The end faded like dying embers. What did she say? Iseo didn’t blink once. What did Yeon Taeju say?
Iseo immersed himself in Gwak Hyeonju. Surprisingly, he seemed to understand her feelings. She was resentful and angry while simultaneously heartbroken and shuddering with betrayal. He felt as if he could see the young woman’s wounds.
Suddenly Yeon Taeju looked at Iseo. Without realizing it, Iseo straightened his back and leaned against the chair back to get as far from the window as possible. Yeon Taeju couldn’t see him. It was a window where the inside couldn’t be seen at all.
Nevertheless, when Taeju’s gaze turned toward him, Iseo shrank like a mouse before a snake. The weight of emotion makes a person this unsightly.
“Son of a bitch.”
The words flowed from Iseo’s mouth. When he moved his lips following the shape of Gwak Hyeonju’s mouth, profanity came out. In the end, it seemed Yeon Taeju gave neither any excuse nor whispered feelings. That was the end of it.
Yeon Taeju frowned at being cursed at. His appearance was brazen. There was only displeasure at being cursed at. The process of why she cursed at him wasn’t important to him at all.
Iseo bent his straightened back again and disheveled his posture.
You’re a son of a bitch to other people too.
Hyeonju left and Iseo’s viewing ended. A meaningful harvest. Meaningful in many ways. It consoled him. The meaning that Yeon Taeju was a son of a bitch to everyone.
“Director Park, you know. The one giving Risbi.”
Iseo called Director Park on his cell phone. Before the dial tone could ring twice, Director Park answered. He performed tasks Iseo had recently immersed himself in like his own hands and feet.
Things like money or power were outside Iseo’s interest. But recently, he’d come to realize their utility. Iseo turned his gaze outside the window. The figures of the man and woman who’d matched like a painting had disappeared.
‘Yes, please speak.’
“Please deposit fifteen hundred now.”
‘Yes, understood.’
“How much have you given so far?”
‘Just a moment, I’ll check.’
The other party was quiet for a moment. Iseo stared into space.
‘Including this one, it’s the 37th time.’
Iseo laughed briefly. Self-mockery. The amount that had gone between Yeon Taeju’s legs was newly amusing.
“I have another question.”
‘Please speak.’
“There’s a collaboration called Form of Galaxy at Seokrim Hall—please get me the profiles of the violinists there.”
‘All of them, sir?’
“Yes, I was curious because of Peter Thames’s Korea tour.”
‘Yes, understood.’
Iseo paused briefly before speaking next. Even though the other party was silent, Director Park didn’t hang up. He too joined in the silence.
“And the chairwoman, does she have anything to say?”
Slightly, Director Park Geonyoung’s breathing could be heard like the sound of wind. Iseo pricked up his ears.
Park Geonyoung would report all of Iseo’s actions and the actions he himself would take to the chairwoman. Iseo didn’t blame him for that. He was just curious about his mother’s reaction.
‘Please do as you wish.’
“Hanging up.”
Fast enough to be called the Iron Lady in seizing actual power within Seokrim. To such a woman, he was just an aching finger.
She strictly disciplined while softly embracing him enough to seem lenient. For him who hated going outside, she built his own castle on beautiful nature. Now that place had become even more perfect. His castle isolated from the outside and Yeon Taeju who offered his body to him.
Even if Yeon Taeju offering his body wasn’t to him but to money.
“You’re still here?”
Just then, Taeju addressed Iseo. Standing in the doorway with his body angled, he looked down at Iseo.
Iseo looked at him with fresh eyes. He’d always watched him as if watching a play. Then was he inside his play now?
“Yeah.”
“How is it?”
“What?”
“Walking around with my semen inside.”
Yeon Taeju slowly descended the few steps and stood before Iseo. Iseo also stood up from his seated position.
“Disgusting.”
Yeon Taeju shrugged his shoulders and laughed. On his face was absolutely nothing like the pain of lost love or guilt from crushing one person’s pure feelings.
He leisurely bent his waist and thrust his face before Iseo’s face.
“Aaah.”
Iseo raised his eyes. Taeju, who’d bent his waist appropriately, smiled at Iseo. He’d seen this smile earlier thinking of it as another man’s while standing one step away. Now he saw it up close thinking of him as his own man.
“Hyung, do you like me?”
Iseo’s face hardened. His lips and eye corners froze like thin ice forming. Iseo momentarily forgot what to say.
