The place the man took Sungjin to was a cabana that only VIP members could use. Isn’t this an area you can only enter with separate payment? Sungjin looked around in surprise, but none of the nearby guards or staff paid them any attention.
Only then did Sungjin notice the VIP-only strap fastened around the man’s wrist. Ah, this person is a VIP. At the same time, a chill ran down his spine.
Is he someone who comes to places like this often? That’s why he’s a VIP, right? He’ll meet someone like me for one day and completely forget about me, right? Actually, that was better. Sungjin had no intention of finding eternal love or making a lover at a place like this. He’d be satisfied if he could just confirm his possibilities (?) for one night. Now I’ll safely return to Korea with confidence and live a different life than before! That alone was his purpose.
“……”
While Sungjin swallowed his dry saliva thinking such thoughts, the man spoke to him again.
“Do you live here?”
Sungjin flinched for a moment, then sat at a distance from the man and answered.
“No, I’m here traveling.”
“Are you a student?”
The man before his eyes had a more youthful face than Sungjin. Is he about twenty years old… Still, he must be an adult to come to a place like this, right? The pool party only allowed adults over 18 to enter.
Sungjin answered, hoping the party’s managers had properly verified adult status.
“I graduated.”
Though the graduation ceremony was still quite far off and he wasn’t working at a company yet either, he glossed over his answer appropriately. The man’s gaze was still staring through Sungjin’s face. Feeling guilty for no reason, Sungjin said with a smile.
“Once I get a job soon, it’ll be hard to travel like this.”
He didn’t know exactly why he thought that, but it seemed he wanted to let him know he wasn’t a pathetic unemployed bum or slacker just playing around. Even Sungjin himself didn’t know what he was saying.
As he awkwardly laughed “haha” and scratched his head, the man was about to say something while still not withdrawing his blatant gaze. However, he was interrupted by a staff member who approached near the cabana.
<This is the VIP service drink.>
What the staff placed on the table was a citrus-scented cocktail decorated with tropical flowers.
“Ah.”
When Sungjin awkwardly stared at the cocktail, the man first picked up the glass placed in front of him. Not wanting to seem like he was refusing, Sungjin quickly followed the man’s lead, picked up his glass, and gulped down almost half of it in one go. The sweet and sour drink flowed down his throat in an instant.
“Does it suit your taste? It’s a bit sweet for me.”
Sungjin answered flustered.
“Ah, yes! I, I’m fine with it. It’s delicious!”
And it really was. The rich, sweet alcohol naturally numbed his tongue and lifted his mood. The only alcohol he’d ever drunk was diluted soju and beer at drinking gatherings he’d been forcibly dragged to. It was fascinating that alcohol, which he’d only taken a sip of before putting down, could be this sweet and like a soft drink.
Sungjin went ahead and emptied the contents. The man looked at Sungjin for a moment, then put down the glass he’d only tasted about a sip of on the table.
“I’m glad it suits your taste.”
Sungjin felt his mood lifting for some reason. Maybe because a beauty at a level he’d never seen in his life was in front of him, he kept giggling weakly for no reason and felt both shy and relaxed. Perhaps because of that, he suddenly had something he wanted to ask the man about. Normally he would never have said it out loud for fear of ruining the atmosphere, but suddenly an inexplicable courage welled up.
“Do you come to places like this often?”
Then the man answered while still not withdrawing his observing gaze.
“Not often. Sometimes when I’m invited… there are times I have to show my face as an obligation.”
“Ahh…”
I thought his face was incredible. It seemed he did work as an influencer, celebrity, model, or something like that. Sungjin nodded to himself in understanding. This time the man spoke first.
“What’s your major?”
Sungjin didn’t like talking about himself. After all, even if he talked, everyone wouldn’t want to hear it and wouldn’t be curious anyway. No one wants to ramble on when they know they won’t get a good reaction, right? But now, perhaps because the man asked first, the answer flowed out smoothly.
“Architecture.”
“So you do design and stuff… like that?”
At the man’s words, Sungjin almost started explaining the various career paths one could choose after graduating from the architecture department, but barely succeeded in reining himself in. Nobody’s curious about that stuff. Don’t say useless things.
After muttering to himself as if casting a spell, a natural answer came out.
“Yeah, well, I do things like that too…”
So he should have stopped there, but the courage boosted by alcohol kept making him blurt out strange things.
“Actually, I’m more interested in interior design than the buildings themselves. Oh, of course I don’t hate architecture. It’s fun to fill the inside when the framework is good, so…”
So it would have been right to stop around here. But the man in front of him didn’t cut off Sungjin’s words with a bored face—instead, he nodded obediently and even responded encouragingly.
“…So what you want to do is make houses that make people happy, right?”
