SDM 53

There was only one thing Seong-woon worried about while staying at Baek Sang-hyun’s house: that his softened brain might be swayed by Baek Sang-hyun’s pressure and handsome face, leading to them having sex.

Honestly, even just a few nights ago, when he was completely broken, it seemed entirely possible. He had hoped that having sex might fulfill that final wish, and on the other hand, he felt so comforted by physical contact that he might have unconsciously wanted it.

But that worry turned out to be the most needless concern in the world.

Baek Sang-hyun left early every morning to film and came back late at night, or filmed all night and briefly came home during the day to grab necessities before leaving again. Sometimes, he didn’t come home at all.

When asked about school, Baek Sang-hyun said he had already arranged for attendance credit through reports for some subjects, and for others, he managed his attendance just enough to avoid failing.

So, while it was nice to attend school normally and stay in someone else’s home without an issue… the problem was that there seemed to be no possibility of getting a B0 in the Accounting Principles course.

“Sigh…”

He really didn’t know what to do. He even signed up for an online lecture, but it seemed to explain things worse than Baek Sang-hyun. Rubbing his face, Seong-woon drank some warm barley tea.

Somehow, despite his busy schedule, there was always freshly brewed barley tea in the kettle on the induction stove. It had already been 3 days since he’d last seen Baek Sang-hyun’s face… It seemed like he always came home when Seong-woon was sleeping or at school just to prepare the tea.

While doodling on his notebook, drawing and erasing arrows between Ryu Chae-yoon, Baek Sang-hyun, and Jin Seong-woon with a pen, Seong-woon picked up his vibrating phone.

“Hello.”

─ Aren’t you going to send a daily notification?

It was Ryu Chang-yoon, checking his brother’s messages instead of working.

“…I forgot to send it while studying.”

─ Do it quickly. Mother called.

“Why didn’t she call me directly?”

─ Why do you think?

“…”

─ Are you really going to keep staying there? What are you doing in a house without its owner?

“…How do you know whether the owner is there or not?”

─ Isn’t it strange that you don’t know that?

He had thought they would be monitoring him, of course, but… This was too much… Seong-woon rubbed his arms as goosebumps rose.

─ I’ve found a place for you, so move there.

“I said I don’t want to.”

─ Why are you staying there… Don’t tell me you…

“What do you mean, ‘don’t tell me’?”

─ You and that guy… haven’t become… something, have you?

Ryu Chang-yoon used the vague term “something” as if he didn’t even want to define it. Seong-woon was about to deny it, but then he paused to think. Hadn’t they progressed to ‘some kind’ of relationship, whatever it was?

─ You, you… Ryu Chae-yoon! You, don’t tell me that you really…!

“No, that’s not it.”

─ What do you mean ‘that’s not it’? I didn’t even say what kind of relationship, so what are you denying?

Ryu Chang-yoon started to throw a fit. What kind of relationship was he thinking of to act like this? In vulgar terms, he’s already an adult at twenty years old, so isn’t he free to date whoever he wants outside, fall in love, or have sex?

…Honestly, even if it wasn’t Baek Sang-hyun, Ryu Chang-yoon would probably act the same way.

“What were you thinking to react like that?”

─ You, come out right now.

“I don’t want to.”

─ Ryu Chae-yoon!

“Then how am I supposed to date later?”

─ What?

“I’m going to date people and fall in love too… When I say I’m getting married, are you going to act like this too?”

─ How is that the same as this?

“What’s different? I bet you’d react exactly the same way if I said I had a girlfriend right now.”

─ …

“See, I’m right, aren’t I?”

─ So now, with Baek Sang-hyun…

“No, that’s not it.”

─ … It is still suspicious.

“I’ll send the daily report, so hang up.”

Seong-woon hung up without waiting for Ryu Chang-yoon’s response. Then, he opened the family group chat, roughly wrote what he had for dinner, said goodnight, and ended the message.

