Haewon said he didn’t want to go anywhere. Woojin chose the destination himself. The hotel he’d invested in with the Banggongho mbers was nearing completion.
Part of it belonged to Woojin, and though the original purpose of building it was tax evasion, it would inevitably beco, just as they expected, another Banggongho.
Inside the car, speeding faster and faster past the highway tollgate, Woojin glanced at Haewon, who sat quietly beside him.
Haewon had barely spoken since the night before. Even when Woojin told him to move into his apartnt, that he wanted them to live together, Haewon didn’t respond.
If things had gone according to plan, Haewon should have clung to him by now, begging to live together. But Woojin had acted impulsively last night. He’d ruined the script and spoken without thinking.
He flicked Haewon’s cheek as he sat staring blankly out the window, lost in thought. Haewon turned to look at him.
“What are you thinking so hard about? Don’t like it? You love traveling.”
“I do.”
“Aren’t you going to ask where we’re going?”
“Where are we going?”
“There’s a hotel I invested in. It’s almost done being built. No one will be there before it opens.”
“Oh.”
A dull, disinterested reply. Haewon turned his face back toward the window. Woojin reached out and grabbed his chin to make him look at him. Haewon frowned at the forceful gesture.
“Are you still mad about last night?”
“...”
“I told you it wasn’t sincere.”
“That’s not it.”
Haewon looked down at his phone and replied flatly. Park Jong-hoon had been calling nonstop. Haewon blocked his number.
“Who is it?”
“No idea.”
He replied dismissively and shoved his phone into the dashboard compartnt.
It was a weekday morning, and the highway was wide open. The car picked up speed and zipped forward.
“Did you think about what I said?”
“What?”
Haewon asked back. Woojin’s brow twitched slightly. Staring ahead and adjusting the wheel, he said:
“About moving into my apartnt.”
“What apartnt? You don’t an the officetel, right?”
“I’m renovating a place right now. I wanted to try living a little more settled. So I’m fixing it up.”
“What’s the difference?”
Woojin glanced sideways at him. Haewon was staring at his profile. Woojin’s eyes turned forward again. They were cruising at over 180 kiloters per hour.
“You leave for work from your officetel every day. What’s the difference?”
“There’s a clear difference.”
“Doesn’t seem that different.”
“Just sleeping over and coming and going isn’t the sa. I ant I want to live with you. Cohabitation. Don’t you get it?”
“...”
“You don’t want to?”
“I don’t know.”
It was an ambiguous answer. Woojin hated vague language. Too much room for interpretation—utterly useless.
“Be clear. If you don’t want to, say no. If you do, say yes. I’m not forcing you.”
“I don’t know if I want it or not.”
Don’t talk like you’re lecturing —Haewon responded a little sharply.
Since last night, sothing had been off.
Haewon wasn’t acting how Woojin expected. He wasn’t giving the reactions Woojin wanted, or showing him the expressions he always anticipated.
The thing that had been irritating him in vague, growing waves since the mont he packed Haewon’s bags and shoved him into the car—it was now taking shape.
Still flooring the gas pedal, Woojin suddenly pulled the car over to the shoulder. It jolted hard, as if slamming to a halt. Haewon’s upper body rocked from the sudden stop.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Woojin asked Haewon directly.
“What exactly is bothering you? If it’s about last night, I already apologized.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“...”
His brows twitched. His chest rose sharply as he took a deep breath, like trying to hold back his temper. His knuckles whitened where they gripped the wheel. On that face—sharp and precise but missing sothing fundantal—there was now a visible crack.
“If this is how it’s going to be, let’s not waste ti and just go back.”
Woojin checked the road signs. The nearest interchange was a few kiloters ahead.
Everything had gone his way. He got what he wanted when he wanted it. Haewon, too, was one of those trophies. Woojin had only ant to tighten the net a little more. But a wave of exhaustion washed over him. He didn’t even know where this fatigue was coming from.
He was about to switch gears and hit the accelerator again when Haewon asked:
“Why did you do it?”
Woojin turned toward Haewon with an aggressive glare.
“Why did you do it?”
“What the hell are you talking about? If you an last night, I already said I didn’t an it.”
“Why did you say the exact sa thing to Taeshin and ?”
“...”
Woojin shifted the gear from Drive to Park.
The heavy hum of the engine filled the car’s tense silence. Each ti another vehicle sped by on the highway, it kicked up dust and disappeared into a distant roar.
“You asked if I was sure I liked you. If I could take my clothes off in front of you. You said ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ that was what fidelity ant. That I should only say it when I wanted to undress in front of you—and no one else.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You asked Taeshin the sa thing. Didn’t you?”
“...”
Haewon stared him down, eyes unblinking, unwavering.
So this was the reason for his odd mood since last night.
He couldn’t have read Taeshin’s diary. He must’ve suddenly rembered that conversation while they were arguing.
Taeshin used to call Haewon often. They talked at length. Woojin rembered how Haewon used to complain that Taeshin said things he didn’t want to hear, which was why he disliked him.
“Why did you do it?”
