“Now it’s my turn.”
“For what.”
“Who was that person earlier?”
“Someone I don’t know.”
At the shameless answer that seemed prepared, Seungju narrowed his eyes. He grabbed Muyeon’s wrist and lowered it.
“A call comes at 3 AM with someone looking for oppa oppa, and you want me to believe that?”
“It really is someone I don’t know. The number wasn’t even saved.”
“What kind of amateur excuse is that… Does Muyeon curse at people he doesn’t know too? And is this the first or second time you’ve gotten calls like that?”
“What’s wrong with cursing at someone who calls at 3 AM?”
Seungju still looked at Muyeon with suspicious eyes. He couldn’t believe it. Seungju snapped.
“Then what exactly was the problem that made you angry when I said I was a company employee to someone I don’t know?”
“……”
Muyeon shut his mouth. Anyway, it feels satisfying when that mouth can’t run off. Seungju didn’t miss the opportunity and asked again.
“Who is it?”
“I said it’s someone I don’t know.”
“You want to make me say it again? So you’re saying I should have advertised to a wrong number that the phone’s owner is gay?”
“What couldn’t you do?”
“What?”
The shamelessness was too much. Seungju said with wide eyes.
“Look here, Muyeon. You can’t just say anything just because you want to save face or win an argument.”
“I never just said anything. What’s the big deal about saying I’m gay?”
“That’s outing, fuck!”
Seungju exploded again. He threw away Muyeon’s arm that he’d been holding. This time too, Muyeon didn’t care at all and retorted.
“Like you said, someone looking for oppa at 3 AM wouldn’t be calling for work, and they’re someone I don’t know, so whether I curse or out myself. And what if I say I’m gay? Jeez… even my father knows I’m seeing a man.”
“…Huh?”
“Well, it’s sweet that you were worried about not outing me.”
“…What?”
Seungju blinked.
What did I just hear?
Seungju’s heart froze more coldly than any other moment he’d experienced this dawn. His frozen insides clattered and dropped to the floor. Muyeon recognized Seungju’s state and closed his mouth.
Only after a long while did Seungju, with his mouth hanging open blankly, tilt his head slightly to the side. Please say it’s not true.
Muyeon nodded slightly as if it were no big deal. Yeah, that’s right.
***
Seungju didn’t sleep a wink that dawn.
Enduring sobering up with wide-open eyes is painful. Because your head hurts like it’s splitting. Muyeon criticized that it was his own doing. He even pointed at the hangover drink Seungju had placed by the entrance in boxes. How much do you drink to have this at home. When he heard that it was a product that came regularly by delivery, Muyeon teased Seungju to his heart’s content. And then he lay beside him, fiddling with his phone and lounging around.
Seungju lay curled up in bed, letting out deep sighs. You’re criticizing me when I woke up because of you? But since Muyeon gave him an arm pillow and stayed up all night until morning, he couldn’t blame him.
In conclusion, it was true that the President also knew Muyeon was seeing men. There was just a slight discrepancy from what Seungju understood. Muyeon’s intention was merely that his parents knew he was bi, but Seungju’s misunderstanding went far astray. He heard that statement as the President having his eyes blazing trying to find out who dared seduce his youngest son.
At Seungju’s misunderstanding, Muyeon made quite a hurt expression. It was a rather detestable face, but it was effective on Seungju. He furrowed his brow following Muyeon.
“You thought I might have told my father that the person I’m dating is you, Seungju?”
“……”
“Why did you think that? Have I done something that made me look that crazy before?”
Muyeon was genuinely curious. He narrowed his eyes and became lost in thought as if retracing past events. To Seungju’s eyes, that looked even more creepy. Well, even if he tried to say it, there were no specific, decisive examples. He’d just often said things that made him feel a bit suspicious. If driving people crazy with such words was a talent, it would be a talent.
When Seungju didn’t answer, Muyeon smiled brightly.
“I’ll be careful from now on.”
These kinds of words, that is. Whether he meant he wouldn’t run his mouth to his father, or that he’d try to appear less crazy from now on, was unclear.
So now when listening to what Baek Muyeon says, it won’t just end with feeling something chilling, a suspicious feeling. There was a reason for all those prickly speech habits and attitude that stuck out like thorns between Muyeon’s extremely normal words.
As if combing through his mind that had been tangled with alcohol, Seungju recalled in order the sides of Muyeon he’d seen for the first time today. The offensive, confident, and unrestrained attitude was truly a first sight, but strangely it wasn’t very surprising. He could find several clues. Arrogance disguised as smooth behavior. Strangely blunt words that popped out.
