The sweeter the fruit, the more sickeningly it rots.
Back then, that’s how he and I were.
Seong Yeohwi stood here to confirm the end of his own hell.
That damn first love he’d chased every night in his nightmares.
He’d returned after four years to ruin that hypocritical moment when that malicious man would wear a ceremonial suit and promise eternity to someone else.
‘You killed me because you were blinded by money, so now you’ve found another victim?’
He suppressed the urge to immediately rush up to the platform and break that captivating neck of his.
No. The grand revenge play had only just begun.
And Dowon was the protagonist who had to survive within it in the most agonizing way possible.
When the majestic melody reached its climax, Seong Yeohwi walked out from the darkness. The guests’ shock and murmuring rolled in like waves.
Finally, Dowon, who discovered him, froze while receiving all the light in the world.
In that young and innocent past, just seeing that face used to make his heart race breathlessly.
Seong Yeohwi slowly walked down the virgin road as if crossing the threshold of hell and stood before the platform. Then he smiled softly at Dowon.
“Honey, you can’t have an affair.”
He pulled out an old, faded ring from his pocket and threw it at that rigid face.
It was a wedding ring.
“We’ve never divorced, you know. Isn’t that right, dear?”
***
The bathroom was filled with hot steam.
Every sensation in his body felt unfamiliar. Even the sound of dripping water echoed strangely.
After washing himself for a long time in the marble bathtub, Seong Yeohwi put on a large white robe and looked in the mirror. When he wiped the steamed surface with his palm, a tense young man stood within it.
Wet brown hair. Cheeks flushed red from the hot water. Shoulders that ached in the joints every night because he’d grown so rapidly in height.
He was handsome enough to stand out even in a crowd, but still couldn’t shed his youthful appearance.
‘First I need to hold his hand, hold his hand first, right? And then create the mood through conversation.’
What a couple facing their wedding night should do.
He already knew everything, but whether from the heat or extreme tension, his heart raced out of control.
“Young master, if you’re ready…”
“Yes, I’ll be right out.”
The voice of an elderly housekeeper came from outside the door. He couldn’t delay any longer. He would be waiting for him.
Click. Opening the door, Yeohwi headed down the long corridor to the deepest part of the mansion.
It was the bedroom of the man who would become, or rather, had already become Seong Yeohwi’s legal spouse.
The heavy bedroom door opened silently.
The room was dark and cool. Unlike the bathroom’s heat, even the air seemed frozen.
And at the center of that coldness, he saw a man.
Though it was their wedding night, he wasn’t lying in bed. He was leaning deep into an armchair placed on the left side of the room, staring at the darkness outside the window. The man wearing a jet-black silk robe seemed to be part of the darkness itself.
Black hair that shone smoothly as if wet, just like Yeohwi’s. A jawline sharp enough to cut. Eyes dry and shadowed as if he’d stayed up for days.
Sensing a presence, he slowly turned his head.
“……”
Seong Yeohwi unconsciously held his breath.
For some reason, it seemed like a sculpture was moving rather than a living human. A cool sensuality was deeply pooled within him.
“Not bad. You even know how to keep someone waiting.”
Dowon’s cold gaze swept over Yeohwi. Twelve years. It was a moment when the age difference between the two became real. He felt like a naked child standing before an adult man.
When Yeohwi’s stiffly frozen fingers barely twitched, Dowon asked quietly.
“Does it usually take you that long to wash?”
“Ah… Yes. Because the bathroom was spacious.”
What an irrelevant answer. Yeohwi wanted to take back the stupid response he’d blurted out. Dowon neither mocked nor comforted the nervous Yeohwi.
His long fingers swept back the flowing black hair. Swish. His gaze was firmly captured as if mesmerized by the soft hair gliding over his forehead.
A brief silence. After calmly letting the stretched time flow by, Dowon stood up from the chair.
“I won’t touch a kid like you.”
“What?”
He spoke as if simply announcing a fact.
“It’s a political marriage. You knew that when you came.”
His two eyes pierced through Yeohwi’s trembling pupils like a spear, precisely.
