But if he asked carelessly, that shameless Gyo-eon would definitely play dumb and act like it wasn’t the case. Hae-yul was mulling over how to approach it and what kind of reaction to show when Gyo-eon spoke.
“You look like you want to ask whether I was following you.”
Caught off guard before he even had the chance, Hae-yul parted his lips slightly without meaning to before answering.
“Well — honestly, given the situation, what else could I think? And also——”
“Yes, I was following you.”
“What? You were really following me?”
Hae-yul’s face went blank at how easily Gyo-eon just confessed.
“Yes. That day, your pheromones were a little unstable. So I followed you just in case, and that’s how I found out. If it was unpleasant, I’ll apologize.”
Hae-yul lost the will to fight when Gyo-eon said he had followed him to help when his pheromones were unstable. The Gyo-eon he’d seen up until now had a somewhat shameless and slippery side to him, but he wasn’t the type to lie about something like that or act in an underhanded way.
That claim was probably close to the truth. Though the fact that his own pheromones had been unstable was a little surprising.
But even so — did that make it acceptable to follow someone? Logically speaking, in a situation like that, shouldn’t the right move be to contact him first rather than trailing behind him in secret? And that day, if anything, it seemed like Gyo-eon’s pheromones had been the strange ones — not his.
He couldn’t help but suspect that because Gyo-eon’s own pheromones were off, he’d felt Hae-yul’s as unstable too.
The more he thought about it, the more absurd it was. What if someone else had seen Gyo-eon secretly tailing him? That could have turned into a real problem. It could have easily ended in someone reporting it to the police. Judging by the way Gyo-eon had threatened him with tabloid exposure, he seemed to be hounded by relentless paparazzi — which meant he needed to be even more careful about his own behavior.
“Even so, what were you thinking, following someone around like that? It would’ve been better to just offer to walk me home. What if someone saw and misunderstood and called the police?”
“If I’d offered to walk you home, you would’ve been horrified. You would’ve looked at me like I was some kind of pervert. Am I wrong?”
“……Well, I can’t exactly say you’re wrong, but… wait. Actually, isn’t that technically your fault too, if you think about it?”
When Hae-yul narrowed his eyes sharply, Gyo-eon smiled and asked in return:
“Ju Hae-yul, were you worried about me? In case someone saw and got the wrong idea and reported it?”
“What? No, of course not. I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I just thought it would be a pain if I got dragged into it too.”
“Not bad. Thank you for worrying about me.”
“Why do you keep interpreting everything I say however you like?”
A quiet smile rested at the corner of Gyo-eon’s mouth even as Hae-yul denied it. He’d felt it before, but Gyo-eon was truly a difficult person to deal with. Conversations with him felt like they were getting through — and then they weren’t. If you were to give a human form to a wall, it would undoubtedly be Gyo-eon.
Talking with Gyo-eon always left Hae-yul feeling weirdly childish himself. And Gyo-eon was even older than him.
Why is someone seven years older acting like this?
But more than Gyo-eon, the bigger problem was Hae-yul himself — constantly getting drawn into Gyo-eon’s nonsense when he could just ignore it. He kept pushing back and bristling instead of letting it go, which only gave Gyo-eon more reason to act even more juvenile.
Hae-yul was grumbling to himself internally when he suddenly paused.
……Wait. How do I know this person’s age?
Had they somehow gotten into the topic of ages while tangled up together during the heat cycle? He couldn’t remember exactly what they had talked about, but if not then, there was no other place he could have gotten that information.
Anyway — from now on, no matter what weird things Gyo-eon said, he wouldn’t react. Having reached that conclusion, Hae-yul nodded to himself without realizing it.
At that, Gyo-eon looked at him with mildly surprised eyes.
“That’s unexpected. I didn’t think you’d agree so readily.”
“What?”
“You just nodded at what I said.”
“……I did? What did you just say? I was thinking about something else for a moment and didn’t catch it. Could you say it again?”
Hae-yul asked back with a flustered expression, and Gyo-eon let his eyes droop with an air of wounded feelings before explaining again.
“It was about living arrangements. I thought it would be easier to handle various situations if you were somewhere within my line of sight.”
“……Ah.”
“So I put forward the idea that it would be most comfortable and convenient for both of us to live in the same space — no need to go far.”
“I see……”
“And just now, you nodded in agreement with my suggestion.”
“Ah……. ……What? No? That’s not what I meant.”
Hae-yul had been murmuring along softly, but at Gyo-eon’s last line he hastily denied it. He had almost been smoothly swept along by Gyo-eon’s tactics and let the conclusion slip by like water flowing downstream.
