Even though he’d followed Gyo-eon here, he couldn’t honestly say he felt entirely at ease. If anything, he was tense. For one thing, what had happened at Gyo-eon’s place was no ordinary matter — and on top of that, Gyo-eon had an interest in him, so if he sensed even the slightest shift in the atmosphere, he might……
Hae-yul swallowed dryly and shook his head, declining the robe Gyo-eon was holding out.
“I, I’ve never worn something like this before. A t-shirt and pants are fine. My skin is a little sensitive, so I don’t think I’d sleep well in something unfamiliar……”
“Hmm? You slept just fine in it that day. You even said it was so soft it felt like wearing nothing at all — don’t you remember?”
“……I don’t remember. And whatever I said back then probably wasn’t something I said with a clear head anyway.”
Hae-yul said this in a sulky voice and looked Gyo-eon straight in the eye. Gyo-eon, who had been looking down at him with a hint of mischief in his eyes, soon shrugged and disappeared with the robe into one of the several rooms.
Having successfully avoided the nightrobe and whatever side effects it might bring, Hae-yul swallowed a sigh and sank into the sofa. Being back at Gyo-eon’s place again gave him less of a sense of discomfort and more of a sense of embarrassment.
And given how Gyo-eon kept bringing up the living room, something must have happened there too.
Hae-yul’s face, as he swept his eyes around the living room, went suddenly red. He quietly steeled himself with the resolution to manage his cycle more rigorously — if only to avoid creating any more embarrassing situations.
Just then, Gyo-eon came out of the room carrying some clothes.
“Is something like this what you meant, Ju Hae-yul? I’m not sure if it’ll fit.”
Hae-yul received a black cotton t-shirt, a pair of comfortable pants, and something wrapped in packaging from Gyo-eon and gave a nod.
“Yes, this should be fine.”
“The bathroom is over there. It’d be better to talk after you’ve washed up. We have a lot to discuss, the two of us.”
Hae-yul tilted his head slightly at Gyo-eon’s oddly satisfied tone, then headed toward the bathroom he’d pointed to.
After a lengthy struggle with a showerhead he’d never seen before, Hae-yul emerged victorious and began toweling his hair dry as he got dressed. What had been wrapped in the packaging was underwear. Underwear that was nearly his exact size, at that.
Why on earth would someone so much bigger than him have something like this? It couldn’t be a case of buying the wrong size and keeping it around.
Hae-yul tilted his head in puzzlement, then folded over the waistband of the pants a couple of times and tied it in place before stepping out of the bathroom to look for Gyo-eon. Gyo-eon, who he’d expected to be waiting in the living room, was nowhere to be seen.
“Gyo-eon, I’m done washing up——”
Hae-yul tilted his head and made his way toward the open bedroom door. Faintly, it sounded like water running. It seemed that while Hae-yul had been in the shower, Gyo-eon had taken the opportunity to shower in the en suite bathroom as well.
Feeling vaguely out of place, Hae-yul scratched the back of his head and was just about to leave the room when the firmly shut bathroom door flew open and Gyo-eon appeared, robe thrown on haphazardly.
Without meaning to, Hae-yul’s eyes traveled over Gyo-eon’s body. He hadn’t intended it at all, yet his gaze was moving of its own accord, taking in every inch of Gyo-eon.
“Oh……”
“……Ju Hae-yul?”
The moment he heard that voice, Hae-yul realized he was face to face with Gyo-eon in a completely unguarded state — raw, like a plucked chicken — and his face, which had been going pale, flushed a deep red all at once. Flushed red all the way down to his neck, Hae-yul looked at Gyo-eon with trembling eyes.
“I— I— I’m so sorry!”
With something close to a shriek of an apology, Hae-yul stumbled out of the room in a fluster and dove straight into the bathroom he’d been using just moments ago. Then, as if Gyo-eon had followed before Hae-yul even realized it, he knocked on the bathroom door from outside and called for him.
“Ju Hae-yul.”
Did that man follow him without even properly closing his robe? Hae-yul buried his burning face — hot with embarrassment and mortification — into a towel and mumbled an apology.
“I said I’m sorry……”
“I’m the one who was unexpectedly walked in on, so may I ask why Ju Hae-yul is the one reacting like this?”
“No. Please don’t ask……”
“Ah, I see. Then may I ask what your impression of my body was?”
“No. Why would that be any of your business? Do you have some kind of exhibitionist streak?”
At the parade of utterly unhinged questions, Hae-yul’s face went even redder than before. On the other side of the door, Gyo-eon kept bursting into laughter, clearly finding Hae-yul’s flustered reactions endlessly entertaining.
“Even while bristling, Ju Hae-yul keeps being aware of me.”
“……No, that’s——”
“It feels nice to get some attention from a stray cat that used to do nothing but avoid me.”
“Why are you comparing a person to a cat?”
“Don’t you like it? I meant it as a compliment.”
“……Cats are much cuter.”
“Ah, so that was the problem?”
Gyo-eon kept talking nonsense in a voice that was clearly brimming with amusement. He seemed perfectly content just having this trivial, worthless little conversation with Hae-yul.
