A spark flew from their tangled gazes with a flash. Perhaps that’s why Yeo Dowoon suddenly felt sympathy as one human to another.
He too had been kicked away so terribly before, so no matter how stoically he held his face up, he fully understood that the insides would inevitably rot and decay.
Yeo Dowoon answered with an unpleasant feeling.
“I meant for you to hurl abusive language like you are now, rather than talking about love.”
While suddenly using extreme honorifics as if to distance himself from the other’s earnest feelings. The ashtray that had been spinning under Kwon Jeonghoo’s hand stopped rotating in an instant.
Tap, tap.
Now the sound of tapping the desk surface in a slow rhythm resonated quietly. Yeo Dowoon groaned as if in pain.
“How could love without a trigger be love?”
He felt he needed to hammer the point home much more sharply than this.
Because the aftereffects of unrequited love were a tricky and paradoxical symptom that only began to heal after receiving an even greater wound.
“Captain, right now, you’re like this because you’re too lonely.”
Regrettably, Kwon Jeonghoo’s face gradually became more sorrowful. But the more that happened, the more Yeo Dowoon focused his gaze toward a corner of the ceiling. Because he simply wanted to avoid it.
It was clearly the mentality of a runaway, but there was no other way.
“Because you’re lonely and desolate, you picked out someone easy to get past, and that person… happened to be me.”
“…”
“The love that the Captain claims is nothing more or less than the act of throwing advances to take someone to bed.”
Yeo Dowoon rubbed his palms, which had already accumulated warm sweat, on his pants to wipe them.
“…Rest. Cool your head while you’re alone.”
His back and spine also heated up stuffily. At times like this, air conditioner breeze was always desperately needed.
This won’t do. As soon as he got off work, he should collapse on the sofa and enjoy the cold breeze. It would be fortunate if he could cool down this shitty feeling of heat through that.
In fact, he could create cold air himself, but an air conditioner that made wind on its own without the need to use abilities could be called a truly innovative invention.
‘While I’m at it, should I have a beer too?’
It was the moment when Yeo Dowoon, who had been imagining his leisurely routine after work, was about to slink away.
“…Do you have one?”
Kwon Jeonghoo asked in a heavy bass tone. It was a voice lowered so toxically it seemed his vocal cords might be stuck to the ground. Yeo Dowoon had no choice but to stop walking, overwhelmed by that voice.
“If there’s a trigger, it can be acknowledged as love. That’s what you just said.”
When he lowered his chin downward, the fluffy dust rolling around on the floor tiles became clearly visible.
‘…I just blurted it out carelessly. What should I do?’
Yeo Dowoon felt very flustered. Because it seemed he had made a slip of the tongue. Perhaps because his feet were bound in the room that presented a secluded ambiance like a sealed room, his heartbeat ran wild with thumps. Kwon Jeonghoo asked.
“Do you have a plausible trigger, so you’re following Cha Haseong around like a tail?”
Thanks to that, Yeo Dowoon had to suffer from the feeling of being interrogated. It seemed he needed to answer without a single error to avoid being caught. Of course, the overall context would also have to be consistent.
Yeo Dowoon asserted in a tone that said there was nothing to hold back.
“You call that a question? Of course.”
Then Kwon Jeonghoo urged an explanation, saying “I knew it.”
“What kind of flashy trigger is it?”
“It’s a private trigger, so I don’t want to expose it.”
“Where is there public and private in love? Confess.”
“…Where is there public and private? What could be more private than love? What you’re doing now is a clear invasion of privacy. What era is this that you’re trying to pry into a subordinate’s love life…”
“Hyung will give you love counseling, so slowly explain it once.”
But Kwon Jeonghoo seemed to have become even more curious at his prickly response.
“By what kind of trigger, with what kind of mindset did you come to like him?”
Anyway, what a truly ridiculous person.
He probably thought that if he smiled like a benevolent elder like that, Yeo Dowoon would eagerly pull up a chair and spill everything. Yeo Dowoon answered fiercely.
“I refuse that counseling. I’ll handle my own affairs myself.”
Though he usually wasn’t the type to be tight-lipped, his tongue still wasn’t so free-spirited that he’d go around exposing his failed love life to the whole neighborhood.
Besides, a love life isn’t a story limited to oneself alone, is it? Any action that could sweep Cha Haseong into scandal should be cut off from the root.
Yeo Dowoon wanted to protect his privacy as safely as possible. Moreover… the man before his eyes had also been making his heart unsettled since earlier.
From experience, at times like this, he could avoid the worst situation only by being careful with his words even if consciously so.
