Chapter 199
Eunseong brought breakfast to Yoo Siwoon’s bedroom since he had difficulty walking after driving for a long time yesterday. It consisted of two slices of toasted bread, butter, jam, salad with dressing, and two boiled eggs. The coffee wasn’t drip-brewed but instant coffee, something Yoo Siwoon would never normally drink.
Seeing Eunseong bringing breakfast, Yoo Siwoon raised his upper body to sit up.
“I could have eaten outside.”
“Just say thank you if you’re grateful.”
“…Thank you.”
This was the ideal scene that Yoo Siwoon, who had called their relationship a marital bond, most desired. Having someone gladly become your hands and feet when you’re sick and need help. Finding it completely natural to care for each other.
Eunseong placed the tray on the bed tray. While watching Yoo Siwoon as he drank his coffee first, Eunseong noticed a gold ring on the side table and picked it up.
“What’s this? Is it yours, ahjussi?”
Eunseong asked as he slipped the thick ring onto any of his fingers. Yoo Siwoon took a sip of coffee and answered.
“A gold ring. There should be more of them around.”
“More rings? Do you like these?”
“I didn’t like wearing them every day, so I stashed them everywhere.”
“It’s really tacky. This isn’t your style at all.”
“I don’t plan to wear them anymore.”
“Was this part of your concept too? You said you wanted to look like a delinquent. I’ve seen people like gangsters in movies wearing things like this.”
Eunseong shook the ring on his finger. It was loose on his ring finger, loose on his middle finger, and even loose on his thumb.
“But why did you want to look like a delinquent?”
Eunseong asked as he approached and sat by the bed with the ring loosely on his finger. Yoo Siwoon moved slightly to the side to make room for Eunseong to sit comfortably.
“Because a lot of people underestimated me due to my handsome face. Around here, if you’re seen as easy to push around, you’re finished.”
“…”
“I’m not joking. Since you asked, there’s no need for me to lie.”
“You lied plenty before.”
“…That’s hitting where it hurts.”
Yoo Siwoon furrowed his brow as if he was genuinely hurt, but his lips formed a gentle curve.
Eunseong, who was sitting with his upper body leaning toward him, looked directly at Yoo Siwoon’s face. He stared as if examining a person for the first time, checking whether his face was indeed so handsome that it would be underestimated.
“…”
“…”
With their eyes meeting, they looked at each other, forgetting the initial intention of why they had been staring.
Yoo Siwoon’s head, which had been looking with a dazed expression, subtly moved closer to Eunseong. He approached as if to kiss him, but when Eunseong flinched, his face merely passed by Eunseong’s cheek. His gaze was directed at the gold ring loosely fitted between those fingers.
“It’s too big. I should get you one that fits perfectly and is prettier.”
Yoo Siwoon muttered in a low voice while fiddling with the gold ring that looked as if it had been casually slipped on, like a random loop.
“Why would a man wear a ring? That’s so tacky.”
“Is that so? Is it tacky?”
“It’s gaudy.”
As if disliking both the size, which was crudely large, and the rough design, Eunseong removed the ring from his finger and placed it on Yoo Siwoon’s palm. Yoo Siwoon gripped the ring tightly.
There would be no more need to wear such things, or to wear unwanted clothing or tattoos. Yoo Siwoon was finally realizing that by gaining Eunseong, he had become free from his family.
The paradox that the only way to escape from the group he loathed was to acknowledge and believe in The Great Crevice.
What would have happened if Eunseong hadn’t returned that day?
It would have been fortunate if he had died, but if he had stubbornly survived and confirmed with his own body how tenacious human life is…
Even though he had been prepared for a life without Eunseong, Yoo Siwoon couldn’t imagine what it would have been like. Though it was just a hypothesis, he couldn’t even imagine it. It was just darkness. A dark emptiness.
A void like prolonged hunger, desperately struggling to fill something while knowing that no matter what he ate or did, it could never be filled, only wishing for a quick death, for this meaningless life to end quickly, constantly moaning weakly in an abyss-like silence. At that time, Yoo Siwoon had no attachment to life whatsoever, enough for Eunseong to notice.
“But I still want to wear a ring. Then, would you choose a non-gaudy one for me? Not this one.”
“…Why should I choose something like that?”
Yoo Siwoon’s chest felt cold as it sounded like a rebuff, as if asking what kind of relationship they had that would warrant him choosing such a thing.
“Then who should choose it? Should I ask Director Nam to choose one?”
“What? Why would you ask Director Nam about such a thing?”
“Then who should I ask? Since you don’t want to choose for me, I should ask Director Nam.”