Just how bland and uneventful was his daily life, that he found someone like Hae-yul interesting? Hae-yul recalled a conversation he’d once had with his older sister, Hae-jeong.
“Do you know what kind of novel Faint Fragments is before you read it?”
“No? I just read it because it was there. There were a lot of words I’d never seen before…… I thought it was just some literary fiction?”
At the time, Hae-jeong had looked at him with a pitying expression before slowly shaking her head.
“Well. It is literature, I suppose. If BL isn’t literature, what is?”
Hae-yul had been a little surprised at the word BL but pretended not to be. He’d given a roundabout review, saying it wasn’t bad. Satisfied with that response, Hae-jeong had gone on telling him things of her own accord — and through those stories, Hae-yul had come to learn the term gwang-gong.
Gwang-gong. A creature who lived in a colorless, high-end house, never sleeping, surviving on premium mineral water and expensive liquor. Said to neither laugh nor cry, feeling no emotion in their day-to-day life unless their lover was by their side.
An utterly unrealistic setup. No matter how you looked at it, surely behind the scenes — where there was no narration — they were secretly eating meals and snacks, catching short naps, and so on.
That had been Hae-yul’s vague thought as he listened to Hae-jeong’s explanation. And then Hae-jeong had said:
“Plant gwang-gong seeds and gwang-gong grows. Something like that formula exists. The father of a gwang-gong is likely a gwang-gong too, and the son of a gwang-gong… well, if he’s a gwang-gong who’s been purified by meeting a sunshine-soo, then maybe he’d have a child more like the soo……”
And Gyo-eon was the father of the gwang-gong from Faint Fragments. The very one who had planted those seeds. So following Hae-jeong’s formula, Gyo-eon — as the father of a gwang-gong — had likely lived a life similar to one himself.
That would explain a few things, actually.
No. I shouldn’t be trying to understand him.
Wasn’t Hae-yul the one Gyo-eon was currently fixated on? Thinking back to Hae-jeong’s description of a gwang-gong…… Wasn’t this exactly the kind of thing that wasn’t supposed to happen? Hae-yul’s eyes wavered.
Even if he kept his guard up and deliberately showed Gyo-eon only his most aloof side, if that man was still finding him interesting…… then every plan Hae-yul had set would become useless.
Still, the fact that things seemed to be flowing in a slightly different direction from the original was, if anything, a small relief.
With the Gyo-eon he knew now…… even in the one-in-a-million chance that the absurd scenario of ending up with Gyo-eon like in the original were to somehow occur, he wouldn’t let me die.
Of course, even if a future of being tangled up with Gyo-eon was somehow written in the stars, Hae-yul had no intention of choosing that life.
“Ju Hae-yul, what are you doing in there? Aren’t you cold? Wouldn’t it be better to come out and talk?”
“Are you wearing your robe?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve closed it properly?”
“What’s the standard for ‘properly’?”
Hae-yul gritted his teeth, picturing Gyo-eon with his robe hanging open enough to put everything on display.
“Tight enough that you can’t breathe. Tight.”
The moment those words left his mouth, the other side of the door went utterly silent. Sensing something off, Hae-yul pressed his ear against the door and tried to catch even the faintest sound from Gyo-eon — but outside was completely quiet. Maybe it was the kind of thing that came with an expensive apartment; the soundproofing seemed exceptional.
Even so, telling him to close it so tight he couldn’t breathe was a bit much, wasn’t it?
The thought that he might have expressed himself a little too aggressively came to him belatedly. But then, hadn’t Gyo-eon been the one to show himself in that state first? Sure, Hae-yul might not have seen it if he hadn’t gone into that room looking for him — but still……
At any rate, even just out of awareness that Hae-yul was here, he should have come out of the bathroom properly dressed. Hae-yul, still with his ear pressed to the door, was busy rationalizing things in his own favor when he soon shook his head.
It was because he felt like he shouldn’t be treating the person who had helped him so much today the way he usually did. After brief deliberation, Hae-yul called out to Gyo-eon cautiously.
“……Gyo-eon?”
“Yes, Ju Hae-yul.”
Gyo-eon replied immediately, as though he’d been waiting.
“……You’re still there. Is your robe properly closed?”
“Well, by my own standards I’ve made an effort — but I’m not sure how it would look to Ju Hae-yul.”
“Ah.”
“Wouldn’t it be faster and more accurate for Ju Hae-yul to check personally?”
“That’s…… well, I suppose so.”
In other words, it sounded like he hadn’t tied it tight enough to cut off his breathing, as Hae-yul had demanded. Though to be fair, if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to answer at all.
The truth was, Gyo-eon’s skin was still haunting him, and it was agonizing. Hae-yul wasn’t accustomed to seeing another man naked. What was there to gain from seeing another guy in the buff when they had all the same parts? And he had no intention of getting used to it, either.
That said, he couldn’t exactly live in this bathroom for the rest of his life. After hesitating for a moment, Hae-yul reached out and turned the bathroom door handle. He stepped out — and came face to face with Gyo-eon, who had been waiting for him right outside the door.
