Chapter 78
‘You’re looking for a way to get into Baekcheon, right? Do you want my help?’
Their relationship had started to gain entry into Baekcheon, but there was no trust. He believed there was no such thing as kindness without clear desires.
Not asking to kill someone, not specifying a precise timeframe, just a vague request to remove them from sight.
It felt like he had a different true desire.
“Of course, you’re here.”
The man slowly walked over, holding a still-connected phone.
He picked up Yugyeom’s phone from the bench and pressed the call end button. Then, with a smiling face, he handed the phone over.
“Is it okay for you to be wandering around like this?”
Yugyeom’s eyes crinkled as he took the phone from the man.
“What if she finds out?”
The man easily picked up on the thorn in his words but answered with a calm demeanor.
“Our lady is busy. She can’t just leave a sick person alone.”
Cha Yeonbyul, who had been asking about making porridge, popped into the man’s mind. Her expressions didn’t match her cold appearance.
Sometimes, she felt like someone living in another world. That distance always nagged at him.
“Do you really not trust me?”
The man leaned precariously against the railing, tilting his head. His purple hair swayed against the backdrop of the night sky.
“If I tell you what I really want, will you believe me?”
Yugyeom stared at him with an indifferent gaze.
His purple eyes, half-covered by his lowered eyelids, seemed to contemplate.
“What I desire is…”
A faint smile played on his lifted lips.
“The end of the play, perhaps.”
The man, who met Yugyeom’s eyes again, chuckled.
“Just kidding.”
His tone and demeanor, making it hard to gauge his sincerity, were one reason Yugyeom never fully trusted him.
Though he appeared lighthearted, nothing beyond his exterior was readable.
They mainly communicated by phone, having met in person only a handful of times, but even frequent meetings wouldn’t have made a difference.
“Hmm, how should I put it…”
The man trailed off, twirling his hair around his finger. The ruby-studded cross earring dangled and sparkled.
“The well-being of Baekcheon? Yeah, that’s all I want.”
His face brightened as if he had found a satisfactory answer.
“So, don’t worry about Cha Yeonbyul. I’ll take care of her.”
He smiled at Yugyeom, his gaze overtly intense.
“You’re not denying it? Seems like you’re worried?”
“Of course, I’m worried.”
Yugyeom laughed softly and stood up.
He loosened his tightly tied black tie, relieving some of the pressure.
“It would be problematic if she died before I could do anything.”
“That’s a pointless worry.”
The man flicked a vine hanging from the tree to the ground.
“Think about it. You’ll definitely need me.”
Lights embedded intermittently illuminated him in colorful hues like an aurora.
The man, still gazing at a red flower among the vines, spoke.
“Remember, at the department store, it was thanks to me?”
That day, he had received a call mentioning Yeonbyul and summoning him to the department store much earlier from another source. He had planned to ignore it until the end.
It had been his worst day, his body heavy and feverish, his mind not clear.
If he faced that person today, whether it was hate or something else, he felt he wouldn’t be able to control it.
He wouldn’t step into such an obvious trap.
His mind was too foggy for proper judgment, and even repeated reconsideration wasn’t enough, so he had turned off his phone.
If not for the photo he received on another phone, that day’s outcome would have been very different.
“Doshiyu.”
The man turned at the sound of his name, a broken flower in his hand.
His eyes, shimmering with a strange color, curved toward Yugyeom.
Yugyeom lazily twisted his lips, shielding the back of his neck from the wind.
“As long as you stand there with that name, I won’t ever need you.”
Red petals blown by the wind fell at the man’s feet.
He looked down at the petals, his gaze empty.
“No.”
His eyes, which had scanned the petals, returned to Yugyeom.
“Because I’m here, you will need me.”
His smiling face bloomed like a flower. He was incredibly certain.
“Besides, that position has a spot for me too, right? I would have killed him even without you.”
The man placed the already broken flower back among the vines.
The flower drooped and fell to the ground, but his gaze did not return to it.
“Then I’m off to meet my fiery lover.”
The man greeted Chan, who was walking up from behind Yugyeom, with a playful wink. His mischievously curved eyes looked excited.
