“What are you hiding from me that you’re like this?”
“It’s true that I’m not someone who talks much about myself…”
It was an answer that didn’t quite satisfy. If the problem was simply that he didn’t talk much about himself, couldn’t he just talk more from now on? Like the stories he’d heard on the way here.
Seongjo looked at him intently, as if trying to read Yujeong’s expression.
“Did you kill someone? Or, well… do you have a secret kid somewhere?”
“No, nothing like that. I’m clean.”
Yujeong answered with an absurd expression. Well, if it wasn’t something like that, was there any reason to be hesitant? Maybe it was because Seongjo’s imagination was lacking, but he didn’t think any other secret would hold their relationship back. As he’d said before, Seongjo was someone who didn’t even think it was much of a problem for someone to investigate his background.
Seongjo deliberately opened his mouth with an even more casual, light voice.
“Don’t they say a man with many secrets is attractive?”
It was partly to reassure Yujeong, who seemed troubled, but it was also actually what Seongjo himself thought. If there were secrets, wouldn’t that make it fun to dig them out? The fact that there were endless things to learn about someone was precisely the advantage of a partner you didn’t know well yet.
Hearing Seongjo’s answer, Yujeong stopped in place and looked at Seongjo. His eyes, which always seemed to hold too many thoughts, were rippling with complexity at this moment as well, without fail.
“Have you never regretted a choice you made, Lee Seongjo-ssi?”
“Mm…”
Seongjo fell into thought with a careful expression. Did Yujeong really think meeting him was such a big problem that he would regret it? He couldn’t understand the reason at all. But if hearing this answer would put him at ease, there was no reason not to give it.
“I make choices faithful to the moment. So I don’t think I’ve ever regretted them even when the results turned out wrong.”
That was the conclusion after thinking about it. He couldn’t say he’d only walked the right path a hundred percent of the time until now. Hadn’t even his previous relationship, which he’d believed wouldn’t change, ended in a way he never imagined? But he’d never regretted all the choices he’d made leading to such results, beating the ground in anguish.
‘Well, I have thought I shouldn’t have met them in the first place…’
Still, that had always been Seongjo’s attitude in life.
Having heard the answer, Yujeong looked at Seongjo with a serious face.
“Do you want to hear what I have to say today?”
Seongjo nodded silently. It seemed no more words were necessary. Yujeong spoke in a calm but resolute voice.
“Then don’t regret this either.”
Seongjo smiled slightly. Yujeong was receiving Seongjo’s promise with an utterly serious face, but it was obvious without needing to be said. He looked at Yujeong with straight eyes as if to say, go ahead and speak.
Yujeong was looking at Seongjo with quiet eyes. The sea breeze didn’t stop tickling the two of them, and the sound of the waves came with a regular rhythm.
Yet even as his hair blew in the wind, Seongjo felt for a moment as if time surrounding the two of them had stopped.
And then Yujeong said it.
“I like you, Seongjo-ssi.”
It was a straightforward confession. Without any other embellishments attached.
Seongjo knew Yujeong’s feelings. From a certain point on, he’d been able to read the interest directed at him in every action Yujeong showed.
Yujeong was the type who didn’t show emotional ups and downs outwardly much, and had a somewhat prickly—what looked coy in Seongjo’s eyes—tendency, so there weren’t many verbal expressions, but while that might cause confusion at times, it wasn’t that he didn’t know.
But actually hearing those words directly with his ears had a different impact.
Yujeong didn’t say anything more, and Seongjo too couldn’t open his mouth, at a loss for words.
It was only after a moment that he managed to think of a question.
“Since when?”
It was a stupid question, but Yujeong’s expression answering that question was also uncharacteristically foolish.
“…It’s been a while.”
He wondered if that disheveled face was an embarrassed expression.
“…Me too.”
Seongjo said those words very seriously, heavily enough that it sounded as if saying them itself was difficult.
“You probably knew anyway.”
The words he added were lighter in comparison. Yujeong didn’t answer. Surely he couldn’t have been unaware. There was no point in making excuses that he didn’t know—it would only be ridiculous.
