FRWD Ch 17

The moment he realized that fact, his pounding heart rapidly circulated his blood, bringing on a dizzying spell that felt like he would go crazy. At the same time, his stomach felt nauseous, and the morning sickness he rarely had suddenly surged. Hastily covering his mouth with his palm, Haseong immediately turned around and ran into a nearby restroom.

“Haseong-ah!”

His noona, who had followed him, couldn’t enter the men’s restroom and kept calling his name from outside.

Unable to properly answer his noona’s anxious voice, Haseong entered a stall and, as if collapsing, bent his waist over, trying to empty his stomach. However, the nausea seemed to be a delusion caused by his throat momentarily tightening due to nervousness, and it ended with a dry heave.

Stumbling out, Haseong turned on the water at the sink and roughly wiped his lips with cold water. He had to wash up and get out quickly. Quickly. As soon as he left this door, no matter who tried to grab him, he would shake them off and run straight to the car…. Complex thoughts continued, and his head was spinning.

It was the moment he cupped water in his palm to wash his bloodshot eyes and brought his hand to his eye area. His left hand was clearly leaning on the sink, and his right hand was rubbing his eyes, but another hand touched his lips.

The feel of a thin, soft cloth carefully wiping his lips and the faint body heat felt beyond it. The scent that could no longer be dismissed as a delusion. The familiar shadow of a man cast long over his head. Haseong couldn’t bring himself to remove the hand covering his eyes and froze on the spot.

“So you were holed up in a place like this.”

As a low, beautiful voice he had never once forgotten was heard from behind him, a strong pressure was applied over the cloth dabbing at his lips. At that grip, which felt like it would crush his lips, a groan escaped from between Haseong’s teeth.

“Did you come here for some prenatal care?”

At the voice whispered into his ear, Haseong was completely captivated. The low, beautiful voice that he wanted to forget but ultimately couldn’t, tickled the shell of his ear.

The owner of that voice twisted Haseong’s wrist, which was covering his eyes, and forcibly pulled it away. Finally, the figures of the two men in the mirror flickered beyond his tear-soaked vision.

The man, who seemed much thinner than in his memory, was meticulously wiping his lips with a handkerchief held in his bony hand.

That image, seen only through the mirror, was so gentle that Haseong looked up at the man with eyes that clearly revealed his confusion, wondering if what he was seeing was a hallucination. When his wavering gaze met his, the man’s melancholically sunken eyes curved softly.

“Being like this reminds me of the old days. You were really cute back then, Mr. Haseong.”

When he softly called out, “Hyung,” the strength left the hand that had been pressing painfully on his lips. Instead, the hand moved to his ear and pulled firmly on his earlobe, as if teasing a child.

It was now completely healed without a single scar, but at the touch that raked over the area that was once torn to shreds, Haseong writhed with all his might. The sensation of a fingernail scratching the sensitive area behind his ear made his shoulders tremble involuntarily.

“Ngh…!”

“Are you going to run away again? You can’t do that.”

At his words, whispered as if they were sweet nothings in a lowered voice, Haseong’s legs almost gave out.

“We need to talk. For the sake of that person who is anxiously waiting for you outside, Mr. Haseong.”

It was his first time riding in a large, jet-black van with all its windows deeply tinted.

Haseong anxiously glanced at the face of the man sitting opposite him, then, unable to stand it, he slightly lowered the window of the seat he was in. It was to calm his still-uncomfortable stomach and to let out the pheromone scent that filled the van. The concentration of the pheromones leaking from Yehan seemed to have become slightly stronger than before.

A cold winter wind mixed with saltiness blew in through the gap in the window. The weather was noticeably warmer than Seoul, but the sea breeze was fierce. Only after taking a deep breath of the salty wind that felt like it was piercing his lungs could Haseong erase the bitter flower scent and the ominous feeling rustling in his chest.

His gaze, which had been on the hospital parking lot, slowly returned to the inside of the van.

