M 119

“Is that all?”

Sehwa tilted his head slightly, as if he couldn’t understand the intent of the question.

“What do you mean…”

“You’re just making excuses again, aren’t you?”

“Yes…?”

“You used to cry or be disgusted whenever I talked like this.”

At first, he had been casual, but after that, he had been sincere. He was born a bastard and even grew up like this, so what could he do? It was an unavoidable choice to protect this position… The tone had softened little by little, but the gist remained the same, a poor excuse that he had offered every time. He thought it was the same just now. But…

“I’m surprised you’re not crying now.”

“…”

“Ah, I didn’t want to make you cry. I’m just curious about what the difference is.”

Sehwa blinked obediently. Then his eyes, which had become much larger than before due to weight loss, and his lips, which were whitened and tightly closed, curved very slightly. It looked like freshly steamed rice cake being squished softly.

Ah. Ki Tae-jeong made a small groan. Sehwa smiled. It was a laugh that he spat out as if he was dumbfounded, but anyway, a laugh was a laugh. It was a very fleeting moment, but it was something.

Sehwa, who had smiled at him without knowing anything when he had lost his memory, and the bright face that had turned to him while picking up an apple long before that, overlapped like a phantom over his current, hardened appearance.

Ki Tae-jeong reached out his hand to Sehwa’s cheek as if possessed, but quickly regained his senses and stepped back.

“…Tell me. Why didn’t you cry this time, but smiled?”

Even to his own ears, it was a foolish question. He knew it, but he stubbornly demanded an answer. Brigadier General. He wanted to bring back that cheerful call that had become so distant, but what should he do to do that?

If he could only offer excuses in his mind, this was irresistible. A tenacious instinct was whispering. Now is the time. He had to realize this difference. If he could at least pretend to try to fix it accordingly, he might one day be able to make this Sehwa smile brightly. He wouldn’t leave his side even without being bound by a dog collar and chain.

“Sehwa.”

Instead of grabbing Sehwa’s hand as he pleased, he grabbed the end of the large patient gown sleeve and shook it. Gently. So as not to startle him. Softly… He was trying, but it wasn’t easy. Was this what it felt like to be a rogue standing in the rain with cotton candy? He wanted to protect that delicate thing, which would melt with even a little moisture, safely under the pouring rain… But what should he do to do that?

Tearing and breaking was easy, but cherishing and being careful was difficult. Even when he took Sehwa as he pleased, he was busy undressing him and making him cry. He would only offer praise for his hard work and unnecessarily create resentment in this Sehwa…

“…”

Sehwa frowned as if he was troubled, rolling his eyes. He hesitated to open his mouth, as if he was burdened by the man who was loading up as if he was about to shoot at him, and sighed softly after opening and closing his mouth several times.

Ki Tae-jeong felt his toes tingle just from that. Sehwa was showing a different reaction. He wasn’t just trembling and looking at him, he wasn’t crying or throwing up because of him, and he wasn’t making demands to give up parental rights in exchange for giving him his body.

It was closer to being indifferent, worn down by all the things he had gone through, but it was definitely a different kind of attitude than what he had shown in the past few days. It was completely different from when he had sat down and cried with the baby shoes, telling him to take them and get lost. Maybe something could change in the future? Ki Tae-jeong didn’t want to miss that faint possibility, so he persistently pressed Sehwa.

“It’s just that you spoke honestly…”

Sehwa, who sensed that Ki Tae-jeong would not back down easily, began to speak haltingly.

“This time, you didn’t just notify me that my circumstances were like this, whatever your situation… but you immediately apologized… and explained that it was a mistake…”

Sehwa stepped back a couple of steps, touching his earlobe with the hand that wasn’t being held, as if he was a little embarrassed.

“It’s not that I liked what Brigadier General said… or that I can understand it…”

“I know, it just wasn’t so disgusting that you wanted to shake me off right away, right?”

“…”

“Okay. That’s enough.”

The way to elicit even a slight reaction from Sehwa was so simple that it was almost disheartening. Rather than explaining the reasons why things had to happen, or suggesting alternatives such as what he could compensate him with, it was better to interpret his words and attitude from his perspective, even if it was clumsy. Instead of giving in to his emotions and offering baby shoes, he was really thinking about ways to change the child’s life. Such small things…

Come to think of it, Sehwa had always liked insignificant things. He was a person who smiled happily when he was given a cake box rather than expensive luxury goods with considerable asset value.

“If you like that kind of attitude and way of speaking…”

Ki Tae-jeong moved quickly and closed the distance again as much as Sehwa had stepped back. No, he stood even closer than before.

“I have a question.”

Although he felt a moment of regret thinking he had taken such a long detour when there was such an easy path, there was no time to feel dejected. Now that he had learned the basic formula, it was time to apply it.

He needed to advance at the right time to plant his flag and claim this territory as his own. And Ki Tae-jeong desperately wanted victory more than ever. Even though it sucked that the opponent was none other than himself, he wanted to win no matter what.

