Chapter 192
Eunseong cooked in silence. He chopped vegetables, minced meat, and stir-fried them with rice. He covered the fried rice with a blanket of thinly spread egg.
“Would you like ketchup? Or just pepper?”
“…Just pepper.”
“…”
Eunseong deliberately kept his head down. He could feel Yoo Siwoon’s gaze fixed intently on him as he cooked. The gaze on his nape caressed his cheeks, his earlobes… that persistent, sticky, heated gaze that seemed to lick his lips. Eunseong hid his lips by biting them, not allowing Yoo Siwoon even a glimpse.
When Eunseong finally looked up, the gaze that had been watching him was nowhere to be found. Yoo Siwoon was looking down, staring blankly at the empty table.
Eunseong placed a plate of omurice in front of him. He brought a fork and spoon. Then Eunseong took his own portion and sat at the farthest spot from him.
Just like the beginning.
Everything had returned to how it was at first.
The physical distance, the awkward conversation, even the furtive glances examining each other.
“…Thank you for the meal.”
Yoo Siwoon said quietly and picked up his spoon. He ate the omurice Eunseong had made slowly, one spoonful at a time, with careful hands. Eunseong glanced at him as he ate silently, and picked up his own spoon.
The meal ended quickly as they ate without speaking. Yoo Siwoon, who had kept his eyes fixed on the table throughout, raised his head. Eunseong knew he was looking at him but pretended not to notice.
“I told Director Nam that you should move.”
“…”
“Did you perhaps not hear? That it would be better for you to move to the penthouse.”
“…”
“There won’t be any dangerous incidents like last time. You don’t need to worry. If you’re afraid of something… you don’t have to be.”
Yoo Siwoon thought Eunseong wasn’t leaving because he was afraid of being kidnapped again.
Eunseong wasn’t afraid of them at all. They couldn’t lay a finger on him. The most important thing for producing a god who came through the byway was Eunseong’s body. Of course, there was the issue of breeding, but in any case, they would do anything for Eunseong’s safety.
Moreover, whether by right or wrong methods, he wasn’t afraid because he was confident that Yoo Siwoon would protect him if anything happened to him. He knew too well that Yoo Siwoon wouldn’t tolerate anyone touching Eunseong.
That was this man’s obsession with him. Persistent and terrible… and even pitiable, a blindness that would risk his own life.
“…I heard there are young breeders. The enforcers said they would wait until those children grew up and then mate them with me.”
Eunseong said this as if testing him, asking if he still wanted to send him away despite such talk.
“That won’t happen.”
“Why not? Because you killed them all?”
Eunseong raised his face. He stared directly at Yoo Siwoon. Their gazes tangled in mid-air as if emotions were colliding. Yoo Siwoon rubbed his face once and answered.
“If I had done such a thing, neither Director Nam nor Lee Joon-seung would have left you here by my side.”
“…”
Eunseong’s heart plummeted with a thud.
Yoo Siwoon knew about Eunseong’s plans with Director Nam. He knew everything and still let him go. Whether it was because he believed Eunseong would return, making him unafraid to risk his life, or because he truly didn’t want to live, Eunseong didn’t have the skill to gauge the inner depths of his heart.
What would have happened if he hadn’t returned?
If he hadn’t known about Yoo Siwoon’s predicament, Eunseong wouldn’t be here now. He would be living under the sky on the opposite side of the earth, trying to accept their separation, resenting him.
“I didn’t kill them. Though I wanted to.”
Eunseong had heard and knew this. He had heard that Yoo Siwoon didn’t kill those children but made them lose their reproductive abilities. Director Nam also regretted misunderstanding him.
“It seems I wasn’t crazy enough about you to do something like that.”
“…”
“Thank you. That was delicious.”
Yoo Siwoon stood up with his crutch. His limping, uncomfortable back view soon disappeared from Eunseong’s sight as he left the dining room.
∞ ∞ ∞
Having finished preparing for work, Yoo Siwoon grabbed his crutch before leaving the room. He placed the crutch on the floor first before stepping with his uncomfortable right leg, then moved forward. When he entered the living room, Director Nam was just pushing in a wheelchair.
Yoo Siwoon sighed in exasperation.
“Were you serious?”
“An owner who survived a terrorist attack and comes to work in a wheelchair, though alive and well, would greatly boost employee morale.”
“I have no desire to play to the media with such a show. Besides, I have no problem walking.”
Yoo Siwoon walked quite skillfully with his crutch toward the dining room. As he claimed, his steps, though relying on the crutch, were firm, and his back was straight, giving no impression of being injured.
