128.
#All I Need Is You
Dawoon was taken aback when he finally understood the meaning behind Hayun’s words, which were accompanied by a gentle smile.
“Brother!”
It was nonsensical, considering Jeong Hayun wasn’t someone who could just laze around.
“I’ve decided not to trust anyone else,” Hayun added in a murmur as he opened the passenger side door of the car. Dawoon swallowed a sigh and quietly got into the car.
Could it be true? Was he really going to stick with him 24 hours a day? Although it seemed absurd, Hayun’s eyes were too determined to dismiss it as mere bluffing.
“How do you plan to stay with me constantly?” Dawoon asked as he watched Hayun get into the driver’s seat and start the engine. Hayun turned to look at him and smirked as if it wasn’t a big deal. However, he didn’t answer.
“I made a restaurant reservation. Is that okay?” he said, seemingly trying to change the subject. Realizing that pressing the issue now wouldn’t yield any answers, Dawoon just nodded and turned his gaze to the window.
“What about the postcard from Iceland?”
Dawoon flinched at the sudden question. He had bought postcards from each place he visited and sent them to Haram. Of course, he knew Hayun would see them too. It didn’t matter if Hayun knew, as he had sent the postcards when leaving each place.
The reason he felt uneasy was different.
“I felt a bit hurt,” Hayun added.
“That you only sent them to Haram, I mean.”
Dawoon hadn’t sent postcards to Hayun like he had to Haram. In truth, he had initially considered sending them to Hayun as well. His decision not to was a small act of revenge against Hayun for keeping the truth from him for so long.
“I guess I’m not even your brother anymore.”
Hayun’s voice dropped slightly. Wondering if he was really upset just because of the postcards, Dawoon turned to look at Hayun’s profile. Contrary to his words, his face showed no particular emotion.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Hayun said, taking a deep breath and turning to Dawoon.
“Whether I’m your brother or not. It’s meaningless anyway.”
Dawoon’s mouth went dry at these words. He wasn’t stupid enough to misunderstand what they meant. It seemed that through this incident, Jeong Hayun had clearly defined Jeong Dawoon’s significance to him.
“Still, I won’t change the family registry,” Hayun added in a slightly colder voice.
Dawoon bit his lower lip hard. He couldn’t hide anything from Hayun. In fact, one of the purposes of this return to Korea was to sort out the family registry. There was a big difference between being a member of the Haedo Group and not. He thought that if it wasn’t rightfully his, there was no reason to receive that share. It wasn’t that he wanted to be registered as Choi Seon-gyeom’s son either. Having lived as Jeong Dawoon all his life, the idea of becoming Choi Dawoon felt strange and undesirable. He wanted to stand alone as just “Jeong Dawoon,” not belonging to either side.
But Hayun had made it clear that this, at least, was not an option before Dawoon could even bring it up.
“Grandfather doesn’t know anything anyway. And I don’t intend to reveal it in the future. So you should pretend not to know either.”
He was telling Dawoon to keep the fact that Jeong Dawoon wasn’t Jeong Seo-hoo’s biological son as a secret between the two of them.
“I’m not confident I can lie.”
“I never said to lie. Just that there’s no need to say anything unnecessarily.”
Dawoon thought it was the same thing, but Hayun seemed completely unaware of the paper-thin difference Dawoon felt, so he just kept quiet. In any case, that wasn’t the important part.
‘How dare you look down on Hayun! Is there no one else to cling to that you have to go after your own flesh and blood!’
Would it matter to Grandfather if he and Hayun weren’t related? Would he allow Dawoon to be by Hayun’s side if he knew they weren’t blood relatives? No, definitely not. In the end, Dawoon would still be a thorn in Grandfather’s side either way.
Thinking about it that way, he wondered if there was any point in revealing the truth, as Hayun had said. While he didn’t have the confidence to lie if someone asked him directly, keeping his mouth shut wasn’t such a difficult task.
“Did you eat well while you were traveling? You seem to have lost some weight,” Hayun said, clicking his tongue and adding that Dawoon should have taken better care of his meals wherever he was. Dawoon stared at him in response.
Who was scolding whom? Hayun himself had lost so much weight that his facial features had changed.
“Sleep…” Dawoon began to speak, and Hayun turned to look at him.
“Do you sleep properly?”
It wasn’t just weight loss. Upon closer inspection, his eyes were bloodshot too. He had never looked this bad even when he had pulled all-nighters for work.
