# Chapter 86
The two-letter word “Jaei” is short for “a person who is immersed in their first relationship as an adult, firmly believes they’re experiencing the love of the century, and acts completely detached from reality because they’re crazy in love.” For example, someone who doesn’t sleep because they’re having a lover’s quarrel until dawn, despite needing to go to work early for an important project, is called a “Jaei.”
The utterly foolish Lee Jaei used all of his short and precious rest time for a lover’s quarrel with Doha. Though the energetic Doha had filled him with vitality, it couldn’t solve his lack of sleep. However, being the professional he was, Jaei perfectly completed the final shoot in the morning and safely attended the wrap party that followed that evening. This was all done by drawing from his future lifespan.
At the wrap party, Jaei embraced a bouquet as big as his body and bowed his head to express gratitude to the actors and staff. To be honest, he had no idea what he was saying. Yet, thanks to his state of delirium, he was speaking more fluently than usual. Jaei thought this was the miraculous endorphin that emerges right before death.
As predicted, Seo Eunho attended the wrap party. However, lead actor Lee Jaei, who was the center of everyone’s attention, had no time to worry about a minor character like Seo Eunho. Since it was an extension of work, he just threw himself into the atmosphere and diligently drank the alcohol that was served.
Doha watched with pity as his senior, Jaei, emitted his last flames with his fragile body. As always, this would predictably result in hospitalization. Especially now with the added wound of love, he’d probably need to be hospitalized for a week. He might even have his meeting with Sean Alex while receiving IV fluids in a hospital room.
Seo Eunho, being administratively a minor, had to leave early. Doha stood up, following Seo Eunho’s lead. As he followed him out, his back of the head and spine tingled. Because it was so obvious who was shooting arrows with their eyes at him, Doha placed the back of his hand on his waist, overlapped his fingers, and sent a celebrity-style heart backward. Of course, the arrows didn’t stop and continued to poke at Doha’s nape.
In front of the restaurant, Doha caught up with Seo Eunho and stood facing him. He looked down at him silently for a moment. Should he grab him by the collar and make him kneel in front of Jaei? Or just give him a refreshing punch? Or maybe just kill him outright? No. He couldn’t do that. That wouldn’t be right.
Eventually, what Doha said to him was this:
“Give me your phone number.”
In any long-term plan, the initial build-up is important. Just as when he had put away Hong Duyoung, someone who wants to achieve something needs to restrain their emotional expressions and words until they achieve their goal. Seo Eunho was someone who couldn’t do that at all. Hadn’t he revealed everything to Doha already?
“Huh? Oh.”
Seo Eunho seemed to think that Jaei had told Doha everything. He had been wearing a grave expression, prepared to hear abusive language, but his face flushed when he heard something completely unexpected.
Doha, who had been wary of him without exchanging contact information until now, and only began the first step of his plan at the last moment, felt aggrieved that his pure and noble love was being misunderstood. But he knew that Jaei, who was misunderstanding, was having a much harder time than him who was being misunderstood. He planned to hospitalize Jaei tomorrow and have him undergo a thorough examination. His tender insides must have been severely damaged.
He took the phone he had handed to Seo Eunho and called him to share his number. While doing this, a light cat gracefully sat on Doha’s shoulder. The familiar touch and scent were strongly mixed with the smell of alcohol. Keeping his gaze on Seo Eunho, Doha naturally stroked the head of Jaei, who was openly observing the situation with his chin on Doha’s shoulder.
Jaei, feeling good after being stroked by Doha, quickly inserted himself between the two and started babbling drunkenly while clapping his hands.
“So you two are dating? Congratulations. I was right to be cautious about reunited classmates. I did a graduation play in university where the plot was about someone attending a class reunion and cheating with a former classmate.”
Three claps for Seo Eunho: clap, clap, clap. Changing direction, three claps for Doha: clap, clap, clap. The drunk Jaei sent congratulatory applause fairly to both sides. Like a fairy, he interlaced his hands together, twisted his body, and continued:
“I’m fine as long as Doha is happy. Doha, you do whatever you want. I’m okay being abandoned. I’ll throw myself into the river. Anyone want to pick me up?”