Yehan, whom he was seeing for the first time in months, was… thin. Very much so. He seemed to have lost more weight than Haseong himself had when he had no appetite and barely ate around the time he was showing the first signs of manifesting.

If it just looked like he had lost weight, he would have thought he was managing it for filming, but his complexion also looked exhausted, like someone who was sick. The change was most prominent in his eyes, which had always shone softly but were now dead black.

When Yehan narrowed his eyes, his eyelashes came down with them. Only those long, dense eyelashes that stretched over his hollow eyes were the same as the pretty image in Haseong’s memory.

“Why did you suggest we move? I didn’t even get to greet her properly.”

“…There’s no need to greet her.”

He had told his noona to go home first. It was because he had a premonition that the conversation between him and Yehan would not be a pleasant one, and he was worried in advance that he might do something reckless to his noona.

His noona, who had noticed that the atmosphere between the two of them was unusual, had tried to stay, making various excuses, but he had forcibly pushed her back, saying he would explain at home.

He had spoken as if he wouldn’t touch his noona if he agreed to talk, so his showing interest by mentioning a greeting made him very anxious, and when he snapped at him, Yehan raised an eyebrow.

“Why not? If she’s your lover, Mr. Haseong, then of course I should know too.”

It seemed he was misunderstanding his relationship with his noona. But to correct him by saying she was his stepsister, not related by blood, and to lay out his family history, he and Yehan were no longer in that kind of relationship. They were certainly not in a relationship where one had to introduce their lover unconditionally. So Haseong summed it up simply.

“We are not in that kind of relationship. And you and I, hyung, are even less in a relationship where we need to share such private matters.”

“You’re not in that kind of relationship even though you have a kid together? What about all the times you had sex with me like you were in heat, and what do you mean we’re not in that kind of relationship now?”

Huh? As if demanding an answer, Yehan’s fist struck the jet-black window. Thwack! The formidable force that made a crack appear in the specially double-coated window, and the thudding sound that deafened his ears, were more than enough to startle Haseong.

As Haseong unconsciously covered his stomach and flinched with his whole body, Yehan’s eyes widened as if he were more surprised by Haseong’s reaction. He looked down at his own fist that had hit the window with a sense of futility, then covered his eyes with the back of his swollen hand and muttered.

“…I’m sorry. It’s just that you spoke so heartlessly again, Mr. Haseong.”

The tips of his fingers were trembling slightly. Haseong observed the sight, bewildered.

“It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other…. Aren’t you going to ask why I came to the hospital?”

“…You must have come because you’re sick. Please go and finish your treatment.”

When he deliberately gave a common-sense answer and cut him off coldly, he whined like a child, as if he had decided to resort to another method.

“…Is that all? You don’t even worry about me anymore? Aren’t you curious about what hurts and how?”

“I don’t know why I should be curious about that.”

In truth, he was curious. Whether he had come to the hospital to find him, or if he had accidentally found him while coming because he was really sick somewhere. Just when had he started tailing him.

…If he was sick, where and how did it hurt? Whether it was related to how surprisingly thin and pale he had become since he last saw him. What exactly was the reason he had collapsed during filming last time? If he had collapsed because he was really tired and not because of a lie or exaggeration… was he okay now?

But instead of voicing these shabby questions, Haseong bit his lip firmly. None of the questions floating in his head were in a domain he should be curious about anymore. He had decided not to be curious.

“I told you. You and I, hyung, are not in that kind of relationship anymore.”

Those words felt like he was saying them to himself. Haseong forcibly tore his eyes away from Yehan’s bright red, swollen hand. It was hard to look at. It kept overlapping with the image of him, on the day he left, stepping on the shards of a broken teacup and stumbling as he walked towards him.

Why on earth. Why did Yehan go that far back then…. And why now…. He stomped down on the constantly rising questions. This wouldn’t do. Looking at Yehan’s face, it felt like he was going back to square one again. The moment he managed to turn his gaze away from the gaunt face, his wrist was grabbed.