For some, emotion is as heavy as a debt to be repaid, and for others, as light as fluttering down. Unfortunately, Yeon Taeju was the latter type of person.
Instead of answering, Iseo chose to take one step back.
“No, don’t just glare at me so lewdly.”
As much as Iseo retreated, Yeon Taeju drew closer. Taeju placed his hand beyond Iseo’s head. Yeon Taeju’s body pressing against the glass window leaned toward Iseo as if pouring down.
“Did you secretly peek at me and Gwak Hyeonju from here?”
“Ah…”
Of course he’d know. That if one watched from here, the place where he’d been would be completely visible. Iseo still glared at Yeon Taeju with only his eyes gleaming brightly.
“If I’d known you were watching, I would’ve at least kissed her.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s fun.”
“What is?”
“Your face.”
The thin ice shattered with a crack. Iseo gritted his teeth and glared at Yeon Taeju. How could he have sex with him while having a lover? If he didn’t think of her as a lover, why did he go around making that person misunderstand? Iseo’s face resembled Gwak Hyeonju’s face that he’d watched through the window.
“Do you know what your face looked like earlier?”
“What did it look like?”
Separately from his insides grinding Yeon Taeju to bits, he was curious. It was very important. How a man with female genitalia, his incomplete self, would look to others. Seok Iseo’s lifelong assignment. The most important problem.
“Like a first wife bristling with thorns, unable to say anything in front of the second wife.”
“Son of a bitch.”
Like pent-up breath bursting, thick breath was embedded in the curse. Regardless of Iseo’s scratched pride and sensitivity, Yeon Taeju laughed loudly.
“Kuhahaha, hyung, you can say such things?”
The hand that had been pressing the glass window naturally fell onto Iseo’s shoulder and his face rubbed against Iseo’s nape.
Even at this moment, Iseo thought only one thing. Yeon Taeju was the same son of a bitch to everyone besides himself.
“Kiss me.”
Taeju, who’d buried his forehead deeply in Iseo’s nape, turned his head sideways and looked up. Iseo lifted his chin, lowered his eyes, and commanded once more.
“I said kiss me.”
“You want to get fucked?”
Yeon Taeju raised both arms and braced the window with his elbows. Trapped inside Yeon Taeju’s arms.
“Should I cum inside again?”
Those words had the tone of saying he’d do it if that’s what he really wanted. Meaning he didn’t even want to kiss unless it was for money. He closed his lowered eyes.
The first time he met Yeon Taeju was when he was 7 years old. Since Iseo couldn’t attend his mother and father’s wedding, he saw all his family at family events after that.
‘You’re also the youngest, so why are you hyung?’
That was the first thing Yeon Taeju said to Seok Iseo. It was an innocent question unimaginable from the current Yeon Taeju. At the time, Iseo lost his words looking at the adorable little kid. He looked just like a doll.
He’d lost his words not at the stupidity of the question but at the child’s pretty, clear face. When he stared at him blankly without saying anything, young Yeon Taeju grabbed Iseo’s hand.
‘You don’t know either, hyung?’
The small lips opening and closing like babbling was fascinating even to his young heart.
Everything around him was unfamiliar. Like wearing clothes that didn’t fit, he’d suddenly become splendid and his surroundings had become elegant.
Young Iseo quickly noticed the change in the eyes looking at him as much as the change in his environment. Uncomfortable faces toward him, unpleasant gazes. Not a single person greeted him.
That day too, if young Yeon Taeju hadn’t spoken to him, he wouldn’t have opened his mouth once.
‘I know.’
‘You know?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Because my mom is a divorcée.’
Hearing those words, young Yeon Taeju smiled. He nodded. The young kid understood, saying I see, without knowing anything. At that place, the only person who smiled at him was a child who knew nothing.
‘What’s your name?’
Iseo asked.
‘Yeon Taeju. I know your name, hyung. Nam Iseo.’
Iseo widened his eyes as if holding back tears. If he said his old name, he’d be severely scolded by his mother. He could act as spoiled as he wanted when sick, but in other areas, there was no mercy.
‘It’s Seok Iseo, we’re family because of that, you and me.’
When the sob went down below his throat, young Iseo spoke calmly. The child who knew nothing belatedly said ah, ah, smiled once more and nodded.
<To be continued in Volume 2>
