Someone was shouting, kicking at Yeon Haejeong with their foot. The raucous noise was proof enough that nobody here was in their right mind. He’d been untouchably flawless before — so why did he look so utterly wrecked now, almost pitiable. Munyeong approached Yeon Haejeong with a feeling he couldn’t quite name.
“…It’s time to go.”
At Munyeong’s quiet words, Yeon Haejeong, who had been lying with his eyes shut, lifted his eyelids with a drowsy, languid effort.
“Oh. Oh, fuck, you showed up again.”
Yeon Haejeong muttered nonsense and dragged himself upright. Then he grabbed Munyeong’s cheek and kneaded it randomly, mumbling something else incomprehensible.
“…No, shit. You feel real.”
His intoxicated eyes were unfocused and hazy.
“Hey, I’m telling you, you feel real. Hey―!”
Yeon Haejeong threw a fit, shouting one moment and snickering the next. Then he started kicking wildly at the man who had been kicking him earlier. That man’s secretary came sprinting over in a panic. It was complete chaos. Not a single person was in any state to function.
“Still running your mouth. You idiot.”
The man, being steadied by his secretary, pointed a finger at Yeon Haejeong. Then he smacked the same helpless secretary on the head and slurred his curses.
“Hey, hey. That one’s a total fag, yeah? You know why, why he got, got kicked out of America?”
The man broke into a cold sweat, laughing at his own secretary as he kept going. His glassy, unsettling eyes were fixed on Yeon Haejeong.
“Got caught fucking a guy. Pfft—!”
“You piece of shit. Won’t you shut up?”
“But here’s the even funnier part.”
The man carried on, oblivious to the atmosphere, his words slurring badly.
“Even after going to America, he couldn’t stop thinking about the guy he fucked―.”
“You fucking—!”
Yeon Haejeong staggered toward the man and swung a bottle at him. Everyone froze in horror, but the man just kept on laughing with that same unhinged expression. Deciding this couldn’t go on, Munyeong had no choice but to step in and physically stop Yeon Haejeong from swinging.
“Please.”
The other secretary, apparently reaching the same conclusion that this had to be stopped, turned to the mountain of a man in a black suit who had been standing by on standby. The man hoisted up a fully grown adult male with no trouble at all. Munyeong, feeling he couldn’t just watch any longer, asked one of the other staff for help so he could carry Yeon Haejeong on his back himself. The staff offered to do it themselves, but Munyeong refused outright. He had a feeling Yeon Haejeong had brought him along specifically for something like this. The words Yeon Haejeong had said — that he couldn’t trust anyone else — had carved themselves into him more deeply than he’d realized.
He expected a struggle, but Yeon Haejeong, drained of all strength, was barely conscious as he slumped against Munyeong and let himself be carried. The weight was considerable, but Munyeong held on with everything he had. If this was the kind of support Yeon Haejeong needed from him, he would see it through.
For all the chaos he’d caused, Yeon Haejeong was oddly quiet against Munyeong’s back. The sound of his shallow, wheezing breaths hit right against Munyeong’s ear. Whether he had fallen asleep or simply had no energy left to make noise, Munyeong couldn’t tell.
One of the restaurant staff walked them back to the parking lot, worried they might fall. It wasn’t even that far a walk, but sweat poured off Munyeong in sheets, and his legs shook so badly he nearly went down once — but he held on stubbornly. Through all of it, Yeon Haejeong murmured something unintelligible.
“…Fuck. The smell.”
Munyeong’s body went briefly rigid — wondering if he’d already started smelling of sweat — but despite the displeased tone, Yeon Haejeong’s arms pulled tighter around his neck and held on. That made his body lock up all over again. But feeling like he had no strength left to spare, Munyeong pushed forward quickly toward where the car was parked.
“Our staff can take him if you’d like.”
One of the restaurant employees looked at Munyeong, soaked through with sweat, and offered gently.
“No. I’m fine. Thank you.”
Munyeong gave a polite bow and settled Yeon Haejeong carefully into the back seat. Yeon Haejeong, unable to so much as sit upright, collapsed flat across the seat face-down.
Ha…. Munyeong exhaled a long breath and thought for a moment.
Now what?
The question was where to take someone in this state. There was no way to bring him to his family home — Munyeong didn’t even know where it was. The hotel was out too, with too many eyes around. The company building where he’d been staying like a makeshift residence was obviously not an option either. Even Munyeong, dense as he was, knew better than to bring someone who wasn’t just drunk into his workplace.