“Mr. Haseong, do you know how much I looked for you? I searched really hard. I went to meet your mother, Mr. Haseong, the owner of the convenience store you used to work at, all the guys you were in a band with, and even on days when I had filming….”

“I never asked you to find me, hyung.”

Why did this person search so hard for someone who had no intention of dating from the start and whom he didn’t even seriously like? Why did he have to find him in the end, making it impossible for him to let go of the last remaining shred of lingering affection?

He just felt resentful. If he had gone just a few more months without meeting Yehan like this, he would have been able to completely get over it. The memories of being hurt by his words and actions were just starting to fade.

When he shook off the grabbed wrist, Yehan’s face contorted.

“Mr. Haseong, what is really wrong with you? Do I have to childishly bring up the fact that you drugged me and ran away?”

“It’s not like I poisoned you…. You were the one who locked me in the study first, hyung.”

“Did you hate it that much? So much that you, ha…. I get it, I won’t confine you anymore. So just come back for now.”

He couldn’t understand at all why he kept telling him to come back. To put it bluntly, it wasn’t like they were dating and then broke up, nor was it a relationship where he absolutely had to be by Yehan’s side. At most, he was just a sex partner who helped manage his pheromones, and to argue about coming back or not in a relationship like this was even more ridiculous.

Besides, he couldn’t believe what Yehan said anymore. Haseong now knew that he was the kind of person who wouldn’t find it strange to say something like that and then, as soon as he returned to his home in Seoul, say ‘Did I say that?’ and lock him up in the study. Towards Haseong, who just sent a cold, sunken gaze without a word, Yehan poured out a torrent of disjointed words.

“Ah, with your personality, Mr. Haseong, you might be reluctant to come to Seoul alone, leaving a pregnant person behind. Then how about this? I’ll support the child to be born, and that person from before, so they won’t have to worry about making a living for the rest of their lives. If you want, I’ll support studying abroad or immigration too. Of course, their entire life there as well. On the condition that you break up with that person, Mr. Haseong.”

It was exactly the same as the day after they had a coercive relationship, when he apologized and at the same time set the condition that he should also end things with the person he liked. Had he come to personally show him that people don’t change? At the dreary thought, Haseong’s gaze sank even deeper.

“Huh? At this point, I think I’m being quite considerate, considering you broke your promise, Mr. Haseong. It’s not a bad deal for that person or the child either….”

“…You know how utterly absurd you’re being right now, don’t you, hyung?”

“What is? Honestly, if she’s three months pregnant, doesn’t that mean she was pregnant since she was in Seoul? I feel betrayed too, but still, for your sake, Mr. Haseong, I’m being rational….”

“I don’t need it. I have no intention of returning to Seoul either.”

It was such an absurd misunderstanding that he almost let out a hollow laugh, but it was obvious that even correcting the misunderstanding would drain his energy.

He was also scared of how Yehan would react if he told him that the person with him was his stepsister, not his lover, and that the pregnant person was him. It was already uncomfortable whenever he spouted strange things like that….

Haseong clenched his fists as he met Yehan’s eyes, which were as dark as a bottomless swamp.

“I’ve made a stable family here, and I no longer need to maintain that kind of relationship with you, hyung…, ugh!”

As soon as he spat out the determined words, his collar was grabbed and he was thrown down onto the seat. In the aftermath, at Yehan’s behavior of burying his nose in his nape and sniffing, sniff, sniff, like a dog, Haseong was horrified and jabbed his chest with his elbow.

“Ngh, what are you…!”

“If you don’t need to maintain this kind of relationship with me, then where did you get all this alpha pheromone scent on you?”

Alpha pheromone? What…. As he tried to shake off Yehan, who was grabbing his collar and pressing down hard, Haseong also tried to smell. But no matter how much he smelled, Haseong’s nose could only sense Yehan’s pheromone scent. Then, it suddenly occurred to him that he was on his way back from receiving pheromone treatment.

