…Ahem. Haejeong added a dry, embarrassed cough. This is going to kill me, trying to say something I never do. He squeezed his eyes shut once and then, with great difficulty, with tremendous effort, barely managing it at all, pushed the rest of the words out.
“…Someone like… me…,”
“…….”
“…Someone like me….”
“…….”
“…Thank you for letting me hold on to you.”
Even as he said it, he couldn’t hide the awkwardness — he came out stiff, mechanical, like something had malfunctioned. Haejeong ground out a quiet “Fuck.” under his breath and raked a rough hand through his hair. The embarrassment, the humiliation, the full-body cringe of doing something he had never done in his entire life came crashing over him all at once — but it seemed like he’d managed to get through it, at least, and he snuck a sheepish sideways glance at the other man. Munyeong had been staring up at him with a blank, dazed face — and in an instant, the corners of his eyes went red. Those confused, bewildered eyes blurred, and moisture rose in them all at once, and Haejeong began to panic.
“…Hey, a-are you… crying…?”
Munyeong had been frozen for just a moment — and then his face grew hot and the tip of his nose began to sting. Don’t, he told himself — and yet the tears, the tears were going to come anyway. He’d held them back so well, had kept himself together and gotten through his life just fine — yet somehow, only in front of Haejeong, the tears kept rising.
The countless humiliations and contempt he had endured over the years came flooding back. The everyday life of being dismissed so thoroughly it might as well have been the whole of his existence. The degradation he had simply had to accept and swallow. Things he’d thought he’d made peace with, things he thought no longer touched him… came pouring out all at once. The looks of scorn, the reproaches, the mockery — they swept through him like phantoms.
“Why, why are you cry— God, fuck….”
Haejeong, flustered, quickly pulled Munyeong into his arms. When the tears shifted into sobbing, Haejeong pressed his lips together and this time he was the one patting Munyeong’s back. Munyeong pressed willingly into that embrace and let himself cry. The steady rhythm of a hand patting his back felt grounding. Everything — being comforted, being held like this — was a first for Munyeong, and his throat swelled all the more. This was his reward. Compensation for everything his life had been.
“…Don’t cry.”
The flustered voice gradually steadied and softened. As if the sound of that grief pouring out was moving something in him too, Haejeong clenched his jaw and added — words he had barely ever spoken in his life, and yet said now, again and again.
“……I’m sorry.”
“…….”
“I’ll do better. From now on.”
Bright, clear sunlight fell grandly over the two of them, holding each other. An ivory light touched the side of Munyeong’s face where it was tucked away. Haejeong looked down at him with a quietly aching tenderness, and pressed his lips to his face. He felt tears against his lips. He kissed Munyeong’s tears away, and with it let out everything he had never been honest enough to say. And then he pulled him in tighter.
No space left between them. With everything he had.
Epilogue.
The major storm had passed quietly, one way or another — but Munyeong knew there were still things left unresolved.
The moment his shift ended, Haejeong had been there waiting to pick him up — and Munyeong had found himself inevitably heading to his place after work. It felt strange and unfamiliar, this new normal of going to his home after a day’s work. In his discomfort, he could only scratch absently at the tip of one burning ear. But Haejeong himself seemed quite pleased. The entire way up to his penthouse, Haejeong was humming absentmindedly under his breath and occasionally even whistling. Haejeong was, as ever, consistent. One look at his face and you could read his mood perfectly.
They arrived at his place like that, meandering and easy — and then Munyeong sat stiffly on the living room sofa like a man perched on a bed of nails. He’d been here several times before, but coming for the first time as an official couple felt different. The very idea of being in a relationship was so unfamiliar and awkward that Munyeong tried to push the feeling down and reflexively reached for the TV remote. He wanted to redirect his thoughts, redirect his gaze. To suppress this strangely persistent nervousness that kept creeping up on him.
But the screen that flickered on showed a familiar company building. Of all things, the channel happened to be on the news — and of all things, the news story that happened to be running was about Baekil Group.
[Divorce rumors are emerging surrounding Chairman Yeon Hojeong, the head of global conglomerate Baekil Group. He and Rep. Chu Yeonan of Baekil Distribution and Baekil Hotel — the core affiliates of Baekil Group — have maintained their marriage for over thirty years, known to flaunt an unusually close bond……]
The reporter standing in front of the Baekil Group building, microphone in hand, stopped mid-sentence. Someone had turned off the screen — and Munyeong could see no more. He looked blankly at Haejeong, who was holding the remote.
