marriage. I still thought of it as good memories. Since you call it a mistake, I’ll know it as a mistake. Though I’ll never understand until I die how you endured the mistake for so long.”
“What are you trying to do, now? If you’re throwing a tantrum about that kind of thing at this point…”
“No. I really think it’s fortunate. That I won’t be marrying sunbae, I’m glad.”
It was first love. Did someone say that? That first love isn’t fulfilled, so it’s more intense and leaves a long afterglow. At least for now, he thought it fortunate that wouldn’t happen. Truly. Though he’d worn down his body for months, he’d never once uttered a bad word. It was like he’d properly placed the final period on the dragging emotions.
He was truly grateful for making it possible to conclude like this. Though a different kind of emotion welled up that was neither disappointment nor despair, even this felt like it would fade someday. For now, whatever it was, it seemed like he could avoid crumbling down from the floor he was standing on only if he considered it his own way.
“If I’d married someone like you who knows nothing, wouldn’t I be too pitiful?”
“You…!”
Jinho, whose voice had been rising with a face completely crumpled at what part of his words was unsatisfactory, became flustered. Did he only now realize this place wasn’t completely without eyes?
Then someone’s hand gently wrapped around his waist.
“What’s the matter?”
“Ah…”
“Is this someone you know?”
Dowon was naturally standing beside him, having come at some point. He realized only now that he’d been away from his seat for quite a long time. Jinho, who was about to say something, stopped, seeming to have gauged the situation in his own way after seeing Dowon approach.
He worried about how to answer the calm voice asking as if curious, then just nodded. As if that answer was enough, Dowon spoke while looking at Jinho.
“I don’t know who you are, but it seems you could go inside and have your conversation.”
“…A school sunbae.”
Dowon’s hand holding Muyoung’s waist lightly tightened. Probably at the word sunbae Muyoung said, Dowon seemed to have already figured out who Jinho was. He felt the emotions that had been chaotically churning his insides until just before gradually calming down.
Right, he wasn’t alone now. He should have returned to his seat quickly, but he’d spent too much time distracted by the unexpected meeting. Worried whether his mood had been ruined, Muyoung turned his gaze to examine Dowon’s face.
“You had company. Well, this isn’t a place Muyoung would come to alone.”
Jinho spoke in a state clearly struggling to suppress his rising anger. Though he didn’t know how it looked to Dowon’s eyes, to Muyoung’s eyes he didn’t look particularly strange on the surface. However, Muyoung could nakedly feel Jinho’s sarcastic tone and unfriendly gaze.
“You must have company too.”
“Yes, well. I was just briefly greeting a junior I ran into after a long time.”
“I’ll be right there. Please go in.”
“Let’s move now. Come after finishing up appropriately.”
“Yes, I’ll just greet them and come right away.”
He didn’t want to respond even to Jinho’s belated excuse-like introduction. Muyoung, who briefly patted the back of the hand wrapped around his waist, sent Dowon back in. Though meeting Jinho couldn’t be helped, he didn’t want to make Dowon, who would be alone, wait longer either.
“Ha, what. So… that’s how it was.”
At Jinho’s appearance letting out an empty laugh as if absurd, Muyoung, who felt an ominous feeling for no reason, chose to quickly get away from this situation. It wasn’t a hoped-for situation or intended meeting. Moreover, he thought it wasn’t an appearance to show in front of Dowon.
He absolutely couldn’t understand with what thoughts Jinho was showing that attitude. He’d never even thought about having this kind of conversation after breaking up. Above all, when he’d said with his own mouth there was someone he was marrying, was there a need to hold onto him? He didn’t want to care anymore about things he couldn’t understand without exception.
“I’ll go if the conversation is over. Have a good time.”
“That’s fortunate. Still, since you’re even doing entertainment work, you somehow met an Alpha. I thought you’d made a bad choice, but you were fine because you had another person. You should have said so earlier. I also. Worried for nothing.”
“…You worried?”
“If someone I spent time with at one point died, wouldn’t I feel my life is rough?”
“Sunbae, you’re really… really rock bottom.”
Worried, he said. That can’t be. If he’d truly thought of Muyoung, he couldn’t have been like that. Rather, he was someone who never worried even once. Rather, he would have worried about damage that might come to himself.
While feeling his body wearing down from the wrong choice, Muyoung had considered it fortunate the surroundings had no one. It was true he’d given up on himself too. And he thought Jinho inwardly knew such a him a little. Because they’d been lovers.
Still, if he knew even a little that he was someone who would find a place to die without causing damage to others as much as possible, these were words that would never come out. Though now he’d absolutely try not to die and that had become natural, even if he really reached death, there was no way he’d convey such news to Jinho.
This person didn’t know the time he’d tried to find some way to sort it out alone, the effort he’d tried to endlessly digest it inside himself and not have even a speck of lingering attachment.
“How noble are you, having rolled around together with me who you call rock bottom? Not grabbing my ankle before marriage isn’t bad, but choose your people well when you go around. Pretending not to know only works once.”
“It’s stranger to act like sunbae when we’ve already broken up, but is it okay even if someone knows our relationship? Should I go inside and tell all this to the person who came with you?”
“Haha, I didn’t see you that way but Muyoung, you really take care of your own interests properly. Try it, who’ll be at more loss? If it spreads in that world that J Ent.’s CEO is going around with an actor, who do you think will get torn apart? Maybe…”
“How does sunbae know who that person is…”
