Chapter 7
Clothes. Specifically, my clothes.
Even in his New York home, Mitchell often brought up the perverted rules of the villa and stripped off my clothes. He wanted to touch my body without any interfering pieces of cloth.
“Five, four, three…”
Although an answer immediately came to mind, I couldn’t bring myself to say it. As the MC started counting down, I became flustered.
“Um… clothes… clothes!”
I thought it would be fine as long as I didn’t say “Bae Geon-woo’s clothes”. I assumed Mitchell would also understand the hidden meaning and say it was correct.
“Clothes? Does Mitchell dislike clothes?”
At the MC’s question, I hurriedly added a reason.
“He says he hates choosing clothes. He claims he’s not good at coordinating stylish outfits. Right, Mitchell?”
I grabbed Mitchell’s arm and shook it, hoping he would agree quickly. Mitchell’s smile seemed uneasy, but fortunately, he said something normal.
“Yes. I dislike choosing clothes. That’s correct.”
“Ah! I see. But I think someone like Mitchell would look good in anything.”
When the MC complimented him, Mitchell waved his hand, pretending to be modest. If we had this conversation alone, his answer would have been quite different.
‘Someone like me looks good in anything. That’s obvious. I just find the act of choosing clothes bothersome. I’m not concerned about the result of my coordination.’
He might have even dragged me into it to finish.
‘And I, being like this, love you. I love you so much.’
Wouldn’t he have boosted my mood by adding that? It’s just a guess, but I was 99.9% certain.
“Thanks to you, we learned something new about Mitchell.”
As the potentially risky quiz seemed to be wrapping up, I quietly felt relieved. I was smiling contentedly as I watched the MC about to ask the next question, but Mitchell’s answer wasn’t over yet.
“It’s not just about coordinating clothes, I also dislike cumbersome things. So at home, I rarely wear clothes. I just wear underwear.”
“Wow! Really?”
The MC reacted enthusiastically, as if wanting to hear more. Mitchell’s smile deepened. Only I was subtly freezing up.
Shut up, you idiot.
Trying to stop him internally was futile.
“Yes. So when Geon-woo comes to my house, he’s sometimes surprised. But I still don’t wear clothes.”
“Oh my! I see. I think I can hear the screams of fans who want to go to Mitchell’s house right now. Haha.”
One of our closely guarded private matters had been unraveled like this. It provided a basis for people’s imaginations to run wild.
I tried hard to act as if it was nothing, pretending to laugh. I covered my mouth while laughing, thinking my expression management might be a mess due to my stiff mouth corners. I had to quickly join the conversation.
“That’s right. But Mitchell doesn’t pay attention to me even when I come over. He just does his own thing. So he doesn’t bother to put on clothes. I just play by myself and leave. Mitchell has a game console at his house. I go there to play that.”
“When did I ever not pay attention to you? I always beg you to come over. To play together.”
I had attached a rambling excuse, but Mitchell crushed my efforts and said what he wanted to say. He was doing this on purpose, knowing full well.
Your mouth… that mouth!
“You two indeed seem to get along well, as we’ve heard. Now, let’s give Mitchell a quiz. Okay, what’s an object Geon-woo likes?”
As soon as I heard the question, I tried to think of what objects I liked. Even I, the person in question, couldn’t think of anything immediately, but Mitchell answered faster than me.
“He likes massagers.”
The massager Mitchell was talking about wasn’t what ordinary people would think. Although the actual massager I gave him was used in strange ways, he wasn’t talking about a machine now.
He was referring to his own thing.
“I want you to massage my butt.”
I had once said such a crazy thing. On that day when I desperately wanted to roll around intensely with Mitchell, I had asked him to do me as soon as he returned from going out.
Since then, Mitchell often told me to get a massage. And of course, his thing was the massager.
I quietly swallowed and then quickly nodded.
“That’s right… I like massagers. More accurately, massage chairs. I recently bought a full-body massage chair, and it’s really great. These days, I can’t get off the massage chair.”
Have I even used a massage chair once?
Since I only live at Mitchell’s house, I don’t have a reason to go to my own house. Far from enjoying it, the massage chair had been neglected for months.
“That’s correct.”
I had become quite good at lying, so I spoke smoothly without any hesitation.
“Oh! As expected, Mitchell got the quiz right too. We’ll give both of you gifts.”
The enjoyable conversation, during which only I was drying up inside, was somehow nearing its end.
“Lastly, could you each give one compliment to the other?”
“Um, I think Mitchell is the most handsome person in the world. That’s by my standards.”
“Ah, I think that’s true even from my perspective.”
Even the MC immediately agreed, so Mitchell’s looks must be a common topic, but I still felt the need to praise him as the best directly with my own mouth on the broadcast.
I thought I could somewhat quell his not-quite-threats about revealing our relationship. I deliberately called Mitchell the best in the world. It meant that since he’s the best, he should lose interest in potential rivals. It was a statement I made with some courage on my part.
But Mitchell, this bastard, this damn guy.
“A compliment for Geon-woo… Ah, he doesn’t have bad sleeping habits. I like that.”