As if they had been waiting, his family members started uploading messages, and Seong-woon spent a good while replying with difficulty before putting down his phone. Perhaps because Ryu Chang-yoon was making such a fuss all by himself, the other family members didn’t say much. Maybe they wanted to, but couldn’t.

Closing the book and tablet that weren’t really registering in his mind, Seong-woon climbed onto the sofa and lay down. What would happen if he couldn’t get a B0 and all the barely improved stamina disappeared, and his recovered chronic illness worsened again?

He hadn’t really noticed the gradual improvement, but compared to when he first woke up in this body, it was now a complete transformation.

No, if he had to continue living in this body, he must succeed in this quest, at the very least. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to live a human-like life.

Shaking his head, Seong-woon lay down with his cheek against the sofa armrest. He shouldn’t sleep… but he was so sleepy, and he wanted to escape because he didn’t want to study.

After staring blankly at the black TV screen, Seong-woon got up and stood in front of the door of Baek Sang-hyun’s fan room. He had been wondering what to call that place for a while, but nothing fit better than ‘fan collection vault’. How could it be so similar to Ryu Chae-yoon’s decalcomania?

In fact, as soon as he came to this house, he wanted to open that room, but he couldn’t bring himself to even touch it. The reason was the same as why he couldn’t open Ryu Chae-yoon’s fan room. Even though he had appeared on TV, albeit superficially.

“Hmm…”

After pacing in front of it for a while again today, Seong-woon returned to sit on the sofa. It seemed like he wouldn’t be able to open that room easily.

Lying back on the sofa and staring endlessly at the ceiling pattern, Seong-woon tightly closed his eyes at the sound of the door opening. Whether it was because he was thinking about Baek Sang-hyun, who had filled Ryu Chae-yoon’s fan room until now, or recalling him blushing as he briefly introduced that room, he felt a little awkward at the thought of seeing his face.

The sound of shoes being taken off and slippers being put on was heard.  The usually quiet person suddenly rushed in with urgent steps. Then, as if discovering Seong-woon lying on the sofa, he quieted down again.

Seong-woon kept his eyes closed and perked up his ears. He could feel Sang-hyun circling around the sofa with nearly silent steps, observing him.

‘If gazes had texture, would it feel like this?’ It felt as if a very soft feather was lightly brushing against his skin. Seong-woon felt like he might sneeze, so he held his breath for a moment before carefully exhaling.

He heard the leather sofa creak. ‘Had Sang-hyun leaned on the backrest?’ Just as he thought he felt something other than just the gaze, something warm touched his lips.

Surprised, Seong-woon tried to raise his arms, but Sang-hyun was quicker, wrapping his arms around Seong-woon’s upper body. With no space between them, Seong-woon couldn’t push him away.

“Mmph, what…”

As soon as Seong-woon tried to voice his protest in the brief moment their lips parted, Sang-hyun slightly changed the angle and pressed his lips again. A soft but slightly forceful tongue entered between Seong-woon’s parted lips.

‘Why does this kind of thing… feel so good?’ 

He didn’t understand. The one time he had acted out a kiss scene, he felt nothing and just thought that other people’s lips were softer than expected, but this…

His body completely relaxed, and Seong-woon unconsciously gripped Sang-hyun’s jacket with the hand he had meant to push him away with.

“…Feels good, doesn’t it?”

“…”

Seong-woon opened his eyes slightly and looked up at Sang-hyun, who seemed a bit annoyed, and just nodded. Sang-hyun’s eyes widened in surprise, then he smiled, melting like sorbet.

As he left baby kisses on Seong-woon’s cheeks and lips, Sang-hyun asked various questions.

“Dinner?”

“…I ate.”

It was already almost 9 o’clock, of course, he had eaten dinner. When Sang-hyun wasn’t home, the manager would bring packed meals.

“Did you drink barley tea too?”

“Yes.”

Seong-woon felt a bit uncomfortable with the softness of the lips touching his cheek and the warmth of their gazes meeting. It felt like his insides were flipping, or like someone was tickling his stomach with a feather.