Yoo Siwoon leaned his crutch against one side of the island table and took out coffee brewing equipment. He ground the beans and boiled water.
Director Nam stubbornly brought the wheelchair to Yoo Siwoon’s side as he returned to his daily routine.
“Please sit while you’re doing that. In case you fall.”
“It’s not that bad. If I sit in a wheelchair in this condition, that would be fraud.”
“…”
As if uneasy about him moving without a crutch, Director Nam once again recommended the wheelchair, saying he’d feel better if Yoo Siwoon sat.
Director Nam thought Yoo Siwoon’s injury was his fault. But that wasn’t all. Director Nam had doubted him. He didn’t trust him. Instead of trusting Yoo Siwoon, he believed Lee Joon-seung’s words. He had concluded that Yoo Siwoon was trying to kill the pre-pubescent boys of the Seongha family, that the state Yoo Siwoon was in at that time made him capable of such acts.
That’s why he had tried to send Eunseong to a place where Yoo Siwoon could never find him again. He had tried to separate them. Despite whatever plausible reasons he gave, he had ultimately tried to betray Yoo Siwoon. If Eunseong hadn’t decided to return first, that betrayal would have been carried out, and Yoo Siwoon would have died at the hands of enraged fanatics.
Because of him, Yoo Siwoon had nearly died. He could have died.
Every time Director Nam recalled this fact, cold sweat broke out on his forehead and spine, making his entire body chill.
“Do you have something to say to me?”
“…What?”
“You’re staring so intensely. Is this a silent protest about why only I get promoted and when will you get promoted?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
Director Nam raised his voice unnecessarily to Yoo Siwoon’s irrelevant remark. He turned his head away from his piercing stare.
Not knowing he had been betrayed, not knowing he hadn’t been trusted until the end, not knowing he had almost died because of him.
Yoo Siwoon was casually making jokes.
“…Are you really not going to use the wheelchair?”
“If you’re telling me to commit fraud against the whole company, well, I’ll give it a try. Getting sympathy would be good for me, wouldn’t it?”
He ground the coffee beans, brewed coffee, and limped toward the display cabinet. Director Nam watched anxiously, not knowing whether to support him or not, with uncomfortable gestures whenever Yoo Siwoon moved without a crutch.
“Didn’t the doctor say you could run again if you diligently received rehabilitation?”
“…”
It was a hint not to overreact, uncharacteristic of him.
“I don’t understand why you keep acting like this when I say I’m fine. It’s very burdensome. You should nag me instead.”
“…Actually, I have something to tell you.”
“…”
Director Nam approached Yoo Siwoon, who was standing uncomfortably brewing coffee, with a grave face. Then he bent one knee, then the other, kneeling on the floor.
“What are you doing?”
“I doubted you, CEO. I believed that you were trying to kill the pre-pubescent boys of the Seongha family, that you had hired someone without my knowledge.”
“You thought I solicited murder?”
“…I’m sorry. Even with ten mouths, I have… nothing to say. Please forgive me.”
Director Nam placed both hands on the floor and prostrated himself. It was similar to how Seo Jeong-gi had knelt and bowed before him. Yoo Siwoon looked down at him.
“I must have seemed out of my mind in your eyes for you to think I would do such a thing.”
“…”
He had doubted him because that’s how it appeared. Director Nam believed that when it came to Eunseong, Yoo Siwoon was incapable of rational judgment and might do anything. His intention had been to prevent Yoo Siwoon’s corruption, but betrayal was still betrayal.
“I’m glad the misunderstanding has been cleared up now.”
“…I’m sorry, CEO.”
“This is quite a situation ripe for misunderstanding if someone were to see.”
Yoo Siwoon implied that if Eunseong saw this, he would misunderstand again. Director Nam, who had no such intention, hurriedly stood up, taking it as a signal to rise rather than as a deliberate attempt to give Eunseong one more reason to dislike him.
Just as Director Nam grabbed the table and was about to lift his knees, Eunseong came in.
“Ah, Eunseong. Good morning.”
“Hello.”
Director Nam greeted Eunseong with an awkward tone and quickly glanced at Yoo Siwoon.
Though Yoo Siwoon had seen Eunseong, he didn’t say anything and focused only on brewing coffee. Eunseong also gave him a glance before pretending not to notice and walking to the refrigerator to take out and wash an apple, which Yoo Siwoon had always prepared for him every morning. He sat in his usual place, crisply biting into the washed apple with its skin on.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
