Chapter 15

Chapter 14.

“You came straight from work, right?”

Chaeheon, who had pushed a wine glass towards Lee Jun, picked up his own glass. He seemed to be swirling the glass to smell the aroma, but in reality, instead of inhaling, he merely let out a chuckle.

“Why? Is it because I even smell of sweat?”

Lee Jun was no longer curious how Chaeheon would react. He was just a little curious how Chaeheon would play out this moment.

“I’d rather it be the smell of sweat.”

Chaeheon’s eyes indicated the wine glass in front of Lee Jun. Thinking it was pressure to drink, Lee Jun glanced at the wine glass. The red liquid in the transparent glass gave the illusion of floating in the air. That’s how he felt right now. As if he was being held up by something invisible…

Lee Jun let out a low sigh. He didn’t even know himself anymore. He picked up the wine glass and brought it close to his lips. As the fragrant wine that had floated in the air drew nearer, the smell of alcohol grew stronger.

This seems quite potent, doesn’t it? He was just about to tilt the glass to his lower lip.

“The alcohol content is high. Drink considering your tolerance.”

Lee Jun, still holding the glass, raised his head towards Chaeheon. Chaeheon, who had already drunk half of his glass, told Lee Jun that if he really couldn’t drink it, he could put it back down.

“I’m not the kind of jerk who forces drinks on people.”

Chaeheon furrowed his brow, as if he could see right into Lee Jun’s thoughts. Lee Jun took the wine glass away from his lips. A cool sensation lingered on his lower lip, as if the afterglow of the glass remained, but he wanted to observe the atmosphere rather than drink alcohol right away.

Chaeheon finished his wine and set down the empty glass. His cheeks slightly puffed out and receded as he licked his lips with his tongue, perhaps clearing his mucous membranes. His hand, having set down the glass, moved towards the bottle, as if intending to pour more. Then he readily picked up the bottle, but not to pour.

“What is this? Why is it so sweet?”

It wasn’t even grape juice. Knowing the reason Chaeheon’s brow twitched, Lee Jun looked at the wine in front of him. Was being sweet a bad thing? Lee Jun turned his eyes away from the glass, trying to resist the urge to taste it. As soon as he turned to Chaeheon, their eyes met, and Lee Jun took a sharp breath.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You dragged me in here against my will, and now you’re telling me to drink at my own discretion? What are you doing?”

“I told you to come in because I had something to say, and I brought out the alcohol to set the mood appropriately.”

“Why are you dragging this out? We can just say what we have to say to each other. Such pointless… ”

Chaeheon’s eyebrows arched. A furrow appeared between his brows as he looked at Lee Jun. He wished Lee Jun would be cooperative for once, but he didn’t like his rigid, unyielding answers.

“Are you provoking me?”

As the flat, almost reading-aloud voice uttered the words, Lee Jun’s composed expression stiffened.

“Provoking? I provoked you?”

“Why do you think I arranged this meeting?”

“I wanted to ask you that anyway. Do you think our conversation right now makes any sense?”

From meeting in front of Lee Jun’s house until now, the flow of their conversation was so jumbled that it was hard to grasp the main point.

“Was it?”

Chaeheon rubbed his dry lips with his index finger. His lips, which had been moistened by the wine, turned a vivid red, but Chaeheon seemed oblivious. Or perhaps he didn’t care.

A dark object approached Lee Jun, who was idly scratching the sofa. It happened so quickly that he realized it was Chaeheon a beat late.

“What is it?”

As Lee Jun warily looked at him, Chaeheon’s hand reached out towards his head. Before he could dodge it, the hand touched his hair, and his whisper was heard.

“Because I want to open up this small head of yours.”

Chaeheon subtly stroked the ends of Lee Jun’s hair. After uttering the unnecessary thought, “It’s soft,” Chaeheon’s hand moved to Lee Jun’s neck without any sense of awkwardness.

“I can find it cute if you overthink things by yourself… but trying to cleverly slip out of my net is something I don’t really like.”

“Stop beating around the bush and just say it.”

He was being hypocritical, pretending not to be blunt when he always was.

“Then tell me. Did you get pregnant?”

As if he had been waiting, Chaeheon let out a guttural laugh and pressed his body closer to Lee Jun. Feeling burdened by the proximity, Lee Jun leaned his upper body back. Lee Jun twisted his body sideways to avoid Chaeheon’s hand, but it was no use. From the moment he sat on the sofa, there had been a spatial limitation.

“Hm? Senior needs to tell me so I can know.”

Lee Jun squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them. The inability to maintain his guard against Chaeheon even for a fleeting moment heightened the tension he had barely suppressed.

