Hae-yul startled and looked up — and a low laugh came from somewhere above his head. He had nearly thrown a kick out of reflex.
“My clothes are quite big on you.”
At those words, Hae-yul turned his head to check his shoulder where Kwon Gyo-eon’s hand had been. The shirt had slipped down to his shoulder, exposing just a sliver of his collarbone. Kwon Gyo-eon’s hand, which had tugged the shirt back up, hesitated for a brief moment before leaving as if nothing had happened.
The situation ended plainly enough to make all that tension feel pointless. Hae-yul sneaked a glance at Kwon Gyo-eon smiling with easy composure and let out a quiet breath of relief.
Does this man know he’s smiling while knowing I nearly just kicked one of his vital spots?
If he had moved just a little faster, he’d have been saddled with another enormous debt. Just imagining it made him shudder.
“…Thank you.”
“It’s nothing. There’s a bathroom attached inside, so feel free to use it, and if you need anything, come to this room.”
Kwon Gyo-eon gestured toward the door diagonally across from the main bedroom he had given to Hae-yul. Hae-yul nodded in a daze, and Kwon Gyo-eon smiled with the corners of his lips lifted as he added,
“You can come over if you’re scared to sleep alone, too.”
“I’m not a child… I appreciate the thought, but I can say with absolute certainty that will never happen.”
Hae-yul answered with a look of bewilderment, then walked past Kwon Gyo-eon and into the bedroom. Before long the door closed, and Hae-yul disappeared from Kwon Gyo-eon’s sight.
Just before the bedroom door shut, Kwon Gyo-eon recalled Hae-yul watching his every move like a meerkat on guard against a natural predator, and swallowed a laugh. Whether it was because he was bothered by someone who had suddenly barged into his life, Hae-yul had been growing more and more aware of him with each passing day.
He was playing dumb, but with Hae-yul putting up such an obvious fuss of a guard, there was no way to not notice. Most of all, Hae-yul’s pheromones were telling him as much. At first he’d thought something might be wrong with Hae-yul’s health and that his pheromones had simply become unstable — but that wasn’t it.
Unlike the tense Hae-yul himself, his pheromones were practically desperate to make their presence known whenever they were together. Hae-yul, far more accustomed to suppressing his pheromones than fully releasing them, probably had no idea what state he was in.
Kwon Gyo-eon looked down at the hand that had briefly touched Hae-yul’s shoulder, then closed it lightly into a fist. The distance between them was closing little by little. This was a good sign.
The faint trace of a smile on his lips cooled and stilled. Kwon Gyo-eon recalled Kim Myeong-gyu’s face from earlier. The thought of the man who had acted like he was about to grab Hae-yul by the collar and strike him filled Kwon Gyo-eon with disgust.
He walked to the living room, picked up his phone from where he had tossed it on the coffee table, and placed a call somewhere.
“Yes, it’s me.”
The person on the other end of the line answered and immediately launched into a report as if they’d been waiting. Kwon Gyo-eon listened in silence, then gave a nod.
“Good. Let’s proceed that way. Oh — he was studying for the civil service exam, wasn’t he?”
It was unthinkable for someone who had so casually attempted violence to become a public servant. If he hadn’t stepped in when he did, that man would have laid hands on Hae-yul — and might have gone even further than that.
“Then let’s prepare more thoroughly.”
He couldn’t let Hae-yul watch someone like that walk away and become a civil servant without consequence. And besides, he didn’t seem smart enough to pass the exam anyway.
After ending the call, Kwon Gyo-eon gazed quietly at the bedroom door where Hae-yul was, then turned away. From here on was what mattered.
He was standing at a crossroads: would the wary stray cat who had wandered to him on its own choose him, or would he have to be the one to pick it up himself? He very much preferred to be chosen.
So he couldn’t afford to foolishly let this opportunity slip by.
***
“Are you still asleep?”
The following day, noon. Hae-yul, lying half-awake in bed, snapped his eyes open at the sound of knocking on the door. The unfamiliar ceiling and room layout that greeted him the moment he opened his eyes had him looking around in bewilderment — and then he sucked in a sharp breath of surprise.
Why am I here again? I was sure yesterday…
“Hae-yul?”
Driven by Kwon Gyo-eon’s voice from outside the bedroom, Hae-yul hastily pieced together his memories of the day before, then let out a quiet sigh and let his shoulders drop. His heart, which had been pounding away with anxiety, gradually settled.
Hae-yul got up, straightened the covers, and opened the bedroom door. There was Kwon Gyo-eon — hand raised at an awkward angle, apparently having been about to knock one more time.