“Oh, right.”
He stopped and turned his head.
“My lover doesn’t seem to remember? You were on the roof too.”
Chan flinched and froze.
“I covered it up as if I found him. But it was really you who contacted me.”
After the man disappeared completely, Chan exhaled a low breath. His eyes were sharp with discontent.
“I don’t like that guy.”
The stone Chan kicked rolled across the mossy ground.
“He’s got a sinister vibe, even more than you.”
“Where did you leave Sena?”
Yugyeom asked as he sat back on the bench. At the mention of Sena, Chan forgot his previous complaints.
“Don’t even start. I had such a hard time calming her down…”
Chan insisted he was innocent.
Since the day Sena told him to quit smoking, he had honestly only held a cigarette to his lips but never smoked it.
That cigarette was from Yugyeom. He must have handed it to him right as she arrived, but saying that only backfired.
“That’s right. This is all your fault! You jerk!”
Chan, panting with anger, tried to lunge at Yugyeom, but soon he exhaled deeply and gave up.
What’s the point of getting angry?
Chan, having reached a deep realization, plopped down beside Yugyeom. The night wind was as cold as yesterday.
“Did you… hear everything yesterday?”
Chan closed his eyes as the wind hit his face.
“The conversation with Cha Yeonbyul.”
He asked casually, but his heart was pounding loudly.
When he woke up with a splitting headache and found himself alone on the floor, he had a bad feeling.
He had been too scared to ask, but now he knew Yugyeom had taken Cha Yeonbyul home. It was the worst possible scenario he had imagined.
When there was no response for a long time, he cautiously opened his eyes.
He glanced sideways to gauge Yugyeom’s reaction and met his gaze directly.
“Yeah.”
Yugyeom squinted and smiled at Chan.
Chan quickly turned his head away and closed his eyes.
“Stupid fool,” Chan berated himself, squeezing his eyes shut. Trying to fix one problem had only made things worse.
Alcohol is the enemy. If it weren’t for the alcohol, he would’ve noticed the presence immediately.
‘I don’t want Yugyeom to die.’
After spending enough time in this world, he believed he had developed a decent sense of people. If that expression was an act, then that woman was not of this world.
The words she had spoken with a face that alone was suffocating were something he had never expected.
Even he was confused, and Yugyeom had heard it directly. This was a disaster.
“I don’t think Cha Yeonbyul is bad.”
Since things had already reached this point, he decided to be honest if he couldn’t stop it.
“She didn’t have a lying face.”
He couldn’t even remember the last time he had faced someone’s true feelings.
How could he win against someone who faced him with nothing but pure honesty?
Chan finally understood why Yugyeom was so helplessly swayed by Yeonbyul.
Yugyeom, who had been living a life of pretending to be someone else, deceiving even himself from a moment he couldn’t remember, had no other choice.
Her very existence denied the way he had lived, and at the same time, she was the only genuine thing he had encountered in a world where he couldn’t live any other way.
It was something he hated enough to want to kill but couldn’t let go of.
“I met her earlier.”
Yugyeom let out a slight laugh, his red eyes cold.
“She lied to me.”
‘Because I have someone waiting for me.’
Did she truly think that ridiculous excuse would work on him? Was she trying to deceive him even by allowing him to kiss her?
If she had said that knowing it wouldn’t work, that would have been annoying in its own way.
Yugyeom ran his fingertips over his lips, a subconscious gesture.
He hadn’t anticipated she would be there.
It was always like that.
Anyone in this world could be there, but she was the only one who shouldn’t be.
In the alley. In the casino.
In the sky garden where she had gone looking for Chan.
‘But to Yugyeom, I am…’
Her voice reached him on the wind. It wasn’t intentional, but he didn’t block it either.
It felt familiar now, and perhaps he wouldn’t be shaken.
No anger, no expectations, nothing.
‘I hope I am the longest nightmare.’
But as always, she trampled on his arrogance.
In a way that was tedious, cruel, and relentless.
In that moment, Yugyeom resigned himself to the fact that unless everything was truly over, he would never be able to sever this connection on his own.
