Chapter 10

Down the hall in the master bedroom, Je-hee was having no better luck falling asleep.

He had brought Si-woon home a second time. If the first invitation could be chalked up to a late-night impulse out of concern for the man’s safety, repeating it was much harder to defend as purely practical. Of course, he had no intention of taking advantage of a tired guest under his roof—seeing Si-woon drag himself through dawn shifts on three hours of sleep genuinely hurt him, and giving the man a quiet bed to rest in was happiness enough.

“…He doesn’t think I’m trying to pressure him, does he?”

On the first night, sheer disbelief that Si-woon was in his apartment had crowded out every other thought. Tonight, lying in the dark with only a wall between them, his imagination strayed toward possibilities he had no business entertaining—while a more foolish part of him felt a twinge of deflation at how calmly Si-woon had accepted the invitation. “So he really doesn’t see me that way at all,” he muttered into his pillow.

What had he expected? He claimed he didn’t want to burden Si-woon with his feelings, yet secretly wished the man would see through his careful restraint. Nor was it merely physical desire keeping him awake: what he craved was to hold Si-woon in his arms, to trade unhurried stories in the dark until they drifted off side by side, to become a safe harbor where a man who had carried the world on his shoulders for far too long could finally put his guard down.

He is letting me in, though—little by little. From the aloof, exhausted stranger in the outdoor parking lot in Naeju to the man sleeping down the hall in Je-hee’s own spare pajamas, the distance between them had undeniably narrowed. “If I truly stood zero chance, I would have given up by now,” Je-hee murmured to the ceiling. Si-woon was polite, yes, but he had a quiet stubbornness and sharper instincts than he let on; he wouldn’t keep coming back to the home of someone he disliked. That alone was reason enough to keep hoping.

* * *

Over the weeks that followed, staying over at Je-hee’s apartment after a late drive gradually became an established routine between them. Where the first night had left Si-woon stiff with hesitation at the front door and awkward over every good-night, the younger man now moved through the hallway with quiet familiarity, and on weekend mornings when neither of them had to rush out at dawn, they even shared breakfast.

One Saturday morning, after evidently weighing how to repay Je-hee’s hospitality for days, Si-woon surprised him by speaking up first: “If you don’t have plans right away… would you like to grab breakfast together? My treat.”

Having accepted before the sentence was even finished, Je-hee sat across from him at a neighborhood hangover-soup restaurant a short while later, looking over their steaming bowls of spicy pork-bone soup with a bright smile. “Remember that peppermint tea voucher you sent me a while back, Si-woon-ssi?”

“Ah, yes. Did you enjoy it?”

“I haven’t used it yet, actually. I didn’t have anyone I wanted to go with.” Pausing a beat, Je-hee met his eyes across the table. “Would you go to the café with me today, Si-woon-ssi?”

Cough!

Choking violently on a mouthful of hot chili broth, Si-woon doubled over with a hand clapped to his mouth. “W-water, please—ghk.”

Alarmed, Je-hee hurriedly poured a cup of cold water and slid it across the table. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to startle you like that.”

“No, cough—I’m fine.” Pressing a palm to his stinging throat, Si-woon took the second cup of water Je-hee refilled for him and drained it in one go, his ears burning as brightly as if the water had done nothing to cool him down.

Handing a stack of napkins across the table, Je-hee bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing aloud. He has to know I’m flirting with him by now, right? Did he really need to choke like I just proposed marriage? Si-woon himself had been the one to suggest breakfast that morning, yet the moment Je-hee mentioned going to a café together afterward, the man had reacted as if a bomb had gone off in his soup bowl. I genuinely have no idea where his boundaries are. Sleeping under the same roof and eating hangover soup together at nine in the morning were fine, apparently, whereas visiting a café crossed some invisible line.

“So… you can’t come to the café with me?” Je-hee asked, setting his spoon down with a light sigh.

“…I’m afraid that might be difficult today,” Si-woon murmured, his gaze fixed on his bowl.

“Well, if you have errands to run, I can’t keep you.” Je-hee gave a small shrug. Si-woon had invited him to breakfast of his own accord; for today, he would have to count that as a win. Still, he couldn’t resist adding a tiny push as he folded his napkin. “I really was saving that peppermint tea so I could drink it with you, though. What a shame.”

Across the table, Si-woon visibly flinched, his ears turning darker red as he avoided Je-hee’s eyes. Suppressing a grin—how can a grown man this tall be so ridiculously cute?—Je-hee decided not to tease him any further; the goal was to coax Si-woon closer, not make him miserable. “I was only teasing—” he began lightly.

“I’m not busy. Let’s go get coffee,” Si-woon blurted out, cutting him off.

Je-hee nearly laughed out loud. Would you look at that. Maybe he really was getting the hang of taming this stubborn man. “What made you change your mind all of a sudden?”

“Just… because.”

