“Ah——! Ow, that hurts!”
Kim Myeong-gyu’s hand drained to a dark color almost instantly from how hard it was being squeezed.
“It’s g-going to break! It’s going to break——!”
Kim Myeong-gyu let out a shriek as Kwon Gyo-eon, appearing out of nowhere, seized him by the wrist. He scrambled to pry Kwon Gyo-eon’s hand off with his other hand, but Kwon Gyo-eon didn’t so much as budge.
“Are you alright?”
Kwon Gyo-eon didn’t spare Kim Myeong-gyu a single glance as he checked on Hae-yul’s condition.
The moment Kwon Gyo-eon appeared just as Hae-yul was about to get struck by Kim Myeong-gyu — Hae-yul felt relief wash over him, almost laughably so.
“Are you alright?”
At the repeated question, Hae-yul gave Kwon Gyo-eon a small nod. Only then did Kwon Gyo-eon shift his gaze — which had been fixed entirely on Hae-yul — over to Kim Myeong-gyu. Kim Myeong-gyu was staring at his own hand in horror as it continued to turn an alarming color.
“L-let go! You son of a — what did I ever do to you——!”
Kwon Gyo-eon released Kim Myeong-gyu’s wrist with a rough jerk. Kim Myeong-gyu’s voice cracked as he choked out a sob.
“What’s your name?”
“Ugh, my hand… I think it’s b-broken.”
“I asked what your name is.”
Kim Myeong-gyu, who had been sniffling while clutching his own wrist, flinched when Kwon Gyo-eon’s voice dropped lower, then stammered back defensively.
“W-why do you want to know that… Who are you even…”
“I asked first. You should be giving an answer, not asking questions.”
“Why would I have to tell you that… Unless you’re with that sly little—”
Kim Myeong-gyu pointed a finger at Hae-yul, who was practically hiding behind Kwon Gyo-eon’s back, and glared.
“He — he came onto me first! I just went along with it. Is it a crime to accept someone’s feelings? I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“I’ll ask one last time. Are you going to tell me your name yourself, or should I find out on my own?”
Kwon Gyo-eon’s voice dropped yet another level, and Kim Myeong-gyu shuddered visibly. He glanced back and forth between Kwon Gyo-eon and Hae-yul behind him before mumbling out a reply.
“K-Kim Myeong-gyu… Why do you keep asking…”
The moment he heard the name, Kwon Gyo-eon gave a single nod and turned away without a second thought.
He walked over to Hae-yul, who was standing behind him fidgeting with his long padded coat for no reason, and asked in a gentle voice,
“Any injuries?”
“Not really…”
“Then we’re good. Let’s go.”
“What? But shouldn’t we at least call the police…”
Hae-yul glanced over at Kim Myeong-gyu, who was trembling violently while clutching his wrist.
“We can handle it through a lawyer, so you don’t need to worry about it. We’ll just draw up a power of attorney separately later.”
“Oh…”
Hae-yul stood there with a look of bewilderment — unsure whether it was really okay to wrap things up this simply and just leave — before belatedly following after Kwon Gyo-eon. Kwon Gyo-eon had even been kind enough to pick up Hae-yul’s phone, which had fallen to the ground and shattered.
Kwon Gyo-eon led Hae-yul to his car, parked beside the convenience store. With his help, Hae-yul settled into the passenger seat, let his eyes wander for a moment, then carefully opened his mouth.
“…Thank you for helping me. And… I’m sorry for getting you caught up in something unnecessary.”
“I was the one who butted in on your situation.”
“That’s…”
“I butted in because I wanted to, so there’s no need to apologize.”
At Kwon Gyo-eon’s firm reply, Hae-yul nodded with an awkward expression.
“Still, it would be best to go to a hospital first.”
“There’s nothing hurting, so a hospital seems a bit—”
“You were in danger just now. This absolutely cannot be taken lightly.”
Hae-yul looked at Kwon Gyo-eon — who was being so earnest about it as if it were his own matter — with a surprised expression, then nodded. Only then did Kwon Gyo-eon say good thinking and launch into his argument that they should start by making the hospital rounds.
And that day, Hae-yul was dragged through psychiatry, family medicine, and orthopedics — and eventually even radiology — spending a grueling half a day going in and out of hospitals.
***
Hae-yul sat across from Kwon Gyo-eon at a café near the hospital, exchanging conversation with a mildly exhausted expression. Whether it was because it was his first time going through something like that, he felt far more drained than usual. Kwon Gyo-eon noticed Hae-yul’s eyelids gradually drooping and stopped talking.
At the same time, Hae-yul’s pheromones began to drift and spill outward. The sweetly cloying scent made Kwon Gyo-eon unconsciously furrow his brow. Having only recently suppressed his rut on his own, he found Hae-yul’s pheromones several times more stimulating than usual.
“Hae-yul.”