Instead of answering, Hayun just smirked and reached out to hold Dawoon’s hand. Dawoon scolded him to focus on driving, but Hayun ignored him.
“What if we get into an accident?”
“That might not be so bad.”
“…”
“At least I’d be ending my life with you.”
His words didn’t sound like a joke.
“I don’t like that, even as a joke.”
Dawoon turned his head away, as if not wanting to hear it, but a faint memory caught him.
‘How much do you have to love someone to want to die with them?’
He had asked Hayun this when he was in high school. It was a question born from the guilt of his parents’ accident and his inability to understand his mother’s choice.
‘If you truly loved someone that much, I think you could.’
Hayun had answered without hesitation. Back then, Dawoon had been afraid that Hayun might disappear, that if Hayun found someone he loved, he might make the worst choice like his mother. Who could have known that Dawoon himself would be the object of that love? He never imagined there would come a day when Hayun would say that he’d rather die together than let go of Jeong Dawoon.
“Don’t say such irresponsible things. What about Haram if you and I die?”
Dawoon muttered, resting his forehead against the window. He could feel Hayun’s gaze on him but didn’t turn around. He expected Hayun to say something like, “There’s Grandfather, isn’t there?” or “There are plenty of people to take care of Haram even if it’s not you or me,” but Hayun remained silent.
Dawoon closed his eyes as he watched the scenery passing by outside the window. In truth, Haram wasn’t the real issue. The thought of Jeong Hayun… of him disappearing from this world, made Dawoon’s heart sink. It hurt more than when he had heard the news of his parents’ deaths.
***
After dinner, they drove for a long time. Dawoon, who had been absently looking out the window, frowned when he noticed that the road signs seemed to be pointing towards a place other than Seoul.
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere we can be alone.”
Dawoon was surprised, having assumed they would return home. Judging by the direction the car was heading, it seemed to be towards Gangwon Province.
“You’re not really planning to lock me up somewhere where no one knows, are you?”
“That wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
It sounded so sincere that Dawoon’s face unconsciously hardened. Hayun looked at him and laughed, saying it was just a joke. What kind of joke was this eerie?
“Don’t go too far. You have to go to work tomorrow, don’t you?”
“I’m not going to.”
Another light response came back.
“I told you, didn’t I? That I’ll be with you all the time.”
Dawoon recalled what Hayun had said at the airport earlier. Thinking it must have been nonsense, he stared at him.
“I’ve realized it clearly this time.”
“Realized what…?”
“I don’t need anything else. All I need is you.”
How much of this was sincere? Was he really going to throw away the company and just protect him? Had he been hit on the head while Dawoon was away? It seemed impossible to reach such a conclusion otherwise.
He thought Hayun was saying this to intimidate him. There was no way Jeong Hayun could let go of the Haedo Group. He was a man who had lived for Haedo for over 30 years, from birth until now. Unlike Dawoon, who had always felt like an outsider. Even when he was at odds with his grandfather, he had thought about taking Haedo away from him entirely. It was unbelievable that he would now say he didn’t need any of it.
He might say this now, but once they arrived somewhere and had time, he’d turn on his tablet PC first to check on work. He might have taken a day or two off. But in the end, Hayun would return to his position. That’s what Dawoon believed. At least until then.
***
After driving for several hours, they arrived in Goseong, Gangwon Province. Passing through what looked like a real countryside village seen only on TV, they drove to the end of a road with sparse houses, where the car stopped in front of a U-shaped country house. The house, with its front entirely made of glass, was filled with an amber light from the inside.
Although it was his first time here, it wasn’t surprising that Hayun had acquired another vacation home. Hayun led the way and opened the front door. The inside was spotlessly clean, as if someone had already cleaned it. It wasn’t just about cleanliness; the furniture and household items looked so unused that it seemed the house might have been built recently.
“We’re going to live here from now on.”
Dawoon’s eyes widened at these unexpected words. They weren’t just here for a short rest, but to live here permanently? He wondered if he had misheard.
“Neither you nor I know anyone here. So there’s nothing to hold us back.”
The more he heard, the more confused he became. Was Hayun really suggesting they live in hiding in a place where they knew no one? Jeong Hayun? Dawoon could only let out a sigh.
“Take this.”
Before Dawoon could question what Hayun was thinking, Hayun handed him an envelope. Upon opening it, Dawoon couldn’t even sigh anymore. It was the property rights certificate for this house. In Dawoon’s name.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
