Chapter 21

“And what difference,” Se-woong challenged, “would that make?”

It was hardly something he couldn’t speak aloud. All he had to do was tell the truth—that the man was simply his second older brother.

Yet Se-woong refused to speak those words to the end. Because what Shin truly wanted to hear wasn’t that Se-woong had nothing going on with his older brother, but that he didn’t like men.

A disbelieving scoff tore from Shin’s lips. “Ha. So you won’t deny it to the bitter end. Are you telling me there really is something between you and that bastard? You actually went out every weekend to meet him? To sleep with him?!”

Se-woong felt a taut, precarious thread right before his brow snap with a clean snap. The sensation felt akin to losing consciousness deep underwater—a severed thread, his body plummeting helplessly beneath the surface. It felt like sinking into a bottomless abyss.

By the time Se-woong regained his senses, both of his hands were clutching Shin’s face, kissing him with frantic desperation, ravenously sucking on his lips.

That had been their very first kiss.

As the memory drew to an end, the car glided into the entrance of the apartment complex.

Having finished parking, Shin glanced to the passenger seat to find Se-woong asleep, head tilted to the side. He wasn’t someone who fell asleep easily in cars, but the alcohol he had consumed to the point of drunkenness seemed to have taken its toll. Thinking this was rather fortunate, Shin unbuckled the passenger seatbelt. He then gently turned Se-woong’s face toward him.

Leaning his head back against the headrest, Shin quietly gazed at Se-woong. Se-woong himself likely had no idea—and Shin had no intention of ever informing him—but his eyelashes were strikingly long and graceful. Looking at those dark lashes casting long shadows under his eyes felt like tangible confirmation of how gentle and even-tempered he truly was.

Perhaps because that distant memory had resurfaced after so long, Se-woong’s face looked remarkably youthful tonight. Shin had assumed an eternity had passed, yet studying him closely, Se-woong remained entirely unchanged.

Back in those younger days, making a complete mockery of Shin’s relentless suspicions, Shin had been forced to accept that Se-woong was seeing no one. For anyone allegedly involved with someone else, Se-woong’s kiss had been unspeakably clumsy.

Recklessly shoving his tongue in and then struggling for breath, anyone could tell he was far from experienced. Yet absurdly enough, that clumsy, preposterous kiss had instantly quelled the boiling rage within Shin.

Shin brushed the tip of his thumb along Se-woong’s eyelashes. The sheer absurdity of having to hesitate before touching Se-woong coaxed a hollow chuckle from him. Merely gazing at those slightly parted lips stirred a gnawing parchedness inside his throat.

If he cupped the nape of Se-woong’s neck and lightly grazed the lower lip with his teeth, Se-woong’s shoulders would tremble before parting his mouth. Slicing past those lips to slide his tongue inside would elicit a soft, pained whimper from deep in Se-woong’s throat. Shin would deliberately mingle their saliva, grinding tongues together in a wet, heavy friction.

The messier the wet sounds grew, the deeper the crease would furrow between that neat brow. Shin had always loved watching that reaction. Groaning in troubled surrender while tentatively offering his own tongue to welcome the intruder, shuddering every time mucous membranes met—Shin could picture every detail vividly. Even without touching him now, the memory was etched into his senses. After all, they had done it thousands, tens of thousands of times.

Shin felt that continuing to hold back was utterly pointless. Not a single trace of this face had gone untouched by his lips, so what made them strangers just because he held himself back now? Suppressing his ravenous urge for Se-woong was sheer agony.

Yet he could not undo everything they had maintained just for a single kiss.

Fearing that he might truly lose his head and pounce on him just like Cha Se-woong had all those years ago, Shin hurriedly stepped out of the car.

Opening the passenger door, Shin called out, “Woong-ah. Let’s head up.”

Slowly opening his eyes, Se-woong blinked around in bewilderment. Where they were, whether this was a dream or reality, and if it wasn’t a dream, why Shin stood right before him—Shin could read every question flashing across his face.

Shin rested his arm against the open car door. “This is the parking garage at my apartment. You drank yourself to sleep and just woke up, and you’re still too drunk to drive. So we’re going up to my place to sleep, and we’ll head to work together.”

