As he spoke, Gyohyun reached a hand toward Siyun’s head.
“Ugh!”
Siyun’s shoulders flinched reflexively.
“It’s swollen.”
A brief click of the tongue seeped into the air with a strangely sharp edge. Siyun looked up at him.
“I’ve got medicine ready, so if it hurts too much, don’t tough it out — just say so.”
“Ah….”
The moment their eyes met, Gyohyun smiled as if nothing had happened. Siyun, having calmed down a little, found himself wondering if he’d been acting too strangely.
With relief and wariness still tangled together, Siyun watched Gyohyun carefully.
In the meantime, Gyohyun had turned around and was slowly walking somewhere.
Siyun followed the retreating figure of the man walking away with apparent indifference.
Holding his breath and watching, Siyun waited as Gyohyun returned looking as though nothing had happened at all. What he held in his hand was a simple water bottle — yet even that looked oddly unfamiliar to Siyun’s eyes.
“Want some water?”
But Siyun only stared blankly without taking it. He had just woken up and his throat was parched, but right now, a more fundamental question weighed far heavier on his mind.
“Wh— where is this? Why am I here?”
The memories of last night came flooding back. He’d been half out of his mind at the time, but the moment this man appeared — and the chilling energy that had filled the workshop — was still vivid.
And the scene must have looked severe. One person had been choking someone, and another had been getting choked. It could easily have been mistaken for something far beyond a simple argument between friends — an attempted murder scene.
And yet this man, having witnessed all of it, hadn’t been rattled in the slightest. If anything, the calm and cool gaze he wore had only squeezed Siyun’s heart harder.
What had thrown Siyun into even greater confusion, above all else, was the single line the man had uttered next.
“Some lowly scraps that can only feed on stray spirits, losing all sense of fear like that.”
Could he have actually seen it?
The certainty threaded through those words, paired with that unshaken expression, rattled something deep inside Siyun’s head.
Could he be… someone with Spirit Eyes? Or was it just something he said offhandedly?
He couldn’t tell. The quickest way would be to ask directly, but he hesitated. Over the years, he’d made the mistake of opening his mouth too soon, assuming someone was like him — only to be written off as crazy. Those memories kept his lips sealed.
Just as confusion creased the space between his brows, Gyohyun, unbothered by the situation, uncapped the water bottle he’d brought back and muttered casually.
“You were unconscious, so I had no choice but to bring you to my place.”
Siyun stared at him with a dazed expression.
“I considered taking you to the emergency room, but your throat was in bad shape.”
At those words, Siyun belatedly recalled the moment the Possessing spirit had strangled him.
“Ah…….”
A low moan slipped out. Only then did the throbbing pain in his throat come into sharper focus.
Gyohyun, having uncapped the bottle, naturally extended it toward Siyun.
“You’ll have quite a bit of muscle soreness for a while, so it’d be best to avoid any strenuous exercise.”
Then he uncapped his own bottle and took a drink. Each time he swallowed, his Adam’s apple moved up and down along the long line of his throat. Siyun found himself lowering his gaze without thinking. Holding eye contact with him brought an inexplicable tension rising all the way up to the base of his throat. When he unconsciously reached his hand up toward his neck, Gyohyun clicked his tongue.
Siyun breathed quietly without realizing it, blinking. The pressure of being alone in an unfamiliar space — the awareness that he had stepped into this man’s private territory — put him strangely on edge.
Amid the subtle stillness, only the sound of his own heartbeat rang loud. He tried to avert his eyes, uncertain where to look, but he could feel Gyohyun’s gaze settling heavily beside him. That bothered him more than the itch inside his throat. An inexplicable tension spread through the air.
Siyun looked away from the man and glanced around the room.
“…….”
“Cha Siyun.”
Siyun slowly turned to look at him.
It was his first time seeing the man in a place this bright. And yet the man’s aura itself hadn’t changed. His expression was calm and gentle, but his face remained just as unreadable as ever — impossible to tell what he was thinking.
“I….”
The question of why he’d been brought here had been answered, but there were still so many things he didn’t understand. He wanted to ask exactly what the man had seen last night, and why he was acting as though none of it were strange. But somehow, those questions caught in the back of his throat and refused to come out.
“Thank you. For last night.”
He was genuinely grateful, but the wariness wasn’t so easy to let go of. And with good reason — the man had been far too accommodating toward him. Not being able to read his intentions only made Siyun more uneasy.
By then, Gyohyun, having drained the entire bottle of water, opened his mouth with a languid air.
“Before that.”
Gyohyun tilted his head to one side.
“You still haven’t answered the question I asked you earlier.”
Siyun blinked and looked at Gyohyun. He couldn’t gauge what the man was getting at, and for a moment, he was at a loss for words.
“Do you like it here?”
What is he talking about? Siyun’s brow furrowed slightly.
“Pardon?”
“If you like it, just say so.”
Gyohyun tossed the empty water bottle into a nearby trash can and curved the corner of his mouth upward.
“I’ll transfer the deed over to Cha Siyun right then and there.”
“What do you mean by—”
“What is there I couldn’t give you?”
Gyohyun’s eyes curved softly as he murmured toward Siyun, who stood frozen and disoriented.
His right eye gleaming a vivid blue. And in the black of his left, an unmistakable longing — deep and unreadable.
Siyun flinched. For some reason it felt too overwhelming to meet that gaze, and he wanted to look away — but the fierce yearning held in those two eyes kept him rooted in place. Under that inexplicable pressure, breath rose all the way up to the tip of his throat.
Gyohyun let the tip of his tongue graze lightly across his lips.
Siyun’s body gave a small shudder. Why am I getting goosebumps? His spine went cold, as though he were standing face to face with a starving beast.
Gulp.
Siyun swallowed dryly. He felt uncomfortable. A heaviness pressed down on his chest and he couldn’t breathe. It was as if something invisible were coiling around him, binding him in place. With the thought that he needed to get out of here, Siyun opened his mouth.
“…I think I’ll be heading back now.”
Instead of answering, Gyohyun studied him for a moment. The weight of that gaze made Siyun instinctively curl his fingertips inward.
Siyun slowly dipped his head.
“Thank you again. If it hadn’t been for Lee Gyohyun yesterday, something truly terrible could have happened.”
Siyun bowed again.
“Are you really thankful?”
Gyohyun kept his gaze fixed intently on him, wearing an expression that was hard to read. Siyun answered quickly.
“What? Yes. Truly. Thank you.”
Gyohyun raised one corner of his mouth.
“Just with words?”
“Pardon?”
The unexpected remark made Siyun’s eyes go wide. As if that reaction were amusing, Gyohyun gave a small laugh.
“Reacting so literally, it’s really….”
Those two differently colored eyes swept at leisure from Siyun’s face down to his stiff, tensed shoulders.
“Refreshing.”
It was the gaze of a predator, watching the guarded stance of a small herbivore with curious fascination. In the tension-laden living room, he alone seemed to be savoring every bit of this atmosphere.
