“What would you do if that guy confessed to you?”
The man’s eyes never left Lee Kangjoo. He looked at him with such feverish devotion that it made my stomach turn, and yet at the same time I almost pitied him. Maybe I was seeing myself reflected in that look.
“Just because someone likes me doesn’t mean I’m obligated to like them back.”
The sharp reply cut through my daze. Kangjoo was sitting against the headboard, head tilted slightly.
“Why is everyone so desperate to announce their feelings?”
He clicked his tongue lightly. His face showed clear annoyance. I guess other people’s attention was just everyday life for him. With a face like that, with that blade-like aura, even a job soaked in blood wouldn’t be much of a deterrent.
Kangjoo looked at me as if asking for an answer. As one of the idiots who had already lost his heart to him, something inside my chest twinged painfully. Every day I barely managed to swallow down the confession that kept rising up my throat. There were probably more “I like you” piled up inside my gut than actual organs at this point. How the hell was I supposed to say that?
I fumbled and avoided his gaze. My cheeks burned as if I’d just had my dirty little secret exposed.
“Have you never liked anyone, sir? Ever confessed first?”
“No.”
“But you had Yeonghwa noona before...”
“That woman made such a fuss, I just accepted it.”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t know what he was about to say next, so I just stared at his lips.
“It was boring. No fun. Not even enough to count as a hobby.”
A merciless evaluation. Han Yeonghwa had threatened me, saying she couldn’t live without him. The weight of her feelings had been completely one-sided. Even I felt somber thinking about it.
Then suddenly it hit me—if Kangjoo had even a shred of lingering feeling for Yeonghwa, he wouldn’t be rolling around in bed with me right now. Hell, the moment I showed up at his office, he might’ve turned me into a bloody pulp and buried me somewhere in the mountains. In any case, Kangjoo’s indifference had saved my life.
“Then what about someone else? Any past lovers?”
Since we were already on the topic, I wanted to pry into his past. How many lovers had he had? How long did his relationships usually last?
“What about you, Cha Haejun?”
“I’m the one asking...”
“The one who asks should go first.”
Fair point. But nothing useful came to mind. I’d never liked anyone before.
When I was a kid, I was too busy surviving. All-boys middle school, all-boys high school—barely any chance to even interact with the opposite sex. After graduation, I did get confessed to while working part-time, but with not a single coin to my name and debt collectors breathing down my neck, dating someone was out of the question.
And once I started working as a host, I had to treat every customer like a lover. The idea of keeping just one person by my side never even crossed my mind.
Looking back, the first person I ever gave my heart to was Lee Kangjoo. The word first love stabbed straight into my chest.
“I was too busy to like anyone.”
Like when I’d asked him if he’d ever dried someone’s hair and he answered, “Today.” I wanted to say the same kind of thing.
But the will to confess collapsed almost instantly. How could I spill my heart to someone who found confessions annoying?
“Now answer me. What about you?”
I assumed he had experience. He was older than me. Even if he called Yeonghwa boring, she had still been his lover. There had to have been others.
“I tried, in my own way. But it’s difficult. Feelings don’t appear just because you want them to.”
So that meant he’d never truly given his heart to anyone either. For a split second I celebrated inside, then immediately felt crushed. The higher the hope, the harder the fall. I’d already fallen head over heels for him, but the chance of him ever feeling the same seemed close to zero.
If he’d at least liked someone before, maybe I could’ve clung to that. Maybe I could’ve comforted myself with the thought that if I tried hard enough, he might give me even a sliver of affection.
But he’d never experienced that. A man who had not only locked his heart but smashed the door off its hinges wasn’t about to make space for me.
And I wasn’t even beautiful like that guy in his office. I wasn’t capable or rich either. I was a washed-up male prostitute who’d spread his legs like a rag and was buried in debt. If you searched every inch of me, you wouldn’t find a single redeeming trait worth scoring.
What was I supposed to do from here?
Keep swallowing my feelings without ever confessing, and then let him go when the contract ended?
Just imagining that near—or maybe far—future made my eyes sting. I lowered my head, then quickly wiped the gloom off my face.