Since it was a treatment where one was exposed to artificial alpha pheromones, it was natural for it to cling to his body. It was just that he had forgotten that obvious fact because his body couldn’t smell scents unless they were very high in concentration.

But in a situation where he hadn’t even been able to tell him he had manifested as an omega, he couldn’t bring himself to say he was receiving pheromone treatment for the sake of the baby in his belly, so he kept his mouth shut. The best Haseong could do was to lift his legs to block Yehan from pressing on his stomach.

“Tell me. That woman seemed like a beta.”

The more stubbornly he kept his mouth shut, the more Yehan’s madness intensified. Finally, he sank his teeth into Haseong’s nape and growled in a grating, clenched-teeth voice.

“Now you’re openly rolling around with another alpha bastard. I guess… you did as you pleased when we had sex too. Do you think I didn’t know that and just let it be?”

Yehan grabbed Haseong’s legs and spread them apart, as if he would have sex with him right there in the car. An endless stream of vulgar words flowed from his well-shaped lips.

“Haseong-ah, see, what did I tell you? I told you you wouldn’t be satisfied with anyone else but me.”

“Let go of me! Whoever I meet, whatever I do, what business is it of yours, hyung!”

Unable to bear it any longer, Haseong spat out the pent-up resentment in his chest.

Why on earth did he suddenly show up and do this to him? If he was going to confuse him, he should just stick to one thing. Threatening him to talk, then persuading him to come back, then suddenly treating him like a slut and insulting him. He was so fed up with his duplicity that his voice eventually became tearful.

Yehan seemed to flinch upon seeing Haseong’s reddened eyes, and finally moved his body away. Instead, to prevent him from running away, he pulled Haseong onto his lap, hugging his waist as if to crush it.

“Let’s continue our confirmation at the hotel.”

“Why would I go there with you, hyung? Let me go!”

“Then shall we do it at your house? In front of your lover?”

“Hyung, are you really crazy?”

Haseong shouted, feeling like he wanted to cry. Every time Yehan showed this abnormal side, it felt like even the memories he tried to cherish were being stained with filth.

The 18-year-old Yehan who had handed him the bass while conveying his farewell had long since become blurry. He didn’t want to lose the 30-year-old Yehan who had comforted him while they sat together on a bench, looking at the sky on an early autumn night when summer had not yet faded.

So, please, he wished he would stop. Please…. As he glared at him with a desperate plea, the expression disappeared from Yehan’s face. The madness that had been laced in every word he spat out also vanished, and finally, he slowly blinked his eyes.

“…Am I crazy? Why, do I look crazy to you too, Mr. Haseong?”

It wasn’t a sarcastic tone, but a tone that asked for an answer because he genuinely didn’t know. But Haseong couldn’t readily answer.

It wasn’t a matter of simply hurling insults like ‘crazy bastard’ and pushing someone into a corner; it seemed he was at a level where he genuinely needed to go to a hospital, but saying something like that to his face was daunting, no matter how strained their relationship had become.

It was when he was hesitating, his lips twitching as he tried to express what he felt about his condition in the most refined way possible but couldn’t find the right words.

The concentration of the pheromones flowing from Yehan’s body became incredibly thick. If one could see the form of the pheromones with their eyes, it would be fitting to use the expression that they were gushing out explosively. At the pheromones that enveloped his entire body in an instant, Haseong went limp.

It was a concentration that was impossible to neutralize by just having the window slightly open. If it felt this strong even to Haseong, who usually couldn’t smell pheromones well, it might have not only filled the inside of the van but also spread through the open window gap and filled the entire hospital parking lot.

Yehan was just as surprised by the state of Haseong, who had been flailing about vigorously just a moment ago, but then suddenly lost his strength and leaned against him limply.

“…What is it? Are you sick somewhere? And that dry-heaving from before….”