Woojin himself only realized he’d said that to Taeshin after reading the diary. He didn’t say it to everyone—but out of all people, he had said the exact sa thing to both of them. Friends.
A rare mistake. His brow twitched ever so slightly.
But Woojin didn’t panic. He replied flatly.
“I don’t rember.”
“You don’t rember?”
“I don’t.”
“Do you say that to everyone? If you want to sleep with them, do you just throw that line out there? What, is that your go-to move?”
“Yeah.”
The reaction was so blasé, it made Haewon—who hadn’t slept a wink all night—feel ridiculous. He let out a stunned breath.
“So I was just another idiot who bit the bait you throw to any random dog or pig. Just like Taeshin.”
“Right.”
“That pathetic line was your seduction tactic?”
“It works. I’m good-looking, rember?”
“...”
“And back then, I was so desperate to get you into bed, I wasn’t thinking straight. I would’ve said anything. Whatever would stick.”
“...”
Woojin would never know what it felt like, for Haewon, to rember that conversation with Taeshin last night—and to feel like he was sinking into a pit. Like soone had pressed a hand to his heart and squeezed with intent to crush it.
He felt cold. Hollow. Pathetic.
Haewon had thought he was special to Woojin—soone Woojin, who rarely let anyone close, had made an exception for. But it was a delusion. He was just another one of many who had passed through.
He didn’t sleep at all last night, tornted by that realization.
“Well, it worked, didn’t it.”
“Are you joking right now?”
Haewon’s eyes flew open at Woojin’s reply. But even under his glare, Woojin responded without hesitation.
“I’m not joking. I’m telling you it didn’t an anything.”
His nonchalance crushed the fight right out of Haewon. He just stared at him, stunned, then looked forward.
He sat there, lips pressed tightly shut. Then Woojin said:
“You said that crap about not making my top five. That wasn’t your seduction line?”
“Why were you so good to Taeshin?”
“What?”
“Taeshin said you were so kind. Kind to the point of tears. Why aren’t you like that with ?”
“He didn’t piss off the way you do.”
“You were better to Kim Hayeong, too, weren’t you?”
“Are you seriously asking that? You think everyone drove crazy like you do? Lee Taeshin jumped at my words even in his sleep. Hayeong? She wanted to impress so badly she changed her entire major. She was a pianist. Suddenly decided in high school she’d go to d school and studied so hard she gave herself nosebleeds. What did you ever do?”
“...”
Compared to those who had been so devoted to him, Haewon hadn’t done anything for Woojin—nothing to win his heart.
All he had done was like him.
He hadn’t tried to make Woojin like him, hadn’t made any effort to appear appealing.
If anything, he’d only done the things Woojin found annoying or disliked. He hadn’t allowed the positions or the ways Woojin preferred. He couldn’t deny that Woojin had been putting up with him, adjusting to him all this ti.
“So because I didn’t make any effort for you, that ans it’s okay to treat carelessly sotis? You were kind to them because they listened to you?”
“Can you stop? How long are you going to keep waving those people around—dead ones at that.”
“So because I don’t listen, it’s okay to be rough with , is that it?”
“I don’t get it. Who was the one who said ‘I don’t know’ when I asked you to live with ? Was that ?”
Woojin truly couldn’t understand what was going on in Haewon’s head as he threw the question back at him.
“You’re the one who suddenly threw off while sucking soone else’s cock. Not .”
“...”
“And now that I think about it, you’re also the one who said there’s a limit to how much you like soone, that you get bored and tired of them easily. You said that to —the one who’s taking out loans to renovate a house so he can live with you.”
“...”
“I forgot for a second because you were crying last night, but now I rember. I rember the kind of garbage you said to .”
That sa strange discomfort he’d felt last night when Haewon curled up and cried was returning. Every ti Haewon’s back trembled, as if holding back sobs, sothing needle-sharp pierced into Woojin’s chest. It was a real, stabbing pain.
With an irritated expression, Woojin rubbed at the spot on his chest where he’d felt the unfamiliar ache—like a lingering bruise.
“Back then, I was into you... completely head over heels. I couldn’t see anything else. That’s why I said whatever ca to mind, did whatever I felt like doing.”
“So you just say that kind of shit to anyone you want to sleep with?”
“Not anyone.”
“You said it was a pickup line.”
“I don’t say it to just anyone.”
“You said it to Taeshin.”
“Yeah. I said it to Taeshin, and I said it to you.”
“...If he hadn’t died, if Taeshin hadn’t died—you would’ve kept seeing him, wouldn’t you? He was nice. He’d die to please you.”
It was a rare line from Haewon. That kind of bitter self-deprecation didn’t suit him.
Woojin looked at Haewon, whose gaze had dimd.
“I would’ve broken up with him.”
“...Why?”
“Because I saw you.”
“...”
“I’m that kind of person. I only focus on what I want. I don’t care if everything else falls apart because of . Even if he died right in front of , I wouldn’t have cared.”
It wasn’t a lie told just to get out of the mont. Woojin ant it.
