“D-Dowon-ssi?”
Yeohwi called him in a cracked voice. Dowon didn’t answer. He just slowly approached the bedside.
His face came into view in eyes accustomed to the darkness. Eyes heavy with fatigue, tightly closed lips. And cold eyes scrutinizing Yeohwi’s face thoroughly…
“Did you have a dream?”
Dowon’s voice was lowly subdued.
“Must have been an incredibly good dream. Seeing you grinning even while sleeping.”
It was a sarcastic tone, but the terrible fatigue mixed within could be felt.
“…Yes.”
Yeohwi answered honestly. His throat choked up from the gap between dream and reality.
“I dreamed. That Dowon-ssi was… treating me very kindly.”
Dowon’s hand hesitated in mid-air. In the darkness, his pupils rippled faintly.
“Quite the excessive delusion.”
He replied coldly and took out a document envelope from inside his jacket and placed it on the bedside table.
Yeohwi’s gaze fixed on the documents. His heart began pounding again.
“This is…”
“I reviewed it.”
Dowon said briefly.
“I finished cross-verification through the legal team and asset management team. The investment route you proposed, and the backdoor listing method.”
Dowon leaned forward and met Yeohwi’s eyes.
“It’s valid. No, with that level of capital, it’s lethal.”
Yeohwi quietly held his breath.
“Then… are you accepting my proposal?”
Dowon didn’t answer. He just looked down at Yeohwi with his arms crossed.
His calm gaze wandered over Yeohwi’s pale face, his forearm with the IV stuck in it, and somewhere among the bundles of documents sprawled by the bedside.
Everywhere that gaze touched, his skin tingled. His gaze was clearly directed at him, yet somehow it also seemed like he wasn’t looking.
Dowon not in the knit outfit from the dream but in a coldly sharp suit. Instead of lips whispering “honey,” dry lips sneering about delusions.
Silence flowed. Yeohwi couldn’t even breathe loudly.
“Dowon-ssi.”
“…”
Dowon slowly leaned back and exhaled a long, long breath through his teeth.
“You.”
“Yes…?”
“You could have spat it out from the beginning.”
He pierced through Yeohwi with eyes of unknowable depth.
“Was that really the only reason?”
“…”
“That you wanted to be seen for yourself, not your background. Without any benefit?”
“…Yes.”
The short answer pressed down heavily on the air in the room.
Dowon stared into Yeohwi’s eyes for a long time. As if trying to find a lie, or perhaps to confirm the bottom of his reckless sincerity.
Soon his lips twisted. It was mockery.
“The premise is already fucked up.”
Dowon’s voice was dry.
“Do you know what’s most expensive in this world?”
He tapped Yeohwi’s forehead with his finger.
“Free things. Favors without compensation, feelings without conditions. Nothing comes with a heavier bill later than those.”
Certainly, he had lived his entire life that way. He had dealt with countless traps and mines approaching under the guise of goodwill. To Dowon, the word “just” was the most deceptive optimism.
“That feeling without compensation you were trying to give me would later become a debt strangling my neck. I really hate being indebted.”
Yeohwi’s lips moved.
“Then, Dowon-ssi should pay it back.”
“What.”
“You said nothing in the world is free. You said you hate being indebted.”
Yeohwi rubbed his wrist where the IV mark remained and looked straight at Dowon.
“As much as the feelings I have for Dowon-ssi, Dowon-ssi can pay me back just as much.”
“Ha.”
Dowon made an expression of disbelief.
“With money?”
“No. You know now that I have disgustingly a lot of money. It’s rotting and overflowing.”
Yeohwi shook his head. And he tapped his chest.
“Not with money but with feelings. If you don’t want to be indebted to me, pay me back with feelings.”
Dowon stared at Yeohwi blankly, then burst into laughter.
“Quite the demanding deal conditions.”
Dowon turned and walked. As he passed by Yeohwi almost brushing him, Yeohwi stiffened with tension.
Dowon opened the drawer of the bedside table. Then came the clattering sound of pill bottles colliding.
Dowon took out a few pills from the medicine bag the personal physician had left. And handed them to Yeohwi along with a water cup.
“Swallow.”
