# Chapter 85
Doha had used the word “proof.” Just how could he possibly prove it?
Maturely stopping his tears, Jaei tightly embraced the head of young Doha who was desperately begging him to believe. No matter how much he thought about it, there was nothing more Doha could do.
He knew that Doha wasn’t someone who would ruin someone’s life or take their life. If he had such a nature, Jaei wouldn’t have loved him in the first place. Nor was he a child who would impulsively commit reckless acts and ruin his own life in the process. If Doha’s unbelievable confession just now—that Seo Eunho was planning to take over Lee Jaei’s entire life—was true, provoking Seo Eunho now would do no good.
Jaei knew everything. Doha had no more ways to prove his innocence. Strictly speaking, this wasn’t Ryu Doha’s problem but Lee Jaei’s problem of being troubled by others’ words. He wiped away the tears on Doha’s soft cheeks with his long fingers and, wrapping his arms around Doha’s firm, thick torso, said:
“After I finish the last shoot tomorrow, I’ll go to the hospital right away. I think I’ve become sensitive from not getting proper sleep for days. I’ll get counseling, take medication, and after a good sleep, I’ll return to my senses.”
Having left words that could give Doha a tremendous shock, Jaei showed a strained smile, saying he was fine, then clasped his hands to his chest with an infinitely fragile appearance and collapsed on the floor. After stirring up Doha’s heart like that, he deliberately picked up his phone for Doha to see. Using his acting skills, his specialty, he opened his eyes sorrowfully and began to diligently reply to a 193cm tall Western man who had sent him love messages.
Doha’s eyes, which had been unable to stop crying out of pity for Jaei, soon dried up completely. Doha forcibly thrust his small, round head between Jaei and his phone, muttering:
“Jaei has really become twisted.”
He pushed his large body between Jaei’s arms, nestling into his embrace. Like a baby polar bear unaware of how big it had grown, he silently looked back and forth between Jaei’s face and the phone. Despite Doha’s innocent eyes, Jaei continued to write his reply unhesitatingly, his lips pale and trembling. He used a writing style that would be most understandable when a foreigner used a translator.
[Sean. I saw an article that you were selected as the second sexiest man in the world. I want to meet you soon and check how sexy you really are. My ideal type is someone who is sexy and remains faithful. I really hate playboys who deceive their lovers with an innocent face.]
The moment Jaei put the period, Doha, with his fist clenched into a round ball, tapped the phone screen with his large paw. He could have broken the screen but controlled his strength, not wanting to show violence. Unable to send his reply due to the baby bear’s tyranny, Jaei had no choice but to put down his phone. Then, using his arm as a pillow, he calmly spoke to his companion bear, who was lying there pouting his lower lip with a hurt expression and blinking his large eyes.
“Doha. I just completed a short scenario in my head.”
“What’s it about, hyung? Tell me.”
There he was again—the one who always appeared whenever Ryu Doha was cornered. Doha knew too well that while Lee Jaei could hate Ryu Doha, he could never hate Lee Doha. Jaei performed the ritual of firmly pressing Doha’s nose before cheerfully beginning his story.
“Ryu Doha and Seo Eunho are in cahoots. They plotted from the afterlife to take Lee Jaei’s wealth and fame completely. But Seo Eunho keeps getting agitated whenever he sees Lee Jaei and ends up revealing that they’re partners. Lee Jaei has figured it all out, so now Ryu Doha is in a difficult position. What do you think? Does the story have plausibility?”
As he listened to Jaei’s absurd story, Doha, who had been quietly blinking, developed a walnut on his chin. With his mouth tightly closed, Doha was holding back tears like a child. Jaei gently bit the cute walnut with his front teeth and patted Doha’s bottom.
“Okay. I’ll go to the hospital, hospital. I haven’t been to the psychiatrist for too long, thinking my condition had improved. Don’t cry, our baby. Think of it as Hwanwoo talking nonsense. Only family can accept this kind of thing.”
“Jaei, if it’s going to be like this, let’s just end our lives by bursting each other. That would be better.”
Having managed to hold back his tears, Doha pressed Jaei’s torso tightly with both arms to burst him.
He laid Jaei’s head on his lap—fragile but not easily burstable—and ruffled his hair with his fingers. Pitifully, three more strands of hair that had turned white were discovered. To protect the precious hair follicles of Jaei, whose profession was acting, Doha didn’t pluck them but instead cut them short with scissors.
