He didn’t know if it would be recognized for its artistry, but commercially it definitely flopped.
Still, he wanted to listen to it. He suddenly remembered there was a music box and sound wave canvas among the odds and ends. Chahyun raised his head and brought the two items in front of him to observe them from various angles.
Looking at the engraved text, both seemed to be made with a song called ‘The Day You Come to Love Me.’ It was probably a song Yiyoung made. Chahyun wound up the music box.
The characteristically monotonous melody of a music box rang out quietly. Chahyun unconsciously perked up his ears.
‘Jazz?’
It was difficult to tell from just the draft score and single-melody instrument, but the melody mixed with dissonance and the space in the rhythm were the language of modern jazz. Considering the fact that he’d recently worked on EDM pop, and speculating a bit more boldly, it seemed like contemporary jazz that reinterpreted modern music including pop, rock, and hip-hop with improvisation techniques.
Chahyun quietly closed his eyes and concentrated on the music box. His mouth closed automatically lest it interfere with his appreciation.
‘……It’s good.’
Actually, it was more than good. The pitch had enough wit to be enjoyable listening to just the single-melody, and he became curious about the details of the original song. If a skilled performer was added to this, it would be quite worth listening to.
He wanted to hear the performance of the original song. To be precise, he wanted to see Bae Yiyoung performing. Then naturally an image of Yiyoung holding a guitar came to mind.
It was imagined with surprising specificity. However, there was only video and no sound.
The Yiyoung in his imagination was performing on the street. Perhaps because it was a cold season, he was wearing a thick parka and white breath leaked from his singing lips. His face and fingertips were red from the cold.
Yiyoung looked colder wearing worn clothes and threadbare sneakers. Even his own joints felt cold watching it, so Chahyun unconsciously clenched and unclenched his fists. Still.
‘Cool.’
Even though it was an image made up purely arbitrarily, it was wonderful. He even felt admiration.
In the meantime, the music box’s spring wound completely and the song cut off. At the same time, the Yiyoung in his head also finished performing and carefully lowered the acoustic guitar. Only after he cleaned up the street stage and disappeared did Chahyun blink his eyes open and rubbed his left chest.
“I’m only twenty-eight, could I already have arrhythmia?”
His heart was beating so violently it was suspicious. He should get another health checkup.
Chahyun shook his head vigorously and waited for his heartbeat to subside. Nevertheless, thoughts of Yiyoung wouldn’t be shaken off and echoed in his head like a reverberation. He wanted to see him with his eyes.
Today was Sunday, so it was a day Yiyoung didn’t go to work at the whisky bar.
Chahyun checked the wall clock to see it wasn’t even 8 AM yet and thought absentmindedly:
‘Will I be able to kiss him today?’
Yesterday, in front of Yiyoung’s house. Chahyun had really thought it was an atmosphere where kissing would be okay.
Yiyoung jumped saying no. Then he didn’t know when exactly would be good timing for a kiss. The previous day, Chahyun had wanted to kiss him from the moment he met Yiyoung until right before they parted, so he couldn’t distinguish at all which moment he’d want to do it.
Yiyoung was all pretty, but his lips were really ridiculously cute.
Small but appropriately plump, smooth and red so they were also sexy. Whenever he chewed food or spoke quietly, whenever he pouted his lips slightly in a sulk, it was enough to make his vision dizzy. Knowing how soft they were made him feel like he’d go crazy. Chahyun wanted to feel that tender flesh with his lips too.
But it wasn’t just that it wasn’t a kissing atmosphere—it was ‘completely’ not.
Chahyun muttered, recalling the shock he’d received from Yiyoung’s reaction.
“That seemed sincere though.”
He’d thought that if they were originally dating, they’d always want skinship. At least Chahyun felt that way toward Yiyoung.
Yesterday Chahyun had even misunderstood that Yiyoung was intentionally pressing shoulders when he looked at his phone with the photo of tuna eye dish displayed. That’s how seductive Yiyoung felt to him. As it turned out, Yiyoung had no intention of seducing Chahyun at all, but he’d fallen for it alone.
If he didn’t come to his senses and be careful, it would be easy to lose face. Chahyun didn’t want the disgrace of misunderstanding Yiyoung’s gestures and making an unseemly mistake to get slapped.