Arranging his own hair, Seongjo carefully brought up the next words.
“It’s a bit ridiculous at our age to confess, accept, and start counting from Day 1…”
Yujeong had said he liked Seongjo. Seongjo had responded that he felt the same way. All that was left was dating, but even for Seongjo, there were some concerns.
“I said earlier, right? I don’t want to make things difficult for Jeon Yujeong-ssi because of that bastard.”
Seongjo met Yujeong’s eyes.
“I’ll resolve it clearly and come back… will you wait until then?”
Hearing Seongjo’s words, Yujeong moved his feet on his own and closed the distance that had been between them.
Now that he thought about it, this seemed to be the first time Yujeong had approached him so boldly and without hesitation, Seongjo thought as he looked straight at him.
Almost the same, but Yujeong’s eye level was just a little bit higher.
“This much is okay, right?”
The words came before the action. After throwing out such a question first, Yujeong grabbed Seongjo’s arm and pulled him toward himself before Seongjo could even answer. Since he hadn’t been guarded against Yujeong in the first place and hadn’t tensed his body, Seongjo was easily pulled in that direction with just a light force.
Yujeong, who had taken Seongjo into his arms, buried his face in Seongjo’s shoulder. A steady, quiet breathing sound could be heard right by his ear. Seongjo savored that feeling with his whole body, raising his arms to embrace the back of Yujeong’s head in return.
As he gently stroked his hair, the fine strands mixed with the wind and scattered softly between his fingers.
How much time does it typically take to forget someone and love another person?
When he’d just broken up with Yeongbeom, Seongjo thought it would take a very long time until he was okay. For the first time, he doubted the saying that time heals all things.
But now Seongjo was in someone else’s arms. After hearing the softest and most honest confession from a man who had seemed cold, mature, and prickly.
The ex-lover who had once seemed like he would remain an eternal pain was no longer lingering attachment, but had become a grave from the past that needed to be cleanly erased.
Suddenly Seongjo noticed that Yujeong’s arms holding him were trembling.
The fact that this calm man, who seemed like he wouldn’t be greatly shaken by anything, was trembling because of him made Seongjo feel indescribable emotions. Seongjo wanted to…
He wanted to cherish him.
He wanted to love him without any gaps.
* * *
After sharing their body heat for a long while, the first person to let go was Yujeong. When Seongjo looked at him with slightly disappointed feelings, Yujeong took Seongjo’s fingertips and pulled him along as he started walking.
Walking along the beach with their fingertips precariously intertwined, Seongjo opened his mouth and spoke as if something had just occurred to him.
“Who would have known it would turn out like this with Teacher Jeon?”
“You made the first move, Lee Seongjo-ssi. From back then.”
Yujeong answered in a flat voice. He must be referring to the words “Haven’t we met somewhere before?”
Back then, it had really been words said with pure curiosity, but thinking about his actions after that, it was the right thing to say. He’d declared in front of his father that he had someone he was seeing while thinking of Yujeong, and had even moved to the same apartment as Yujeong.
“Well… I won’t deny it. What I mean is I didn’t know you’d fall for it. Because of how you were at first.”
“Then why did you like me?”
Seongjo raised his head to look at Yujeong. From his expression, you could tell it was a question thrown out of genuine curiosity, not to counter. Was this question basically asking something like “Why did you like me?”
Seongjo laughed quietly and then fell into thought.
If asked why he liked Yujeong…
“I haven’t really lacked for anything since I was young.”
At that one obnoxious statement that came out of nowhere, Yujeong looked at Seongjo with an odd expression. Seongjo lightly waved his hand dismissively, meaning don’t make that face and listen to more.
“So there were almost no people who put up walls against me or acted cynical or criticized me or acted prickly.”
“So you’re saying you were drawn to that aspect?”
Yujeong answered with an expression that seemed a bit incredulous. Even to his own thinking, it was a somewhat ridiculous thing to say, but that was the truth.
When he nodded, Yujeong, who had been examining Seongjo intently for a moment, opened his mouth and spoke as if in passing.
“…Then what about that person?”
