Can I tell him I missed him? He knows all my feelings anyway. That he uses my liking him at his own whim is a little hateful, and every time I reveal my feelings I feel like I’m standing naked and want to die of shame, but still I wanted to say it a little. …And Eunseo wanted, just a little, really just a little, to truly believe the delusion that Han Jaeheon might like him.
“Um…”
The moment he opened his mouth, Eunseo regretted it. Because Jaeheon stared right through him. After a long time, he pulled his chair a little closer and sat.
“What is it?”
His face reddened. Jaeheon had surely already figured out everything Eunseo wanted to say.
There was no way he’d be smiling like that otherwise.
“You were going to say something, weren’t you?” “…No, I wasn’t.” “You had the face of someone who really wanted to say something.”
Shaking his head, Eunseo repeated clutching and releasing the blanket. Meanwhile Jaeheon, with a somewhat tired face, tugged his tie loose and mussed his set hair. Watching him dry-wash his face a few times, Eunseo promised himself next time.
“When I’m discharged… there’s something I want to tell you.” “Can’t you tell me now?” “It’s not that I can’t, but…” “Is it good or bad?”
Because Jaeheon pressed him for some reason, Eunseo grew very puzzled. Whatever Eunseo said or did, Jaeheon hadn’t cared much… He keeps making me want to believe my delusion.
“…I don’t really know.”
It was a stupidly idiotic answer in his voice. But Eunseo had nothing else he could say. Good or bad… it was so different depending on where you set the standard.
“Well, it can’t be worse than this.”
Not knowing what it meant, Eunseo lifted his half-lowered head, and Jaeheon’s hand wrapped his chin and pulled gently. A short kiss, and lips that had parted came together again. He hurriedly swallowed the deeply digging breath, and raising his limp arms, took his shoulders, and Jaeheon laughed low.
Breath mingled between parted lips. Each time he blinked, his thin eyelids slowly sank and folded up again. Watching it, fascinated for some reason, Eunseo closed his eyes without realizing it and narrowed the distance between them. The kiss continued without refusal. But by silent agreement it ended before long. Jaeheon wiped his wet lips with his fingertip and took his hand from his chin.
“I should go before you start seeing me as a bad guy, Senior.” “Ah…” “I’m not enough of a bastard to touch a sick person.” “…”
“But I’ve come to want to be a bastard right now.”
Straightening the jacket shoulder Eunseo had gripped and wrinkled a little, Jaeheon stood up.
“Do you need anything?” “No, I don’t.” “You don’t have a phone.” “Ah…” “You’d only get work calls on it anyway, so just stay. I’ll buy you one when you’re discharged.” “No, you don’t have to…?” “It’s right to accept it, since you were hurt by the company’s fault.” There was nothing to say back to the crisp answer. And his words clearly had merit.
“Then rest. I’ll come tomorrow.” “…Pardon?”
Smiling, Jaeheon tapped Eunseo’s head and left. He’s coming tomorrow too? He left the hospital room without giving the bewildered Eunseo any other answer.
***
Han Jaeheon stopped by Eunseo’s hospital room all week. On weekdays he went back and forth between Yeosu and Daejeon, Yeosu and Seoul, and on the weekend he couldn’t come Saturday but was in the hospital room all day Sunday. Eunseo wondered if they should do what they did every weekend, but Jaeheon showed no sign of it. That day ended with eating outside food his secretary had procured from around.
Eunseo changed into the clothes Jaeheon had brought yesterday, and took only his broken phone, his worn wallet full of scratches, and the bandages from the hospital. He’d been told the laptop he’d left at the factory office had already been taken to the Daejeon lab, so this was all he had to take.
Bandages were still stuck to the back of his head and the backs of his hands, and the bruises on his upper body remained, but there was no major pain or problem. Moving his body this way and that, he felt a slight pulling here and there.
More or less ready for discharge, Eunseo plopped down on the bed. The day had really come. Even yesterday, Jaeheon had been quite curious about what “that thing” Eunseo would say after discharge was. He’d asked so persistently that it had been hard to fend him off.
“Senior Shin?” “Ah, yes. You’re here.”
Jaeheon’s secretary, who had said he’d be back after a moment of checkout, returned. As Eunseo brushed off his pants and came down from the bed, he picked up the shopping bag Eunseo had packed.
“Yes. The executive director told me to take you home.” “No, I can take the train.” “You wouldn’t want to make me someone who disobeys his superior’s orders, would you?”
Eunseo swallowed the sigh that was about to come out. He didn’t know how the superior and his subordinate came to have such identical ways of speaking. At Secretary Choi Inseong’s polite but forceful urging, Eunseo had no choice but to get into the black sedan.
After driving a little over three hours, the car finally stopped in front of the company housing. He’d been told he could rest through today, so he’d go in and rest a bit… then try contacting Jaeheon. Contacting him first was almost a first, so Eunseo was already a little nervous, clasping and unclasping his slightly cold hands.