Haseong could only manage a nod. His tongue was so loose that he couldn’t even tell him to withdraw his pheromones. He didn’t know why he was suddenly pouring out all his pheromones, but the stimulation that poured out beyond a certain point was just painful.

His lower body was twitching and trembling, and the inside of his belly felt ticklish. An irresponsible sense of security, as if he didn’t care what happened anymore, began to eat away at his mind. Of all times, in a situation like this….

“Or are you trying to pull a fast one.”

Haseong substituted his urging by rubbing his forehead, which was buried in Yehan’s shoulder. It’s not a trick, so let me go. Let me out of the car. Even when he tried to speak, only a disgraceful sound similar to a moan came out, so this kind of action was the most he could do to plead.

But Yehan, perhaps misinterpreting that action, only gently stroked the back of his head.

“I didn’t know much about you, Mr. Haseong. I didn’t know you were so good at pulling tricks, so I let my guard down, but I won’t be fooled anymore.”

“Heut….”

“Did your acting skills improve while I wasn’t looking? Or… are you really sick?”

Only after a moan-laced urging finally came out did Yehan seem to notice that something was wrong and tilted his head. He placed the back of his torn hand on Haseong’s nape and muttered to himself.

“You don’t have a fever…. Lift your head a little.”

Anyone could tell from just his disheveled expression that it wasn’t a simple illness. All the more so for Yehan, who was a secondary gender holder….

Haseong pretended not to hear and pressed his forehead firmly into Yehan’s shoulder. But being stubborn with a body that had lost all its strength was completely ineffective. Swish, at the hand that tilted his nape back, Haseong’s head flopped about like a puppet with its strings cut.

“……”

The whites of his eyes flushed with heat, his flushed cheeks, his lips slightly parted from the heat, and even his panting breaths that escaped louder than usual despite trying to hold them in. Yehan, who took it all in at a glance, twisted the corners of his mouth slightly.

He stroked Haseong’s hair that lightly covered his nape and remained silent for a while. It would have been better if he had just stopped talking, but he suddenly started scattering his pheromones and then withdrawing them repeatedly, which was hell for Haseong. All the while, Yehan’s gaze was focused on Haseong’s face as if rooted there.

“…This is strange. Am I really crazy?”

Finally, a hot breath tickled Haseong’s forehead. His fingers were still toying with the boundary where his hair and neck met.

“Lately, my pheromones gush out if I relax my guard just a little. I thought it would be fine since you can’t feel them no matter how much I pour them out, Mr. Haseong, so I wasn’t particularly reining them in.”

“……”

“Why does it look to me like you’re reacting to my pheromones, Mr. Haseong?”

As soon as those words ended, the pheromones that had been pressing down on Haseong’s body disappeared in an instant. Even though no other physical stimulation was applied, his body, which had been agitated and at a loss on its own, soon calmed down. Not wanting to reveal this change so plainly, Haseong lowered his face again.

But as soon as his panting, huffing breaths returned to a normal pace, the back of his neck was grabbed and his head was forcibly lifted. Above his raised gaze was a pair of eyes that had begun to shine strangely. What followed was a question filled with conviction.

“Mr. Haseong, did you become an omega?”

“That’s….”

“You’re not denying it….”

If it were something that could be resolved by denying it, he would have done so already, multiple times. What was he supposed to do when he was asking after having already been convinced of everything? He couldn’t muster the courage to look him straight in the eye, so he could only cast his eyes down miserably.

“Since when? How? You weren’t an omega when you were with me. But then again, I still can’t feel your pheromones, Mr. Haseong. …Don’t tell me you were an omega all along and deliberately hid it from me?”

“No! It’s absolutely not like that…!”

Haseong instinctively denied it. It was because he could picture what kind of misunderstanding he would have, as he had repeatedly said he disliked getting involved with omegas.

Even so, whether he was hated or misunderstood now, it didn’t matter at all since he had decided to give up on his feelings. But before that train of thought could even pass, an aggrieved voice burst out first.

