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Samin’s eyes widened.
‘How should I respond to this?’
If you kiss but don’t date, does that make you promiscuous? If he answered no here, he felt like Doun would reject him. Because Doun’s answer was quite ambiguous.
‘Hyung said he didn’t dislike kissing me, but he didn’t say he liked it.’
Doun’s vague answer left room for interpretation. Only Doun would know the exact meaning, but looking at his confused face, it seemed even he was puzzled about it.
If he affirmed it here, Doun might smoothly become his boyfriend. No, it would happen with almost 100% certainty. Because Doun was afraid of being criticized. Samin was confident of this.
Yet he didn’t give a positive answer to Doun’s question.
Samin could beg Doun to see him as a romantic interest, throw tantrums asking him to like him, and suddenly press forward saying he’d kiss hyung. However, after kissing and all, he couldn’t bring himself to say that if Doun didn’t date him, he’d criticize him as promiscuous so please date him.
‘I’m kicking away a meal that’s already served, but this really isn’t right…’
He didn’t want to hear even the most important request for a relationship by pushing Doun’s back. Honestly, after coming on this strong, he hoped that at least in this moment, Doun would choose him of his own accord.
“If you try kissing and it’s worse than expected, you could dump me. I’m not narrow-minded enough to think hyung is promiscuous for something like that.”
Though he answered calmly, he felt like he’d be very sad if Doun rejected him. Still, if that was Doun’s choice, he intended to respect it. Even if his heart would be torn into hundreds of thousands of pieces and become rags. Samin looked at Doun and waited anxiously for the choice he would make.
Meanwhile, Doun was genuinely surprised by Samin’s answer. Actually, Doun had cowardly pushed the responsibility of defining this ambiguous relationship onto Samin. He’d thrown him a suitable excuse, so naturally he thought Samin would ask to date, but to give such an answer.
Samin, who usually sang the same song about dating and pestered him, had handed over the choice at the crucial moment.
As if saying the final choice, at least, had to be made by him directly.
Doun had no choice but to ramble about his unsorted feelings.
“To be really honest, I really don’t know. This is the first time a guy has asked me to date, and I wonder if it’s okay to do this in a guild I joined to conquer towers…”
At the hesitant confession of his inner thoughts, Samin’s eyes immediately lit up.
“I’m confident I can make hyung completely happy. If we date, I won’t make hyung anxious by looking at other people, and I can support all the tower conquests hyung likes, right?”
“…”
“Since I like tower conquest as much as hyung likes conquest, our interests match perfectly too. A handsome, rich, energetic younger boyfriend who shares hobbies – isn’t that tempting?”
Even though the 21st century was supposedly the era of self-PR, to appeal his advantages at every opportunity like this. Moreover, thinking about it carefully, there wasn’t a single wrong word, which was even surprising.
There would be many people who’d want to date him even if it wasn’t himself. Even if he dated Samin, he didn’t feel confident he could return the affection Samin poured on him equally.
“They say relationships are supposed to be give and take, but honestly I’m not good at expressing affection like saying I really like you and stuff, so I think you’d be disappointed.”
“Hmm. I don’t know about that. I’d have to date hyung to know if hyung is really like that or not…”
Listening quietly to the voice mixed with laughter, Doun looked down at Samin’s hand stroking his face.
Where would he go if he held this hand? It seemed like it would be somewhere better than now. It seemed like he’d laugh more and be much happier than now.
Doun reminisced. The gentle voice of his father who would sit him on his lap, stroke his head, and whisper softly.
‘You’re not sure if you like your friend from the giraffe class or not?’
‘Yeah. It’s fun playing together. But I don’t really know if I like him.’
‘Our son, then think about it like this.’
‘How?’
‘Doun is playing with that friend. But if you go home, you can eat snacks and cake. But to eat snacks and cake, you can’t play with your friend anymore. Doun is very hungry right now.’
‘Mmm…’
‘But if you still want to keep playing with your friend and don’t miss the snacks and cake at all, then Doun really likes that friend.’
Around age six, Doun had tilted his head at his father’s question. He’d only asked back why he couldn’t eat snacks and cake together with his friend. He didn’t understand then, but he could understand what his father had been trying to tell him.
Someone you’d rather be with even if you lose out. That was what his father called a ‘person you like.’
Doun applied Samin to his father’s advice, which he could barely remember the voice of now.
Would it be good to be with Samin even if he lost out?
Without thinking long, the answer was ‘maybe so.’ Actually, he’d never lost out while being with Samin, so maybe he’d reached this conclusion for that reason. But it seemed like it would be okay to be with him. However, he couldn’t be certain.
