“That you could shield someone who hurt you like that.”
Haejeong’s steady gaze found him. In the flicker of guilt behind his eyes, Munyeong could feel it — that Haejeong was carrying the weight of his mother’s actions on his own. Munyeong rubbed his face with a quietly sheepish expression. Then he smiled — that easy, unhurried smile that was distinctly his — and spoke.
“…The one I was shielding was you.”
“…….”
“…The reason I covered for things was because I didn’t want you to get hurt….”
That day he had nearly been kidnapped. That day he had laid out his wounds with a composed face.
“So it’s fine.”
He had protected the person he wanted to protect — and that was enough. Munyeong was fine. If he could help someone, if he could be a source of strength — that alone was as good as a dream fulfilled. A life that had started with nothing. The mere fact that he could be of help to someone had always been remarkable in itself. And if that someone was a person precious to him — all the more so. And so, in the end, being in a place where they could face each other like this — Munyeong was grateful for it. He let the corners of his eyes curve gently and held a quiet smile.
“…If anything, I’m glad.”
All of it.
Those clear eyes — saying they were truly fine — reached Haejeong’s skin. Eyes with not a single trace of contempt, not one shade of negative feeling — transparent, clean eyes. Haejeong drew close and pressed his lips to them. He had no defense against that honesty, the way Munyeong laid his feelings bare without filter.
Haejeong quietly slipped the wine glass from Munyeong’s hand and set it on the table, then turned and kissed him deeper. He felt his heart pounding with no restraint and moved his lips with increasing urgency. Munyeong, startled for just a moment, froze — then slowly let the tension go and squeezed his eyes shut, a little awkwardly. Haejeong watched the whole thing through half-lidded eyes and couldn’t hold back the corner of his mouth from rising. He had never seen anything this endearing — he had no resistance built up to it whatsoever. Which was probably why he was always so urgent. Every single time he was faced with Im Munyeong.
Stately classical music drifted through a private dining room, its long banquet table cutting across the center of the enclosed space. At a glance, over a dozen people sat facing one another, conversing warmly over a meal. An ornate chandelier swayed overhead, casting its brilliant light down — and at the head of that elegant, formal table sat Chairman Yeon. To his left was Yeon Chayeong, to his right was Yeon Juhyeok. And commanding the most presence of anyone in the room, Haejeong sat beside Yeon Juhyeok — on the phone.
Yeon Juhyeok shot a disgruntled look at the man sitting next to him.
“Are you home? Get inside quickly. The weather’s gotten freezing.”
More precisely — he was glaring at his younger brother, who was grinning with an utterly incongruous shamelessness, voice dripping with sweetness.
“I’ll be there soon. No point sitting through a boring dinner any longer than I have to. …Fuck, I miss you, what do you want me to do.”
Yeon Juhyeok dropped the knife he’d been using to cut his sirloin. The clatter of silverware rang out loudly, followed immediately by a venomous whisper delivered through clenched teeth.
“…Are you going to hang up or not?”
Yeon Juhyeok ground it out in ventriloquist-level silence.
It was a family dinner with everyone gathered. A gathering to celebrate their father’s birthday — and Haejeong was in plain view of all of them, carrying on an absurdly lovey-dovey phone call with his partner. Older relatives, cousins he’d barely seen more than a few times — they were all stealing careful, stiff-eyed glances at Haejeong.
The rumors surrounding Haejeong had already been churning lately. Talk about how at a family gathering he’d demanded to be removed from the family registry, claimed to not be his father’s son — which set off whispers that Rep. Chu Yeonan had committed adultery, that she’d had another man’s child. This dinner had partly been called because of all that. And it was effectively meant to be an opportunity to spin it — to frame Haejeong’s outburst as the act of a son lashing out at his parents over a relationship they’d opposed, a rebelling young man with a breakup to blame. A gathering designed to show the world that the Yeon family was standing solid. And yet the very person who’d caused all of it was utterly indifferent — cheerfully carrying on a sickeningly sweet phone call with his boyfriend in full view of his father and every elder present.
Because of whom, exactly, had all of this happened — and here he was, without a care in the world.
“Hey, don’t hang up. Don’t hang up, I said. I’ll come to your place. Just stay at my place, I told you — you’re weirdly stubborn, you know that.”
Juhyeok had told him to hang up, but Haejeong was actually pleading with the other end not to. Yeon Juhyeok’s fist, hidden beneath the table, trembled. At the head of the table, Chairman Yeon watched the whole ridiculous scene and let out a rolling laugh.
“…Out of all three of my sons, this one was the last one I’d have expected to be so openly affectionate.”
Having received something like a tacit blessing, Haejeong wasn’t hiding a thing in front of the family. Chairman Yeon looked half-resigned to it — yet the youngest’s newfound side seemed to genuinely amuse him.