This is strange. Why does he keep making me talk? Is he in a cult? Or is it a romance scam? It was a story he’d never told even in consultations with his department professor, or even to his parents.
Sungjin laughed with his face flushed from embarrassment.
“Yesss, the space where each person feels comfortable is different for everyone. So… I want to make a house, an environment, that’s just right for that person…”
Sungjin suddenly raised his head to look at the face of the other person who was listening to his boring story. The man was tall with an urban appearance and seemed accustomed to a glamorous lifestyle.
What kind of house would make this person happiest? Since his impression is cold, warm tones might suit him instead. A scene came to mind of him sitting by a sunny window, basking in the sunlight and dozing drowsily. It would be a lovely scene, like a black cat enjoying a sunbath.
“Um, just a moment!”
Sungjin immediately searched for his phone in his pocket and pulled out the pen stored in the corner. Then he opened a sketch app on the larger-than-usual screen and began drawing a landscape that would suit him.
The man looked at Sungjin with a slightly bewildered expression, then soon fixed his gaze on the landscape Sungjin was drawing. Soon a living room scene with comfortable yet warm colors revealed itself.
“That, um… I thought it would suit you well. Since, I don’t know what kind of lifestyle you usually have, I just drew it based on the image I see…”
The man didn’t answer anything and just quietly stared at the finished work. It was an interior featuring soft wood-toned furniture and warm primary-colored fabrics. He seemed surprised by the feeling that was a bit different from his own urban image.
“Ah, sorry… it might not be your taste, but suddenly…”
Somehow an excuse-like statement just popped out.
“You… have a calm atmosphere. So I thought a house with a somewhat warm atmosphere would be good for resting comfortably.”
“……”
After hearing Sungjin’s rambling, the man suddenly hit the nail on the head.
“You mean if I lived in a house like this, I’d be happy?”
“Huh?”
Does it work that way? Sungjin was confused, caught in a self-contradiction for a moment. Wouldn’t it seem too presumptuous to say yes? Um, um, while he was flustered by both the alcohol and embarrassment, the man suddenly drifted in a completely unexpected direction.
“Do you like men?”
Sungjin was so surprised he couldn’t answer right away. W-well, it’s a question you can naturally ask here… Because he could never honestly reveal that he liked men in Korea, he reflexively widened his eyes without realizing it.
Maybe? He didn’t know if he could get it up for all men, but it seemed completely possible with the man in front of him. He’d never seen such a pretty man even in movies.
Sungjin barely pulled himself together and opened his mouth.
“Yes, yesss…”
Normally he wouldn’t have answered even if he had ten mouths. However, having already spilled his values and even his dreams to a stranger he was seeing for the first time, liking men seemed like a not-so-significant secret.
It was a story he’d never been able to tell anyone until now. The dream he’d cherished preciously even while being pushed around and ignored by others—he’d always kept it in his heart for fear of being ridiculed. If this was someone who listened without making fun of it, he felt like it would be okay to confess the next secret as well.
However, what came back in response was an even more shocking question.
“But why do you keep avoiding eye contact? Don’t you like me?”
If I didn’t like you, would I be here! Sungjin clutched the area around his fluttering heart and squeezed his eyes shut. It’s not because you’re ugly or I don’t like you, but because you have the most beautiful countenance among all the people I’ve ever met.
The man before his eyes was such a beauty that he felt shy just from looking at him. If Sungjin hadn’t succeeded in transforming at least his appearance, he would have naturally thought it was a low-quality prank, wondering why someone like this was showing interest in him. In fact, until now, the only ones who had pretended to be interested and talked to Sungjin—with his disheveled hair, thick horn-rimmed glasses, and shoulders hunched gloomily—were female students doing punishment games.
But not now! At least in terms of appearance, he was in a state that others found attractive. Sungjin desperately tried to calm his rapidly beating heart and answered.
“It’s my first time coming to a place like this… I guess I’m a little nervous.”
Haha, he smiled awkwardly again, but the other party just kept staring at Sungjin. Then he opened his mouth again.
“You know what everyone does here, right?”
Could he have come without even knowing that? Though there was some distance, in the other cabanas placed around them, skinship close to Animal Kingdom was already unfolding. They just weren’t doing penetration, but the blatant kissing and simulated sex acts were enough to heat up even Sungjin’s face from afar. And he had been rambling on about his career views that a stranger wouldn’t even be curious about in that atmosphere.
“Yes, um…”
Sungjin coughed awkwardly out of embarrassment. But what he heard after that was an even more surprising sentence.
“Can I kiss you?”
The man who looked pretty enough that it wouldn’t be surprising if he was described as a doll, or an angel, or a fairy, was completely direct without even a gram of hesitation in any of his statements.
