# Chapter 24
Doha asked pressingly with an excited voice. However, Jaei calmly questioned back with the most composed face ever, fluttering his eyelashes.
“Why are you so excited?”
“…”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t leave home without you. You’re still a student, and I’m your guardian. I won’t leave a child to live alone yet.”
“That’s not the issue, hyung.”
“Then what?”
Doha closed his eyes tightly and bit his lip. He wanted to ask why Jaei had kept using his dead first love as an excuse if this was going to happen. While being able to love someone else again, why did he act as if Doha didn’t even have a chance? Words were on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t bring them out as they were.
Unable to contain the anger rising from his core, he rubbed his face with his palms, then stared at Jaei and asked impertinently.
“What do celebrities do for fun when they meet their lovers at home? Do you enjoy doing those things up there while leaving me downstairs? How could you do this to me?”
“Are you jealous right now?”
Jaei asked calmly without any change in expression. Doha didn’t deny it and spat out his wounded feelings in a sarcastic tone.
“I thought it was strange. There are many rumors, but you don’t date. It couldn’t have been like that from the beginning. But I really didn’t expect you to deceive even me. I truly thought you couldn’t forget the dead person and were pushing away everyone who approached you.”
Ding dong dang, correct answer. He knows exactly. In fact, Lee Jaei has no intention of dating anyone else because he still can’t forget the person who may be dead or may have come back to life. Like killing flies with an electric swatter, he cleanly rejects everyone who shows interest in him.
However, right now he had no intention of actively clarifying Doha’s misunderstanding. Jaei spoke softly without any emotional fluctuation to Doha, who was leaking love into the hallway, unable to mend his burst feelings.
“Doha.”
“What, why. Why call me so tenderly. When you have a lover.”
“You need to grow up more first.”
“…”
“You’re too young. Let’s talk after you’ve grown more.”
Doha, who had been acting rebelliously, closed his mouth at that moment and stood politely. He interpreted what Jaei had just said as meaning “you’ll soon have a chance too.” Instantly regaining his positivity and simplicity, he asked respectfully.
“Isn’t this grown up enough? Do I need to be even bigger?”
“You’re not even twenty yet.”
“I see! I thought I was all grown up!”
He happily exclaimed, changing his eyes from an impudent triangular shape to a kind, round one. Thinking about it again, the news that Jaei had a lover was also good news for him.
He had been living thinking that because of the deceased first love, he would never be given the opportunity to become Jaei’s lover. But now that Jaei had started a new love, he too had a chance to be loved. In this case, there was no need to hide his feelings for Jaei anymore, nor any reason to hold back his love.
Yes, that’s it. Instead of being frustrated, he should confront it head-on. While there’s no opportunity to fight a dead person, there’s a chance to fight a living one. Just win the fight, and that’s it.
“Yes, I understand! Hyung, I really am growing well. I’m the tallest in the class! And I have the broadest shoulders too!”
“Didn’t you say you were tenth in height in your class?”
“I was tenth from the front until yesterday, but when I went to school today, I was the tallest. I was surprised too. I didn’t know I’d grow that much overnight. That’s how well I’m growing, I’m telling you.”
At this moment, Lee Doha definitively decided his position. From this hour forward, Lee Doha declares that he will appeal to Lee Jaei as a romantic partner. Of course, he won’t lose the purity and cuteness that make him lovable. And the years he’s lived as brothers with Jaei will become a very powerful weapon that even the dead person can’t beat.
He ruffled Jaei’s hair roughly with his large hands while giggling like a baby.
“Hyung, do whatever you want.”
The misery of an 11-year crush that had been condensed was resolved. Doha left willingly with a refreshed smile.
Jaei was quietly staring at Doha’s large back as he got onto the elevator. He had always restrained his emotions and acted calmly in front of Doha when he was awake, but when Doha expressed his love without hiding it, it stirred rough waves in his heart. He had quite a struggle controlling his emotions just now.
As he was reaching out his finger to the lock to enter unit 1002, his phone vibrated. It was a message from Director Hong Duyoung.
Hong Duyoung had long expressed in interviews that Jaei was his source of inspiration, his persona, his muse. He appealed that Hong Duyoung and Lee Jaei had a relationship intensely intertwined through art.
