# Chapter 30.
Red circles of jealousy appeared on Doha’s white cheeks. Today, Doha had received definite confirmation of Jaei’s love interest. He never imagined that Hong Duyoung would write his lunar birthday on his profile. His desire to go upstairs, enter the passcode, and open the door completely disappeared. He put down his phone and sat blankly like someone who had lost their appetite.
After staring vacantly at Jaei’s annoying back and buttocks for a while, he decided to accept the reality of his situation as it was. And to deal with Hong Duyoung, he began to carefully review the information written in his documents.
He was educated abroad, having spent his middle school years in the United States, and returned to Korea for high school where he worked as a theater actor. As an adult, he debuted as a film director and graduated from the philosophy department of Korea’s most prestigious university. Doha already knew that he had excellent humanities and artistic knowledge, shared similar interests with Jaei, and was the type who could converse well with him, but he didn’t know that his academic background was objectively so good.
Was this elite type Jaei’s ideal? This was a betrayal of the foolish alliance, beyond any romantic or brotherly relationship. Of course, there are many types of geniuses and many types of fools. One can be both a genius and a fool, and a fool can also be a genius. Jaei was a genius actor but at the same time a cute, foolish cat.
Jaei, who had been called a “foolish cat who startles itself by getting hit by its own tail” by his father since childhood, revealed his somewhat dull real self to fans after his acting debut and exhausted himself trying to maintain an air of mystery. Around that time, a fan who noticed Jaei’s struggle sent a kind DM on social media.
[To Jaei, the gentlest among the sensitive, the most splendid man in the world is a kind and handsome fool.]
Jaei, who was struggling to learn elegant and intellectual behavior as an actor at the time, was greatly moved by that sentence and gained confidence.
A few years later, Doha was also quite disheartened for similar reasons. At that time, Doha was lying beside Jaei’s bed looking at his stock app when he dropped the phone on his face, and with a touch of his nose bridge, accidentally purchased a lot of plummeting stocks.
Kneeling down, he apologized, saying, “When I become an adult, I’ll definitely earn money and pay you back. Or, hyung, have you thought about just keeping me as your servant for life? I’m physically strong and can do whatever you ask.”
Lee Jaei, a multi-billionaire who had his balance stolen in real-time, comforted Doha.
“Doha, they say the most splendid man in the world is a kind and handsome fool. So you’re truly a splendid man.”
Fools number 1 and number 2 relied on each other like that and promised to become even more splendid men.
Feeling a deep sense of betrayal that their exclusive alliance had been damaged, Doha glared at the back of Jaei’s head. If Jaei had told him earlier that he was attracted to such elite types, he would have gone abroad with his mother and father when he was fourteen. And he would have started preparing to become a philosopher.
Feeling a prickling sensation on the back of his head due to his sensitive perception, Jaei quietly turned around while holding a puzzle piece in each hand. Doha, who had been glaring at Jaei with round eyes, abruptly left the living room. A little while later, he came back wearing black-rimmed glasses that he used for gaming, with an ethics textbook tucked under his arm.
Channeling a philosopher who contemplates and reflects, Doha was intensely aware of Jaei as he opened his textbook in front of him. Jaei muttered “cute” while turning on his phone camera and photographing Doha like that. Afterward, he crawled over the puzzle and peered at Doha’s textbook, blinking his eyes.
“Studying all of a sudden.”
Doha poked Jaei’s cheek with his finger as Jaei buried his face in the textbook as if he were digging into it with his nose, and said:
“Actor Lee Jaei.”
“Yes.”
Sorry to Mr. Hong Duyoung, but Doha planned to actively interfere between the two as much as he could. At the very least, he didn’t want to lose Jaei to someone who was still alive. His pride wouldn’t allow it.
“Can I audition during summer vacation?”
“What kind of audition? Singer? Actor?”
“Actor. Since I really love watching dramas.”
Jaei stared at Doha with a complicated expression. Then he grabbed the ethics textbook in Doha’s hand, put it aside, and embraced him fully. He wanted Doha, who had returned after going around a long path, to find his dream again. Jaei had kept him confined within his fence for fear of losing Doha twice to a terrible accident. At the very least, he had no intention of letting him act before he became an adult.
But after receiving Hong Duyoung’s screenplay, Jaei’s thoughts had completely changed. There was no reason to stay in the past and suppress Doha’s dream anymore. Doha deserved to do what he wanted to do with confidence.
Jaei stroked Doha’s hair preciously and slowly began to speak.
