The look in Cha Jae-woo’s eyes as he stared down at the man was like a finely honed blade. The kind that would send a chill down your spine the moment it grazed the back of your neck — enough to inspire sheer, overwhelming terror.
“Try putting your hands on him one more time, and I’ll snap your wrist clean off.”
The man flinched at Cha Jae-woo’s cold, biting warning. He clocked Cha Jae-woo’s broad shoulders — at odds with his pretty face and slender frame — and visibly shrank.
But then he glanced at me, and before long he was yelling with his neck veins bulging.
“You — who the hell do you think you are?! How dare you do this to me! You want to get sued?!”
Fear of Cha Jae-woo still lingered in the man’s eyes. And yet he was raising his voice like that — he must have taken quite a blow to his pride.
I glanced over at Cha Jae-woo. His face was frightening enough to suggest he was perfectly capable of beating the man to a pulp and then some.
This is bad.
If this blew up into an assault case and articles about Cha Jae-woo started coming out because of tonight, that would be a problem. Cha Jae-woo didn’t do his composing work with his face publicly known, but you could never be too sure.
If he ended up getting investigated at a police station and headlines like “K Entertainment Composer Mr. Cha Gets into Drunken Assault Dispute” started circulating — there would be no better fodder for the tabloids.
If the names of the idol groups he’d composed for got dragged in alongside it, the agency would descend into chaos and it would become an absolute mess in no time.
And that would leave a devastating mark on Cha Jae-woo’s career.
I couldn’t let that happen to Cha Jae-woo — someone who treated his career like his life — because of me. So in the end, I pointed a finger straight at the man still sitting on the floor.
“Go ahead and sue. Because then I’ll be filing a counter-suit for sexual harassment.”
The man stared at me with a stunned expression. Seeing the sense of betrayal in his eyes, I almost laughed.
Did this man actually think I’d take his side over Cha Jae-woo’s? When had we ever been close enough for that?
Regardless, I continued with what I was saying.
“You’re aware that saying things about sex to someone you’ve just met counts as sexual harassment, right?”
When I said it coldly with my arms crossed, the man looked genuinely flustered, his eyes darting around.
It was my first time at a gay bar, but I had a feeling it was similar to a club in atmosphere. There’d be plenty of people there looking for a light, one-night thing — and this man was probably one of them.
From that perspective, it made sense that he’d be thrown off by how firmly I was pushing back — but that wasn’t my concern. What mattered was making sure Cha Jae-woo didn’t get caught up in pointless controversy because of me.
“Then I’ll take that as settled. Let’s go.”
I grabbed Cha Jae-woo’s wrist and walked straight out of the bar. There was no way we could cause that much of a scene and then just calmly take our seats again like nothing had happened.
I’d briefly worried Cha Jae-woo might dig his heels in and insist on having it out with the man — but thankfully, he followed me without resistance.
* * *
When I felt we were far enough from the bar in question, I let go of Cha Jae-woo’s wrist — practically shaking it off. Then, to cool down, I moved my lips silently for a moment before finally managing to speak.
“Cha Jae-woo, are you out of your mind?”
Even to my own ears, my voice was soaked in anger. Cha Jae-woo must have sensed it too — he turned his head and met my eyes.
“What were you thinking, hitting someone? What if you get sued for assault?”
He wasn’t just some ordinary office worker — he was a composer affiliated with an entertainment company, no less.
He worked in an industry that attracted an enormous amount of public attention, and because of that, Cha Jae-woo usually avoided anything that would draw attention to himself in public.
He’d said it himself once. That getting his face known would mean having to be careful every time he went out, and that he could end up caught in unnecessary disputes or controversies. That instead of expanding his public presence, he intended to limit even the number of people he met whenever possible.
And yet he was going to act this recklessly today, of all days?
“Do you ever think about your career? You go on and on about your career like some kind of obsessive, and then your brain just shuts off when it counts?”
“……Then you should’ve handled yourself better.”
When I cut in with a sharp jab, Cha Jae-woo finally lost his patience — he ran a hand through his hair and snapped back.
“Ha Yun-su, you’ve always had weirdos following you around. If you were going to come to a place like this, you should’ve had some kind of plan.”
“……Weirdos? What are you suddenly talking about?”
I couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was saying, and my brow furrowed on its own. Cha Jae-woo realized I wasn’t following him and added an explanation.
“That pervert teacher, for fuck’s sake.”
“Pervert teacher?”
“That psycho who tried to put his lips on yours.”
“Oh……”
At Cha Jae-woo’s words, it finally came back to me. It was not long after Cha Jae-woo and I had become close.
