#27. Guiding Star (5)
“Something to talk about…… What would that be?”
I decided to play dumb for now.
It was unavoidable. The first reason was that I couldn’t be honest in front of the person involved, and the second reason was that the camera was on. Even if I had a hundred mouths, I’d have to put locks on each one.
Of course, Na Jihan was as straightforward as always. Even seeing my troubled face, far from backing down, he only came closer.
“Say it quickly.”
He began pressing me with a very confident attitude.
“That secret you can’t tell me, hurry up and spill it.”
“If I could spill it, it wouldn’t be a secret I can’t tell in the first place……”
Confessing wouldn’t work, but a public confession to the entire nation? I refused to debut with headlines like [Midnight’s Rookie Boy Group Member Opens His Heart to Same-Sex Member!].
That was the problem. Na Jihan’s expression had become extremely sulky. Once he starts being this petulant, he usually doesn’t back down easily.
‘What on earth made him so upset?’
I patted his shoulder soothingly like comforting a child who had candy taken away.
“We have to leave early tomorrow morning. Go to sleep early.”
“You’re moving from morning too, so why is it ‘go to sleep early’ instead of ‘let’s sleep together’?”
“Well, that’s……”
I was trying to step out briefly to avoid this uncomfortable topic. To escape the situation and think of an appropriate excuse.
I smiled awkwardly and subtly stepped backward toward the door. But despite my secretive efforts, Na Jihan strode toward me.
Before I knew it, my body was trapped between the door and Na Jihan’s body. It couldn’t help but be a very difficult situation. Because I couldn’t open the door and run away, and…… even in this situation, my heart was foolishly pounding away.
“I don’t understand.”
He whispered in a low voice.
“Why do I hate so much that there might be sides of you I don’t know? That would reduce the ways I can deal with your problems.”
His complaint-like words continued.
“You’re partly responsible for me being like this, Seowoo.”
“……”
No, maybe it’s not a complaint but a scolding.
“If only you didn’t embrace everything and hide instead of leaning on others when you’re in trouble. If only you weren’t the type to yield instead of saying unpleasant things or hurting others. Because I couldn’t become the exception to that……”
“Na Jihan.”
“So secrets don’t help between us. Neither do lies.”
Hot body temperature seeped into my caught shoulder, causing a stinging pain.
“I……”
I don’t think truth is the answer to every moment. Sometimes there are truths better hidden than revealed, and sometimes white lies are necessary even for the other person’s sake.
Jihan, what would you do if I liked you?
Unlike your heart that tries to protect me with goodwill and friendship, my affection is full of various impurities. Could you still be the same after seeing this selfish possessiveness and raw desire?
“I didn’t create secrets to push you away from me.”
It was quite the opposite. Because I couldn’t entrust the fate of our relationship to uncertain matters, I was relying on this friendship that had protected us for a lifetime.
I also hate a life without you. I hated even more the idea of not knowing new sides of you.
So you have no idea of my cowardice in not daring to gamble.
“Stop with the sophistry.”
Na Jihan smiled crookedly. His lips, raised on only one side, gleamed palely in the darkness.
“Yoon Seowoo, you’re too scared. You act as if I’m someone who would get tired of you and leave anytime. I’ve never once pushed you outside my boundaries in my entire life.”
It was an undeniable fact. Na Jihan had always been someone who drew me in, not someone who pushed me away or capriciously drove me off.
“Your flaws are only big to you; to me they’re nothing much. You waking up crying from nightmares? Being picky and often selective with food? Your father with his gambling debts piled like mountains occasionally lurking around you after your aunt passed away early?”
“……”
“What are you so afraid of hiding such trivial things that couldn’t even scratch the you I cherish?”
I am afraid. This one secret I’m holding is incomparably huge and radical compared to those things.
Dreaming of kissing you, wetting my underwear from dreams of you climbing on top of me and taking off your shirt, getting irrationally displeased at the assumption that you might like someone else, wanting to embrace you in a completely different meaning than before—such feelings……
Yes, such feelings might really make a terrible scratch between us.
“If you really want to stay close to me for life, don’t make secrets but get proof.”
Na Jihan said with emphasis on each word.
“I’ve seen you longer than your father, than your aunt, than anyone who’s touched your life. And I’ll continue to do so.”
I suddenly felt like arguing with him. I wanted to shift responsibility, saying it’s partly his fault that I hide my feelings for him like this.