“You have talent. I’ll set you up with a one-on-one acting teacher. Go learn acting every day after class until vacation. I’ll call your homeroom teacher tomorrow.”
“Can I really do it? I thought you would be against me acting. That’s why I’ve wanted to do it for a long time but couldn’t say anything.”
Doha said while removing the various puzzle pieces stuck to Jaei’s slender calves one by one. Jaei, with his eyes closed, poured out the words that had been accumulating in his heart without pause.
“I’ve decided to give you everything you want now. If you get hurt or sick, I can take off everything attached to my body and give it all to you. If you lose a lot of blood, I can draw all my blood and give it to you.”
“Whoa. Hyung, why are you suddenly saying such things? It’s scary.”
On the day when Jaei had torn his arm and bled while filming a movie, Doha had received news of Jaei’s injury from his manager. Hearing that Jaei was laughing and calling for blood, he was so alarmed that he hastily looked into blood transfusions. Fortunately, it wasn’t an injury severe enough to require a transfusion.
“Anyway, you’re AB blood type and I’m O type, so you can’t give me a transfusion. But I can give one to you.”
As Doha showed off his biological knowledge, Jaei’s eyes narrowed. Recently, Jaei had removed “die young” from his bucket list and inserted “sacrifice and dedicate to Doha but definitely live a long life.”
“Heaven is preventing my sacrifice. I don’t like this. I want to sacrifice for you. Let me sacrifice. I want to give all my sacrifice and dedication to our Doha.”
“Hyung, what are you really saying? We can live happily without sacrificing for each other. Let’s not sacrifice.”
Doha tilted his head, finding Jaei’s love expression, which had become more intense than usual, a bit strange. He had no intention of receiving a blood transfusion from someone much more frail than himself.
He wanted to tell Mr. Lee Jaei to take care of his own health, since his body was very strong in both bone and muscle. What conscience would allow taking blood from someone who endures forced marches on willpower alone and falls ill for over a month after finishing a project?
Still, thanks to Jaei’s straightforward love confession involving organ donation and blood transfusion, his damaged mood quickly improved. It was still an undeniable truth that Jaei loved him the most among the living. It’s just that Jaei was currently putting a grace period on a full-fledged change in their relationship because of his young age. He fully understood Jaei’s feelings.
Deeply moved by Jaei’s passionate love, Doha shyly tested his love a bit more.
“Hyung, can you really do everything I want?”
“Of course. What else can I do for you?”
“Can I get plastic surgery? I want to shave my jaw too. It seems too angular.”
It wasn’t sincere. He was testing Jaei’s love.
“You’ve received too much praise and lost your mind.”
Jaei, who loved Doha’s excellent jawline, crawled on the floor and fetched a disciplinary backscratcher. Doha, who got hit on his trapezius muscle with the backscratcher, traced Jaei’s soft jawline with his finger and cheerfully continued:
“The actor ranked number one for beautiful faces by plastic surgeons really does have a pretty jaw.”
Jaei ignored Doha’s words with an expression that suggested there was no need to respond. If Doha was going to act foolishly like this, he would have to strictly control and suppress his actions. While Jaei was hitting Doha’s triceps with the backscratcher, Doha immediately started his second test.
“If I’m really good at acting, please help me join your company.”
He shamelessly demanded a parachute hiring. This was not a lie but something he sincerely wanted. He didn’t want to just remain in a private relationship with Jaei, but to live as an industry insider and fiercely monitor both Jaei’s professional and personal life.
Jaei firmly rejected Doha’s first request but gladly accepted the second. It was a natural choice for Jaei, who wanted to control and monitor Doha.
“Of course I was planning to. Doha, I’ll keep you in the closest place to me, and I’ll always protect you safely. And I’ll do everything I can for you. I’ll let you do as many projects as you want.”
“I’m just asking to join the same company as you. Everything else I have to do well myself, right?”
“You’re destined to be loved by people anyway. Even in school, you were much more popular than me.”
“More than you?”
Doha asked, tilting his head. Having let slip a verbal mistake, Jaei didn’t panic at all but touched Doha’s horn-rimmed glasses and continued smoothly:
“Yes, I wasn’t very popular in school. I was called unpleasant and people talked behind my back a lot. There was even someone who directly told me I was a bad and mean kid. They said they wanted to have a snowball fight but then packed snow into balls and threw them at me. I cried a lot because I was upset.”
“Someone did that to you? Are they crazy?”
