Swallow Hunting

He’d shut himself in the room, trying to get his feelings under control, but the moment it was time to get up, his eyes slid open on their own. Even after barely sleeping all night, it still happened.

How nice would it be if the moment you were rejected, your heart could simply be cut clean away. But the longer something had been festering inside your chest, the less likely the feelings were to die out so quickly.

No matter what had happened late last night, morning still came for Haejun. Even after splashing his face with cold water, his eyelids were badly swollen. His throat was rough too. Desperate for a glass of water, he staggered into the living room.

He didn’t want to run into Lee Kangjoo. He wasn’t ready for it. But at the same time, he wanted to see him.

Even though he was scared enough to run, he still couldn’t let Lee Kangjoo go. So it really was true what people said—that love was the kind of disease that drove people insane.

He hid behind the wall and peeked inside.

As expected, Lee Kangjoo was sitting at the table. The sight of him with the newspaper spread open and a cup of tea in hand looked so absurdly ordinary it almost felt as if nothing had happened yesterday. As if the only person who had walked on clouds and then plummeted straight underground was Haejun alone.

Haejun turned away, pressed both eyes hard, and took a silent deep breath. Once he thought he could look at Lee Kangjoo without bursting into tears, he deliberately made some noise and walked over.

“.......”

On the seat where Haejun always sat, there was the takeout Lee Kangjoo had bought before.

It was ridiculous that something so trivial nearly made him cry again.

He barely managed to hold it in and sat down like nothing was wrong.

“Did you sleep well?”

Lee Kangjoo lifted his eyes from the newspaper and looked at him.

Haejun lowered his gaze.

He’d wanted so badly to see him, yet now that they were face to face, it felt like resentment and sorrow might come pouring out all at once. Feelings he had no right to have.

Lee Kangjoo had every right to reject him.

Unlike Haejun.

“I’ll eat well. Thank you.”

“All right.”

The exchange was as dry as if they were strangers meeting for the first time.

Haejun wet his throat with water and opened the box.

Everything inside was stuff he liked. Did Lee Kangjoo actually know his tastes, or had he just picked random dishes that happened to hit every one of his preferences?

Haejun stuffed the food into his mouth.

Yesterday, even water had tasted sweet.

Today, everything he put in his mouth felt as gritty as sand.

He forced himself to chew and swallow. No matter what, he couldn’t leave behind food that had been bought for him.

When he finished everything, Lee Kangjoo folded the newspaper.

As if he had been waiting for Haejun to finish eating.

Haejun mocked himself for even entertaining that illusion.

How many huge misunderstandings had been born from piling up little things like that?

He wanted to be free now from that pattern of expecting things on his own and ending up disappointed.

Even while moving sluggishly, Haejun still saw Lee Kangjoo off as he left for work. He still couldn’t bring himself to meet his eyes. He didn’t throw himself into his arms like yesterday and tell him to have a good day, either.

He just stood there awkwardly, leaving an uncertain distance between them.

Before opening the front door, Lee Kangjoo let out a sigh loud enough for Haejun to hear.

To Haejun, it struck like an arrow.

It felt like something was wrong with his tear ducts—Lee Kangjoo only had to twitch a finger and he was ready to break down.

He glanced up at the ceiling for a moment, swallowing the emotions back down.

Then—

“Mr. Cha Haejun.”

Lee Kangjoo turned around.

Haejun forced strength into his eyes and stared at the man’s lips.

If he was about to be told to leave, he was already running through what he needed to do first.

“Nothing changes.”

Haejun lifted his gaze.

For the first time today, he looked directly into Lee Kangjoo’s eyes.

They were calm.

He had probably worn that exact same expression for the countless people who had confessed to him before.

That thought did nothing to comfort him.

“Treat it like before. You should at least enjoy the convenience.”

“.......”

“As much as Mr. Cha Haejun receives, he only needs to provide the matching service.”

Haejun stayed silent.

The truth was, his head was spinning so badly he had no idea how to respond.

“That’s why I brought Mr. Cha Haejun here in the first place.”

At those words, Haejun’s lips parted slightly.

He looked blank.

He couldn’t really grasp what Lee Kangjoo meant.

Lee Kangjoo lightly lifted Haejun’s chin and kissed him.

Just a brief brush of the lips, no more than what suited a farewell.

Even the kisses Haejun had once loved so much had now become one more thing he no longer understood.

As he stared blankly, Lee Kangjoo let go of him and stepped out through the front door.

Left alone, Haejun tried desperately to figure out what Lee Kangjoo had meant.

No matter how much he thought about it, “the same as before” only felt maddeningly vague.

His feelings were the same now as they had been then.

Did it mean he just wasn’t supposed to show it anymore?

The answer surfaced from an unexpected memory.

Haejun pressed a hand to his forehead.

‘He said it exactly—Mr. Cha Haejun’s client. He completely treated you like a fucking prostitute, hyung.’

“Ha......”

No Eunjae had been exactly right.

He’d gotten angry at Eunjae for speaking carelessly, telling him not to cross the line.