“What did you write and then erase on the note you left for me?”

Sehwa mouthed “note…” and then nodded with an “Ah” as if remembering.

His heart ached in a distinctly different way than before. He barely managed to hold back the childish urge to whine about why he seemed to have forgotten everything already. He endured his inclination to act immaturely again, clinging to the single thought that they couldn’t go back to how things were before.

Hmm, perhaps Sehwa’s increasingly childlike behavior in front of him also stemmed from similar feelings. Because he liked him, and hoped he felt the same way. Since it was an emotion where efficiency or suitability couldn’t be calculated, perhaps clinging to him recklessly was all he could do…

“It’s okay even if it was swearing. No, could you… tell me?”

When he softly changed his tone from a command to a request, Sehwa’s brow furrowed deeply. Ki Tae-jeong read this hesitation as a positive sign. Even if he cried, lost his mind, and became speechless because he hated and disliked him… Sehwa was still Sehwa. Just by him humbling himself this much, he was unable to be harsh towards him.

“First love… people say it doesn’t work out…”

However, the words Sehwa hesitantly uttered were something he never imagined,

“I wrote that it seems those words aren’t wrong… and then erased it.”

Ki Tae-jeong could only stare at him blankly.

‘…First love?’ The expression he never imagined he’d hear in his life crashed over Ki Tae-jeong like a broken dam.

“Originally, you’re supposed to get permission from the other person before… But after writing it, it seemed a bit ridiculous, and just me… having such serious feelings, telling the brigadier general about it… It didn’t seem necessary to invite mockery until the very end…”

Sehwa slowly closed and opened his eyes. He seemed to be recalling the moments he must have cried alone in hiding.

“So… I erased it.”

The final words he added were barely above a whisper. Though he was clearly embarrassed, he somehow looked relieved.

First love.

Ki Tae-jeong turned the phrase over in his mind several times. Grinding it in his mouth, chewing and tearing at it, feeling its faint texture with the tip of his tongue.

Love.

First, love.

“…Then we can make it not the first.”

Ki Tae-jeong grabbed Sehwa’s hand as he tried to carefully pull away from him. This too was an irresistible force. Unable to bear it otherwise, he grasped his thin arm tightly and turned his back around.

“Bri…gadier Gen…eral…”

“You almost died. You even lost your memory for a while. So let’s say that the first one ended then.”

Though clumsy, he clung to him as gently as possible, trying not to burden Sehwa… In the end, he threw out all the approaches he had just learned and held onto him incoherently.

“I’ll do better. If you tell me like before, I can change.”

“That’s…”

“I’ll change as if I’ve been reborn, so let’s make this the second time.”

Surprise briefly flashed in Sehwa’s wide eyes. But that was merely a reflexive reaction to Ki Tae-jeong’s sudden action. Soon, bitter resignation filled them, and he dropped his pale neck as if laying it on a guillotine. The response that would follow was obvious. It would be rejection.

“Ah, I’ll start the process to raise you to 5-star resident status from now on, so keep that in mind… We’ll talk about this in detail after the trial.”

Though he knew nothing would change by not listening to Sehwa’s refusal, Ki Tae-jeong stubbornly persisted. He made his move first, not even giving him a chance to voice his rejection.

Being the bastard he was, this much wasn’t enough to satisfy him. He wanted to make him smile. He wanted him to smile because of him. No matter how long it took, he wanted to see Sehwa throwing himself into his arms like before.

“About the AI residential area issue… I didn’t intentionally not do it, I was waiting for you to wake up, and then I was so focused on watching for side effects that I really didn’t think about it.”

“…”

“Yes, the AI isn’t more important to me than you. It probably won’t be in the future either. But I’ll pay attention to the child now, so I can make up for that bullshit I said in front of you before.”

“…”

“But this still isn’t enough, is it? To be your second man.”

It wasn’t a question asked expecting an answer. He just wanted to leave a lingering impression. Now was the time to back off. Ki Tae-jeong lightly raised both hands and stepped back as if to show he wouldn’t force him anymore.

Sehwa gnawed on his lower lip before dropping his head. With only the round top of his head visible, he couldn’t tell what expression he was making. He just stroked the arm he had grabbed a few times. With each feeble movement of his hand, the red marks on his arm appeared and disappeared as his sleeve fluttered.

***

Finally, it was the day of the trial. Judging it would be advantageous to appear in hospital clothes, Sehwa wore only a large cardigan over them.

His reflection in the mirror looked utterly ridiculous. Sehwa examined his haggard appearance from various angles before giving up and heading to the living room. What could he do? This was how he naturally looked, and his current situation wasn’t good either…

“You’re up?”

As soon as he opened the bedroom door, Ki Tae-jeong approached him with a faint smile. Lieutenant  Park and Sergeant Major Choi, who had been waiting with him, glanced this way with bewildered expressions.

With the trial right around the corner, he had been acting as if he wasn’t interested in anything but him lately. Moreover, he kept saying cringeworthy things that were unlike him.