Smiling at the transparent non-answer, Je-hee followed him out of the restaurant. Si-woon would guard every boundary like a fortress until the final second, only to fold the instant he thought Je-hee might actually be disappointed. Little by little, Je-hee was learning how to read the quiet language beneath that stoic exterior.

Once they were seated at a quiet corner table in the café with their drinks between them, Je-hee looked at Si-woon’s hands wrapped around his mug and felt a sudden surge of recklessness. “Si-woon-ssi.”

“Yes?”

“When can we see each other next?”

With his cup raised halfway to his lips, Si-woon froze, blinking twice as a flush crept up the tips of his ears. There was no mistaking the personal weight behind the question now.

Before his caution could stop him, the words Je-hee had swallowed for months slipped out. “Couldn’t we… try getting to know each other a little more personally?” He had promised himself to wait, yet Si-woon’s sudden relenting over the café had opened a tiny crack in the door, and Je-hee couldn’t stop himself from reaching through it.

“Ah, well…” Si-woon’s lips trembled slightly as he lowered his mug.

Taking a hurried sip of his peppermint tea to wet his dry throat, Je-hee barely registered the scalding heat burning the roof of his mouth, his gaze fixed entirely on Si-woon’s lowered eyes.

“…I don’t think we can,” Si-woon said quietly.

Having half-expected a refusal didn’t make the words sting any less when they came. Worse than his own disappointment, however, was the stricken look on Si-woon’s face—as though delivering the rejection hurt him every bit as much as receiving it hurt Je-hee.

I rushed it and ruined everything. Lowering his gaze to the table, Je-hee heard apologies tumble from his own mouth before he could organize his thoughts. “Could you pretend I didn’t just ask that? No—that’s not fair to you either. I’m sorry for putting you in an awkward spot.” Forcing a brittle smile, he reached for the check. “Shall we… head out, then?”

After they parted ways outside the café and Je-hee walked down the block alone, he ducked into a designated smoking booth and let out a long breath. “Haa…”

Placing an unlit cigarette between his lips—though he had barely touched tobacco in weeks—he stared out through the glass panel. What on earth was he supposed to do about a man that stubborn? He hadn’t asked Si-woon to hand over his life story or let Je-hee fix all his problems—only to let him take one step closer than client and driver. Yet the moment he voiced that wish aloud, the door had slammed shut in his face.

He had dated before, of course, but he had never encountered anyone remotely like Seo Si-woon. If the man simply felt nothing for him, Je-hee could have nursed his bruised pride and walked away cleanly. The maddening part was how unmistakably gentle—and how genuinely pained—Si-woon had looked even while turning him down.

I screwed up. Today, Je-hee had only his own impatience to blame. After vowing for months to move at Si-woon’s pace, he had pounced on the very first sign of softness and scared the man back into his shell. “Will I ever even see him again after this?” he muttered into the winter wind. Wanting to become someone Si-woon could lean on had been easy; figuring out how to cross the wall around him was another matter entirely.

* * *

“Ugh…”

A splitting headache dragged Je-hee back to consciousness, the bedroom ceiling spinning even before he lifted his head from the pillow. His throat felt as though it had been scoured with sandpaper. He hadn’t suffered a hangover this vicious since his twenties.

Had yesterday’s client dinner gotten out of hand because he was still brooding over Si-woon’s rejection? Once the rounds of bomb shots started, he hadn’t bothered pacing himself, and everything after the restaurant was a muddled blur. He vaguely recalled pulling out his phone on the street to call Si-woon out of sheer drunken habit, though trying to piece together how he had made it into his own bed only made his stomach churn.

Wait—what is that?

Beside his pillow sat a rustling black plastic convenience-store bag. Reaching out a heavy arm without lifting his throbbing head, Je-hee tugged the bag open, sending half a dozen small bottles rolling across the mattress.

“…Hovenia dulcis tea? Hangover tonics?”

No wonder the bag had felt so heavy; there was practically one of every hangover remedy sold on the shelves. Letting out a long, hollow breath, Je-hee pressed the heel of his palm against his forehead. He could barely remember crossing his own threshold last night, let alone stopping by a convenience store. There was only one person in the world who could have left this bag beside his bed.

“What on earth did I do last night…?”

He strained to reconstruct the missing hours, and while scattered fragments surfaced and vanished like debris in dark water, none of them settled into a coherent sequence. How humiliating—at thirty-four, after wanting so badly to seem like a dependable older man Si-woon could rely on, he had gotten himself blackout drunk and forced the man he had just confessed to into playing caretaker. It would be a miracle if Si-woon didn’t block his number outright after this.

Crack—hiss.

Pushing himself upright with a groan, Je-hee twisted the cap off one of the herbal tonic bottles. Embarrassing or not, without Si-woon’s quiet thoughtfulness he would have spent the entire day too sick to crawl out of bed. Just as he lifted the bottle to his lips, however, two fragments of spoken memory flashed across his mind with chilling clarity.

“Si-woon-ah…”
“Come here.”

Je-hee went dead still, the open bottle suspended halfway to his mouth. Wait. What did I say?

* * *