Ah, but my phone’s broken… No sooner had he thought it than the secretary handed him a shopping bag.
“Senior, here’s your phone.” “…Yes, thank you.” “If the SIM from your old phone is fine, you can put it in and use it right away, and if not, we can reconnect your existing number right away. Shall we try now?”
Opening the already-opened box revealed the latest phone. Eunseo took the barely surviving SIM from his broken phone and put it in the new phone, and fortunately the SIM worked as it was.
“I think the SIM’s fine.”
No sooner had he spoken than he got out of the car first and opened the back door to help Eunseo out.
“Yes, then go in and rest.”
Having finished his crisp greeting, he left the apartment complex with the car, and Eunseo, standing there a moment, looked down at the phone that had turned on with its boot sound.
How should I contact him. Where he is today, whether I can go to him… or whether I should have him come to me… Strangely, though it was Eunseo who liked Han Jaeheon, it had always been he who contacted and came first. Finding that odd somehow, Eunseo couldn’t help smiling a little. Han Jaeheon always really confused him.
Rolling the smooth phone in his hand, Eunseo first went up home. No sooner had he opened the front door and stepped in than the phone began to ring.
Executive Director Han Jaeheon
He’s no gentleman, Eunseo pressed the corners of his curving eyes and mouth with his fingertips without realizing it, then answered the call.
“This is Shin Eunseo.” “Are you home?” “Yes. I came comfortably, thanks to you.” “You worked hard.”
It was slightly his executive-director voice. Listening to Jaeheon’s slightly low, slightly slow voice, Eunseo rubbed his cheeks for no reason. A slight fever rose.
“Um, where… are you today?” “I’m in Seoul right now.” “Ah… um, could I…” “Come?” “…If it’s all right with you.” “Hmm…”
Ah, so it’s not allowed — Eunseo realized his mistake at Jaeheon’s seemingly hesitating hum. That Jaeheon contacted and came first… was because Eunseo had no such right. It wasn’t a matter of feelings.
“It’s difficult today. I have a prior engagement this evening.” “Yes… I understand.” “Wait, just in case. I might be able to come.” “…Yes.” “Haha, you’re deflated. Rest. I’ll be in touch.”
Jaeheon, sounding pleased, laughed a little and hung up first, and Eunseo slowly lowered the phone.
Deflated, so what. Biting his lips a bit, he tapped on the phone to write a message. He’d forgotten to say thanks for the phone. The moment the message sent, a smiling-eyes emoji came right back.
It felt like being slapped in the face and brought back to reality. He was someone who couldn’t contact Han Jaeheon first or go to him first, and all the feelings and actions between them were one-sided.
Eunseo rubbed his slightly aching chest a couple of times, then lay on the sofa. Should I tell him. Can I tell…? He’d never been the first to tell anyone.
Everyone had treated him as a beta, and not once had they doubted it. When there’d been a pheromone accident, suspicious looks had poured in, but those faded soon too. People didn’t take much interest in others’ business.
Han Jaeheon, who’d said he wouldn’t sleep with anyone but an omega, yet slept with Eunseo knowing him as a beta — what on earth was he thinking? His words from three years ago and his actions now were so at odds that Eunseo was going mad with confusion. He knew from some experience that thinking deeply about him was meaningless, but he couldn’t not agonize.
After just breathing quietly like that for a while, Eunseo picked up the quiet phone. A week apart had made holding a phone feel quite awkward. Pressing this and that, Eunseo turned on the web screen and went to a portal site.
No one had told him about what was happening at the company after the accident, so articles were the only place Eunseo could get information. Even for the past week, there’d been nothing to see but newspapers and TV news. The moment he searched the company name, a few new articles came up. And they were… titles Eunseo hadn’t expected at all.
“…Marriage?”
Eunseo rubbed his eyes several times without realizing it. In the dark room, the bright phone screen looked blurred by contrast. Only after a long time did the same letters come into focus again in his cleared vision. Han Jaeheon, Hanseo Chemical, marriage… the whole screen was covered with those three words.
Sitting bolt upright, Eunseo tapped one article, and a popped-up new screen showed a little more detail. The gist was that marriage talks were underway between Han Jaeheon and an omega who was the third generation of an automobile company, and synergy was expected in Hanseo Chemical’s main businesses of batteries and electric vehicles, with a resulting shakeup in related stock markets expected.
But such content wasn’t important to Eunseo. Skimming down the letters roughly, at the very bottom were several photos. The two facing each other and smiling at a neat restaurant, Han Jaeheon seeing them off with a fairly affectionate manner, the two getting into a luxurious sedan… The photos had been taken last Saturday, when Han Jaeheon hadn’t been able to come to his hospital room. And the article had run today, in all the dailies and weeklies.
Eunseo couldn’t understand what on earth was going on. On Saturday he could have dinner smiling like that with the person he was going to marry, and on Sunday come to him and lie in the same bed fooling around? How could that… how was that possible?
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