Making that resolution, Chahyun smiled broadly while making eye contact with the puppy on the mug.
“I should go see him.”
Chahyun sprang up from his seat and started preparing to go out.
***
Yiyoung sat down in front of his workstation at exactly 9 AM according to his Sunday routine.
What was different from usual was that he absolutely couldn’t concentrate on work. Yiyoung stared into space with unfocused eyes while recalling what Chahyun had said the day before.
‘Is it a kissing atmosphere right now?’
Yiyoung’s face instantly flushed bright red.
Last night, when he’d come home, Yiyoung had been so dumbfounded and angry that he washed his face with cold water while fuming. Throughout drying his hair after finishing his shower, the face reflected in the mirror remained grimly distorted without relaxing. Yiyoung had roughly snapped off the room light and lay down in his bedding.
Yiyoung looked up at the dark room ceiling and for once grumbled out loud.
“What? He hopes I won’t become more arrogant from his words? Hey, who do you think you are? Why would I be conceited from your compliment? Did you think I’d say ‘Thank you for the honor of finding me pretty’?”
Belatedly regretting not retorting like this, Yiyoung stamped both feet inside the blanket. Yiyoung originally hated the words pretty and cute the most.
However, since losing sleep would be purely his own loss, he tried hard to calm his resentment and closed his eyes. Yiyoung thought until right before falling asleep:
‘Ridiculous.’
Soon he fell asleep, then woke up at 6:50 AM, 10 minutes earlier than other Sundays.
What woke Yiyoung from sleep wasn’t his phone alarm but Chahyun’s low voice that suddenly came to mind.
‘Because you’re pretty.’
It was still a ridiculous thing to say. But having calmed down after sleeping, he wasn’t as angry as the day before. Yiyoung got up from his bedding with a half-asleep face.
But while brushing his teeth, making breakfast, and doing simple cleaning, the words ‘because you’re pretty’ kept echoing in his ears. The auditory hallucination grew louder until finally Yiyoung spaced out blankly in front of the desk in his work room.
And now he was blushing while recalling the question ‘Is it a kissing atmosphere?’
Yiyoung frowned all over his face in self-loathing and tore at his hair.
‘Am I crazy? Getting fluttered by Moon Chahyun saying I’m pretty?’
But it made sense. It was because it was the first compliment he’d heard from Chahyun.
Of course, it wasn’t the first time he’d ever heard such words. Unlike Chahyun, the people he’d dated before breathed out flattering words like pretty and cute as naturally as breathing. However, because of a long-standing complex, when Yiyoung heard such words, he shrank rather than felt happy.
That was because Yiyoung was only 167cm tall.
No matter how much everyone had their own beauty, Yiyoung wasn’t attracted to men with tiny physiques who were only 167cm tall. So even knowing it was an unwarranted inferiority complex, he couldn’t help but hear words like pretty or cute as scolding that he wasn’t robust and was small.
But hearing it from Chahyun, it somehow felt like a compliment. Yiyoung stared intently at his own face burning hot on the monitor screen that had turned completely black. This thought naturally came to him:
‘Looking at it properly, it seems okay too……?’
After all, Moon Chahyun had declared it so.
Looking at this, it was really frustrating, but Moon Chahyun was ‘someone who mattered.’
Not because his background or appearance were outstanding, but thanks to his uniquely shitty personality. Since he complained meanly that Yiyoung was cocky relying on his looks while saying he was pretty, it strangely felt credible.
Thinking about it again, even before the accident, Chahyun had never once complimented Yiyoung’s appearance. But it seemed he’d actually thought Yiyoung looked good from before, which secretly made him happy.
That wasn’t the only thing that surprised Yiyoung last night.
‘He wants to kiss me?’
When they were actually dating, Chahyun had never shown any signs of wanting skinship.
He was someone very shy about that sort of thing. When Yiyoung would casually hold hands, Chahyun would stiffen his whole body like a broken robot and constantly break out in cold sweat. When Yiyoung signaled he wanted to kiss, Chahyun would turn red up to his forehead and fumble around playing dumb. Having been repeatedly embarrassed by such reactions, Yiyoung couldn’t muster the courage to try seducing Chahyun further.