When his thoughts reached the fact that revealing his true colors and identity was because of their relationship, a paltry satisfaction arrived. So he felt more melancholy than happy.
Seungju pressed his temples with his hand, then rubbed his eyes. It was to finish unfolding his tangled and crumpled mind. When the whole picture became visible, oddly enough, something Cha Sojeong had said before suddenly came to mind.
Super, super, super young master, they say.
Ah, maybe she didn’t emphasize it this much. Anyway.
Seungju let out a deep sigh. He didn’t think he could find a definition of Baek Muyeon more fitting than those words. An incredible young master. A person raised preciously in a good home for whom everything is natural and confident. A person who has no need to watch his words or make excuses for his actions. A person who has the innate justification to do so, even if it means flustering others or pressing them more than necessary.
Seungju had never been nor would ever become such a person. In a sense, he would be the archetype of a person at some opposite point from Seungju. His head grew dizzy again. Because the premonitions he’d had before, the bitter thoughts, all rushed in at once.
Seungju looked up at Muyeon. Muyeon was still smiling. He raised his hand and gently stroked Seungju’s forehead and eyes.
“Sleep a bit more.”
“…Okay.”
Of course sleep didn’t come. Seungju turned the direction of his thoughts, escaping from the bitterness tormenting himself. Right, this guy’s parents all know. Even though the family all knows, they’re quite harmonious. The President dotes on his youngest son to the point of nearly dying from it. I thought the President was a complete old fogy, but it seems there are open parts too.
After circling around such thoughts for a while, his feet stopped at a certain point.
Am I envious of Baek Muyeon?
Seungju thought of the many things that had fallen apart because of his sexual orientation. His thoughts wandered and stuck to a certain emotion and wouldn’t fall off.
Generous parents who completely understand their child. A prosperous life lacking nothing materially or mentally. Confidence with nothing to hide to the point of being close to arrogance. All those untainted things.
Things he’d never had even once. How long had it been since he’d lost sleep over those things?
Is this an inferiority complex? Jealousy? Or something else? Dawn breaks beyond the curtain. As if to make himself shabby for being immersed in such sordid thoughts. Seungju looked up at the window through the gap in the curtains. It was like looking up at the top of a cliff between him and that. The feeling pressing on his heart changed to one of squeezing.
He tossed his body and turned over with his back to the window. Muyeon, now facing him, looked down at him. Seungju swept over his face as if seeing it for the first time. A slender but firm jaw, a straight nose bridge, and a brow that couldn’t erase fatigue. Yet gentle eyes.
When their eyes met, Muyeon slowly smiled. Like before, his smile stirred his heart. Right, to him this time is just a quiet morning.
Seungju ultimately realized he couldn’t escape the bitterness. This is a wound. This pain comes every time I feel that you and I are never the same. Things that exist for you but don’t exist for me, the real difference that starts there.
It wasn’t surprising that realization came belatedly because he’d avoided facing it. Throughout his life, he’d always known it hurt only after it passed.
His heart that gradually grew smaller rolled around and finally found its place.
Seungju felt sorry. Muyeon and I are too different. We’re not suitable. I made him meet someone unsuitable.
At the same time, his heart became sad again. In the middle of this pain, he thinks of Muyeon first, not himself. He realized he’d given his heart that much.
For Seungju, many tragedies came from alcohol, but the biggest and most important ones did not.
***
Of course, for Seungju the biggest tragedy is going to work. Even if there’s a war, you have to go to work. Much less when you’ve just drunk some alcohol, had some sex, and didn’t sleep much—you can’t not go to the company.
Baek Muyeon doesn’t have to. Because he’s the President’s son. Because he’s a damn young master.
The tender emotions of dawn flew away completely at Muyeon’s words that he’d take a morning half-day off since he didn’t sleep properly. Seungju trembled with a sense of betrayal.
“Don’t go either, Seungju.”
“Does a same-day morning half-day off make sense?”
“What can’t it be?”
“My vacation still has to be approved by the Director. I don’t want to do something that gives that old fogy something to grab onto.”
“Just rest, and after the Director transfers, attach it with another half-day and submit it to me as a full day for approval.”
“What if people say something when you and I both took morning half-days the same way?”
“Most company people wouldn’t even think to connect me and you, Seungju. Would they even imagine the two of us are dating?”