Hae-yul, who had been nodding off with his head dipping forward, flinched his shoulders and opened his eyes. He looked around in a daze before spotting Kwon Gyo-eon and let out a small cough.
“Ahem, hem.”
“If you’re sleepy, let’s head back.”
“…Oh, right.”
Hae-yul nodded obediently and rose to follow Kwon Gyo-eon. Kwon Gyo-eon tidied up the cups and tray with somewhat clumsy hands and stepped out of the café alongside Hae-yul.
Hae-yul was dragging his body — heavy and limp like waterlogged cotton — and somehow managing to keep walking when he suddenly lost his balance and stumbled. Kwon Gyo-eon quickly caught his shoulder in a firm grip.
“You alright?”
“Oh… Thank you.”
Hae-yul bowed his head in thanks, his ears flushing slightly red from embarrassment.
“You should get inside quickly. But don’t you have work tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
Hae-yul looked up at Kwon Gyo-eon, who had fallen into thought after hearing his answer, and then noticed the large hand still gripping his shoulder. Neat, trimmed nails and firm, long fingers came into his line of sight.
In person, Kwon Gyo-eon seemed like a far better person than Hae-yul had expected. His slippery manner occasionally made people flare up, but even accounting for that, Kwon Gyo-eon was on the decent side.
Why is someone like this…
Why had his relationship with the original Ju Hae-yul gone so wrong? Was there something that hadn’t been written in the novel? Where had the two of them first met in the original story?
Taking advantage of the moment while Kwon Gyo-eon was lost in thought, Hae-yul tried to recall the original story for the first time in a while. But the original hadn’t described much about Ju Hae-yul and Kwon Gyo-eon in detail.
Ju Hae-yul had gotten only a few lines at most. And Kwon Gyo-eon — a couple of paragraphs at the very most. And even those couple of paragraphs were mostly about his indifferent attitude toward his own son.
How the two had met, how their relationship had ended up falling apart, and whether Kwon Gyo-eon had even loved Ju Hae-yul in the slightest — none of it had been written.
“Kwon Gyo-eon wanted to carve out his dead lover — no, his spouse bound to him by paperwork — from his life entirely.”
Most of the sentences had been along the lines of: he didn’t want Ju Hae-yul, he never liked him.
Hae-yul was mulling over why Kwon Gyo-eon, who was in reality this gentle, had been that way in the original — when a hand lightly tapped his shoulder and he opened his eyes wide.
“What are you thinking so hard about?”
“…Oh, nothing in particular.”
“I get the feeling you don’t want to go back to the study hall. Wouldn’t it be better to stay somewhere else until things get sorted out?”
“Hmm…”
“And for the time being, I think you should be careful with work too. It’ll be a problem if Kim Myeong-gyu shows up at your workplace.”
It was a reasonable point. Kim Myeong-gyu might be waiting at the study hall right now, just for him to come back. Hae-yul swallowed a sigh as he recalled Kim Myeong-gyu, red-faced and unable to contain his rage.
If he had as much money as Kwon Gyo-eon, someone like Kim Myeong-gyu would just be…
“…buried.”
“Sorry? Buried?”
“What did I just say?”
“Hmm.”
Kwon Gyo-eon looked at Hae-yul with a smile in his eyes, then shrugged.
“Who knows. As long as it’s not that you want to bury me, I suppose it’s fine.”
“What?”
Wanting to bury only me doesn’t sound too bad either. Kwon Gyo-eon muttered something incomprehensible under his breath, then smiled at Hae-yul.
“For now, let’s go to my place.”
“…What? No — why would we go to your place?”
“Wouldn’t it be more comfortable to stay at my place for a while? You’ve been there once, so you should be familiar with it. Ah, actually not just once — you’ve been there several times, haven’t you. I’m not sure if you remember, but that day when we—”
“W-w-wait a moment.”
Face blazing red, Hae-yul clapped his hand over Kwon Gyo-eon’s mouth before he could say anything strange. If only to keep that mouth shut, it seemed better to just go along with whatever Kwon Gyo-eon was proposing.
Kwon Gyo-eon’s apartment, revisited, was just as spacious and just as clean as before. Hae-yul silently marveled at how it seemed even tidier than last time and settled himself into a corner of what appeared to be the living room.
“What are you doing over there?”
“It’s so big I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to be.”
“Make yourself at home. It’s not like this is your first time here. And I seem to recall that you took quite a liking to the living room.”
“Why do you keep—”
Hae-yul shot Kwon Gyo-eon a glare for teasing him by bringing up that day again, then moved over and sat on the sofa. As he sank into the sofa that seemed to mold perfectly around him, Kwon Gyo-eon walked over carrying what looked like a robe of some kind.
“Go wash up and change.”
“…That’s a robe.”
“Yes. It’s a robe you wear to sleep at night.”
Hae-yul blinked at him with a slightly flustered expression.