“…”
“Never lose your mind and starve again. If you break down, it only creates unnecessary variables.”
Yeohwi took the pills and water he offered. Their fingertips naturally brushed against each other. A coolness that was cold but not unpleasant was felt.
“That means you’re worried, right?”
Yeohwi asked while swallowing the pills.
“I’m managing.”
Dowon replied indifferently while taking the empty cup. Yeohwi smiled faintly while swallowing the bitter-tasting pills.
“Ah, managing your husband’s health?”
Dowon’s eyebrows twitched.
But truly surprisingly, he didn’t ignore Yeohwi’s playful provocation as usual.
“Are you that desperate to play house?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Go to the hospital. Get trauma from your family environment resolved at a psychiatrist’s.”
“But what if, the trauma became a fetish?”
“What?”
“Never mind. Nothing.”
“This brat keeps crawling up, doesn’t he?”
“What’s wrong with fooling around a bit? You said we’re divorcing anyway.”
“Shut up. Lie down and sleep some more.”
Yeohwi asked while pulling the blanket.
“What about you, Dowon-ssi?”
The bedroom submerged in darkness. The city lights seeping in from outside the window dimly illuminated the bed. Yeohwi inwardly hoped Dowon would lie down there, so they could breathe and fall asleep in the same space like this.
“Aren’t you sleeping? You look even more tired than me…”
“I have work left.”
“Really…?”
Yeohwi, his face buried in the pillow, muttered softly. It was a calm and languid voice.
“Dowon-ssi.”
“…What.”
“I was wrong. I’m sorry for making you worry unnecessarily.”
“…”
“I’ll recover quickly and eat well and exercise hard like before. I… want to become someone who’s not embarrassing to be next to Dowon-ssi.”
“…”
“And that, about going to see President Do Jingyu—that just came out in the heat of the moment. No matter how much you say you don’t like me, Dowon-ssi, I won’t do something like that. So, just… yes…”
Dowon slowly turned his head.
Because of the backlighting, Dowon’s expression was hidden in deep shadow. Therefore, it was impossible to read what he was thinking now, how he was receiving Yeohwi’s apology.
But an invisible gaze could be felt from within.
Yeohwi swallowed dry saliva in tension. Yeohwi’s shoulder blade protruding from the blanket heaved faintly.
Dowon’s gaze seemed to slowly sweep down the faintly trembling neckline, and along the fingertips gripping the edge of the blanket.
An eon-like time passed, and only after a long while did Dowon’s low voice come from the darkness.
“…I can’t play a proper husband like you want.”
Yeohwi’s shoulders flinched.
“Even the term ‘playing house’ is uncomfortable. I don’t even have the thought of trying that kind of approach with you.”
It was a terribly dry fact that was neither rejection nor acceptance.
Arranged marriage, predetermined divorce, even setting aside KD’s succession issues or the viciousness of the Do family.
“Twelve years.”
Dowon spat out.
“If I lay a hand on you, it’s unconscionable. No different from trash.”
Yeohwi put strength into the hand gripping the blanket. His large, thick knuckles turned white.
“But what if I say I’m okay with it?”
He urgently threw off the blanket and sat up, raising his head to object.
“What if… what if I want it too much, even then it’s not okay?”
Dowon let out a faint sigh. Between his disheveled bangs, his furrowed brow could be faintly seen.
“Huu… Seong Yeohwi. I know it’s a time when your blood is boiling and desires are overflowing, but it’s impossible. I can’t look at you in that way. I’m not a pedophile.”
“Pe-pedophile! But I’m clearly an adult too.”
“If I say no, then no. When you reach my age, you’ll understand.”
“I don’t want to understand that kind of thing. Age just passes by. In the end, all humans die anyway. There’s no order in going either, so what use is something like age…”
He tried to hide it but couldn’t remain composed.
Shock and disappointment showed completely on Yeohwi’s face. Even setting aside all those various troublesome headaches, the fact that he was merely a sexually unattractive object to Dowon struck him painfully.
Yeohwi lowered his head deeply.
His hair fell forward and covered his eyes. His bloodshot eyes blurred.
But then, at that moment.
“However.”
Dowon’s voice was heard again. A voice that was, very slightly, subtly softer than before.