“Why are you watching something like that.”
He hadn’t known at all that divorce rumors were circulating. Munyeong’s face grew carefully neutral as he slowly opened his mouth.
“……Are the two of them getting a divorce…?”
There wasn’t a person in the country who didn’t know how famously devoted a couple they were — and how deeply devoted a husband Chairman Yeon was. And Munyeong wasn’t unaware of what kind of shockwave a divorce among the heads of a conglomerate could send through a company. A heaviness settled in his chest with the feeling that all of this had somehow been set in motion because of him.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Haejeong said it while setting the wine and wine glasses he’d been holding down onto the table. It wasn’t a clear answer. He didn’t seem to want to say any more than that.
“…Even so, something….”
Munyeong trailed off, hesitant. He had only properly met Chairman Yeon — his father — once, but even in that brief time, he had been able to sense how deeply that man loved his wife. Every time the subject of her came up, the wrinkled corners of his eyes would grow quietly heavy with something unspoken. Eyes that had been wounded — and yet brimming with longing and with things left unsaid. Munyeong had felt it clearly.
“I said don’t worry about it.”
Haejeong replied with a touch of irritation. He seemed put out by the topic continuing to come up. Munyeong sat with a subdued expression, fidgeting with his hands in his lap — and Haejeong, with practiced ease, pulled the cork and poured a measured amount of wine into the glass. A deep crimson rippled. Haejeong cleared his throat once — a deliberate sound, an attempt to reset the atmosphere — and then offered it over with a casual remark.
“Here. It’s a very old and very expensive wine.”
He put a slight emphasis on those last words as he held out the glass. Munyeong blinked and accepted it with both hands. Whatever he’d prepared — it seemed to be the wine — and he was watching for Munyeong’s reaction with barely concealed anticipation. But Munyeong was clearly still somewhere else in his head, and he bit lightly at his lower lip before carefully continuing.
“…Is the Chairman alright…?”
“Ha.”
A complicated sigh slipped out from between Haejeong’s teeth.
“You’re worried about that man right now?”
“…….”
“What’s the big deal about a divorce.”
Haejeong said it dismissively, grumbling.
“…….”
But even at those carelessly spoken words, Munyeong looked at him with quiet, imploring eyes. Helpless against that earnest gaze as he always was, Haejeong finally gave in — lowering his eyes as though admitting defeat and setting his glass down on the table.
“…Don’t know yet. Whether they will or won’t.”
“…….”
“My father is obviously having a hard time.”
The one who had been hit hardest by the bomb he’d dropped was, naturally, Chairman Yeon. More than the revelation that Haejeong wasn’t his biological son — what had left him with the deepest regret was the fact that his wife, the woman he had loved, had committed an affair, and then had been utterly willing to harm others without hesitation in her desperate bid to keep it buried. He’d known she had a sharp edge to her — Chairman Yeon had always known that — but hurting people to conceal your own weakness was something else entirely. It was the kind of thing that could crumble the gentle, generous image he’d spent a lifetime building of her.
“But I didn’t say anything about our uncle.”
Haejeong continued, his expression troubled. No matter how removed he was from family affairs, no matter that he was the one who had set this in motion — there was no way it didn’t weigh on him. Munyeong, his own face quietly unsettled to match, reached out carefully with his hand.
His fingertips made contact, and the gentle way they wrapped around Haejeong’s hand made Haejeong’s shoulder flinch — and then he turned his gaze back from wherever it had drifted.
“…You did the right thing.”
Munyeong said it to him, like an offering of comfort. Setting aside his concern for Chairman Yeon — the person Munyeong always worried about most was Haejeong. It felt almost absurd to weigh the degrees of damage — but the one who had been most deeply wounded, in the end, was Haejeong. And the fact that Haejeong had deliberately chosen not to name names said everything — he had already thought about the others, carefully and quietly. His father, who would be shaken to his core. His mother, the one who had done it.
“If it had been me.”
Haejeong tightened his grip around Munyeong’s hand — the one wrapped around his — and said something that seemed to come from nowhere.
“I’ve thought about it.”
“…….”
“If it had been me.”