“Then what is it? Explain it so I can understand. I’m also very flustered right now.”

“…I late-manifested, but they said my pheromone levels are so low that I’m almost no different from a beta. So….”

Haseong continued his explanation in a bewildered tone, retracing memories he didn’t particularly want to recall. Yehan, who had heard the whole story, frowned as if he were somewhat surprised, but thankfully, he showed no signs of blaming Haseong as he had worried. Instead, a more difficult question to deal with came flying at him.

“Late-manifestation? Well, let’s say that’s the case. There’s something else I’m most curious about.”

The hand that was caressing his nape slowly moved down Haseong’s back. That hand, which had been stroking his spine, finally came to a rest on the waistband of Haseong’s pants. He leisurely moved his hand from his back, brushing past his waistline to the front where his pants zipper was.

“From the conversation at the hospital, it was clear that one of you was pregnant….”

So he had heard everything. If it were possible, Haseong wanted to faint right here, right now. It was because even a fool like him could list off what questions Yehan would ask next.

“As for me, I couldn’t even imagine the possibility of something like a late-manifestation, so of course I thought it was the woman.”

Of course, he would. Haseong squeezed his eyes shut.

Usually, when a man and a woman announce a pregnancy, people naturally assume the woman is the one who is pregnant. This is because combinations other than a female alpha and a male omega are much more common and numerous. All the more so for Yehan, who had known Haseong as a beta, it was perfectly natural for him to think that way.

“…The timing of when you said you had someone you liked, Mr. Haseong, and the number of months of pregnancy they were talking about earlier happened to match up, so I misunderstood.”

To think that in that brief moment of eavesdropping on their short conversation, he had calculated the number of months of pregnancy in his head. Haseong was flustered by his tenacious memory and quick thinking.

“But.”

Yehan continued in a low voice.

“A male omega can’t get someone pregnant.”

The white hand that had slowly traced a circle up from his back finally came to cover Haseong’s lower abdomen.

“…Are you carrying a baby in here?”

A gaze that seemed to pierce through his belly. The slight tremble at the end of his words, as if he couldn’t believe it even after having deduced and concluded it himself. An atmosphere that was by no means favorable. All of these things cornered Haseong. Haseong flinched his body away and hurriedly rolled his tongue.

“It has nothing to do with you, hyung.”

“You said it’s the third month. If you don’t want to advertise that you’ve been sleeping around recklessly now that you’ve become an omega, then speak honestly. Does it really have nothing to do with me?”

Sleeping around recklessly now that he had become an omega. There was no other phrase that so clearly revealed Yehan’s current thoughts. The reason he was so persistently asking if it had anything to do with him was likely because he was anxious. Because he had a lot to lose…. At this point, Haseong was also in a state of desperation.

Yes. This was just him belatedly receiving punishment for trying to somehow hide the fact that he had manifested as an omega, using the excuse that he didn’t want to grow distant from Yehan. When he thought of all this as his own karma, the feeling of misery, as if worms were crawling in all his organs, subsided somewhat.

“…I’ve never done anything like that. It’s true that I tried to hide the fact that I manifested as an omega, but I really didn’t know I was pregnant.”

“So you’re saying it’s my baby anyway, right?”

“You can rest assured that I will never say I’m pregnant with your baby, hyung, anywhere. I haven’t even told my noona….”

When he added again that he had no intention of doing so from the beginning, so he didn’t have to worry, Yehan’s expression became strange. It was just like that moment earlier when he had asked if he looked like a crazy person. A blank expression, as if he had decided not to show any emotion.

“…What do you think I’m worried about, Mr. Haseong, for you to be making such a promise to me right now?”

“Well, you hate getting involved with omegas, hyung. And having a child is something you would want even less because of your career.”

It was a much easier topic to answer than the question of whether he seemed crazy. It was also a topic he absolutely had to argue about. Haseong cleared his throat, hmmph, to buy time to arrange the crude sentences floating in his head.