But the one who had actually crossed it was himself.

To Lee Kangjoo, Haejun had always been someone outside the line.

Not once had he ever become anything more.

* * *

Reality was already hard enough as it was, but sometimes it became unbearably heavy, and in moments like that, all you could think about was running away.

That was how it was now.

Haejun wanted to run somewhere far away from this house, far away from Lee Kangjoo.

He wanted to hide himself somewhere no one knew him, lock himself away tight where no one could ever find him.

There was only one place that could serve as that kind of refuge for him.

But that one place alone—he had promised Yohan he wouldn’t choose it.

So he forcibly crushed the impulse rising inside him.

Just as Lee Kangjoo wanted, Haejun did his best to act like everything was the same as before.

As if the confession had never happened, he smiled and chattered in front of him.

He babbled at his side, hugged him without hesitation, and slept with him too.

His ankle still hadn’t fully healed, so they didn’t have sex, but there were plenty of other ways to rub their bodies together.

Haejun still sucked cock well, still spread his legs well, and when they kissed, just like before, he looped his arms around Lee Kangjoo’s neck and leaned his whole body against him.

Every time he did that, it felt like he had split into two different people.

It was the same sense of distance he’d often felt while working as Hajin.

Whenever he rolled over like a dog for clients and acted cute for them, Haejun always felt as if he were watching a stranger wearing his own body.

His experience as a host helped.

Haejun could look at Lee Kangjoo now without crying.

If he erased himself, it was something he could manage.

But sometimes, when he looked down at Lee Kangjoo sleeping beside him, an old depression would come flooding over him like a pack of wild dogs.

The words I love you would seize on his exhaustion, filling his throat like vomit, trying to spill out.

Haejun never said it in the end.

He believed that if he kept swallowing it down and swallowing it down, then one day, like compost returning to soil, it would naturally fade away.

Without even that belief, Haejun had no way to keep breathing.

It wasn’t hard.

He was eating a little less, but he still made sure to eat all three meals.

He slept well too.

At first, he had tried to sleep separately, but Lee Kangjoo hadn’t allowed it.

‘I think I can sleep alone now. Falling off the bed only happened that one time.......’

‘Then any discomfort is something Mr. Cha Haejun will have to endure.’

The words sounded like a pointed jab at the confession, and Haejun’s smile froze.

All he could do was hurriedly turn his eyes away.

Refusal was never something available to him.

Even while helping Mrs. Jeong, Haejun would sometimes blank out like a person whose power had been switched off.

If no one spoke to him, he became limp and lifeless, like a wound-up doll that had run down.

“......St-student!”

At the hand shaking his shoulder, Haejun snapped back to himself.

He was still holding the half-folded towel in his hand.

Mrs. Jeong peered at him with a worried expression.

“Are you sick? Your complexion doesn’t look good.”

“Ah... I’m fine.”

“Don’t do this. Go in and rest. I’ll handle this, so don’t worry.”

“No, it’s okay. I just dozed off for a second. Maybe it’s because spring’s coming.”

Blaming it on spring fatigue for no reason, Haejun pressed hard against his swollen eyelids.

When Mrs. Jeong told him to go lie down, he only gave her an easy laugh.

Haejun stubbornly stayed by her side until they finished cleaning, then followed her all the way into the kitchen just to watch her cook.

There wasn’t really anything he could help with in there anyway.

Ever since the last time he’d peeled potatoes and ended up bleeding, Mrs. Jeong had strictly forbidden him from touching knives.

So clumsy he even managed to be clumsy at things like this.

That day, Haejun had laughed helplessly even while blood dripped from his hand.

Sitting still like this, his thoughts slowly clouded over and drifted in one direction.

In the blink of an eye, his mind was full of nothing but Lee Kangjoo.

“.......”

I need to sort out my feelings.

I can’t let it show.

Of everything °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° he had ever done, this was the one thing he had the hardest time finding his way through.

He had no idea where to even begin, no idea what he was supposed to do to fold these feelings away.

It wasn’t as if searching online would magically give him the right answer.

...Was it even possible?

It felt like being trapped in the middle of a complicated maze.

Without realizing it, Haejun let out a long sigh.

He grabbed his hair with both hands, his whole body radiating torment.

Mrs. Jeong, who had been preparing the next side dish, noticed him and asked gently,

“What is it? Is something wrong?”

“No. It’s just......”

“You look like someone with worries.”

Haejun quickly touched his face.

He even checked his reflection in the table, but there wasn’t really any particular expression there.

It was just the same face he saw in the mirror every morning.

A little depressed, like he might cry, but if he forced the corners of his lips upward, it looked enough like a smile.

Feelings even Haejun himself hadn’t fully guessed seemed perfectly visible to Mrs. Jeong.

She steeped a tea bag in warm water and placed the cup in front of him.

With some sweet snacks on the side too.

Haejun’s eyes fixed on the cup, steam rising from it like heat haze.

It reminded him of the tea Lee Kangjoo drank every morning.

At the feeling of something surging up violently inside him, he bit down hard on his lower lip.