# Chapter 110
For dinner, they ordered rice bowls for delivery. Mo Eunje had considered making kimchi fried rice or kimchi pork belly rice bowl with the leftover pork belly and bacon in the refrigerator, but he gave up the idea. If he were to move around in the kitchen, the one who was just waiting for the right moment would surely pounce. The blatant staring would be burdensome, and he’d obviously seize the opportunity to bring up uncomfortable topics. In the end, Mo Eunje’s defense mechanism activated, and he chose the option that minimized risk.
“What gift should we buy for Grandmother and Grandfather when we go on summer vacation?”
“I don’t know.”
“Grandmother said she’s knitting sweaters for us to wear in winter. Mine is lemon yellow, and yours is cream-colored.”
“Yeah.”
“If Grandmother has time, she said she’d also knit me a matching scarf and wool hat. But I didn’t tell her about your injury because I was worried she’d be concerned.”
Despite Tae Igyeol’s uncooperative attitude, Mo Eunje talked endlessly about his grandmother throughout dinner. When the conversation paused, creating silence, he desperately kept talking, not knowing what Tae Igyeol might say since he had warned that he wouldn’t hold back after being discharged. Mo Eunje could manage to avoid and ignore the blatant looks Tae Igyeol was giving him.
After cleaning up dinner, Mo Eunje quickly slipped into the alpha room, while Tae Igyeol, who had been silently watching his obvious behavior, grabbed his cigarettes and went out to the rooftop terrace. Mo Eunje worried that smoking so much would be bad for his lungs, but despite his concerns about the patient chain-smoking, he couldn’t bring himself to tell him to smoke in moderation.
“…”
Mo Eunje killed time by staring blankly at his laptop screen. Tae Igyeol would surely know that Mo Eunje wasn’t moving his hands and that only the mouse cursor was blinking on the empty Hangul document. Yet he didn’t interfere. He respected the flimsy, meager defensive wall Mo Eunje had hastily built.
As midnight approached, Mo Eunje felt tired and wanted to lie down, but Tae Igyeol, who was reading on the living room sofa, showed no signs of going to the bedroom. This wasn’t some game of chicken—Mo Eunje didn’t understand what he was doing. After turning off his laptop, Mo Eunje stretched and went into the living room.
“I’m completely exhausted. Aren’t you going to sleep?”
“You go to sleep first.”
“And you?”
“I’ll sleep a bit later.”
“Okay. I’ll go to bed first. Don’t stay up late reading. Come in soon.”
After having a casual conversation without any issues, Mo Eunje went to the bedroom first. He brushed his teeth, washed his face, and lay down on the bed, rationalizing that Tae Igyeol would soon come in to sleep too. After sleeping on the hospital sofa for several days, the bed felt remarkably soft and comfortable.
Though he closed his eyes after preparing to sleep, his chaotic, jumbled thoughts prevented him from falling asleep easily. Today was the first day after discharge, so he had avoided the crisis by hiding in the alpha room, but he couldn’t do this every day. Even if Tae Igyeol said something he shouldn’t, and they ended up having a heated argument and making up afterward, they couldn’t continue like this. Of course, since Tae Igyeol was currently a patient, Mo Eunje couldn’t cowardly attack him and fight when his limbs were perfectly fine.
But somehow, he had a feeling of déjà vu. It seemed like the spot next to him would remain empty and cold all night. After lying there for about 30 minutes, Mo Eunje finally couldn’t ignore his uncomfortable, unsettled feelings. He raised his upper body, silently screamed, and messed up his hair frantically. Avoidance wasn’t always the best strategy.
When he flung the door open, sure enough, he saw Tae Igyeol lying on the sofa with all the lights off and no blanket. Just like during the cold war period before his hospitalization, he was trying to sleep on the sofa. Mo Eunje was furious that someone in such poor health would do this, and he strode over to him purposefully. Tae Igyeol slowly sat up, and fine beads of cold sweat formed on his forehead, suggesting he was in significant pain.
“Hey. Are you kidding me right now?”
“Where is this unprovoked hostility coming from?”
“Why are you sleeping on the sofa when you’re injured?”
“Because I can’t sleep on the bed.”
So Tae Igyeol had indeed planned to sleep on the sofa. If Mo Eunje hadn’t come out to check on him, he would have committed the atrocious act of letting Tae Igyeol, the homeowner and patient, sleep on the sofa while he slept comfortably alone on the bed.
“Why can’t you sleep on the bed? You’re a patient. If you’re uncomfortable sleeping with me, I’ll sleep on the sofa, and you go sleep on the bed.”
“How could I let you sleep on the sofa?”
“I’ve been sleeping on the hospital sofa until yesterday, you know?”
“That was a special situation.”
Mo Eunje was bewildered and exasperated by Tae Igyeol’s literal answers that missed the point. If his declaration that he wouldn’t hold back after discharge meant making Mo Eunje uncomfortable by overexerting himself, then Mo Eunje wasn’t planning to hold back either. His fighting spirit surged as he saw someone who didn’t know how to take care of his own body. Standing over Tae Igyeol, Mo Eunje put his hands on his hips and sighed.
“Are you trying to hint that I should leave because you’re uncomfortable telling me directly? Am I being dense and overstaying my welcome?”
“Eunje-ya. When you were sick that time… Don’t you remember what happened?”