“…What about you, sunbae?”

Sang-hyun’s face melted even more at the question Seong-woon hesitantly returned the courtesy.

“I ate on set, dinner.”

“Was the food good?”

“Yeah, it was decent. They seemed to put a lot of effort into the food, maybe because they tightened the schedule to cut production costs.”

“Hmm, that’s good.”

It still felt a bit awkward. He had gotten used to the attention and love from his family members to some extent by now, but with Baek Sang-hyun… No, it was Jin Seong-woon who was lacking and strange from the beginning. It couldn’t be helped…

Should he say it reflected that he hadn’t had much normal conversation with people? It was somewhat better with Ryu Ho-yoon and Ryu Ha-yoon, who talked a lot on their own, or Ryu Chang-yoon, who didn’t need much conversation, or Hyung-seok, with whom he only needed to talk about work, but he didn’t know what to say to Baek Sang-hyun.

It really made him angry. They had accidentally made 30 years of his life excruciatingly miserable, yet they called it a product of mistake and sin? It was infuriatingly absurd.

Instead of apologizing and begging for forgiveness, they were conducting this Soul Adjustment Project on their own and acting like they were doing him a favor by doing what they should naturally do. Did they think they didn’t need to provide after-sales service for their mistake?

“What’s wrong?”

“…Pardon?”

“Do you want to cry?”

“No…?”

‘Crying?’ Seong-woon really wanted to dig a hole and lie in it just thinking about how he had cried so much a few days ago. Even a three-year-old wouldn’t cry that much.

“If not, then that’s good.”

Sang-hyun stroked Seong-woon’s hair a few times, checked his watch, then got up.

“Do you have to go out again?”

“Yeah. I just dropped by for a moment.”

Seong-woon’s wristwatch beeped with a low battery alert. Baek Sang-hyun brought the fully charged smartwatch from the nightstand and personally put it on Seong-woon’s wrist.

“Don’t take it off.”

“…You’re behaving like an anxious older brother.”

“A brother is a brother.”

“I mean…”

“I know. Like Ryu Chang-yoon?”

“There shouldn’t be anything too shocking anymore… so it should be fine.”

Could there be anything more shocking than saying Jin Seong-woon’s life was a product of mistake and sin? Seong-woon was confident he wouldn’t be surprised at all even if someone told him right now that this was all a dream and he was already dead.

“Let me worry about you.”

Sang-hyun gently cupped Seong-woon’s cheek, left a final kiss on his lips, and got up completely.

“I think I’ll only see you again during the Accounting Principles exam.”

“Are you filming with such a brutal schedule?”

“Yeah, the director wants to shoot with you quickly.”

“…You’re lying.”

“It’s true. The assistant director was about to die, trying to rearrange the schedule. When they heard your exams end on the 17th, the director said they wanted to start shooting from the 18th.”

“So I’ll be filming from the 18th?”

“Probably.”

‘That sounds fun.’ Seong-woon couldn’t hide his expression. Sang-hyun, who was staring at him, laughed out loud.

“It’s like you’re not even trying to hide or deceive anymore.”

“…What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? You should know better.”

That response was familiar now. Seong-woon bit his lip nervously before laughing in disbelief. He himself still couldn’t believe that two souls—though they said it wasn’t really two but one—were inhabiting one body, and sometimes wondered if Ryu Chae-yoon’s personality had just imitated Jin Seong-woon’s personality and then fallen asleep. Why was Baek Sang-hyun so confident? He should really ask him about this madness once he could affirm it.

“Go to bed early.”

“I need to study. I have to get a B0…”

“You’ll get it easily.”

They might need to threaten the professor at this rate. Baek Sang-hyun didn’t seem to understand the seriousness of the situation.

Seong-woon leaned into the gentle caress for a moment and found himself smiling without realizing it. The atmosphere was so nice that he felt like he might say yes if Sang-hyun asked him to date right now.