“Hm?”
It was an ambiguous demonstrative. Seonha’s head tilted in puzzlement. Hongdan immediately added an explanation.
“Back then. The day you first talked to me. Even though we were in the same class, we’d never even greeted each other before. But why did you suddenly help me?”
“Ah. Back then.”
Ah. So you were recalling it too.
Though they hadn’t exchanged a word, their memories had touched.
Just as Seonha had pictured his first meeting with Hongdan after coming here, Hongdan was also reminiscing about the same scene.
At that fact, Seonha found it hard to hide his bursting laughter. His calmly beating heart also began to grow noisy. His fingertips twitched, wanting to grasp that round back of the head right now and share breath.
For now, Seonha hid his twitching lips first. Since he couldn’t hide even his cheekbones, his facial muscles must have looked suspicious, but fortunately Hongdan’s eyes didn’t seem to catch it. He just urged Seonha’s answer.
“Don’t plan on spouting hero logic like ‘it’s natural to want to save someone in crisis.’ I know best that you have no sense of justice, so just tell me. Why did you specifically take my side? Among them was even the son of a group that has a cooperative relationship with yours.”
“Yeah, well… it’s not that it wasn’t difficult.”
No, it really wasn’t difficult.
Seonha folded his eyes into crescents, recalling the father and son who had crawled before him on practically all fours a few days later. He hid a truth he probably wouldn’t confess for the rest of his life.
Instead, he lowered the hand that had been covering his mouth and naturally swept back his bangs, showing off his straight nose bridge. He could feel Hongdan’s gaze instinctively fixing on that spot, having always liked his nose. Without showing any embarrassment, Seonha poured out ticklish words.
“I just had my eye on you, Hongdan. And I already didn’t like the way they were acting childish.”
“Ah.”
Of course, with a few lies sprinkled in.
This place happened to be where Seonha and Hongdan first met. If he borrowed the power of the space, a confession of “love at first sight” seemed like it could have greater impact than usual.
“And I, from the beginning, you…”
However.
“Then, well, I just happened to luck out.”
“…Huh?”
Seonha couldn’t say even half of what he’d prepared. It was because Hongdan had already wrapped up the conclusion with just the clumsy excuses he’d roughly attached. He didn’t try to probe further.
When had he been looking up at Seonha with subtly sparkling black eyes—Hongdan had an indifferent face again. His head, which had been tilted prettily toward Seonha, had already turned the opposite way.
The sight of him readily believing his words was naturally welcome, but that composure stimulated Seonha’s mood.
Especially dropping his gaze away from him was the most irritating.
“…No. I said I had my eye on you.”
His voice had lowered somewhat. Hongdan was looking at the chrysanthemum bed that had already mostly withered. Even though he must have felt that the atmosphere had somehow changed mysteriously, he didn’t look back at Seonha again.
“Didn’t you say you originally didn’t like them?”
At his indifferent attitude as if uninterested, Seonha’s tone also gradually sharpened.
“So that trigger is more important. Those bastards had been grating on me for a long time, but I wanted to intervene on that particular day.”
A strange coldness began to seep into the gray eyes gazing at Hongdan. Seonha didn’t blink once, didn’t flinch an eyelid once at the blowing wind.
Only then did Hongdan look at Seonha. With a face that held some bewilderment.
No, actually, what was truly bewildering wasn’t Seonha’s gaze.
‘Then that person must like hyung.’
Right now, Hongdan could read the hidden meaning in Seonha’s words all too vividly. The scattered distracting thoughts were gathering into one conclusion.
‘No. He definitely likes you.’
He hurriedly scattered it again.
“I guess those pig bastards’ squealing particularly grated on your nerves that day.”
It was also a kind of self-denial.
In fact, more than anything, he just didn’t want to acknowledge it. The feelings the other person was trying to express right now.
“No. I was concerned because it was you being bullied.”
But what Hongdan had let go, Seonha gathered back up. Then he tied it all together so it wouldn’t scatter anymore and handed it to Hongdan.
Hongdan knew it wasn’t a misunderstanding anymore, so he wanted to accept it even less.
“Why, because I looked pitiful? Well, yeah. There’s nothing high-class about my face. I don’t have a pretty impression like ordinary omegas either.”
“You’re pretty, Hongdan.”