“You asked me earlier if I was an omega all along and had deceived you. That kind of misunderstanding… well, I didn’t tell you I manifested, so it’s true that I deceived you. …Anyway, I feel wronged, so I have to say what I have to say.”

Staring directly into Yehan’s eyes, which he had been avoiding all along, Haseong enunciated each and every syllable clearly to drill them into his ears.

“I’m sorry for hiding that I manifested. I tried to tell you a few times, but I couldn’t muster the courage.”

“……”

“I’m still debating whether to terminate the pregnancy or not, but if I do decide to have the baby, I’ll raise it on my own, so don’t worry about it. It really… has nothing to do with you anymore, hyung.”

So please, he wished he would stop here and leave.

The act of loving Yehan, which he knew was beyond his station, had always been followed by the shadow of misery, but Yehan was special enough to endure that, so he had been able to continue loving him. But now that he was in the process of getting over his feelings, he couldn’t bear that shadow with a sober mind. He didn’t want to bear it either.

Why did he have to go through this and be treated this way because of a love that would soon disappear, a love that he had decided to get rid of somehow if it didn’t disappear on its own?

Haseong, even after having said everything he had to say so well that he himself thought his efforts were commendable, was panting with rage. Yehan looked at such a Haseong quietly and then opened his mouth.

“…Logically, in your view, Mr. Haseong, isn’t it more fitting for the situation and more rational for me to be worrying about those trashy things right now?”

What is he talking about. At the out-of-the-blue question, Haseong’s narrowed eyes slowly relaxed.

“…I, honestly, since a while ago, I haven’t really understood what you mean by everything you’ve been asking, hyung.”

The question of whether he seemed like a crazy person, well, he could let that slide, thinking that he wanted to judge objectively through another person’s opinion.

But as for this one, he couldn’t even grasp what kind of answer he wanted. It was his specialty to confuse people by throwing out cryptic words, but today it was particularly severe.

“Hyung, really… why are you doing this to me?”

The words he spat out after much thought were what he had wanted to ask him every single day.

Why on earth are you doing this to me? He should at least be consistent, like when he first found out. Being affectionate, then acting like a son of a bitch, using honorifics, then informal language, coercively pushing people around, then acting like he was going crazy with worry. The person who had acted so smart and meticulous, as if he knew everything, why was he blurting out strange questions today?

Because you’re so erratic… I can’t help but be curious.

Once he had voiced his questions, the words he had kept locked up inside came pouring out. I won’t ask, I won’t be curious, all his resolve came to nothing in that moment.

“In the first place, I have no idea why you’re even asking me to go up to Seoul with you…. And the fact that you looked for me. There’s no reason for you to do that for me, hyung, so why on earth….”

“…Me too.”

Yehan, who had started to speak, suddenly covered his mouth as if suppressing a wave of nausea. At the unfinished sound, Haseong’s gaze inadvertently went to Yehan’s mouth.

Foolishly, the first thing that came into his sight was again the red and broken back of his hand. Even his pretty chin, lips, and the bridge of his nose were hidden by that injured hand. The only exposed eyes were once again dead black and were wavering aimlessly. It was a stark contrast to his previous eyes, which, although strange, had held a light.

His entire gaze was drawn into those bottomless, swamp-like eyes, and it took a little while to notice the cold sweat drenching his white forehead. And also the fact that the hand covering his mouth was trembling violently.

“Hyung?”

At that moment, all sorts of articles he had seen recently flashed through Haseong’s mind. Collapsed during filming, health problem rumors, frequently absent from set due to poor condition, if this continues, it might affect the broadcast schedule. …Was he really that sick? It was when a flustered Haseong reached out his hand.

“I don’t know either….”

It was a voice that sounded as lost as a child who had accidentally spilled a glass of water on his favorite storybook. At almost the same time, his upper body, which had whispered the words, collapsed with a slump.