Watching Jaei spout nonsense, Doha said calmly in a low, thick voice:
“Babe, are you writing science fiction right now? You’re very drunk. If you throw yourself into the river, I’ll pick you up.”
At Doha’s ‘babe attack,’ Seo Eunho was momentarily shocked and stepped back. Wide-eyed Jaei rolled his eyeballs left and right, checking if anyone was around. Soon, his cheeks were covered with crimson circles. In contrast, no red circles appeared on Doha’s cheeks. Not feeling any embarrassment for his statement, Doha approached Jaei with a shameless expression, rubbing his cheek with his thumb as he spoke:
“Stop drinking. If you don’t sleep and drink like this, you’ll get sick. I couldn’t stop you back there because I’m too young.”
Jaei, who had been blinking his eyes silently, curled up his body small and carefully placed his face against Doha’s chest. Doha wrapped his arms around such a Jaei, lightly kissed his cheek, and playfully whispered:
“Let’s escape home just like this!”
Stuffing the smaller-than-usual Jaei into his arms until they were almost one body, Doha looked at Seo Eunho and calmly said:
“Take care, let’s keep in touch occasionally. Live well.”
Jaei, who was kidnapped by Doha before the wrap party ended, was taken straight to the hospital. Doha was with him almost all the time, and when Doha had to go for schedules like drama finale interviews, the manager stayed with him. After sleeping like the dead for two days and recovering his body, Jaei briefly escaped the hospital and headed to another one. It was the psychiatric clinic he had been attending steadily since losing Doha in middle school. Visiting after several months, Jaei poured out the depths of his heart:
“My fans often experience situations where they misunderstand and think I did things I didn’t do. When bad articles or fake scandals about me break out, at first, everyone struggles and tries to stop liking me. They think they know Lee Jaei well, but in fact they don’t know everything, and because there’s time fans don’t know about, they end up imagining worse things.”
He continued, rubbing the back of his hand:
“But when they realize that stopping their affection isn’t something they can control, fans just embrace that misunderstanding and love me anyway. Even if it’s not really my fault. It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not. It’s okay if it is, and better if it’s not. When it’s revealed that it wasn’t true later, their love doubles.”
He smiled quietly once.
“There’s that kind of love in the world. Since I’ve received a lot of it, I should be able to do it too, right? But the process of transitioning from here to there is too hard. Thinking ‘it was my misunderstanding after all, the person I know wouldn’t do that,’ then, ‘what I know isn’t everything, I’m disappointed.’ As my heart grows cold. Then it ends with ‘but I love too much.’ My thoughts go back and forth several times a day.”
Jaei returned to the hospital room where he had been admitted, hugging the prescribed medication. Then, waiting for Doha to return from his schedule, he respectfully knelt and wrote a long letter to his fans to commemorate the drama’s finale:
“Thank you so much for all your hard work in supporting an actor who’s been carrying all sorts of strange modifiers for the past 8 years. From this year on, I’ll come to you with a cute and diligent image. I’ll try to become an actor loved by the entire nation so that you, the fans, won’t have to suffer emotionally.”
* * *
On the weekend, the problematic man finally appeared. The meeting with him, who had been selected as the “2nd Sexiest Man in the World,” his personal staff, and the representative sent from the film production, was indeed held in Jaei’s hospital room. Doha, who attended as Jaei’s caregiver, guardian, and company employee who managed Jaei’s filmography, wore sneakers with slightly thicker soles than usual.
Jaei’s interpreting staff and other company employees were also present. Doha, who possessed sexiness that emanated from his underlying innocence, slightly raised his chin and confidently extended his hand for a handshake when he first saw the blatantly sexy Western actor. Throughout his life so far, there had been almost no men who threatened him with their height of 189cm. It was almost fair to say this was a first.
Fortunately, today Doha could stand confidently without being pushed back thanks to his sneakers. He had hurriedly done push-ups before Sean Alex’s arrival, which also increased the size of his shoulders and forearms. As a result, his chest was also pumped, and Jaei had been showing interest in his chest, glancing at it.
However, since Sean Alex appeared, Jaei’s gaze had shifted to his chest. Having lost Jaei’s attention, Doha touched his own chest with a sullen expression.