That I can’t give up because you keep being affectionate to me. That I want to freely misunderstand the affection you give as the affection I want. That you keep giving me such opportunities, over and over again.
Even though I didn’t know what to say, it felt like I had to answer something. Just as I was struggling to speak.
“Jihan hyung. Seowoo hyung.”
My back resounded with knocking.
“Are you sleeping? That’s strange. You said you wouldn’t sleep yet……”
Startled, I inhaled sharply. Na Jihan quickly pulled the flustered me to him. Our shoulders pressed tightly together, and his hair tickled my forehead.
“It’s okay.”
He pulled me close and patted my back. Then he changed positions and pushed me toward the center of the room.
Only then did space open up and the door opened. Hapil Jae poked his head out.
“Ah, as expected. What are you doing that you’re slow to answer? Did you two really fight?”
The hand that had been holding my body firmly let go. Even in that moment, I felt regret.
“Who said we fight?”
“Manager hyung. He saw us filming on the first floor earlier and said Jihan hyung would definitely be keeping Seowoo hyung awake nagging him, so he told me to bring this to stop you two.”
Hapil Jae casually showed what he was holding. It was the blanket we hadn’t managed to get earlier.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. If Jihan hyung makes you angry, don’t endure it and hit him. He doesn’t do it to others but seems like he’d take it without fighting back from Seowoo hyung.”
“Fight back?”
Na Jihan asked in a dumbfounded tone.
“Hit Yoon Seowoo? Does that make sense?”
“See? No, who said to hit him? It was you two fighting, so why are you looking at me like that?”
“……We didn’t fight.”
“If you didn’t fight, why were you two stuck to the door like that? It’s not like you’re some couple having a secret meeting avoiding cameras.”
“That’s……”
Now that he mentioned it, our position earlier was exactly like what Hapil Jae described. It was fortunate it was in a position the cameras couldn’t catch.
“Anyway, if Jihan hyung bothers you, come sleep in our room. We have one extra bed.”
Na Jihan quickly answered instead of me.
“He’s not going. I’m going to make Yoon Seowoo sleep next to me.”
“Oh my, yes yes. Do that. Just live attached to each other.”
Hapil Jae added some nagging about sleeping early and shuffled out. He seemed relieved after confirming we really hadn’t fought.
Since being alone would probably lead to repeating our earlier conversation like a broken record, I tried to naturally follow him out, but……
“Where are you going?”
Na Jihan grabbed my arm.
“Didn’t you hear what I just said? I said I’m making Yoon Seowoo sleep next to me.”
“Without even asking Yoon Seowoo’s opinion……”
“I’m asking now. Won’t you sleep next to me?”
“……”
“Do you prefer sleeping with someone else?”
“You really, the way you talk……”
Making it easy to misunderstand, making me want to misunderstand, and then making me weak in the end.
As I hesitated and turned around, he gestured toward the bed.
“It is late. I’ll let you sleep peacefully today, so don’t go spinning around somewhere else for no reason.”
Having reached such a moderate compromise, we lay side by side on the bed.
While I burrowed into the inside of the blanket, Na Jihan, who had finished preparing for sleep and returned, settled beside me. When I tossed and turned because the high pillow was uncomfortable, he casually offered his arm.
“Here.”
“……”
“Just use it as a pillow. If you rustle around all night because it’s uncomfortable, that’ll bother me more.”
So he knew I had been tossing and turning all of yesterday.
There was no good in disturbing his sleep. I obediently chose to use his arm as a pillow instead of the pillow. As the distance grew closer, his ticklish breath and subtle body scent reached me.
“My habits keep getting worse because of you.”
“What are you talking about?”
Na Jihan laughed quietly. His laughter became vibration that flowed through his arm and into me with a tingling sensation.
“I wish your habits would get a bit worse. Pretending to be attached and then cooking you whole in one bite.”
“……”
“Then you wouldn’t scheme while hiding this and that.”
“……I won’t hide it forever.”
I said like making an excuse, and like making a promise.
“There are secrets in the world, but no eternal secrets.”
So someday an appropriate time to confess will come. When my heart becomes less heavy than this. When my fear has shrunk a bit in size.
When the day comes that I can sum it up in one joke-like sentence—”I used to like you”—I’ll casually hand you this secret as if it were a clumsy mishap from my youth.
“Right.”
Na Jihan said as if he’d compromise to that extent today.
“I’ll be by your side then too.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