The terrible failure experiences in human relationships that Doun had gone through kept holding him back. After calmly organizing his jumbled thoughts, Doun carefully began to speak.
“Can you give me a little more time? You have serious feelings, but I don’t think I should choose so carelessly, swept along like this. I need time to think.”
The answer Doun gave back to Samin was neither a positive agreement to date nor a negative refusal, but a postponement. Just as Doun felt embarrassed for not being able to give a clear answer and was only fidgeting with his hands, a strangely overwhelming voice penetrated his ears.
“Hyung… Are you really putting me in as a boyfriend candidate?”
Samin was smiling brightly like a child who’d received a completely unexpected gift.
“I asked for time to think. I didn’t say let’s date.”
Wondering if his phrasing might have been misleading, Doun repeated what he’d said. But Samin’s attitude didn’t change. He was purely happy about being told he’d seriously consider it.
“Hyung is saying you’ll seriously consider whether to make me your honey, your baby, right now?”
Each word he poured out with a slightly flushed face was bewildering. Honey, baby. They weren’t at the stage for such embarrassing, cringe-inducing pet names at all, but seeing him casually bring them up as if he’d been waiting, he’d definitely had specific fantasies.
“Even if we do date, those… pet names you mentioned would need serious mutual discussion…”
“I like them all. Uni-uni, honey, darling, baby. I can call you whatever you want me to call you. But, hyung. I need to be satisfied as the sole boyfriend candidate. I can’t stand seeing some other bastard running for the position.”
Setting aside the uniformly horrifying pet names, the condition that followed sounded even more ridiculous.
“Who else besides you would be asking to date me?”
“Why do you think there’s no one? The whole world likes my Doun hyung?”
Even at Doun’s lukewarm retort, Samin babbled his strange flattery as if it were natural. Listening to Samin’s words, Doun was sometimes swept up in a strange feeling.
Because Magnetic from a year ago, who was labeled a murderer and beaten down by anonymous masses saying ‘it’s creepy that he’s the same hunter as us,’ felt like a completely different person from himself now.
The Magnetic in his memories was still a murderer who aided in someone’s death, an unprecedented psychopath, the shame of hunters who got cocky relying only on rankings and got his colleagues killed. But Samin not only praised such a Magnetic as a hunter he’d consume rare artifacts trying somehow to contact, but showered him with compliments about being cute and pretty while saying he wanted to date him.
“Anyway, so I’m hyung’s boyfriend candidate starting today? Wow shit, hyung, want to listen to my heart beating?”
Samin swept down his chest and then subtly guided Doun’s head so he could put his ear to his chest. Just how much was his heart beating for him to make such a fuss? When Doun obediently put his ear to it, amazingly, the sound of his heartbeat was clearly audible.
“I feel like my heart’s going to burst right now. Haa…”
He hadn’t even said let’s date, but if his heart was beating this much, he was curious what would happen if he decided to ask to date after deliberating. Doun slowly lowered his eyes, feeling the touch gently stroking his head.
Nothing was decided, but he felt his tension completely release at the thought that he’d handled this situation as well as he could. His relationship with Samin hadn’t gone sour, and he’d even gained time to think seriously. For Doun, who always lived life haphazardly, this was the best resolution.
Thinking about it, from early morning, even lying in bed, so many things had happened. It was rare to spend a day as turbulent as today. Though his body was stronger than ordinary people, there was no match for mental fatigue.
Feeling his eyelids growing heavier, Doun casually stretched out on the bed.
“Anyway, I’ll seriously think about us dating, so let’s sleep now. I’m tired…”
As his voice trailed off long, Samin finally came down from above Doun. Lying down obediently beside him, unable to contain his joy, he wiggled his face and chattered.
“Yeah. Sleep well and dream of me. Samin, your prospective baby.”
Though sleepiness was pouring over him and it was hard to keep his eyes open, Doun absolutely couldn’t tolerate that strange pet name.
“If you keep saying weird things, I’ll deduct points?”
Samin’s eyes went round. It seemed he was planning to grade quite systematically. Worried that one slip of his tongue might negatively affect his score, he quickly shut his mouth.
“Yes. I won’t say weird things anymore. I’m Doun hyung’s only prospective boyfriend candidate who can listen to hyung’s words really well.”
“Points deducted.”
“Huh?”
It seemed even ‘prospective boyfriend candidate’ wouldn’t do. Having somehow started with point deductions from the first day, Samin muttered in a dejected voice.
“Hyung, sleep well…”
The voice echoing from the middle of Doun’s bedroom sounded forlorn.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