“R-really, yes. I never would have guessed Haejeong was such a romantic?”
A woman who was a distant relative of Chairman Yeon — something like an aunt on his side — laughed pointedly in the Chairman’s direction and made the cheerful remark with deliberate effort.
“Yes. So can I finish eating and leave first?”
Haejeong asked with shameless ease. Yeon Juhyeok grabbed the flesh of Haejeong’s thigh under the table and twisted hard.
“Ow! What are you doing!”
Even under Yeon Juhyeok’s pointed glare, Haejeong yelped without the slightest embarrassment.
“…Keep it down — there are elders present……”
Yeon Juhyeok issued one more warning under his breath. Yeon Chayeong, sitting across from them, let out a small snort. Even Yeon Chayeong seemed unable to quite reconcile this with the Haejeong he knew — he averted his gaze as if he couldn’t bear to watch.
“Alright, go on then. Honestly, the state of him….”
Chairman Yeon shook his head and waved his hand in dismissal. There was exactly one reason he indulged the youngest’s unruly behavior. It was because of the noticeably changed reputation Haejeong had been building at the company lately. Not just diligence — the sluggish projects that had been dragging their feet, the sales figures — all of it had surged and was being wrapped up with impressive results. The meetings with the notoriously demanding overseas buyers had been going down well. Winning their favor had made it far smoother to secure large-scale contracts with foreign governments. Haejeong had been the one opening that door. Chairman Yeon’s greatest interest lay in overseas business, and seeing Haejeong making his mark there had left him quite satisfied.
Of course, work was one thing — but the youngest who had never settled, who had been drifting and wandering since childhood, had always sat like a weight on his chest. He had known from early on that the boy was more than capable of excelling at anything — but he’d also known for a long time that without someone to anchor him, he’d keep circling the outside, deliberately going off course. It was something parents should have fixed — but what to do about a child who had gone sideways because of his parents was something he’d spent a great deal of time worrying over.
Chairman Yeon didn’t exactly welcome it — but he didn’t stop it either. If this was what it took for him to get his footing, the gender of the person didn’t matter. The only reason he’d been pushing back at all was for the sake of the company’s image. There were two other sons to carry on the line anyway. Losing one to this was no cause for alarm.
“Father. Happy birthday.”
The first to finish eating, Haejeong walked up to Chairman Yeon at the head of the table and set a box down in front of him without ceremony. Even the perfunctory birthday greeting — and the gift itself — were unexpected. Both Yeon Juhyeok and Yeon Chayeong looked at Haejeong with puzzled eyes.
“What’s gotten into our youngest.”
He was a spectacularly unfilial son who never bothered to remember his parents’ birthdays. And yet here was a gift. Wrapped prettily, at that.
Chairman Yeon smiled from ear to ear as he undid the ribbon on the gift box.
“…Ah. He got someone else to give it.”
Haejeong shoved one hand lazily into his pocket and said it offhandedly while picking at his ear with the other.
“…You mean that person?”
“Yeah. I told him it was your birthday, and he scraped together what little money he had to buy it.”
“……Haha. My goodness.”
Chairman Yeon laughed — a mix of bewilderment and fondness — and opened the box. He was the Chairman of Baekil Group. A man who could have anything — the wealthiest of the wealthy — and here was some young kid who could barely string part-time jobs together. What could he possibly give? He opened the contents with a face that was quietly, genuinely curious.
“…Isn’t it actually kind of ridiculously cute?”
Haejeong, who already knew what was inside, burst into an easy, helpless laugh.
Chairman Yeon joined in with intermittent, rolling chuckles.
“Wool gloves for a dried-up old man like me.”
Inside the box sat a pair of gray angora mittens, arranged neatly. Mitten-style, at that. Yeon Juhyeok, seemingly curious about the contents, slipped over to look.
“And he doesn’t even have any money — went all the way to a department store to buy them.”
Haejeong was bragging about his partner like a lovesick fool. Yeon Juhyeok pointed out that no one had asked — but Haejeong didn’t stop.
“He even picked up a dawn shift at work just to afford this, so don’t throw them away.”
I offered to buy them for him — but he absolutely insisted on getting them himself, Haejeong added, a grumble of fond complaint in his voice. Chairman Yeon nodded and answered warmly.
“Of course. I won’t. Tell him thank you from me.”
“Got it.”
Haejeong answered obediently and walked straight out of the dining room. The sight of him vanishing like he’d been waiting for that very permission made Chairman Yeon, Yeon Chayeong, and Yeon Juhyeok all shake their heads in unison. The man who used to run around carelessly, chasing one person after another with nothing more than that on his mind — seeing him completely held in place by someone was baffling, and yet somehow, not entirely unwelcome.
“Seems like he finally met the right person.”