‘Would I be crazy enough to ask someone who likes me for love counseling?’
When he thought about sitting Kwon Jeonghoo down and chattering about his sad love story, his chest ached without him realizing it. No matter how oblivious he was, he really didn’t want to go to that extent.
Yeo Dowoon’s words flowed like a dialect bursting out.
“Anyway, I won’t participate in the cooperative operation either. Even if we go on an operation with personnel who haven’t received combat training, we’ll only end up sacrificing a few innocent lives.”
Even if he were to receive disciplinary action, he wouldn’t regret today’s choice.
Originally, he had planned to turn around after only delivering this final notice, but the shameless Kwon Jeonghoo fed him a powerful uppercut and grabbed his ankle.
“Yeo Dowoon. You don’t actually have a trigger either, do you?”
Simultaneously with those words, a bright red flame ignited over Yeo Dowoon’s strong pride.
“I know you don’t have one.”
Kwon Jeonghoo knew infinite ways to provoke Yeo Dowoon. He was a guy who would immediately give back a satisfying reaction with just a little scratch, so it would be stranger not to know.
He criticized smoothly.
“You’re nothing more or less than an Esper bastard who felt a desire to dominate a guide. Right?”
“…”
“You’re desperate to take him to bed.”
Suddenly, Yeo Dowoon could realize how detestable the words he had blabbered to Kwon Jeonghoo were. Now that he heard it directly, he knew. His ears burned so hotly it felt like they would burst, it was driving him crazy.
Yeo Dowoon defended himself hurriedly.
“I don’t like him because he’s a guide! If that were the case, why wouldn’t I have touched Shim Woomin?”
“It’s because he’s a guide who looks good to your eyes that your appetite was whetted. Other Esper bastards are usually like that too. Collecting guides like gathering ornamental tropical fish.”
At that moment, the faces of those trashy bastards who had called Cha Haseong an ‘unbreakable flower’ and speculated about his bedroom circumstances flashed through his head in succession.
Yeo Dowoon was infuriated at being treated on the same level as them. He felt a bit ashamed for a moment, but honestly, that wasn’t his concern. He hurriedly vomited out a rebuttal.
“Even if he had a monstrous, hideous appearance, I would have liked him.”
However, Kwon Jeonghoo only sneered dryly. He asked while sweeping up his hair.
“Why?”
What other question could be as difficult and direct as the question “why”?
Yeo Dowoon frowned without realizing it. He had absolutely no immunity to one-character questions. Because no matter how many times he heard them, he never got used to them.
“There must be a reason you would have liked him even with that appearance.”
“…”
“This isn’t something you threw out without thinking either, is it?”
Damn it, it’s one mountain after another.
Yeo Dowoon had a minor habit of scratching under his eyes or near his cheeks when he was flustered. This time too, he habitually scratched his cheek.
Then he soon blushed with a rosy color. It was behavior as if he had accidentally picked up and eaten the wrong medicine.
“Every time the guide-nim whispered to me that I’m okay…, ahem.”
“…”
“And every time he hugged me without hesitation.”
He mixed in coughs of “ahem, ahem” in the middle of speaking as if his throat was blocked. Yeo Dowoon was immersed in a romantic sentiment as if he had become the romanticist of the century.
He smiled brightly.
“My heart pounded and throbbed. It felt like my heart would pop out through my throat. Even though I’d obviously be disgusting and monster-like, the guide-nim treats me as if it’s nothing at all.”
“…”
“So I became really okay with it too. When I’m with him, I feel like I can breathe especially well. Besides, Captain. He’s someone who has saved me countless times, so wouldn’t it be stranger to endure without loving him?”
Kwon Jeonghoo didn’t readily agree. But he also didn’t find gaps in the logic Yeo Dowoon laid out and bite at them fiercely. Even though he could have done so as much as he wanted, he only whispered.
“You’re similar to hyung, Dowoon.”
His unhidden face looked truly nonchalant. The leisure inherent in the attitude itself completely covered the thirst.
“Since we lived like brothers, I guess our tastes became similar too. You and me both.”
Sincerity that was half-fabricated leaked out sporadically. He found and picked up an external hard drive wrapped in a black case from the messy desk.
“Countless times… because you saved and rescued me.”
Yeo Dowoon could assert. That Kwon Jeonghoo was saying things that were wrong from one to ten. It wasn’t that he had unilaterally protected his life—he too had always defended Yeo Dowoon’s life, hadn’t he?
“If I hadn’t loved you like this, that would have been stranger, right?”
