Chapter 215

“Yoon Siron. Are you still mad?”

Siron didn’t so much as acknowledge him. Baekgyeong felt a faint stir of irritation and spoke with biting sarcasm.

“Annoyed because someone interrupted such a good time?”

“What?”

“Pissed that I barged in on your fucking?”

Siron’s blank face suddenly flared with rage. He snapped upright and hurled a cushion at Baekgyeong’s face.

“You crazy bastard! You think I’m some sex fiend?”

“Then why were your lips jutting out like that?”

If anyone should be pissed, it should be me—the one who saw you moaning under that fucker. Baekgyeong swallowed the words burning up his throat and instead said:

“Why the hell haven’t you said a word since I caught you screwing?”

Siron’s lips clamped tightly shut again. It was a look Baekgyeong hadn’t thought of in a while but knew well—an expression he’d seen whenever Siron was right at the breaking point of giving up, when he realized talking to Baekgyeong was useless and tried to grit his teeth and endure.

That expression made Baekgyeong feel like his chest would burst. And if he couldn’t hold back, he always forced Siron into talking by shouting him down—only to end up feeling something close to regret when tears fell from Siron’s eyes.

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, chasing away the red-hot images. It had taken four years to see him again. He couldn’t ruin it all over again.

“Then why? Why are you angry this time?”

Baekgyeong thought of it as an act of patience uncharacteristic of himself.

“You really are a son of a bitch. A fucker. A lunatic.”

“Pretty sure your mother, Choi Baekhee, wouldn’t like hearing that.”

Siron’s face darkened, hardening like curing concrete. Realizing he’d said the wrong thing, Baekgyeong hastily grabbed his wrist and forced a dimpling smile.

“I take that back.”

Siron shoved his hand away like it disgusted him. Baekgyeong silently carved the word patience into his mind, then crouched in front of the sofa where Siron sat, resting his hands on Siron’s knees and tilting his head up.

“Why are you mad? Tell me. If you don’t say it, I can’t fix it.”

Siron stared down at him, his face shocked as if hearing a foreign language. His chest heaved.

“Why am I mad? Because you threatened me—that I’d have to pay with my body just for spreading my legs. Do you still see me as some parasite leeching off your sponsorship?”

Baekgyeong’s face stiffened. He had degraded Siron, and their relationship had been nothing more than sponsor and sponsored actor. Yet hearing Siron demean himself, realizing he remembered the past that way, stabbed Baekgyeong like a knife.

All he had ever wanted was for Yoon Siron to look only at him, for them to be forever bound as each other’s most special existence. But time after time, he had made pathetic choices. Maybe to his mother, to Yoon Siron, his very existence had been nothing but a weapon.

After a long silence, he finally answered.

“No.”

“Exactly. Then don’t you dare talk to me like that again!”

Siron suddenly shouted, sprang to his feet, and stormed toward his room. Baekgyeong, stunned, followed him. Just as Siron was about to lock the door, Baekgyeong jammed his hand into the gap and forced it open.

“Talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to say. I’m hurt. I need to rest.”

“I’ll put medicine on you.”

“I can do it myself!”

“You’ve got bruises on your back too. Let me do it.”

At his forceful insistence, Siron exhaled, face locked in a grim expression—whether anger or resignation, it was impossible to tell. Silent and hesitant, he finally stepped aside and let go of the doorknob.

Still avoiding Baekgyeong’s eyes, Siron sat on the edge of the bed and slowly pulled off his T-shirt. His chest and body were covered in bruises. Without looking at him, he pulled out a tube of ointment from his bag, handed it over indifferently, and turned around.

“Only the spots I can’t reach. I’ll do the rest.”

Baekgyeong squeezed the tube onto the back of his hand, dabbed it onto his fingertips, and spread it gently across the bruises.

“Cold.”

At the touch, Siron muttered faintly, but didn’t pull away. Baekgyeong rubbed the damaged skin as softly as he could. The sharp menthol scent filled the silence of the room.

“They’re already turning yellow.”

Siron, whose walls had seemed impenetrable only moments ago, spoke in a slightly softer tone.

“Already yellow?”

