“Back then, it was just the mood.”
Hakyoung’s face turned red as he looked embarrassed.
I see.
Maybe he didn’t like me bringing up something that just happened in the heat of the moment.
“Alright. Then… let’s just pretend it didn’t happen.”
As I scratched my head, Hakyoung stared at me intently. Unlike just moments ago when he was extremely embarrassed, his eyes now held suspicion. Yumyeong shrugged his shoulders and lightly shook his head.
“I don’t care.”
“What don’t you care about?”
“Whether you want to touch me or not, I don’t care. It’s not like I’m the type to nitpick every little thing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What are *you* talking about?”
When I threw the same words back at him, Hakyoung looked confused. Even Yumyeong, who had been observing his face carefully, felt a bit confused.
After spending a while choosing his words, Hakyoung spoke haltingly.
“You’re fine with pretending that didn’t happen?”
“Well, I should be fine with it. What else am I supposed to do?”
Yumyeong lay back down on the bed in a comfortable position. He waited for Hakyoung to come lie down next to him, but far from lying down, he actually sighed and swung his legs out of the bed.
“Aren’t you sleeping?”
“……”
With his back turned, Hakyoung remained silent.
Then, only after a long while, he muttered quietly.
“I can’t understand what you’re thinking at all.”
Hakyoung got out of bed, stood up, and sat down at the desk. Just moments ago, they had been preparing to sleep together, but the way he was now pulling out a book and flipping through it seemed suspicious. Somehow it seemed like he was making it obvious he was sulking, so Yumyeong clicked his tongue. His actions were both cute and ridiculous.
“Hey, when did I ever say you couldn’t touch me? Why are you acting like someone who got rejected?”
“……”
“You’re the one who didn’t kiss me even though you had the chance. Ah!”
Suddenly something flew at him, and when he caught it with his hand, it was none other than a 30cm ruler. Staring blankly at Hakyoung, Yumyeong suddenly jumped up and started getting excited.
“Are you crazy? Use your words! What if that had hit my face!”
“You’re loud. Be quiet.”
“Wow… really… I’m holding back.”
Yumyeong gripped the ruler tightly and held back from throwing it right back at Hakyoung. Thinking that if he repaid him in kind, that prickly guy would sulk beyond repair. Then he flopped back down and fell into thought while slapping his palm with the ruler, smack, smack.
Meanwhile, Hakyoung was secretly watching Yumyeong with melancholy eyes.
‘He’s too carefree.’
Unlike himself, who nervously attached meaning to Yumyeong’s every gesture and way of speaking, he seemed to find everything easy. Even when they crossed the line of friendship, his face said ‘so what.’
In a ticklish atmosphere, he made one’s heart flutter by saying their eyelashes and lips were pretty, and after thoroughly praising and admiring the face of someone who couldn’t even breathe properly just from making eye contact, he went back to his neat appearance and acted no different from usual.
Every night, acting as if he couldn’t sleep without him, stirring up one’s heart, arbitrarily hugging, touching, and acting cute—but it was impossible to know what he truly felt inside. The moment one hoped that maybe he had come to like them because of the active physical contact, he suddenly said it was fine to pretend it didn’t happen. His heart boiled over at the sight of him stepping back alone from the distance they had carefully narrowed bit by bit, trying to return to square one.
Though he didn’t want to admit it, there was only one reason.
‘Because he doesn’t like me as much as I like him yet.’
“Ha……”
Hakyoung clasped his hands together and let out a deep sigh with his head bowed.
When he first transferred here, he too had been able to maintain distance from Yumyeong. He didn’t attach meaning to trivial actions, nor was he hurt by a single word. But now, he was the only one who had fallen into the quagmire called love.
When he suddenly looked up, Yumyeong was staring at him intently. Without realizing it, Hakyoung spoke curtly.
“What.”
“Why are you sighing like that?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Hakyoung flipped through the pages of a book he couldn’t even focus on and adjusted his posture.
How long had he been like that? He felt Yumyeong get up from the bed and approach from behind. Just as he glanced back to see what he was going to do, he was gently embraced from behind.
“Hakyoung-ah, let’s hurry up and sleep.”
At the low voice whispering in his ear, Hakyoung turned his head the other way.
“You sleep first.”
“I can’t sleep without you anymore.”
He spoke carelessly again. With an aggrieved heart, Hakyoung let out words mixed with resentment.
“Let go. You say things like that so easily… Starting today, I’m not sleeping with you.”
“Ehehe, are you sulking?”
