LM 73

“What? The two of you know each other?”

Woo Taeju turned to Woo Hyunse, forcing out a smile. Woo Hyunse’s face was expressionless. The man who usually wore a smile like a mask now had his lips pressed into a thin line, his head tilted at an angle, fixing his gaze elsewhere.

His eyes were aimed at the white hand trapped in Woo Taeju’s grip. Although Woo Taeju couldn’t sense pheromones or such things, he had a vague understanding of what that gaze meant.

A forced cough broke the strange atmosphere. In Seohee lowered the fist she had used to cover her mouth and gave Woo Taeju a look filled with meaning. At the sound, Woo Taeju came to his senses and quickly put on his usual smile. However, despite his efforts, the corners of his lips remained stiffly set.

“I’m In Seohee. Nice to meet you.”

In Seohee extended her hand toward Kwon Siyul. Kwon Siyul stared blankly at the smooth, white hand. It was a delicate hand that seemed to fit the expression “untouched by a drop of water.” Should he take it? Did he have to? As he hesitated, In Seohee tilted her head to one side, looking puzzled. Just before she could lower her hand, Kwon Siyul quickly grasped it. Though he let go after only a few seconds.

“A date?”

At In Seohee’s voice, Kwon Siyul’s shoulders jolted. Before he could deny it, Woo Taeju, scratching the back of his head as if embarrassed, answered faster than Kwon Siyul.

“Yeah. …It’s a date. You too, noona?”

“You could say that.”

Kwon Siyul’s face grew even paler. Woo Hyunse raised his hand near his neck, fidgeting with his tie knot as if he wanted to loosen it. His eyes were still fixed on Kwon Siyul. Woo Taeju stepped in front, blocking his view.

“Well, we have plans, so we’ll be going first. Noona, I’ll call you later. …You too, hyung.”

Woo Taeju gripped Kwon Siyul’s shoulder firmly. Kwon Siyul, still in a daze, stumbled as he was pulled along. He glanced back briefly but couldn’t fully face them before looking straight ahead again.

He couldn’t remember how they left the concert hall. With Woo Taeju in the lead, they finally ended up in some unnamed park. Kwon Siyul only came to his senses when Woo Taeju sat him down on a bench. He noticed his fingertips were red from the cold. Woo Taeju wrapped his hands around Kwon Siyul’s.

“Hyung, are you okay?”

Kwon Siyul opened his mouth with an “Ah,” and then closed it tightly. Color had not yet returned to his cheeks. Woo Taeju placed his hand on Kwon Siyul’s greenish-pale cheek. Usually, Kwon Siyul would have brushed it off or avoided it, but this time he didn’t react for a very long while.

“I looked for a cafe, but there weren’t any nearby. I thought you needed to rest for a bit, so we came here to the park as a quick solution…Should we go somewhere warm? I’ll call a taxi.”

“No, it’s fine. I think I’ll feel better after resting for a bit.”

Kwon Siyul pulled his hand away from Woo Taeju and rubbed his face. The afterimage wouldn’t disappear from his vision. She was a tall, beautiful woman. Her voice was clear, and her extended hand had a fragrant scent. He could tell they were of the same type by their scent.

Feeling dizzy as if the ground was sinking beneath him, Kwon Siyul bent over and looked down at his feet. Though the frozen ground was solid, his feet felt unsteady, as if floating in the air.

“Do you know them?”

Kwon Siyul spoke after planting his feet firmly on the ground. Woo Taeju turned his head toward Kwon Siyul and just looked at him silently. At the sudden question, he nodded, then seeing Kwon Siyul’s distant gaze, he uttered a short “Yes.”

“I met Seohee noona at a gathering, and the man on the left…he’s my cousin.”

It was no wonder they looked so much alike. Now that he heard it, their voices were similar too. They say it’s a small world where everyone knows everyone, but this was too small. Who would have thought Woo Hyunse and Woo Taeju were actually relatives?

As Kwon Siyul let out a small cough, Woo Taeju abruptly stood up to his feet. While he went to buy something to drink, Kwon Siyul took out his phone. There were no messages or missed calls. Not even after that encounter.

He could guess what kind of relationship they had without asking. They looked like a couple straight out of a classic fashion shoot. How long had it been going on? Was he the first, or was he the intruder? Judging by the situation, he felt like the latter, an unwelcome guest.

What expression had Woo Hyunse been wearing? He couldn’t remember, as if someone had painted over his memory with black ink. He felt only a sense of emptiness. He couldn’t tell if it was dark because of the night, or if it was just his vision that had gone dim. Only the scent of the woman who had stood so confidently next to Woo Hyunse, as if it was her rightful place, remained clear in his mind.