Saying he wouldn’t have cared even if Taeshin died in front of him—that was a level of cruelty even Haewon struggled to process. But he couldn’t bring himself to scold him either. Because deep down, what he wanted to hear—what he needed to hear—was that even Taeshin’s death ant nothing compared to him.
Haewon felt a deep sense of disgust at this too-honest, shaful thought festering inside him.
Taeshin had been his boyfriend. If he were still alive, he would’ve rejected Woojin no matter how hard he ca on. But Woojin was the kind of man who only beca more irresistible the more you pushed him away. Haewon admitted that to himself without resistance.
What was fortunate was that Taeshin had died before Haewon ever t Woojin. Haewon bore no responsibility for his death.
It was better that he had died.
Haewon shivered as if he’d touched sothing monstrous.
“Are you crying again? I said I was sorry.”
“I’m not crying. I’m just... cold.”
Woojin had thought he was crying, and gently turned his cheek toward him. But there were no tears.
Woojin turned up the heat. He reached back for a jacket from the backseat and draped it over Haewon’s shoulders. Haewon pulled it all the way up to his nose like a blanket and breathed in his scent.
Woojin rubbed his chest again, as if sothing were stuck. That pain—dull and lingering—had been there since last night, when Haewon had curled up and sobbed.
“Does it hurt?”
Haewon reached for his chest and rubbed it gently, ignoring Woojin’s stare, his touch tender as if easing indigestion. Woojin let him touch him without resistance.
“It hurts.”
“How much? What kind of pain?”
“Ever since I found out you’re unsure about living with —it’s been worse.”
He spoke softly.
There was no attempt to bla Haewon for yesterday’s tantrum, or for dragging Taeshin’s mory into their fight. His voice was gentle, almost indulgent.
Woojin unfastened his seatbelt. He unclicked Haewon’s as well.
Haewon raised his gaze as Woojin leaned in across the console toward his seat.
“Don’t say no. I want to live with you.”
Haewon was an only child. He’d grown used to being alone. Ever since his birth mother left when he was in middle school, he spent most of his ti by himself.
He was so used to solitude that having soone near felt intrusive, made him hypersensitive, and annoyed him. There were tis he went over a week without speaking to anyone—but he’d never felt lonely.
He was soone who needed ti alone—and he had a career that demanded it. He needed solitude to reflect, to rest.
“Where’s the apartnt? Far from your officetel?”
“No, nearby. Close to the Central District Prosecutor’s Office.”
“I don’t like cramped places. It has to be spacious.”
“It is. I’m soundproofing a room to make a practice studio.”
“Does it have a piano?”
“Yeah.”
“What about the sofa? I hate leather ones. They make weird noises.”
“There’s one that doesn’t make weird sounds.”
“Is it a high floor? I hate heights. They make dizzy.”
“Not too high.”
Haewon blinked his flickering eyes and brought his lips to Woojin’s.
His wet tongue slid past his lips. When he wrapped both arms around his shoulders, Woojin’s firm arms encircled his back. Their chests collided. It felt like he was trapped in Woojin, sinking deep into the seatback.
Every ti their lips parted, faint moans escaped. Woojin’s tongue licked and sucked every corner of his sensitive mouth. Haewon rubbed his own tongue against his.
It felt like his consciousness was lting into sugar. His lips and mouth were sweet—like they were soaked in honey. Taeshin’s face kept popping into his head, and Haewon squeezed his eyes shut.
Swallowing the thick, wet breaths they shared, Woojin’s large hands caressed Haewon’s cheeks, hair, and earlobes. His breath grew heavier and more labored. When their lips finally parted, it made a lewd, sticky sound.
“Mm..., ah... haah... Woojin-hyung.”
“Open your mouth. Wider—open it more.”
He whispered just in front of Haewon’s lips. Haewon opened his mouth. When he said open wider, Haewon obeyed. Woojin’s tongue, soft and thick, slipped into the small red opening.
He twisted his head, deepening the kiss even further, as if trying to lick the back of Haewon’s throat.
It was a kiss that could last all night if ti allowed.
Haewon suddenly felt like crying.
He clung to him as if he might die, hugging his neck tight. Woojin responded with strength in his arms, pulling him in tighter.
Their moans mingled in heated breath as Woojin finally pulled back. Haewon was half out of his mind, still wrapped around Woojin’s neck. His eyes stared blankly. A light fever blood in his chest, and his head spun.
“...What about the bed? I can’t sleep just anywhere.”
“I ordered the sa one. Bigger.”
“Thorough, aren’t you.”
“That’s just how I am.”
“It’s handmade. Takes forever.”
“I’ll make sure it gets there before you move in.”
As he spoke, Woojin licked Haewon’s wet lips. Like he was waiting for the mont he could slip inside, his tongue traced the seam.
Haewon grabbed his hair—first tightly, then gently, again and again, enjoying the feel between his fingers.
“Was that true?”
“What was?”
“That thing you said. That being with makes it hard to control your desire.”
“It’s true. I’m just barely holding back from jumping you anywhere and everywhere. I’m good at self-control.”
“...That another one of your old-man pickup lines?”
“It is.”
“La. Gross.”
“Want to hear sothing better?”
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