Chapter 44

By all rights, this argument belonged to Choi Yook. Yet if Seo Mu-yeong conceded defeat and retreated now, he would inevitably be forced to sever every avenue of approach to Choi Sijin and wash his hands of the matter entirely.

That could not happen. Seo Mu-yeong racked his brain with everything he had. If you didn’t know someone well, truly liking them should be impossible, but…

No—was it really impossible?

A flawless counterexample surfaced in his mind: the person he had known for a mere three years in childhood, whose very name he did not know, yet whom he still loved to this day. His yearning for his hyung was genuine. Arriving at that realization, genuine fury began to boil at Choi Yook’s words.

Liking someone without properly knowing them? Don’t make me laugh. Who is he to decide who’s qualified?

Even if he had wanted to know more about his hyung, he had been robbed of the chance—forcibly torn apart from him because of Choi Sijin.

Yet Choi Yook blathered on without knowing a damn thing, speaking with such callous composure. Having lived a comfortable life alongside his healthy younger brother, he even had the audacity to gripe about him. Possessing without effort what Seo Mu-yeong had so desperately yearned for, Choi Yook was truly drowning in undeserved blessings.

His heart throbbed painfully, and a humid heat flooded his skull. And that was precisely it: the sole weapon capable of striking back against Choi Yook’s claims.

Seo Mu-yeong seized Choi Yook by the collar. Clenching his fists and exhaling ragged breaths, he glared up at him.

“Does flaunting that in my face bring you that much joy?”

Surprisingly, Choi Yook did not shove him off immediately. Perhaps the assault felt too trivial to warrant an instant counterattack. Though his hands trembled, Seo Mu-yeong unleashed the words surging from deep within.

“You must be so blissfully happy, Section Chief, having lived with Sijin since the day he was born and knowing every little detail. But do you really have to know everything about someone to care for them? By that logic, no one on this earth could ever love anyone. Even you probably don’t know everything about Sijin. You know why?”

His chest burned and his throat tightened with searing heat. Even the rims of his eyes grew increasingly raw.

“Parents don’t know their own children. Husbands and wives don’t know each other either. Not a single person who walks into our center ever says, ‘I saw this coming.’ They all come in beating their chests because they were stabbed in the back and betrayed! You haven’t turned someone inside out, and you haven’t lived in their skin—so how can one human being ever truly know another?”

People say there are certain things in life you can never truly comprehend without living through them. Things like pregnancy, childbirth, and raising a child. A spouse’s infidelity and the mud-slinging brawl that follows. The military, war, disasters—even something as mundane as having a wisdom tooth pulled.

Yet even those trials can be shared with someone. Even if the circumstances are not identical, there are always others who have weathered something similar. Even someone who claims to be possessed by spirits can seek out a shaman for an exorcism rite or plead with a Catholic priest for deliverance. Stories like that are turned into dramas and films, watched by countless people.

Yet Seo Mu-yeong’s experience belonged solely to himself. Nowhere did anyone like him exist, and no one believed a single word he uttered. Seo Mu-yeong’s story could never be imparted to another living soul.

Then what of himself? What of someone living a life that no one could ever understand, whether directly or indirectly?

“Even if you don’t know everything, you can still love someone.”

Even if they don’t know me, I want to believe I can be loved. Even if I can never be fully understood, I want to believe someone will still love me.

“Even if you don’t know, you can still want to know them, want to see them, want to draw closer—you can feel all of that. Just because you call it fake, Section Chief, doesn’t mean feelings like that simply vanish.”

The narrative of his hyung became the narrative of Seo Mu-yeong, and the narrative of Seo Mu-yeong circled back into the narrative of his hyung. It could not be helped, for his hyung was already an indelible part of him. It was not something he could excise simply because he wished to.

“Sounds like absolute shit to hear, doesn’t it?”

Seo Mu-yeong fought to steady his ragged breathing. At the absurd realization that Choi Yook was the only person in the world he could ever say such things to, a brittle laugh forced its way past his lips.

“But what can I do? This is who I am.”

A fleeting silence hovered between them. Seo Mu-yeong held Choi Yook’s gaze with a hollow chuckle, while Choi Yook merely stared down at him with an impenetrable expression. What shattered the stillness was a man’s furious roar.

“Fuck! What bastards are having a lovers’ spat in the alley in broad daylight?!”

The man had stormed out in plastic slippers from the very villa Choi Yook had his back turned against, pointing an accusatory finger straight at Choi Yook.

“You think this is your damn bed… room…?” When Choi Yook merely stared at him in cold silence, the man stammered, hastily shrinking back, “Looks like I made a mistake. My apologies.”

The moment his eyes met Choi Yook’s, the man bowed with deep politeness and retreated back inside the building. Even as his eyes swept nervously all around him to the very end, he failed to detect Seo Mu-yeong’s presence entirely.

Choi Yook turned his head to look down at Seo Mu-yeong. The face that had only ever peeked through in glimpses whenever his fabricated masks slipped was now dyed with raw, turbulent emotion.

It was nothing like that clumsy semblance to the lost child. Nor was it like his usual habit of playing the fool. Beneath the bones and blood vessels of the human being called Seo Mu-yeong, it felt as though Choi Yook had finally captured the deep shadow the boy had struggled so desperately to conceal.

Mu-yeong (無影)—despite bearing a name that meant ‘shadowless,’ he had laid it bare at last.