“What a shame. Then for the matter of accommodation, let’s stay here for now and think it over slowly.”
“No, I don’t think it’s right to keep imposing on you. I’ll think it over by tomorrow.”
“There’s no rush. It’s not as though having you here longer causes any problems for the house — and above all, I don’t consider this an imposition on your part.”
Hae-yul looked at Gyo-eon with an expression of utter exasperation and swallowed a sigh.
“Next is the phone — fortunately the SIM card seems to be intact, so it looks like we just need to replace the phone itself. Hmm, if I said I’d gift it to you, would you dislike that, Ju Hae-yul?”
Gyo-eon said this while glancing slightly downward. The sight of him acting like a person fallen into despair left Hae-yul at a loss for words.
Whether willingly or not, he’d already racked up a considerable debt. The last thing he wanted was to add to it. But at the same time, the thought of buying a new phone out of his own pocket right now — when his wallet was already thin enough — gave him a headache.
As Hae-yul was agonizing himself to a splitting headache, a sweet voice drifted into his ear.
“Ju Hae-yul, I have a good idea. Want to hear it?”
“What is it?”
“Leave it all to me, and you can just pretend you never heard what I just brought up.”
“What does that——”
“You strongly refused, and I forced it into your hands anyway — and you reluctantly accepted. Simple, right?”
……That was even more absurd than expected. Hae-yul shook his head, regretting having asked. Whether it was because too much had happened today, or because the back-and-forth with Gyo-eon had worn him out, exhaustion hit him all at once.
Both Gyo-eon — delivering that kind of nonsense with complete sincerity — and himself — sitting there quietly listening when he’d known perfectly well that something ridiculous was coming — struck him as faintly comical.
Hae-yul swallowed a sigh and pressed at his aching eyes. Gyo-eon’s tone as he kept talking on and on was also far too gentle, like listening to an ASMR recording.
“Lastly, the contact name——”
Hae-yul, who had just let out a small yawn, met Gyo-eon’s eyes.
“The contact name isn’t urgent, so we can discuss it again after you get the new phone — for now, it’d be best to sleep.”
“Yes, that sounds good.”
Hae-yul nodded and agreed without resistance. He’d thought that unexpectedly seeing Gyo-eon in the bare had jolted him wide awake earlier, but as he kept listening to that low, quiet voice, drowsiness crept over him steadily.
“You can use the bedroom over here.”
Guided by Gyo-eon, Hae-yul was walking naturally toward the room when he stopped short. The layout felt strangely familiar.
“……Isn’t this the room you use?”
“Yes. You remember.”
Gyo-eon answered in a completely unbothered tone, and Hae-yul felt a wave of bewilderment wash over him. The room Gyo-eon had brought him to was the very bedroom he’d seen the morning he woke up in this house — the one they’d shared a bed in. By the size of the room, and by the faint but noticeable wear on the furniture, this was unmistakably the master bedroom.
To offer him this room meant……
Is this person in his right mind?
Every trace of sleepiness vanished. Hae-yul looked up at Gyo-eon in wide-eyed alarm and stepped backward. Gyo-eon tilted his head and asked, sounding genuinely puzzled himself.
“Ju Hae-yul, were you under the impression we’d be sharing the bedroom?”
“……Were we not?”
“That wasn’t what I had in mind — but if that’s what you want, I’m open to it. Doesn’t sound bad.”
“Are you insane——! No? Not at all, not even a little. So — so stop coming any closer.”
Hae-yul said urgently to Gyo-eon, who was slowly approaching with a teasing smile on his lips. Gyo-eon stopped in place at the desperate request, and just as he had the first morning Hae-yul had opened his eyes in this house, he leaned against the doorframe and watched him.
The same person who had been fully dressed back then was now wearing a robe carelessly thrown on — loose enough that the muscle of his chest was visible through the gap in the front. Hae-yul unconsciously stole a glance at the well-defined muscle before dropping his gaze.
……What am I looking at? No — why is that man walking around so underdressed? Does he actually have an exhibitionist streak?
Whether it was the shock of what he’d seen earlier still affecting him, his eyes kept drifting toward Gyo-eon’s skin without his permission. Hae-yul feigned perfect calm, as if he’d seen nothing at all, and avoided Gyo-eon’s gaze.
Then, the sound of Gyo-eon — who had been standing still — taking a step reached his ears. Hae-yul’s heart, taut with tension, began to pound wildly.
Don’t come any closer, I mean it…… Stop right there. If you get one step closer, I swear——!
Just then, a large hand settled carefully on Hae-yul’s shoulder.
