In contrast, a calm, low voice asked.
“Will there be a next time for me?”
Yiyoung slowly raised his gaze toward Chahyun.
His face, white and clean to the point of being pristine, was flushed pink in the orange streetlight. With eyes that sparkled clearly as if moist, Chahyun was clearly nervous. The somewhat cheeky, leisurely attitude from just moments ago was nowhere to be found.
Then a fact he’d been uncertain about recently became a certainty.
‘He really is the same person as the Moon Chahyun I knew.’
Even the great Moon Chahyun had times when he froze up from nervousness.
He was exactly like before, awkwardly creaking like a broken toy even at light skinship like holding hands. Seeing this, it seemed that his dignified and reticent manner until now hadn’t been simply an act either. He’d just become stiff because he was trying to treat Yiyoung politely and carefully.
Yiyoung slowly opened his mouth toward Chahyun.
“I think you loved me.”
Chahyun tilted his head, seeming to think it was a somewhat odd answer. Yiyoung continued.
“If you hadn’t lost your memory, you wouldn’t have been able to break up with me. I don’t know what you were thinking when you first started, but.”
And the current Chahyun who had lost his memory was also showing signs of following that same path.
Yiyoung had wished for love even before meeting Chahyun. But this moment of realizing he’d finally obtained what he wanted wasn’t entirely joyful. No, he was as gloomy as he was happy. Yiyoung continued.
“But I don’t like Moon Chahyun of Moongang Group.”
Mountain-high debts, insignificant income, a shabby house in a shantytown. An unfortunate childhood and a mother locked in prison—Ki Taeseong was a secondary problem. The person called Bae Yiyoung, formed by all of this, didn’t suit Moon Chahyun.
And Yiyoung didn’t have the confidence with this bean-sized courage to be incorporated into the world where Chahyun lived. To enter his palace would require about a hundred magic lamps.
Nevertheless, he hesitated to say goodbye to Chahyun like this.
Yiyoung wanted to go with him just a little farther from here. If he didn’t, he felt like he’d regret it for the rest of his life. The fact that the home he had to return to was shabby didn’t become a reason not to take the journey.
Yiyoung looked straight at Chahyun and asked seriously.
“Can you really see me for just a little while and then break up? Even if your memory comes back?”
Chahyun seemed flustered by Yiyoung’s question and let out a short laugh. Soon, perhaps realizing that Yiyoung wasn’t joking, he hardened his expression and let out a troubled groan.
Chahyun furrowed his brow and answered in a somewhat displeased tone.
“That’s what I want to ask. Are you confident you won’t cling to me, Bae Yiyoung-ssi?”
“No. I think I’ll fall in love with you.”
Yiyoung calmly confessed his honest feelings. He lowered his gaze gloomily and added.
“But abandon me anyway. Without mercy.”
He heard Chahyun let out a long sigh above his head. A displeased voice followed.
“I will.”
He would probably do as Yiyoung said. His original personality seemed unrivaled in being merciless, and if nothing else, he was someone who kept his promises well.
With this, their second romance had begun.
Even if it was a limited time, Yiyoung focused on the fact that he could see Chahyun again. Having decided to put off the later problems until then, he was simply excited.
Yiyoung took a deep breath, raised his head, and looked at Chahyun.
Even though the romance he’d begged for had begun, for some reason Chahyun had an extremely sulky face. He seemed bewildered himself about why he felt bad, but Yiyoung seemed to understand. Yiyoung tried to lighten the mood by asking brightly with a readily smiling face.
“You don’t know we kissed here, do you?”
Then Chahyun looked at the surrounding scenery with a noticeably flustered air.
Coincidentally, it was the place where Chahyun had confessed to him, and a similar time. Of course, the neighborhood hadn’t been this bright back then. However, the rain-soaked Seoul night view had stretched out far into the distance. Chahyun’s trembling as they kissed in the middle of this beautiful panorama was as vivid as if he’d felt it yesterday.
Chahyun floundered without being able to meet Yiyoung’s eyes.
“Did we?”
“It was the day Chahyun-ssi asked me to date. It was raining, and Chahyun-ssi came to pick me up at the whiskey bar. Back then, Chahyun-ssi told me I wouldn’t need to carry an umbrella anymore.”