The sight of him still unable to calm his trembling breaths pulled at Choi Yook’s gaze incessantly. Pupils darkened with unshed moisture, the flushed rims of his eyes and tip of his nose, the ragged breathing and rising chest—it all evoked an intensely erotic tableau.

In contrast to the patches of color blooming across his face, his neck was extraordinarily pale. Choi Yook wanted to wrap both hands around that pale throat, sink his thumbs into the hollows, and choke him. To make him let go of all his secrets and pretenses, to watch him thrash until the deep shadow no one had ever witnessed was laid entirely bare.

Such a sadistic urge rising to the surface was an unfamiliar sensation even to himself. Yet given that the very existence of a man named Seo Mu-yeong was a living contradiction, perhaps it was only natural. Others could not perceive him, yet Choi Yook could seize him with such effortless ease. It was only fitting that he would want to dismantle him and expose his true essence.

Choi Yook took a step closer to him. Seo Mu-yeong set his jaw, refusing to retreat. Though the boy was usually quick to prostrate himself and crawl beneath his feet, his shoulders showed no sign of cowering even as his eyelashes trembled. Even standing so close their chests virtually brushed against each other, he held his ground.

All of it was because of Choi Sijin. The moment the thought struck him, a sharp flare of displeasure surged through Choi Yook.

“You certainly love in a vulgar fashion, Seo Mu-yeong-ssi.” Catching hold of the hands clutching his lapels, Choi Yook added coldly, “In the end, you’re just infatuated with that exterior and want to get fucked by him once. Is that something to shout about with such pride?”

Seo Mu-yeong met his icy glare head-on. “I wouldn’t want to do it just once.”

His chin lifted with shameless audacity.

“He’s the person I love—would I really be satisfied with just that?”

Choi Yook fixed a glacial stare on Seo Mu-yeong. He had no intention of letting Seo Mu-yeong fall into Choi Sijin’s hands. As useful as Seo Mu-yeong was, he would pose an equally perilous threat should he belong to another. Therefore, Seo Mu-yeong’s devotion—ludicrous as it already was—was well worth trampling into the dirt.

“Such pure, noble devotion—what a pity,” Choi Yook murmured, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

Choi Yook tilted his head with a mocking drawl. Their foreheads drew so perilously close they nearly touched.

“Sijin wants to vomit if a man so much as brushes past his clothes.”

Lifting his head, Seo Mu-yeong’s eyes widened in shock. Choi Yook meticulously examined every minuscule ripple across Seo Mu-yeong’s face, seeking to gauge thoughts his own common sense could never fully fathom.

Under Choi Yook’s relentless gaze, Mu-yeong managed to retrieve his smile instead. After all, optimism had no upper limit.

“I might just like it,” Mu-yeong countered. “As an exception.”

Having spoken those words, Mu-yeong asked himself inwardly. What would Hyung be like? A hyung who only ever knew me as a little girl.

In truth, Mu-yeong had only ever imagined what Hyung would look like when they finally reunited. A pale face, a faint smile, and an impeccable suit. He had never once fantasized about what came after.

But surely he wouldn’t vomit at a mere brush of clothing. Hyung was far too gentle a person for that.

He had no desire to dwell on anything beyond that. Just as he was about to drive the point home once more, a harsh exhaust roar tore through the alley. Engrossed in their confrontation, he hadn’t realized until now, but the motorcycle’s engine was deafening.

A bone-chilling dread shot straight up his spine. Even without turning his head, an instinct pierced his body far swifter than sight.

It was already too late.

In a matter of seconds, a bone-crushing impact would slam into him. His body, hurtling through the air like a kicked ball, would crash into the asphalt, and agony would crawl up from his ankle like spiders scuttling over flesh. He would open his mouth, but not a single sound would escape.

The truck driver clambers down from the vehicle, clutching his head in both hands. “Fuck, I’m so dead.” The man frantically pleads, “I didn’t see the kid crossing! Going through on the green was my fault, sure, but if I’d known there was a kid there, I would’ve hit the brakes too! Do you think I’m some kind of psychopath?!”

“Seo Mu-yeong-ssi.”

The moment Choi Yook’s low voice cut through the air, a sharp pain flared in his hand. Dragged back to reality, Mu-yeong realized Choi Yook was gripping his hand so fiercely it felt near to crushing.

Though he couldn’t count how many bones made up a hand, every single joint felt on the verge of splintering. Even so, nothing could have been more effective at snapping him out of his daze.

Flustered, Mu-yeong turned his head to follow the receding roar of the exhaust. The motorcycle was already vanishing down the far end of the alley, its noise fading into the distance.

The motorcycle had not struck him. It hadn’t run him over as if it had no other choice, as if doing so were permitted, as if it should have done so all along.

It was because Choi Yook was standing right beside him.

How long had it been since he had stood this close to anyone? Aside from his distant childhood, Choi Yook was likely the only one.

Mu-yeong had never known that physical contact could offer such profound security. Not only did it ease his mind as though he were an ordinary human being, but his very body felt enclosed within an invisible fence. Even with his captured hand throbbing under the agonizing grip, the sensation held true.

Mu-yeong tilted his chin up to look at Choi Yook. His gaze caught the fierce, ink-dark sweep of the man’s eyes, the sharp bridge of his nose, and the loose set of his lips, which seemed to challenge him to say whatever nonsense he pleased. If he didn’t blurt out something immediately, an interrogation would follow in an instant.