On my way to school one day, I’d run into the teacher from the art academy I used to go to in middle school — and he’d said it was great to see me after so long, then asked for my number.
I remembered him being fond of me back when I attended the academy, so I’d given him my number thinking we’d just stay in touch.
After that, the teacher would occasionally call me out and treat me to something good to eat, and he’d give me advice about college entrance exams and friendships.
He’d also suggested I try picking up art again — but when I turned him down flat and said I had no intention of doing that, he never brought it up again.
At first, I suspected he was trying every angle to get me back into his art academy — but once it became clear that wasn’t the case, I started treating him with ease too.
And then, not long after, that teacher tried to forcibly kiss me in a park — and got caught by Cha Jae-woo, who beat him for it.
Honestly, I was a bit shocked at the time. It felt like a betrayal by a teacher I had trusted, and I’d never imagined that a male teacher would look at me — another male — that way.
It was also because of that teacher that I became aware my feelings for Cha Jae-woo were different from ordinary admiration.
Because that teacher was the one who showed me that a man could love another man.
“That was ages ago — why do you still remember it?”
But that was that, and this was this. I’d been a little shaken at the time, but it wasn’t the kind of thing significant enough to leave a lifelong scar.
As if to prove it, I’d completely forgotten the whole incident until Cha Jae-woo brought it up himself. I could barely even recall the teacher’s name anymore — that said it all.
“And I’ve grown at least 10 cm since then, you know.”
Back then I was on the smaller side compared to my peers and pretty thin, so maybe the teacher had figured I was easy to handle — but that wasn’t the case anymore.
I was still shorter than Cha Jae-woo, but I’d grown to a reasonable height, and as for strength…… honestly I couldn’t claim to be strong, but I figured I could at least take care of myself.
“Anyway, I’ll handle my own affairs, so you just focus on not causing trouble.”
And I’d only said a few words, yet I already felt completely drained. The real problem, honestly, was that this wasn’t the kind of guy who’d actually listen to anything I said.
I let out a visible sigh and opened the taxi app to hail a ride. If I’d known I wasn’t going to drink a single drop, I would’ve driven.
“Hey.”
It was a Friday, and it seemed like everyone was trying to get a cab at the same time — it wasn’t catching. I was staring holes into the app when Cha Jae-woo suddenly spoke up.
“Are you going back there again?”
I looked up and met Cha Jae-woo’s eyes — his dark pupils carried a meaningful gleam.
Why is he asking that? I was puzzled, but instead of asking, I just exhaled.
“After all that chaos? There’s no way.”
We’d caused enough of a scene that we were probably on the place’s own blacklist by now.
Even if we weren’t, now that my face was known there in the worst possible way, I had no desire to set foot in that same place again either.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure I’d go back to a gay bar at all. Places like that seemed to attract people looking for something light and one-off — and what I wanted was a relationship, not a one-night stand.
That said, it wasn’t like I could get set up with someone the way you would with someone of the opposite sex — so it really was difficult.
My thoughts dragged on, and I didn’t bother adding an explanation — but Cha Jae-woo must have misread my silence, because his voice dropped.
“Don’t go to places like that.”
I turned my head at his cold, cutting words, and he was watching me with his arms crossed, like he was issuing a warning.
“If you’re going to meet someone, do it somewhere more decent.”
“……Hey, I’d like that too, you know.”
A hollow laugh escaped me at Cha Jae-woo’s advice. Did he think I went to a place like that because I wanted to?
I wanted to meet someone decent too. I had no interest in associating with some horned-up guy who started groping my shoulder and trying to coax me into bed out of nowhere.
If he’d at least been my type in terms of looks, I might have seriously considered it — but the man from earlier was nowhere near my type. Not just not my type, he hadn’t even been in the vicinity of it. My type, when it came down to it, was someone with a good body, a pretty face, and the kind that got even prettier when they cried——
“What.”
“……It’s nothing.”
I shook my head and fixed my eyes on the taxi app again. I’d nearly had an indecent thought about my ex-boyfriend.
The fact that my first and only ex was Cha Jae-woo was truly a disaster. Where else in the world was I supposed to find someone with that face and that body?
It got even more depressing when I recalled Kwon Tae-gyeong saying offhandedly once that even in the entertainment industry, a face like Cha Jae-woo’s was rare.
I suppose if I want to date, I’ll need to lower my standards first. Hoping that another person in this world looked as good as Cha Jae-woo was unreasonable in more ways than one.
My head understood that — but I had a feeling it wouldn’t be easy, and a sigh slipped out before I could stop it.
I’d clearly come out tonight with the intention of finding a relationship, and yet somehow all I’d managed to figure out was that my love life going forward was not going to be smooth sailing.