His eyes deepened as he looked up to meet Mo Eunje’s gaze. Mo Eunje couldn’t understand why he was suddenly bringing up the past. What was certain was that Tae Igyeol’s attitude had changed after that day. So he needed to know now.
“I don’t remember. So tell me now. You’ve been acting strange toward me since then. What did I do to make you act this way?”
“Are you confident you won’t regret it even after knowing the reason?”
The intense gaze meeting his persistently warned of danger, but Mo Eunje ignored it. He was more concerned about the cold sweat on Tae Igyeol’s forehead. He pulled out a tissue, sat down awkwardly beside him, and carefully wiped away the sweat. Tae Igyeol seemed to be in severe pain, so Mo Eunje thought he should give him a painkiller after their conversation.
“Even if I regret it, let me know what it is first. How terrible could it have been to cause all this?”
Mo Eunje needed to know what he had done so he could apologize, fight, regret, or do something. His heart was beating anxiously to an unusual degree, but his intuition told him that they needed to address this issue to untangle the knot. As things stood, his heart ached and he felt so uncomfortable that it seemed impossible to continue living together in this house. Despite providing all kinds of care, like helping Tae Igyeol brush his teeth and wash his face, feeding him, and sleeping on the sofa, the hospital’s truce-like state had been more comfortable.
“Tell me. What is it?”
Mo Eunje had the illusion that Tae Igyeol’s face was slowly getting closer. By the time he belatedly realized what Tae Igyeol was trying to do, his soft lips had already gently touched Mo Eunje’s. After staying like that for a very brief moment, their lips separated, leaving a short distance between them—close enough for their breaths to mingle.
“Still don’t remember?”
His lips and breath were hot despite his cool body temperature.
“What…”
While Mo Eunje’s brain stopped functioning and couldn’t even properly grasp the situation, Tae Igyeol’s left hand gripped the back of his neck. Their lips overlapped again, and without hesitation, his tongue entered through the gap. It was a kiss that was rough yet gentle, where tongues intertwined as if devouring each other.
A chill ran through Mo Eunje’s body as his mind emptied and his thoughts froze. He was so shocked that he couldn’t even think to push away the aggressive Tae Igyeol, and instead, he froze like a stone, surrendering his lips and tongue. There was no time to compose his breathing, which had become ragged from the secretly conveyed desire. An intense sensation spread throughout his entire body.
Only when his breath was completely taken away and receiving Tae Igyeol’s kiss became unbearable did reality dawn on him, and a chill ran down his spine. Before his malfunctioning, overloaded brain could issue a command, his hands pushed Tae Igyeol away first.
“Haa…”
Tae Igyeol, who had been messily entangling his tongue with Mo Eunje’s, surprisingly withdrew obediently. The hand that had been holding the back of Mo Eunje’s neck brushed his shoulder and moved down his arm. The grayish-white eyes that met his were tinged with passion and desire, and the lips that had been pressed against his glistened with saliva.
Mo Eunje unconsciously swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Tae Igyeol was tracing him with his gaze. His heart was beating violently, as if it might jump out of his mouth. It had happened so suddenly that the friendship they had maintained all this time seemed futile.
“Are you crazy?”
“You did it. That dawn.”
“Talk sense. Is something wrong with your head?”
“Want me to tell you clearly? On the day you were sick, you clung to me desperately and kissed me.”
“What are you even saying? I would have to be crazy to…”
At that moment, the dream he had that day suddenly came to mind. Since he had been under the influence of medication, he hadn’t remembered the content of the dream the next day, and so he had forgotten about it without attaching any special meaning or trying to recall it. But Tae Igyeol’s current actions brought it back vividly.
It hadn’t been just a dream where Tae Igyeol appeared for the first time since he was eighteen. If it had really been a dream, Tae Igyeol wouldn’t have known about it. Mo Eunje realized that the reason his lips had been swollen and red even though his body had recovered completely wasn’t because of dryness due to the changing seasons, but because they had been bitten and sucked. Just as Tae Igyeol said, that day, Mo Eunje had clung to him desperately and kissed him.
Could he make it as if nothing had happened if he apologized?
Should he pretend until the end that he didn’t remember?
But what difference would that make…
He couldn’t even be sure if he had only kissed Tae Igyeol that day and stopped there. The moment of the kiss came back clearly, but everything before and after was cut off bluntly.
Mo Eunje felt completely at a loss, not knowing what to do next as everything went dark before his eyes.
“Eunje-ya.”
“Don’t say it.”
“…I said I wouldn’t hold back anymore.”
“No. From the moment you speak, I… I can no longer pretend not to know. Please. Hold back, Igyeol-ah.”
His heart ached. Mo Eunje pleaded, looking at him with eyes full of fear, but Tae Igyeol’s determination didn’t fade. Instead, he maintained direct eye contact and slowly but clearly revealed his feelings.
“I…”
“Igyeol-ah, please. Don’t say it, okay?”
“Like you.”
“…You said it wasn’t me! You said it wasn’t me!”
“I love you, Eunje-ya… I’ve loved you all along.”
Whether Mo Eunje wanted it or not, Tae Igyeol’s words set the wheel of fate in motion according to its natural course, marking a turning point in their relationship.
Despite trying hard to pretend not to know, making desperate efforts, and running away with all his might, crossing the line that should not have been crossed happened in an instant, mocking all his struggles.
Feelings that couldn’t be controlled by human power…
He had finally confronted them.