Perhaps because Hong Duyoung knew about his past wounds, he knew how to create characters that seemed to look into the depths of actor Lee Jaei. Even though he thought not working with Hong Duyoung was for Doha’s family, after reading his scenarios, he couldn’t refuse the casting offers.
Every time, he drew out 200% of Jaei’s emotions. That’s why when they worked together, works that many people loved were born. Jaei received high praise for his acting skills. That’s all there is to it. There was no need to attribute any more meaning to the relationship with Hong Duyoung.
[Jaei. I’ve sent the scenario, so please check it. This movie could be my last work. I really want to do it with you.]
[Your last? Why suddenly? Director, did you hit it big in stocks? I failed at stocks, so I can’t retire yet.]
[I’ve never made movies to make money.]
Jaei’s eyes narrowed at the serious reply from artist Hong Duyoung, who couldn’t take a joke as a joke.
Nineteen-year-old Lee Doha’s hobby was supporting and loving actor Lee Jaei, and his specialty was “objectively losing but mentally winning.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay, it’s good. It’s a good thing.”
Doha, who had returned home leaving Jaei on the 10th floor, stood blankly in the living room and pressed his stinging eyelids firmly with his palm. Would Jaei’s lover have arrived upstairs by now? Would Jaei welcome him warmly and entrust his tired body to his embrace? Would he consider him a sanctuary not just physically but emotionally too? How long had they been dating? Age?
Suddenly, all strength left his arms and legs, and he collapsed onto the floor. He felt sad and unjust. The palm pressing on his eyelids became moist. He spent a moment immersed in self-pity, feeling sorry for himself, but for human Lee Doha, frustration was fleeting.
Soon he opened his eyes brightly again and regained courage. He had discovered a sliver of possibility and hope that he could become Jaei’s lover, and that was enough. There were other things that could be interpreted positively as well.
“Now he’ll talk less about dying.”
Actually, if Jaei mentioned dying one more time, he was planning to hold a soul wedding ceremony with that tiresome deceased person. Could there be a greater tragedy than making Jaei a married man with his own hands? He had even shed tears imagining holding Jaei’s hand, entering the wedding hall, and sending him off to his ghost spouse.
So, just the fact that his current lover was alive and not dead was reason enough to hold a festival. It was very encouraging that the probability of Jaei dreaming of a short life, saying he would follow his first love, had decreased.
He stood up, clapping his hands vigorously to encourage himself. From now on, Lee Doha would aggressively and systematically capture Lee Jaei’s heart. He sat on the sofa and began calmly preparing to become Jaei’s lover while fiddling with his phone.
First and foremost, his task was to identify the identity of the enemy to understand Jaei’s preferences, and to grow as much as possible into a person who matched his taste. He compiled all available data and deduced who Jaei’s lover might be, regardless of gender or age. He also collected all the protagonists of rumors known to have a special relationship with Jaei.
After narrowing down the candidates to about ten, he picked the most likely person. There was enough evidence to misunderstand their relationship. However, no matter how much he compared, this person was very far from Doha’s type.
Whew, sighing, Doha tapped his phone with his thumb and sought help anonymously.
“Please tell me… how to appeal to someone who only sees me… as a baby. The person I like is seven years older than me and has a lover… I’m nineteen years old and 189cm tall, but I’m still told… I look like a baby a lot. We grew up together since we were young…”
Jaei’s baby, as large as a refrigerator, buried his face in the cushion while waiting for the answers from kind people who would help with his love life.
June 21st, 11:55 PM. Right now, Jaei was in unit 1002, reading the five letters that Ryu Doha had given him every June 22nd from when he was in 2nd grade to 6th grade.
Fifth-grade Ryu Doha keenly felt that no matter how hard his parents worked, the income gap with Jaei’s family was widening over time, and he had learned from watching various romance dramas that there were very big obstacles to the love between wealthy male protagonists and poor female protagonists.
Hello, Jaei. Jaei’s future dream is to be a celebrity, right? And since you’re extremely pretty and handsome, you’ll be very popular when you become a celebrity. I hope you’ll continue to like me even if you become richer than you are now. I watched a drama with Mom yesterday, and I was very worried because I think I’ll be not good enough for you when we grow up. Instead, I’ll do everything you tell me to do. And this is a secret, but actually, I could even die for Jaei.
P.S. It’s okay if Jaei takes care of me for life. Hehehe
He returned the answer to the postscript when he became a sixth grader.