He struggled to free himself from the arms that held him, but the more he did, the stronger Yumyeong’s grip became. His face turned bright red as his neck was strangled by the beautifully defined forearms. Feeling increasingly troubled, he placed his hands on those arms to try to remove them, when suddenly—*smooch!*—lips touched his cheek along with the sound.
A moist, soft sensation.
“You…!”
Dumbfounded by what had just happened, he covered his cheek with his hand and looked up, only to see Yumyeong giggling to himself with a delighted expression.
“If you don’t come quickly, I’ll do it again.”
“D-don’t!”
When he recoiled, Yumyeong closed his eyes and puckered his lips again. Pushing away those plump lips with his palm, Hakyoung got up from his seat. Even knowing all of this was a joke, he couldn’t help that his heart was beating like crazy.
“Hmm… mm-nya mm-nya……”
A short while later, Yumyeong was sleeping soundly with one leg casually thrown over Hakyoung’s stomach. Today, too, Hakyoung was the only one who couldn’t sleep.
‘This bastard Shin Yumyeong doesn’t even know to be wary of men.’
Hakyoung agonized while trying to calm emotions that wouldn’t easily settle.
Did he act this way with just anyone?
Could he possibly be like this with women too?
But he had never heard any bad rumors about him with women. His hands didn’t seem to have bad habits, but he couldn’t understand why he only acted this way with him. Whether it was because he liked him, or whether he thought it was okay to be like this because he was a man.
That night too, Hakyoung lost sleep trying to guess Yumyeong’s psychology, which he couldn’t figure out at all.
***
―Yeong-ah. How could you not come home even once during vacation… I thought we could spend this vacation together.
At his mother’s disappointed tone over the phone, Hakyoung smiled quietly.
“You’re in New York right now, aren’t you? How is it there?”
―I don’t know. How could it be fun traveling alone with someone like your father without you? Even when I eat delicious food, I don’t even know what it tastes like. Without Yeong here, there’s no fun in taking pictures either.
Even saying this, his parents had a good relationship. They sent travel photos every few days, and each photo was full of affection.
Originally, Hakyoung was also supposed to go on a family trip to the East Coast of the United States for this vacation. It was a long trip that would go from Boston down to Florida, following the eastern cities.
However, he couldn’t miss spending summer vacation with Yumyeong, so he chose to remain in the dormitory, and his mother, who was currently traveling, was still disappointed about it. He didn’t know how much she had regretted it when she had to cancel Hakyoung’s plane ticket. Seeing that the nagging over the phone still hadn’t stopped, it seemed like this matter would last a very long time.
―How nice it would have been if the three of us traveled cozily together. The restaurant we went to yesterday—I thought you would like it too, Hakyoung. Among the menu items there……
A bitter smile appeared on Hakyoung’s face as he listened to his mother.
At first glance, it was a harmonious family, but even here there were shadows. Before the two of them met, his father, a wealthy man, already had a family, and he himself was born even before that family broke apart. His father who visited home like a guest, his mother who lived almost in seclusion, and the sharp gazes of those around them……
Because he vaguely understood what that meant even at a young age, he had refused to communicate with the world for a while. His mother retired from the entertainment industry because of that incident, and he too had to leave Korea as if being chased the moment he was caught by the media.
Even now, whenever people seemed about to forget, their married life would be dragged to the surface and subjected to public criticism. There were even times when reporters chased them to America and troubled him. Though it was sometimes unfair that the irrationality poured onto him when he hadn’t even been able to choose his birth, Hakyoung chose not to blame anyone.
It wasn’t that he wanted to argue with the world on behalf of his parents just because they were his parents. However, even if the world pointed fingers at them, he couldn’t deny that they were his parents, and so Hakyoung loved them as much as he could.
―Yeong will soon leave Mom’s embrace. They say you’re at an age when friends are better than Mom, but I’m sad that day seems to be coming too quickly. Now once you go to college and get a girlfriend, Mom will be pushed to the back, won’t she? Then when you get married, we won’t even live together anymore……
“Ah, Mom……”
Here we go again. Hakyoung covered his face with his hand and let out a small sigh. It was always the same repertoire.
―You don’t already have a girlfriend, do you? Is that why you didn’t come home—surely not?
“……”
Still covering his face with his hand, Hakyoung covered his mouth and his cheeks turned red. Thinking that brief silence was different from usual, his mother immediately shouted.
―Yeong-ah, don’t tell me! Is it really a girlfriend?
“No. I’m not dating yet… Just… I like someone.”
―You just like them? Then is it a ‘some’? Are you in that ‘some’ stage?
“I don’t know. Probably… I still don’t really know what they’re thinking.”
―Wait, you didn’t even come home when you’re not even dating yet!
His mother’s thunderous roar fell on his ears.