“…”
“…”
I was anxious thinking that Mitchell might drop a bomb someday, but I thought, he’s human too, would he really?
But maybe he wasn’t human.
In that moment, the atmosphere in the studio froze, then burned hot, and finally ended in an awkward silence. Not knowing what to say, I laughed with my face covered to break the silence, trying to act as if it was nothing.
“Ah… It seems Mitchell has slept with Geon-woo many times. Does he not have any sleeping habits?”
Thanks to the MC’s desperate effort, we barely got past the risky question. I tried to relax my expression as much as possible and added an explanation as if acting.
“After finishing filming, we’ve had a few times where we had a drink at Mitchell’s house and passed out right there. He sleeps quietly and even cleans up the house before leaving. You’re talking about those times, right?”
“…Those times?”
Human. Say yes.
My lips were trembling, afraid he might blurt out something unnecessary. Fortunately, Mitchell was savagely crazy, but not completely insane.
“Ah, those times.”
“Yeah, those times. Haha. Mitchell is really clean. There’s not a speck of dust in his house.”
Ahahaha.
I laughed even though it wasn’t funny. I wanted to cry, but what came out was laughter.
Actually, I couldn’t just blame Mitchell. This is all because Mitchell loves me too much. His struggling to have me all to himself was somehow both touching and pitiful.
Mitchell, who thinks of me enough to overturn his lifelong career.
I should hug him a lot when we get home.
After punching his mouth first.
I could laugh it off because I love Mitchell too much as well.
Of course, after punching his mouth quite a bit.
The long, long recording ended as the MC started with, “Unfortunately…”. Although it was so chaotic that I didn’t know how the situation was unfolding, I thought I had managed to handle it somewhat.
However, that was just my own thought. I had completely forgotten that fans are people who create something out of nothing.
***
“Isn’t this really strange?”
Even when I asked with a serious expression, Mitchell just shrugged his shoulders without agreeing.
“Look at this. They’re taking pictures of us wherever we go. If they’ve caught us going to the convenience store at 3 AM, haven’t they caught everything? This person knows all of our schedules.”
“They’re not knowing the plans, they’re probably just camping out in front of the hotel.”
“That’s even more serious!”
“Anyway, we’re going to America tomorrow. Surely they won’t follow us there?”
America is indeed Mitchell’s territory that he controls. All the connections and institutions he knows work for Mitchell.
As an example, we’re experiencing an astonishing level of paparazzi as soon as we arrived in Korea. I realized anew in Korea that the relatively stable days we spent in America were all under Mitchell’s control.
Dissatisfied with Mitchell’s nonchalance, I glared and spat out one more word.
“Well, you’re the one who likes me for being entranced by massagers and having no sleeping habits.”
Because of Mitchell’s remarks, countless rumors were circulating. Especially on social media, talks about our relationship were in full swing. Every glance was given meaning, and the true meaning of our words was twisted into something sticky.
A promotion committee to make us a couple even formed. Of course, it was probably something like a joke on social media, but it gained over 100,000 followers in just a day after the broadcast.
It seemed to be an account created by a persistent fan who had followed us until dawn. With high-quality, well-taken photos, our posts would inevitably go up whenever we went out.
I could understand multiple people uploading various photos, but what was uncomfortable was that this problematic account followed us as if knowing our 24 hours in detail and posted on the internet.
I wasn’t asking Mitchell to solve it, but I wished he would recognize the seriousness like I did. However, Mitchell not only didn’t care, but he even enjoyed it.
As if saying, spread more, more.
“Why? It’s just funny. Geon-woo, does it bother you that people are shipping us?”
“It’s not that it bothers me. I’ve told you several times. We shouldn’t reveal our relationship.”
“Then, just keep quiet about that and don’t get caught. Whether people discuss our relationship or not. Whether they identify us as lovers or not, we can live without caring about it.”
“Right. But I’m worried about what if the truth gets out somehow.”
“That won’t happen.”
“Even though it’s come to this?”
“Yeah.”
“Even though that stalker-like person is following us so closely?”
“Absolutely not.”
There’s nothing more reliable than Mitchell when he’s certain. Mitchell was a person who had that power. I naturally felt reassured. Until just before I checked the phone alarm that had just rung.
“This, crazy person…”
I was following the problematic stalker account. I wanted to directly monitor in case they uploaded any strange photos, and just now, a post went up.
One sentence written below a photo of a plane ticket to America.
[Going back to America]
This bastard is following us to America.
I don’t know who it is, but it seemed they were trying to keep pushing us together.
I had gathered a few hints because they had been taking our photos so closely. The persistent paparazzi has an incredibly high-performance camera and good photography skills. And it’s a man. He always put his initials in the top left corner of the photos he took.
“They won’t be able to take our photos in America. Right? You’ll stop them.”
I was worried, but I naturally believed that Mitchell would solve it.
“For now, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of everything. Nothing will happen.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s just that there are more photos of us on the internet. That’s all.”
“…”
“You just need to love me.”
“…Okay.”
Strangely, I found myself agreeing.
Ignoring the bothersome person, I decided to just love Mitchell.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