“We just need the legal binding, so don’t expect any unnecessary roles or feelings from each other.”
“……”
“Nothing will happen between you and me. Especially not mixing our bodies.”
So that’s what he’d been waiting all this time to say. The moment he realized this, Dowon brushed past Yeohwi’s shoulder. Planning to leave him alone and abandoned in the bedroom.
But then, grab.
What confidence was this—his hand moved forward without him knowing. Yeohwi, who’d caught Dowon’s forearm, held him tight and pulled him toward himself.
If he let him go like this, this marriage would truly become nothing but a binding on paper.
The twelve-year age gap. He understood that he must look like nothing but a child in Dowon’s eyes, but Seong Yeohwi was twenty this year. His body had grown as much as it could. In fact, it had really grown. When they stood side by side, their eye levels were almost the same.
“No. What if something does happen?”
“What?”
The corners of his eyes trembled. After catching his breath briefly, Yeohwi openly challenged him.
“E-even so, isn’t a political marriage still a marriage? To get married but say let’s not become a couple—what kind of nonsense is that?”
“……”
“And we’ll keep facing each other from now on. It’d be good if we got along well with each other. Hyung… Does Dowon-ssi dislike me that much?”
In those days when he was still young, pure, and innocent, the fruit of unripened, fresh youth began with such a bitter taste.
Not sweet at all, but harsh.
“Ha…”
Dowon slowly, almost as if he couldn’t believe it, turned his head to look down at the hand gripping his clothes. Then he looked at the owner of that hand, Seong Yeohwi.
An orphan who’d lost all his relatives. A greenhorn whose only remaining possession was the inheritance Chairman Seong had left him. With innocence that knew no fear of the world and untainted foolishness, he was making an obvious mistake.
Dowon, who had experienced the unfair, unreasonable, blood-stained hardships of the world to the fullest, removed Yeohwi’s fingers gripping his arm one by one—not roughly, but firmly.
“If I like you, then what.”
His voice had dropped even lower than before.
A terrible sense of ennui seeped through, as if he were sending away a child who’d come running to play house.
“If I do like you, what will you do then? Will you give your body, give your heart, do everything?”
“D-do you really like me?”
“I asked what you’d do.”
Dowon’s gaze leisurely swept over Yeohwi.
Jet-black eyes without any light. Like a carved sculpture, a high nose bridge and appropriately raised cheekbones, with black hair as moist as rain-soaked branches flowing down beside them.
Then a shadow cast in his image fell over Seong Yeohwi.
“Don’t tell me you, as a man too.”
As he took a step closer, a smoky cedarwood scent brushed past Yeohwi’s cheek.
“Were you actually looking forward to the wedding night?”
“……”
“Fine. What can you even do? Go ahead and try.”
Seong Yeohwi couldn’t give an appropriate answer. He had a picture drawn out in his head, but that was all.
He could feel hot heat rushing up from the nape of his neck. Not knowing what to do, his lips only quivered.
He could feel the gaze looking down as if he’d known this would happen. An expressionless face that showed no emotion. It was so dark and desolate that it was frightening because he couldn’t gauge its depth at all. But Yeohwi didn’t want to let him go like this.
He grabbed Dowon’s hand again, this time even tighter. His cold hand squirmed within Yeohwi’s hot palm.
“…Yes.”
Yeohwi pulled him in.
It was a great relief that their eye levels were almost similar, so he didn’t need to stand on his tiptoes.
His own face reflected in those cruel and captivating black eyes. Yeohwi hid his trembling and carefully brought his lips close.
It should touch softly. Just as he’d imagined.
However, clack—a stupid sound came out.
It was because he’d gotten the angle wrong due to being too nervous. Yeohwi’s teeth bumped not into Dowon’s lips, but into the teeth above them.
“Ah.”
He unconsciously stepped back from the tingling pain. Was he bleeding? His hands were busy checking. His face felt like it was burning with humiliation.
“Is that all?”
Dowon straightened the collar of his silk robe without a single disturbance. He didn’t even touch his own lips. He just looked bored.