Chaeheon, scratching the edge of his eyebrow, seemed to be contemplating how to toy with the prey that had fallen before him. After pressing his body closer, he now looked down at Lee Jun, his forehead raised by his eyebrows.

The moment Lee Jun realized the firm yet not painful surface touching the back of his head was the sofa, his heart ached as if it had stopped. He had tried to avoid Chaeheon, but he didn’t know when his body had been pushed back. As he watched Chaeheon’s Adam’s apple rise and fall idly, Chaeheon finally spoke.

“If you keep quiet like that, it makes me stubborn.”

“Do as you please.”

Lee Jun neither tried to escape Chaeheon nor threatened him to stay away, merely looking up at him indifferently.

After being told to “do as he pleased” and with Lee Jun remaining silent, Chaeheon’s gaze moved to Lee Jun’s hand, which dangled off the sofa. His lifeless fingers curled inwards, revealing even the fine lines of his palm. Chaeheon postponed his desire to touch the finely cracked palm lines that seemed out of place on Lee Jun’s smooth skin. With a hand that showed no intention of pushing him away, Chaeheon met Lee Jun’s eyes again.

“Are you asleep? You’re not sleeping with your eyes open, are you?”

At Chaeheon’s indifferent remark, Lee Jun’s eyes blinked once. He had not blinked until that moment, trying not to miss anything, from Chaeheon looking at his face to his hand.

“The skin around your eyes is red here. All white, but red only here.”

“Move.”

“No.”

Chaeheon still kept Lee Jun from moving, lowering his gaze. Chaeheon’s red lips parted alluringly.

“Come on, tell me. The true nature of this scent.”

Did you have a baby, hm?

Eventually, it all circled back to the child. His patience had reached its limit.

Lee Jun sat up, disregarding the possibility of colliding with Chaeheon. If Chaeheon hadn’t moved back from that rough motion, they might have genuinely collided hard. Lee Jun, having risen from the sofa, unconsciously brushed off the clothes that had touched Chaeheon. They weren’t even wrinkled, but doing so made him feel like he had confirmed their separation.

Lee Jun didn’t know how Chaeheon saw him. Their relationship was flowing strangely, much like the conversation that had vanished as Chaeheon moved to the opposite side. Lee Jun now only wanted to get up, without any effort to continue a conversation with Chaeheon.

And Chaeheon looked at Lee Jun with strange eyes. Lee Jun had clearly seemed agitated by his words, but then, at some point, he had gathered and hidden all his emotions. It was troublesome if things continued this way, without the reward of all his efforts to shake Lee Jun up.

“It seems you’re very curious about me right now, but I have nothing to tell you.”

Even as Chaeheon’s eyes narrowed, expressing displeasure, Lee Jun added indifferently. He couldn’t entirely hide his reaction to Chaeheon, but if he kept his mouth shut, Chaeheon wouldn’t know the full story anyway.

“Honestly, all the conversations we’ve had so far are so mixed up that I don’t know what to unravel.”

Lee Jun admitted that ever since he met Chaeheon again, his desire for a peaceful, smooth life had been shaken to its roots. Chaeheon seemed to feel similarly, nodding in agreement. Even if Chaeheon had disagreed, Lee Jun intended to continue speaking, but at least the fact that Chaeheon was listening meant he was willing to accommodate, so the atmosphere wasn’t bad.

“Let’s push aside everything that happened today and each mention just one thing.”

Lee Jun deliberately did not reset everything to zero. Considering that Chaeheon might not accept, he set the condition of ‘just one thing,’ and furthermore, since he had something he wanted to hide, he drew a line at an appropriate level. Hoping to end things rather than keep getting entangled, he unconsciously glanced at the front door.

“You don’t want to?”

“…No.”

Chaeheon smiled, his eyes curving into crescents, as if hiding the sharp gaze that had not missed even Lee Jun’s slightest reaction.

“Senior, you go first.”

Chaeheon acted as if he was generously giving Lee Jun the first right. Lee Jun pressed his lips tightly together and nodded heavily. He could absolutely not tell him about the baby.

“I’d like us to take classes separately starting next week.”

“Understood.”

Chaeheon nodded readily, then crossed his arms as if he had expected it. There must have been a different answer he wanted to hear, but his expression showed no lingering regret, which actually left Lee Jun bewildered. Swept up in an atmosphere as if Chaeheon had set the conditions from the beginning, Lee Jun couldn’t hide his suspicious gaze.

“What about you?”

Into Lee Jun’s wary eyes, which remained tense until the very end, Chaeheon tapped his arm with a finger of his crossed arm. It was a look that seemed to gauge what words would put him in the most advantageous position.

As soon as that thought finished, Chaeheon smiled brightly.