Chapter 162
Hyeon-woo recalled how Tae-geon’s gaze, when looking at him, would often be tinged with despair and resignation, like a convict sentenced to death.
Did he have such an expression because he thought I would one day plunge a knife into his heart?
Then he shook his head. Who could look at someone who was going to kill them with such eyes? A gaze that stirred with something strange, indescribable, beyond even the word ‘affection’.
Could those eyes really have been directed at someone who came for revenge?
He was confused. He already felt swayed by Tae-geon’s words and actions that didn’t add up.
The more he tried to discern the truth, the more his head throbbed. The shivering of his body, chilled with fever, had intensified even more than before.
Hyeon-woo wiped his sweaty forehead once again and gathered his mental strength to focus on the conversation.
“When was it? When did you imprint on me?”
Hyeon-woo’s voice was cold but trembling. Tae-geon, after a moment of silence as if searching his memory, finally answered.
“I’m not sure.”
Hyeon-woo frowned at this vague response.
“What do you mean? How can you not be sure?”
“Actually, I don’t remember what happened that day.”
Tae-geon’s brow furrowed slightly, seemingly frustrated himself. His gaze drifted to a distant point as if trying to sift through his memories, then quickly turned despondent. It seemed his efforts were futile.
“The day you ran away, I woke up in your bed with no memory of what happened.”
“…”
“After that, my rut started a month later.”
Ran away… It was just before winter break when he was twenty.
Hyeon-woo had thought it happened on one of those nights when he pretended to be K and rolled around with Tae-geon, but hearing that he woke up in his own room instead of a hotel, Hyeon-woo furrowed his brow.
Was there an incident where Tae-geon could have imprinted on him in that house where they lived together?
As Hyeon-woo retraced his memories, the image of a sapphire-blue potion suddenly flashed in his mind. He quickly recalled the scene of it being mixed into soybean paste soup by his hand, followed by Tae-geon appearing with a small dish of ketchup, sitting down and eating it with a spoon.
Thump-thump-thump.
His heart started racing uncontrollably. Even then, sitting across from Tae-geon and watching the soybean soup disappear into his mouth, his heart had been pounding madly like now. Because of guilt and remorse. And anticipation for what was about to happen.
Hyeon-woo’s eyes, now pale, began to shake uncontrollably.
There was a night when he had fed Tae-geon drugs he’d obtained from an establishment and spent the heat cycle together. It was a night of sin, writhing in guilt and pleasure, mixing bodies with Tae-geon who had lost his will and was driven only by instinct.
It was that night.
It must have been that night when Tae-geon imprinted on him.
A violent convulsion shook Hyeon-woo’s entire body as if struck by lightning. Sweat that had beaded on his forehead trickled down his temple. His pale blue lips trembled. His vision rapidly flickered between white and black.
He tried to gather his wits, but his consciousness scattered in multiple directions like bowling pins dispersing chaotically after a powerful strike.
“I’m the one who wants to ask,” Tae-geon’s voice continued, unaware of Hyeon-woo’s condition.
“Why did you help me through my rut?”
“…”
“Why did you-”
Thud.
A sudden dull sound hitting the floor interrupted Tae-geon’s words, making him raise an eyebrow.
“Han Hyeon-woo?”
But there was no answer.
“Han Hyeon-woo! Hyeon-woo!”
Tae-geon’s voice changed from puzzled to anxious as he called out repeatedly.
Tae-geon bent down low, frantically feeling the floor where the sound had come from. Finally, his fingertips brushed against something cold sprawled on the floor. The touch, devoid of any warmth, felt like touching a corpse, making Tae-geon’s hair stand on end and sending chills down his spine.
“Why…, why are you so cold…”
Tae-geon hurriedly pulled Hyeon-woo into his arms and began frantically rubbing his ice-cold body.
“Wake up! Hyeon-woo! Wake up, okay?!”
Through his fading consciousness, Hyeon-woo heard Tae-geon’s desperate cries calling for him. His voice was trembling as if facing something terrifying.
It was strange. To think he’d hear such a voice from Tae-geon. Or was he dreaming right now?
Numerous questions floated like buoys in his hazy mind.
Why are you calling me in that voice?
Why didn’t you tell me the truth about imprinting on me?
What’s the reason you bore all this alone?
But none of these managed to escape his lips.
Tae-geon’s voice anxiously calling for him eventually faded completely beyond his consciousness.
*
“It’s hypothermia.”
“…”
“It seems he was in a cold place for a long time wearing only thin pajamas.”
“…Pajamas…”
Tae-geon, who had been blankly repeating Hakgyu’s words after he finished treating Hyeon-woo, asked as if in a daze.
“Do you think this makes any sense?”
Hakgyu’s face turned bitter at Tae-geon’s voice, which sounded incredulous and empty.
“Someone collapsed from hypothermia right in front of me, and I didn’t notice anything. I feel like I’m going crazy with how pathetic I am!”
“…It couldn’t be helped.”
“He must have waited outside all day. In this cold weather, wearing only pajamas. Because I drove him out on my own… because of me…”
“…”
“He must have been standing in front of me with a face blue from the cold. I didn’t know. Even with Hyeon-woo’s trembling voice, I didn’t realize it was hypothermia…”
Tae-geon mumbled in a voice thick with self-loathing, then dropped his head to the floor. A terrible sense of helplessness washed over him.
“It’s painful…”
“…”
“This is the first time being unable to see has been so painful.”
When Tae-geon became certain that the identity of the employee who had been grating on his nerves was Hyeon-woo, along with a thrilling excitement, one question arose in his mind.
Why on earth was Hyeon-woo, whom he had searched for so desperately, here?
Tae-geon couldn’t think of any reason other than revenge for Hyeon-woo to approach him while hiding even his voice. Because otherwise, there was no way Hyeon-woo would appear before him voluntarily.
How did he find out I was here? Does he resent me, thinking the accident that took his parents was my fault? Is he trying to get back at me for ruining his life?
Whatever it was, it was fine. He was prepared to accept any pain Hyeon-woo would give him. However, this resolve was short-lived. As he spent more time with Hyeon-woo, things began to feel off.
Tae-geon sensed sincerity, not pretense, in the caring hands that tended to his injuries and in Hyeon-woo’s concern when he feigned illness due to a cold. And finally, when the story of his deceased parents flowed from Hyeon-woo’s lips, Tae-geon intuited that Hyeon-woo’s purpose for staying by his side was not revenge.
Hyeon-woo’s voice, saying he was happy with his current life, didn’t sound at all like someone facing the object of their revenge.
It might not have been a purposeful approach at all, but perhaps he had really drifted to this mansion without knowing anything. Maybe he had been caught up in his karmic debt once again by chance. Just like that spring day twenty years ago, when he was seven.
I need to send him away.
He had long since come to a conclusion about Hyeon-woo’s treatment, but he had been putting it off day after day, unable to act on it. Just one more day, just one more day. Postponing like this, he suddenly found himself on the brink of his rut.
Even knowing that Hyeon-woo had been helping him through his ruts, he had rationalized it as part of his revenge, but now he had to admit it. The possibility that, far from revenge, Hyeon-woo had simply helped him out of kindness, unable to ignore someone in pain.
He might have even felt guilty, knowing that he was the partner for the imprinting that entailed terrible pain. Given Hyeon-woo’s gentle and even foolishly kind nature, it was more than possible.
He couldn’t let Hyeon-woo get caught up in his sins again under the pretext of imprinting. Hadn’t he already lost too much because of him?
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