Woo Taeju came running back from a distance. Despite the cold weather, he was carefully holding a canned drink that wouldn’t cool down easily. He even opened the lid himself before handing it to Kwon Siyul. Seeing the hand and the faintly steaming can, Kwon Siyul’s eyebrows furrowed. Before he could react, Woo Hyunse came to mind first.

“Thank you.”

He managed to take the steaming can into his hands, hiding his choked voice. Whether from the cold or for some other reason, his hand wouldn’t stop shaking.

“I didn’t know you were cousins. Now that I look, you do resemble each other a lot.”

“How do you know Hyunse?”

Woo Taeju had dropped the “hyung” after Woo Hyunse’s name, but Kwon Siyul didn’t notice the oddity. His mind was too preoccupied to catch the hidden barb in those words.

Kwon Siyul bit down on his lower lip hard. He didn’t want to answer. His mind was a mess. It felt like a tangled skein of thread, impossible to unravel without cutting, had pushed out his brain and taken its place.

As Kwon Siyul deliberately kept silent, Woo Taeju also closed his mouth and stared directly at Kwon Siyul, as if willing him to open up. The first to surrender in the oppressive silence was Kwon Siyul.

“I knew him from work. That’s how I ended up working at the bar too.”

“Did Hyunse help you?”

“Something like that.”

Although it started with blackmail over laundry fees, looking back, it had helped prevent him from falling deeper into a bad path. Kwon Siyul quickly swallowed a mouthful as his insides felt cold. Even as the lukewarm liquid warmed his esophagus, the trembling in his hands still continued.

Woo Taeju waited silently until Kwon Siyul calmed down. Even after sipping and emptying an entire can of his drink, Kwon Siyul’s complexion showed no signs of improvement. His lower lip quivered occasionally, and the nails of the hand holding the can alternated between turning white and red.

“…Hyung, you know, I’m quite perceptive. I could tell when kids were dating before they even said anything, figuring it out before others did.”

At this point, it was impossible not to know. Even the most insensitive person could quickly deduce the answer by connecting Kwon Siyul’s pallor with the recent events. Woo Taeju clenched and unclenched his tingling hand, desperately hoping his intuition was wrong.

“Tell me if I’m wrong. I really hope I am.”

Kwon Siyul glanced up. His focus was still blurry as if he was wandering around in another world. Woo Taeju wanted to bring that gaze back to the present.

“The person you like…is it Hyunse?”

A light returned to Kwon Siyul’s dazed eyes. They seemed to be welling up with tears. Even without words, Kwon Siyul’s moistening eyes were answer enough. His eyelids turned red, and though tears gathered, they didn’t fall. As if it was his last shred of dignity was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

“Ah—” Woo Taeju let out a despairing exclamation, tilting his head back and covering his face with both hands. Never had he wished so desperately for his intuition to be wrong. But as usual, his ominous premonition was right on the mark.

How, in this vast world, among so many people, did Kwon Siyul and Woo Hyunse end up entangled? If there was a god managing human connections, they must be an incredibly twisted, socially maladjusted character.

Judging from the way Woo Hyunse had looked at him, it probably wasn’t just one-sided feelings on Kwon Siyul’s part. The two must have had some interaction that he didn’t know about. And quite an intense one at that.

“It can’t be.”

Woo Taeju knew Kwon Siyul was staring at him with wide eyes, but he turned to look a beat late. At the firm and bold response, the tears pooling under Kwon Siyul’s eyes grew larger until finally, one drop fell with a plop.

Woo Taeju, feeling as if he had made Kwon Siyul cry, fidgeted uncomfortably before pulling out a handkerchief from his pocket and offering it. But Kwon Siyul simply continued to stare at Woo Taeju, not moving, his hands still on his knees.

After biting his lips until they turned white, Kwon Siyul finally managed to speak.

“Is it because we’re cousins? Or because I’m not good enough?”

“It’s not for those reasons.”

“Then why?”

Woo Taeju hesitated for a moment, unsure if he should reveal the reason himself. Shouldn’t the person involved be the one to tell? He didn’t want to speak out of turn and end up being cursed at.

But wouldn’t Kwon Siyul find out eventually anyway? Continuing to like someone who was about to get married would only leave Kwon Siyul in pain. Better to rip off the bandaid now. Woo Taeju wiped Kwon Siyul’s reddened eyes with the handkerchief and spoke.

“Siyul, give up on Hyunse.”

“…”

“He’s getting married soon anyway.”

Kwon Siyul’s eyes opened wide. He was so shocked that even his tears had dried up in the meantime. He lowered his gaze in disbelief, then raised it again. “What?” he asked, his voice rising at the end, as if hoping he had misheard.

“To the woman who came with him to the concert today.”

Aside from the tangled relationships, Woo Taeju didn’t feel good about delivering this news either. It was hard to meet Kwon Siyul’s tear-stained eyes.