What was so embarrassing about those words—Chahyun had stiffened to the point of looking blunt. Now, perhaps without even the capacity to manage his expression, he covered his reddened face with his large palm and muttered.
“Ah. Yes…”
He was unexpectedly cute being shy. Yiyoung impulsively lifted his heels briefly and kissed Chahyun.
At the lips that touched briefly with a smack and then separated, Chahyun flinched and squeezed his eyes shut. Though it was a quite startled gesture, Chahyun didn’t delay even a few seconds before opening his eyes again and chased after Yiyoung’s lips. Chahyun kissed with his head bent at a steep angle to match Yiyoung’s height. Yiyoung gently opened his lips and mingled their tongues.
As expected, his skill hadn’t improved even a bit from the previous kiss. Chahyun was recklessly clumsy. Yiyoung cupped Chahyun’s sharp jaw with both hands and kneaded it lightly. Chahyun began to move his jaw leisurely in accordance with Yiyoung’s gestures.
He felt Chahyun’s large hand supporting his back and pulling his waist into an embrace. Because of that, they were pressed together seamlessly with his large, muscular body. The feeling of being inescapably trapped in the solid arms that swept up Yiyoung’s back and then wrapped around the back of his neck was decidedly not bad.
Yiyoung’s body heated up from the physical stimulation and the effects of alcohol. Unable to resist, he raised both arms to Chahyun’s back and clung to his broad shoulders. The wet sound of kissing disturbed his ears.
The moment their moist lips separated briefly, Yiyoung spoke hastily between rapid breaths.
“Do you want to sleep over at my place?”
Chahyun stared at Yiyoung with eyes where the whites were prominently red with bloodshot veins and nodded three times. Yiyoung pulled Chahyun’s upper body into an embrace, gave him a final short kiss, then lowered his heels.
***
Chahyun didn’t even remember how he got down from the vacant lot.
He just came to his senses and saw Yiyoung’s front gate. Chahyun tried to push open the creaking green iron gate with stiff movements. Then Yiyoung hurriedly blocked him.
“Wait a moment. Ten minutes… no, just wait five minutes.”
Yiyoung rushed inside the house. Chahyun raised his left hand with a dazed expression and stared blankly at the second hand of his Jaeger-LeCoultre. It was only because Yiyoung had said to wait five minutes that he mechanically looked at his wristwatch, but he couldn’t actually time it. His thought processes had stopped, and no thoughts came to him.
When Yiyoung returned after he didn’t know if five minutes or ten minutes had passed while he was dazed.
Yiyoung poked his head out slightly through the slightly open door gap and mumbled.
“You can come in now.”
Chahyun crossed Yiyoung’s front gate with stiff steps. Then he went inside the house and stood blankly in what appeared to be roughly the living room.
It was a cramped house that felt packed just from Chahyun standing there.
If he moved even a little roughly, it seemed his foot would catch on a table leg or an object brushed by his elbow would fall to the floor. Yiyoung moved around well through the narrow space with a structure that brought to mind an ant’s nest.
Yiyoung, who had been bustling between this room and that room, handed Chahyun a neatly folded bundle of cloth. Chahyun asked while receiving it inadvertently.
“What’s this?”
“Pajamas.”
Pajamas? On Chahyun’s hand really sat an outfit, a towel, and a new toothbrush.
As far as Chahyun knew, pajamas were clothes worn when sleeping. That is, sleep in the dictionary sense, as in slumber. Chahyun, who had only been thinking about taking off his clothes until just now and didn’t know he’d be putting on pajamas, met Yiyoung’s eyes with a deflated expression.
“You’re really telling me to just sleep over?”
“Yes.”
Yiyoung answered with a calm expression that felt devoid of any ulterior motive. His attitude was as if he was simply putting up a drunk friend for the night because it was late.
Ah. Chahyun let out a futile sigh and blinked at the air.
He was so disappointed that tears almost welled up, but he understood quickly. He’d been uncertain anyway, thinking the progression was too fast. Chahyun thought while taking a light deep breath to calm his lower body, which had been arbitrarily preparing to exert itself since he started kissing Yiyoung.
‘Well. There’s no way he’d want to sleep with me.’
He may have loved him before, but the current Yiyoung didn’t like Chahyun that much.