Unlike yesterday, when he had given Hae-yul such a shock, Kwon Gyo-eon was properly dressed. The only issue, if it was one, was that he was making a rather odd expression as he looked at Hae-yul.
Why is he making that face at me? Is something wrong with how I look? Like yesterday, did my clothes slip down again? Hae-yul looked down to check himself and only felt more puzzled. His outfit was exactly the same as yesterday. Nothing seemed to be wrong with it — so why was Kwon Gyo-eon reacting like that?
“What’s the matter?”
“Your hair…”
Kwon Gyo-eon, uncharacteristically, trailed off and averted his gaze. Sensing something was off from his reaction, Hae-yul hurried over to the full-length mirror in the bedroom and checked his reflection.
“…Oh.”
Hae-yul’s hair looked like the perfect bird’s nest — so complete that a bird could have flown in and laid eggs without any modifications needed. His eyelids twitched at the sight of his own wretched state.
Oh, for—…
How could his hair end up this much of a disaster unless he’d developed a habit of tearing at it in his sleep overnight? More than anything else, the fact that Kwon Gyo-eon had seen him like this wounded his pride — his ears were burning.
“Well then… go wash up and come out.”
From outside the bedroom, Kwon Gyo-eon barely managed to hold back his laughter as he said that, and Hae-yul squeezed his eyes shut. A desperate wish that this was all a dream flooded his mind.
***
Sitting awkwardly across from Kwon Gyo-eon at the dining table, Hae-yul let only his eyes wander around. He had sat down before he’d even finished drying his hair after washing up, so water droplets fell pat-pat onto his shoulders every now and then.
Which was to say — the moment he stepped out of the bathroom, a delicious smell had tickled the tip of his nose. On the dining table he’d checked while roughly shaking his hair out, there was a full spread of appetizing food.
He had decided that drying his hair completely before sitting down was a luxury he couldn’t afford when food like this was waiting, and so he’d rushed over. Having slept in from sleeping too long and deeply probably hadn’t helped either — the smell of food had made him suddenly ravenous, and holding back was difficult.
But it seemed Kwon Gyo-eon saw it a little differently.
“It’s not as if I’d clear the food away just because you went to dry your hair. Did I really seem like that stingy of a person?”
“Well, I can’t say no to that, but more than anything I was just hungry.”
At Hae-yul’s answer, Kwon Gyo-eon made a displeased sound in his throat and stood up from his seat. Hae-yul, equally bewildered, followed and stood up too — and Kwon Gyo-eon, as if he’d been waiting for just that, grabbed Hae-yul by the wrist and led him back toward the bedroom.
“Stay seated.”
With a quiet word, he sat Hae-yul down in front of the vanity in the powder room connected to the bathroom inside the bedroom.
While Hae-yul could only blink at the sudden turn of events, Kwon Gyo-eon plugged the hair dryer cord into the outlet and switched it on. Before long, a rush of warm air poured down over Hae-yul’s head along with the noise.
Having caught up with the situation, Hae-yul reached a hand out toward Kwon Gyo-eon and said urgently,
“What — what are you doing? I can just dry it myself, so why are you — give me that.”
“What was that? I can’t hear over the hair dryer. Tell me again later.”
He was at a loss for words at the shamelessness of it. They were close enough — you couldn’t hear me? Hae-yul could hear every word Kwon Gyo-eon said perfectly clearly. There was no way Kwon Gyo-eon hadn’t heard him too.
If I’d known it would come to this, I would have dried my hair properly before coming out. Hae-yul regretted his hasty decision and tried to get up, but a large, firm hand pressed down on the back of his neck.
Why on earth is this man spending his energy on something like this first thing in the morning?
Despite how hard Hae-yul squirmed and tried several more times, it was no use. He glared up at Kwon Gyo-eon with sharp eyes.
Kwon Gyo-eon’s face was perfectly calm despite Hae-yul’s cutting glare. His large hand pushed through Hae-yul’s hair and gently ruffled it.
That touch stirred up an irritation Hae-yul couldn’t quite explain. He could dry his own hair just fine — so why was he making it his business? Was it because he found Hae-yul’s reactions entertaining? Even though he had resolved not to react, Kwon Gyo-eon’s unpredictable behavior kept getting a rise out of him anyway.
Hae-yul watched the corners of Kwon Gyo-eon’s mouth creep steadily upward and glared at him harder.
What on earth is there to be so pleased about?
He couldn’t understand it. What was so wonderful about drying an adult man’s hair — a man with the same parts as himself — that he would volunteer to do it, and on top of that, smile while doing it?
The gap between this and the original story was disorienting enough to leave Hae-yul confused and at a loss. At the same time, it was irritating. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Kwon Gyo-eon was handling him exactly the way he wanted.