While Doha was tenderly trimming his hair, Jaei was poking needles into a small Doha doll. Every time Jaei jabbed a needle, Doha said “Ouch” to help improve his mood.
Jaei said:
“After filming ends, I’m going to practice verbal fighting.”
Doha, who knew almost all of Jaei’s fighting records from elementary school, had a look of pity in his eyes.
“Were you just one-sidedly beaten by Seo Eunho again?”
“I did get angry. I started after mentally preparing myself. But I lost. I’ve never been good at fighting.”
With such a soft mentality, it was impossible to survive in this harsh world. He had only practiced using gentle words and never practiced using harsh words. In a situation where even his certainty that Ryu Doha was completely on his side had disappeared, Lee Jaei really needed to become stronger. Having succeeded in developing his brain and becoming intelligent, it was now time to develop other abilities. Doha stroked Jaei’s head, who was constantly striving for self-improvement, and asked gently:
“Tell me in detail. What exactly did that bastard say to you and how?”
“Don’t ask me, ask him. There’s no point in telling you. I can predict everything you’ll say and every expression you’ll make. I’ve seen it several times already. If I tell you, it’ll just be repeating all that.”
This was the best Jaei could say to Doha right now.
Doha stared at the Ryu Doha doll in Jaei’s hand. Unfortunately, it had eight needles concentrated in the crotch area. From this, he could sense that Jaei had put up an emotional wall against him.
To narrow the psychological distance between Jaei and his own crotch, Doha caressed Jaei’s head, cheeks, hands, and arms before slowly moving his hand to find the most sensitive part of Jaei’s body. Jaei’s body flinched and his eyes widened, but he didn’t reject Doha’s touch.
Putting away the doll that had many needles stuck in its crotch, Doha quickly stripped Jaei naked and said while skillfully moving his hands:
“Lee Jaei, let’s not rush. We’re not the kind of relationship that would fall apart over something like this after a few days.”
“We can’t fall apart. Do you know how hard I’ve worked to protect this love?”
Jaei’s hand went inside Doha’s T-shirt and stroked his back. Doha’s tone became more resolute.
“If all you can do is get psychiatric treatment, then get it. And leave Korea as soon as possible after the meeting. Meanwhile, I’ll do what I can.”
Jaei, who had been continuously feeling resistance to Doha’s suggestion to leave, finally agreed.
“Yes, that would be better. I’m struggling because I’ve shown you too many sides of myself that I don’t want to show.”
Time was needed. Jaei had lived with many expectations of Doha, whom he believed to be his lover, family, lifelong companion, and part of himself. He thought the problem was that he expected too much from him. He needed to practice letting go of these expectations one by one.
Now that things had come to this, he wanted to show Doha a surprising love that had grown to another level. He didn’t want to torment Doha by showing such an ugly side of himself even if his expectations of Doha were shattered.
Rather than staying at the level of cutting off the seeds of doubt and unconditionally believing Doha’s words, he wanted to become the Lee Jaei who would love him even if everything were true. Furthermore, he wanted to have a sacrificial love that could generously hand over his body, wealth, and his entire life to Doha’s lover.
“Doha, if you wait for me, I’ll come back as a mature and cool person. I’ll never show this side again.”
Doha, Doha. I’ll give up my desire to live happily with you for a long, long time. I’ll become a wonderful Jaei who can surrender my shell to Seo Eunho anytime!
Due to lack of sleep and an excessive schedule, Jaei’s delusions had become severely enlarged, bringing him close to a madman who had lost rational thought. Doha, who had no way of knowing the state of Jaei, who had been engulfed in madness from loving Ryu Doha too much, overlapped his body on top of Jaei’s and calmly declared his next goal once more.
“When we meet again… you won’t have to struggle like this ever. Everything will be resolved.”
However, Doha was also seriously gripped by madness. The inner state of the 20-year-old man, who had rolled around on the floor like a doormat and still failed to gain Jaei’s trust, had reached an extreme.
From this moment on, Ryu Doha’s life goal became simultaneously protecting Jaei safely from Seo Eunho and proving his pure love to Jaei. Now that it had come to this, he intended to see it through to the end. A person hanging off a cliff has no other options.
But since Jaei was struggling with his legs in the air while pinned under Doha’s body, he failed to notice that Doha’s innocent eyes had completely lost their sanity.