“Ah. Ah, right,” Se-woong muttered.

As if a hangover headache was already throbbing, Se-woong pressed his temples firmly before scrubbing his dry face with both palms.

Shaking his head, Se-woong unfastened his seatbelt. “No, I’ll just call a cab. I need to go home.”

“Why?” Shin asked.

“What do you mean, why?” Se-woong answered with a hollow sigh. “What reason do I need to go to my own place? I just want to rest my eyes comfortably at home, even for a little while, before heading in to work.”

Retrieving his coat from the backseat, Se-woong stepped out of the vehicle. The man who used to reluctantly yield whenever Shin dug his heels in clearly had no intention of indulging him tonight.

Smoothing down his rumpled coat, Se-woong added, “I’ll pick up my car another time. Go on up and get some rest, too. You can still manage a few hours of sleep at least.”

“Se-woong-ah, why did you drink tonight?” Shin asked quietly.

Swiping through his phone screen to hail a cab, Se-woong’s thumb froze. After remaining motionless for several seconds, he looked up, the corners of his lips curving into a faint, ambiguous smile.

“Just because,” Se-woong replied, his tone deliberately light. “I got chewed out by the Chairman today, so I felt a bit off. There was a lot of chaos at Camp Casey, too. In the end, I couldn’t even report back to headquarters. Anyway, see you tomorrow. Go inside and get some shut-eye.”

The effortless reply sounded exactly like a textbook answer prepared well in advance. Knowing full well there was more to it, Shin struggled to maintain his composure against the impenetrable wall Se-woong had erected. All that grueling restraint to hold back from kissing him, only for Cha Se-woong to push him away again like this.

Shin blocked his path with a rigid posture. “If you catch a taxi right now, it’ll take an hour to reach your place. Use that time to get more sleep here instead.”

“…I suppose so,” Se-woong conceded dryly. “Between friends, people crash at each other’s places all the time without making a fuss.”

Shin darted his tongue out to wet his parched lips. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hold back.

Taking a step backward, Se-woong offered a curt nod. “Still. Next time. Not tonight. Let’s deepen our bond—whether it’s friendship or comrade-in-arms camaraderie—some other time. I’m heading out first.”

In the end, Se-woong turned on his heel, showing his back. The steady click of his dress shoes echoing against the concrete floor grew steadily more distant.

After watching Se-woong leave in such empty defeat, Shin took the elevator up, only to find an all-too-familiar figure crouched before his front door. A sigh of sheer exasperation caught in his throat.

“What is it with today?” Shin muttered under his breath.

“Hi.”

Crouched uncomfortably on the cold floor, Young offered a brilliantly innocent smile.

Shin stared down at her with a deadpan expression. “Do you happen to know a reputable shaman? Because I need to get an exorcism talisman.”

“Hey, don’t be like that,” Young pouted.

It was well past midnight—hardly an appropriate hour for a married woman to be wandering around looking thoroughly plastered, even if it happened to be her younger brother’s apartment.

Shin had always assumed the steep monthly maintenance fee was worth every penny because of the strict visitor security, but evidently that wasn’t the case. Glancing at his phone once more, he found no notification of any guest arrival. Had she slipped past the lobby doors right on the heels of some delivery driver? As preposterous as the assumption seemed, with Lee Young it was entirely plausible.

Pausing before punching the passcode into the digital lock, Shin pulled his key card from his wallet instead. Young had always caused trouble far beyond anyone’s imagination, and there was no guarantee Shin wouldn’t become her next victim. As with most troublemakers whose brains functioned with uncanny brilliance only when causing disasters, this precaution was his sole defense against her memorizing the passcode and exploiting it for some outrageous stunt.

Whether aware of her brother’s precautions or completely indifferent, Young slipped right through the cracked door the moment it unlocked, freely wandering through the unfamiliar rooms.

“Wow, you’ve got quite the setup here,” Young exclaimed, peering into the living room. “Got a girlfriend? How is a bachelor pad this spotless?”