Seated in the driver’s seat, Munyeong deliberated for quite a long time. No matter how hard he tried to find an answer, only one idea surfaced in his slow, hopeless head. It wasn’t a welcome idea, and that made him hesitate for a long time.
But in the end, unable to come up with any other option, he started the engine with a heavy expression. Then he cast one resentful glance in the rearview mirror at Yeon Haejeong, passed out cold.
What an absolutely hopeless guy. Then and now.
It was a place that felt unfamiliar, yet had clearly never fully left his memory. A small, run-down basement room, thick with the smell of mildew. It was the place he had stumbled to, drunk and barely knowing what he was doing, in the year he turned twenty, after their school days were long behind them. He didn’t know what state of mind had brought him there — but the one thing he remembered clearly was this: it had kept coming back to him. Involuntarily, persistently, again and again, passing through him like a faint breeze, surfacing at all hours — until finally it had brought him all the way here.
What came after that was also largely a blur. He had knocked on the door. Someone had come out of what barely counted as a home. The other person had visibly startled at the sight of him — eyes wide with something close to shock. Yet looking at that face, an overwhelming impulse had surged through him. Fragments flickered through his mind — some passing through like half-formed images, others playing out like footage. He had kissed him and they had fallen, but even so he couldn’t stop himself — he had yanked the other person’s clothes off and kissed him again. Like someone out of his mind.
Ha…….
The sound of a wet, ragged exhale slammed into his ear. Yeon Haejeong was mortified that something as small as a breath alone was enough to make him feel close to the edge. His face went scarlet, the corners of his eyes twitching. Over someone like this.
Hae, Haejeong…….
A yearning voice called his name, as though frightened. Even as he’d forcibly stripped him and left him half-bare, the other person hadn’t resisted once. Those calm, composed eyes had crumpled with quiet anguish — but by then, Yeon Haejeong’s reason had long since abandoned him. He was drunk on top of everything else, and it wasn’t as though they’d ever see each other again anyway. He had spent all of his school years drowning in a thirst he couldn’t name, a maddening parched feeling he’d never been able to make sense of. He had to quench it. If he didn’t——
…It’s okay.
The other person had said it quietly. Despite being terrified.
……It’s fine.
As if prepared to receive even his most irrational impulses without flinching, those trembling arms had lifted and cradled his face. The single sensation of skin against skin had obliterated the last remaining fragment of his reason. He had swallowed the other person’s lips whole, and ground his swollen, about-to-burst cock against the other man’s groin like an animal. It was maddening — an ache that spread all the way through his lower body. The desire, the raw impulse, felt so alien it was almost frightening. But he hadn’t been able to stop. It wasn’t the other person who was scared — it was him. Terrified that the other person would refuse. Terrified that if he did refuse, he would force himself on him anyway.
…Haejeong.
The sweet sound of his name, in that moment, felt strange and unfamiliar. But wait — that wasn’t right. He didn’t sound like that anymore.
“…Director.”
Not that gentle — something colder, more clipped——
“Executive Director.”
Right, more detached, more matter-of-fact— Yeon Haejeong’s vision dissolved and at the same moment his eyes snapped open.
Fuck.
With a single expletive that came out almost like a scream, Yeon Haejeong jolted upright as if wrenching himself out of a nightmare, his face a mask of disorientation. The scenes from the dream were so vivid they felt terrifyingly recent, like yesterday. Yeon Haejeong looked around with an already-rattled expression, trying to work out where he was. More disorienting than waking up in an unknown place was the fact that the person from that dream was standing right over him, watching him with worried eyes. And those eyes — they overlapped with the eyes from just moments ago, the ones that had been worried about him in the dream. The same person. The same eyes. Yeon Haejeong registered who was in front of him and forced his ragged, shallow breaths to calm.
“…Are you alright?”
Munyeong, who had caught the shift in his mood with quiet precision, asked carefully. Yeon Haejeong took a deep breath, let it out hard, and gave a small nod.
“…Ha.”
Cold sweat was still running down him, and his lips were completely dry. Munyeong didn’t fully believe the nod, but rather than push back, he simply slid the mug he’d prepared over toward Yeon Haejeong.
“…What’s this.”
Yeon Haejeong eyed it with full suspicion, and Munyeong answered in his usual matter-of-fact tone.