Siron’s skin was weak; once a bruise formed, it never healed quickly. From purple to blue, from ugly brown to pale yellow, and finally back to normal skin tone—it always took at least ten days. Yet it had been only three nights since the kidnapping, and the bruises were already yellowing.

Siron looked down at the bruises across his chest.

“Guess the cream worked.”

Pressing the sore spots, he suddenly asked out of nowhere:

“How’s Choi Seongmin doing?”

The ambush of the name left Baekgyeong speechless. He hadn’t expected Siron to bring up his cousin—the one who had bribed Siron’s manager to leak the contents of his phone.

“Still blind in one eye?”

Baekgyeong pressed his lips together, furrowing his brow. He didn’t know what emotion to show, how to even begin to ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) answer. At last, in a reluctant voice, he said:

“He got sight back in the right eye. And then he finally went to prison.”

“How long a sentence?”

“Five years.”

“No way. You only got one. Choi Seongmin got five?”

“He was mid-level in drug distribution. Sentence was heavier.”

Baekgyeong’s tone turned defensive, his voice rising.

“How the fuck am I the same as him? That bastard was a dealer.”

“You blinded him.”

Baekgyeong rubbed the back of his neck, gaze sliding away.

“We settled.”

“I thought Seongmin would rather die than settle for any amount.”

“Turns out he could be bought.”

Siron sneered crookedly.

“Wow. Money really is god.”

Surely, Seongmin hadn’t wanted to settle. But as the obedient son, he had buckled under his father’s pressure and accepted.

In the end, Seongmin bore three heavy punishments for bribing Siron’s manager to leak the phone data: blindness in one eye, a prison term for drug trafficking, and a broken relationship with his father.

Then what about me? Have I paid for my sins?

The thought crept into Baekgyeong’s mind, sparked by the messages his mother had left him, making him confront how monstrous he truly had been.

“Why did you endure me back then?”

At his question, Siron frowned, staring at him for a long time as if trying to parse his meaning. Then his expression hardened, his gaze dropped, and his hands slowly clenched on his knees—like someone stripped of their armor, standing bare.

He stayed silent. His shoulders rose and fell ever so slightly as if steadying his breath, gathering his thoughts. Finally, he raised his head.

“Why else? Because I loved you.”

It was exactly the answer Baekgyeong had expected. Not surprising in the least. The only reason that could explain how Siron had survived him in the past was that one emotion.

But Baekgyeong had never once defined his own feelings for Siron as love. He had felt lust, had burned with jealousy whenever Siron’s gaze drifted elsewhere, had thought of him as the entirety of his life. Yet to call it love—it had always felt too incestuous, too twisted.

Even though he knew he’d kill himself without hesitation if Siron disappeared from this world, he still could not attach the word “love” to what he felt.

Or maybe he just thought of love too narrowly. But he had never felt the flutter of affection toward Siron.

Loved me, huh.

If Siron’s eyes, as he spoke those words, hadn’t looked so distant from the Siron who once loved him, Baekgyeong’s heart wouldn’t have dropped like a stone.

“And now?”

At his question, Siron’s face, which had just begun to calm, twisted into a scowl.

“Do I love you now? Me? You?”

“Then do you hate me?”

“Of course I fucking ha—!”

Like a balloon deflating, Siron’s expression hardened, cold and flat. He no longer looked like he wanted to speak at all. He got up, flipped the blanket back, and crawled beneath it—like a turtle retreating into its shell.

“I’m tired. Get out.”

As always, Baekgyeong ignored him. He slid in behind him, wrapping Siron in his arms, blanket and all.

Siron stayed silent. Hidden beneath the covers, his breathing was steady, as though he had no intention of continuing the conversation. But then his shoulders stiffened, his breaths grew harsher, like someone struggling to smother their rage. Finally, he flung the blanket aside and sat bolt upright, shouting:

“The flutter was only for a moment. The anger and exhaustion because of you were so much bigger. I don’t ever want to feel that again!”

His bloodshot eyes glared at Baekgyeong, brimming with both fury and grief.

“Even now... I still hate you. I hate you for ruining my life.”