“Oh, fine, I’ll choose one for you. But I don’t have any money. Oh, money… I do have money.”
After initially saying he couldn’t buy it because he had no money, Eunseong suddenly remembered something. It was the escape funds Director Nam had given him.
He had said it was the death insurance money left by his biological parents when they died in the traffic accident. It was a lot of money for Eunseong. Enough that he wouldn’t need to be under Yoo Siwoon’s protection, enough to attend school, go to graduate school, study abroad, finish all his studies without taking out a student loan, and even have enough left over to buy a small apartment in the most expensive part of the city.
If he had seen it since childhood, it should have been given to him long ago. Recalling the memory of being slapped by a man while working part-time, Eunseong looked at Yoo Siwoon sullenly, even though it wasn’t as if Yoo Siwoon had been hiding the money all this time.
“You have money? What money?”
“…Why are you asking? Are you going to take it away?”
“Me? Hmm, I don’t know how much it is, but I don’t think I’d be particularly tempted.”
Yoo Siwoon was a bit surprised, though he had asked out of genuine curiosity.
Indeed, the amount would be negligible to Yoo Siwoon. He was the owner of a top-tier company in the business rankings, and a person with so much money that the assets accumulated through the cult were impossible to estimate. Eunseong recalled the gold bars that had been in every furniture drawer of the apostle’s summer and winter villas. Being a cult, they must have also extorted a lot of donations.
“I won’t tell you. There should be at least one thing about me that you don’t know.”
“Now you’re making me more curious. Should I summon Director Nam on a Sunday morning?”
“Don’t do that. Director Nam will have an existential crisis.”
“If you have a lot of money… how about buying me a ring?”
Yoo Siwoon placed the gold ring on the side table, as if saying he never wanted to wear such tacky things again, while expressing his desire to receive a ring from Eunseong.
“It depends on how you behave.”
“Why don’t you just buy me one?”
Yoo Siwoon grabbed both of Eunseong’s hands. He pleaded for Eunseong to buy him one while holding and playing with his small, fidgeting hands in his grasp.
“By the way.”
“Yes?”
“I’m curious about something.”
Eunseong broached the subject unexpectedly.
Eunseong was trying to ask deeply about the Yongse Pacheon Church.
How and why did they believe in him, what would happen to the child if one were conceived, how was a man like himself supposed to give birth in the first place—from Eunseong’s perspective, it was a story that was hard to comprehend. Yoo Siwoon tensed at the thought that he might ask for details.
“Yesterday, you talked about when we first met. You’ve mentioned it before too. When you came to Korea and first saw me. When we first met.”
“…Ah, yes. Right. That time.”
Contrary to his worry, Eunseong brought up something completely unexpected.
“You said you spoke to me then.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“What did you say?”
“Were you curious about that?”
“Yes… I’m curious. What we said when we first met. You were twenty-four, so I must have been ten, right?”
“Cough, ahem, *cough*.”
Yoo Siwoon choked and burst into a coughing fit at Eunseong’s sudden mention of age.
When he was twenty-four, Eunseong was ten. The gap between thirty-four and twenty was already a significant age difference, but the gulf between a college graduate adult and a ten-year-old elementary school student felt ten times larger, to an almost creepy degree.
“When you graduated from college, I was in elementary school… third grade at that.”
Eunseong seemed to have the same thought and teased the flustered Yoo Siwoon.
“…Hmm.”
“Twenty-four, ten. Elementary school kid, adult.”
“Hmm.”
“What did we say to each other back then?”
Eunseong asked as if genuinely curious. He leaned his upper body close to him as if urging him. He looked at him intently, pressing him to tell.
“What?”
“…”
“How did you come to want to protect me?”
While looking back at Eunseong, Yoo Siwoon unconsciously moved his head closer to give a light kiss on those lips. Eunseong subtly backed away, avoiding his contact.
The atmosphere became awkward as Eunseong hurriedly avoided him without realizing it, and Yoo Siwoon, who had approached instinctively, felt the back of his neck stiffen at the unexpected rejection.
An uncomfortable silence flowed. Then Eunseong asked, horrified by a scene that had just come to mind.
“…Don’t tell me that you… kissed me back then?”
“What?”
“Did you kiss me that day?”
Eunseong asked, aghast. He covered his lips with the back of his hand and backed away further, as if Yoo Siwoon’s attempt to kiss him unexpectedly was highly inappropriate.
“No, that’s ridiculous. No. I just did that unconsciously because you’re in front of me now, but back then, absolutely not.”
Yoo Siwoon strongly denied it, facing eyes that looked at him in discoloration, as if wondering what kind of person he thought he was. Still, those distrustful eyes continued to look at him suspiciously.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