Starting with the refrigerator and flinging open every single cabinet door in the kitchen, she eventually unearthed a bottle of wine that even the homeowner had forgotten existed. She then proceeded to ransack the entire kitchen in search of a corkscrew. Then again, within Lee Young’s personal universe, the concept of ‘rudeness’ simply did not exist, making her intrusion hardly a surprise.

Rattling through the silverware drawer, Young grumbled, “What, no corkscrew? Why hold onto wine you aren’t even drinking? Hey, Lee Shin, do you know how to uncork wine without an opener? I saw it online once. What was it again… stick the bottle in a shoe and slam it against the wall?”

Anyone prepared to demolish drywall just to pop a cork could hardly be classified as sane. Yet people existing outside the boundaries of sanity were far more common than one might expect. The only tragedy was that this particular lunatic happened to be his older sister.

Massaging his throbbing temples, Shin demanded, “Just tell me why you came. Do you have any idea what time it is?”

Young perked up instantly. “Ah! Why did I come? Right!”

Abandoning the wine, Young yanked a can of beer from the fridge and raised an index finger dramatically into the air.

“Shin-ah, let’s buy an apartment in Paris under your name,” Young declared. “I’ll buy it under your name with my own money.”

Shin scoffed in sheer disbelief. “What absolute nonsense… Just go home.”

“Ah, whyyy?!” Young whined, stomping her foot. “I’ll only use it for a little while, so please? You can have it afterward! This is an insane win for you, seriously. I swear on all ten of my fingers.”

“Just what kind of stunt are you pulling now, noona?” Shin asked, his brow furrowing deep.

Young waved a dismissive hand. “It’s not a stunt! I just want to buy a place in Paris, but my husband is a public official, remember? Apparently prosecutors have to register all their assets or whatever. Do you have to do that too? You’re a public official, right? Anyway, if I register it under his name or mine, Dad will find out immediately.”

Gulping down the beer as if it were carbonated water, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her mournful gaze lingered on the uncorked wine, as though the light beer barely registered.

“I really just need it for a short while,” Young pleaded.

Shin crossed his arms over his chest. “Then look for a rental. Who do you even have in Paris that you’re throwing such a fuss to buy a whole apartment?”

“Just because…” Young mumbled, her voice trailing off.

Shin was utterly exhausted. He lacked the energy to indulge his sister’s childish drivel, and he possessed zero desire to entertain such preposterous nonsense. Even setting that aside, right now, Young was someone he wished he could scrub from his sight forever. Had she not been his own flesh and blood, he would have cut her off long ago.

“Just…” Young murmured, looking down at the beer can. “There was someone who said they couldn’t marry me because they didn’t have a house. I just wondered if having a place would let us play pretend, even for a little while.”

Shin scoffed, appalled. “You’re out of your mind.”

The entire process from Young and Se-gyeom’s arranged matchmaking meeting to their wedding had taken barely two months. They had rushed into it with such breathless urgency that some acquaintances were convinced it was a shotgun wedding. How much affection could have possibly taken root in so short a time? While some couples might fall in love at first sight and decide to marry instantly, one thing was indisputable: these two were certainly not among them.

“Then why the hell did you go through with that crazy marriage?” Shin challenged, his voice rising in anger. “Did you get married just to turn an innocent man into a laughingstock? What does that make Cha Se-gyeom?”

And what does that make me and Cha Se-woong?

Young took another calm sip of beer. “He knows everything too. He even told me he’d help find a way if there is one. He simply got what he wanted, and I needed marriage at that moment.”

Above all else, this was the hardest reality for Shin to swallow. Someone could pour ten years of devotion into another soul, wanting nothing more than that single person for the rest of his life, yet marriage remained utterly out of the question. Forget marriage—they couldn’t even utter the true nature of their relationship aloud in the light of day. Yet these two, purely because they were a man and a woman, had ostentatiously married and become husband and wife without a single shred of substance between them. To make matters worse, even as spouses, they casually granted each other permission to pursue outside romances as they pleased.

Because of their deranged farce, Shin was forced to keep his hands off Se-woong despite having him right at his side, condemned to stand by and watch him drift further and further away.

At this rate, won’t I be the one who loses my mind first? Sooner rather than later.