…This bastard, really.
Why was he doing this now?
No matter how sweet the words Seonha spat out, only anger welled up in Hongdan. In truth, it resembled sorrow rather than simple fury. His throat stung and the pit of his stomach hurt. Nevertheless, Hongdan tried hard to force a smile and change the subject. He had to change it.
“Ugh— okay, okay. I’ll definitely take you to a meat restaurant for dinner tonight. Even if I can’t buy you beef, I’ll buy you as much pork belly as you want to eat, so stop it. Okay?”
“It’s not a lie. I didn’t want to beat them up, I wanted to save you, and to my eyes you were pretty from the start. Among all the omegas I’ve seen until now, you’re the prettiest, Hongdan.”
“I don’t have money, bastard. I’m telling you I can really only take you to an all-you-can-eat place for beef.”
“From when we first became classmates, I wanted to talk to you. But there was absolutely no opening. You were always reading books, and during breaks you’d go to the class next door to see that bastard Jung Hyeonchan or whatever. Honestly, I was glad something came up that day where I could intervene. It really was that much.”
“Hey, then what about wagyu. Korean beef is difficult, but I think I can buy you about wagyu level. Should we stop by a mart on the way?”
“I liked your voice too because it’s upright and nice, you know? I stayed awake during English class on purpose. The English teacher liked you so she always had you read the text.”
The conversation hardly connected. It was just no different from a one-way street. But the more it was like that, the more clearly each other’s hearts reflected. Hongdan desperately tried to turn away from Seonha’s sincerity, and Seonha tried to make the already completely withered affection bloom again by showing himself completely.
“Ha…”
He couldn’t turn away anymore. In the end, Hongdan’s head dropped down completely and a deep sigh leaked from his mouth.
Should he have just made some excuse not to come?
Until a moment ago, it had been a place that was welcome and nostalgic. Now it felt more stifling than any solitary cell. Perhaps Seonha’s purpose in insisting on coming here wasn’t to find his memories but to show his heart to him. Seonha’s attitude right now was that firm.
Hongdan briefly considered whether to drag out more time here, then soon changed his mind. Either way, he was someone who would convey those words no matter what. Even though he’d lost his memories and everything seemed changed, his uselessly stubborn disposition remained exactly the same then and now.
In that case.
“You…”
It was better if he got rid of it quickly himself. Hongdan raised his face again and met the eyes still staring at him piercingly.
He decided to willingly throw the question he must have been waiting for all along.
But even though he’d firmly steeled his will, before spitting out ‘that’ word, he had to take a couple more breaths. Unlike the feelings he’d held for three years, it was a word he’d never told Seonha until now.
Fortunately, Seonha had firmly closed his chattering mouth and was waiting for Hongdan. Even though Hongdan had rather wished for noise.
“You, I mean.”
Thud. The last maple leaf that had been casting a shadow on Hongdan’s face finally fell to his feet.
“Did you… like me?”
“Yes.”
Hongdan’s heart plummeted just like that too.
At the firm answer that came back without time to catch his breath, as if he’d really been waiting for it.
Hongdan’s fingertips began to tremble like the thinnest sheet of paper. He tried to hide that turbulence by clasping both hands tightly enough to hurt, but Seonha’s gaze had already shifted. Seonha was always a more agile and meticulous person than Hongdan.
It was the same now.
Seonha gently cupped Hongdan’s chin, lifting it so their gazes could no longer misalign.
“That’s right.”
He knew he should push him away right now.
Unable to gauge which was more embarrassing between his trembling fingertips and wavering eyes, Hongdan quietly looked up at Seonha.
Seonha seemed to take that obedient attitude as acquiescence. His fine lips slowly curved into an arc.
“I’ve liked you since that day. I’ve wanted to marry you since then, Hongdan.”
Fuck, finally.
“Of course, even now.”
Finally you’re deceiving me again, once more.
Seonha’s head slowly tilted. Naturally, a black shadow fell on Hongdan’s face.
Smack—!
Hongdan wasn’t someone who would just leave things like that.
“Ah!”
The lips that had been approaching with a clear purpose did touch Hongdan’s face.
Well, they also swelled up red in the process.
Which is to say, the place they touched wasn’t the lips but the forehead, and the redness was just a miserable bloody incident.