Right now, Kangjoo was with me. I had to focus on the present, not some uncertain future. I didn’t want to reach the end only to hear that I hadn’t even qualified as a hobby.
“If you’re free this weekend, do you want to go to the sea? The winter ocean’s pretty nice.”
Kangjoo didn’t refuse.
Yeah. For now, that was enough.
To hide what was going on inside me, I exaggeratedly stretched. I was about to get up and say I should wash up when, at that exact moment, my knees gave out and I dropped straight to the floor. That was the result of Kangjoo squeezing out the very last drop of my stamina.
A clear laugh rang out. I turned my head. Kangjoo smirked and got off the bed. Then he scooped me up effortlessly while I was clutching my aching knees and groaning.
“Ah—!”
My body lifted into the air. Panic shot through me and I hurriedly wrapped my arms around his neck. That wasn’t enough, so I locked my legs around his waist. The same laugh echoed above my head.
With arms like steel beams, Kangjoo supported my ass and adjusted his hold until I was secure in his embrace. Should I push him away and get down? Or cling tighter so I wouldn’t fall? I wavered helplessly.
“W-why...”
“I’m going to wash you.”
“I can do it myself!”
“You said you’d help me find a hobby. I tried it last time. It wasn’t bad. You should cooperate until I get used to it.”
At the word hobby, I couldn’t say anything. I buried my forehead against his neck.
If washing me could become Lee Kangjoo’s hobby, how happy would I be? For him, I’d stay in the water until my skin swelled up, as long as he was satisfied.
The position of lover was as distant as the universe—hopeless from the start. But maybe a hobby was possible. A weed-like hope kept blooming stubbornly inside my chest.
* * *
The weekend arrived painfully slowly.
By the time we reached the sea, the sun was already ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) sinking. Beyond the horizon, it scattered the last light of the day. The ocean and sky were both burning orange.
The wind was vicious and cold. I shoved my nose into my padded jacket, zipped up to my chin, and looked up at Kangjoo.
To me, it was a cutting, brutal wind. To him, it seemed like a gentle breeze. He wasn’t stamping his feet like I was. He didn’t hunch his shoulders either. Only the faint flush on his cheeks proved he belonged to the same season as me.
“I’ll run to the convenience store for a second.”
I dashed off. Even if he didn’t feel the cold much, winter was still winter. No one could be summer alone in front of a sea where the wind attacked from every direction. I bought warm drinks and hurried back.
Kangjoo had a cigarette between his lips. In the short time I’d been gone, half of it had already turned to gray ash. Against the darkening sea, smoke drifted from his mouth in a lazy stream. The sight etched itself into me.
When he saw me, he took the cigarette case out of his pocket and crushed the unfinished cigarette.
I felt oddly disappointed. The cigarette between his lips, the smoke spreading like mist, the relaxed air around him as he stared at the distant sea—it looked like a painting. It felt like someone had snatched away a masterpiece I’d been admiring.
“You can keep smoking. I smoke too.”
Maybe he’d thought I didn’t and was being considerate. I appreciated that, but I wanted to see him with a cigarette in his mouth one more time. I quickly dug into my pocket and showed him my pack. His eyebrow lifted in surprise.
“Ah, I’m not about to smoke right now...”
Lighting up boldly in front of someone older wasn’t polite. Embarrassed, I put the pack away and took out the drinks I’d just bought. They were still warm.
“I got this for you.”
I pressed my own bottle against the tip of my red, frozen nose. Kangjoo accepted the glass bottle and stared down at it before asking abruptly,
“What about the card I gave you?”
He must’ve noticed because no transaction record had come through. I smiled sheepishly.
“Come on, I can at least pay for this.”
I was already making good use of the card he’d given me. I couldn’t bring myself to buy anything too expensive, but it had been especially useful when I treated Yohan to lunch or when I transferred money to Choi Manseok and ended up completely broke.
But on a day like today, I didn’t want to use Kangjoo’s card for a single bottle of a drink. Just like he gave things to me, I wanted to give something back to him. Even if it was something trivial.
