Ding

"Yeehyeon-ssi."

At the urgent voice, he looked up. Inwu, who had parked tight against the curb, was already walking quickly toward him, half-running. Yeehyeon shifted awkwardly and stood.

"I'm sorry for suddenly — "

"No, don't worry about it. I'm really fine."

Inwu didn't press him. Yeehyeon stood there looking down at the ground, biting his lip and fidgeting with the strap of his bag. Inwu didn't crack a cheap joke or flash his usual easy smile. The moment Yeehyeon had suddenly called asking if he could stay the night, he had already acted far outside his usual self. That alone must have told Inwu the situation was serious.

Keeping his gaze fixed on his toes, Yeehyeon tightened his grip on the strap.

"I'm really sorry, but I... today... I have nowhere to go right now. It's not that I don't want to be with nuna and hyung — it's just that my thoughts are too complicated right now...."

"Yeehyeon-ssi, you don't need to explain. Let's just go."

Inwu placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and cut off the rambling.

"......"

But Yeehyeon couldn't follow the pull toward the car and remained where he was. As Inwu took the small shopping bag from his hand, he let out a low breath.

"I won't tell Liu Weikun."

Only then did Yeehyeon slowly raise his head to meet Inwu's eyes. This time, he allowed himself to be guided and began walking.

While driving, Inwu glanced at the passenger seat now and then, but he didn't ask anything. Feeling his gaze, Yeehyeon pretended not to notice, staring blankly out the window while chewing at his dry, cracked lips. I wish I could just run somewhere far away where I don't have to explain anything to anyone or face any problems — he mocked himself for such a very-him kind of thought.

True to what he'd once mentioned at a Phantom party, from the living room window of Inwu's thirty-second-floor apartment, the nightscape of Seoul literally spread out beneath them. Thinking that this was a landscape with a different character from the view at Liu's house — from the second floor, or from the rooftop — Yeehyeon pressed himself close to the floor-to-ceiling glass and poured out admiration for the night view, determined not to let a single thought, however trivial, lead him back to that person.

"I'm glad you like it... but please put your bag down. Are you carrying something valuable?"

Inwu came out of the kitchen holding two glasses and caught Yeehyeon's eye through the window reflection, chuckling. Yeehyeon managed an awkward smile, shrugged off his backpack, and accepted the glass offered to him. Inwu's glass held whiskey on the rocks. Yeehyeon's was warm milk — the same thing Liu had brought him that sweltering summer night when his great-uncle had visited, when it had been pouring outside and Liu had found him in the bathtub, trembling.

"Um, hyung, if it's okay... I'd like some of that too...."

"Ah... I don't have any beer right now...."

"I can drink whiskey too."

He pressed his lips shut, realizing too late he sounded like a child insisting he could do anything adults could do, only proving his own greenness. He felt the regret as Inwu chuckled softly, ran a hand through his hair, and disappeared back into the kitchen with the glass of milk — but he didn't call him back.

The continuous string of uncharacteristic words and actions was disorienting to Yeehyeon himself. These impulses, breaking through control and inertia, reminded him of a whack-a-mole game. But he had no desire to pick up the mallet and strike the moles that kept popping up in different places to provoke him.

Wiping his face and turning his head, Yeehyeon's gaze paused on the easel and painting supplies scattered haphazardly in the corner behind the sofa, where the two large windows met.

The canvas was more than halfway finished. It was far removed from Inwu's usual style — the cheerful, cartoonish aesthetic, the warm colors with just enough bizarre undertone to season it.

This was far bolder. More direct. It held richer stories and emotions than his usual work. There was no trace of the intention to soften inner weight with witty jokes. As if he were fed up with evasion and avoidance dressed up as ease, the desperate figure of a naked man struggling on the canvas seized Yeehyeon's attention.

"Yeehyeon-ssi, over here."

Inwu raised his glass and called him from the long dining table set between the sofa and the kitchen — long enough to host a banquet for ten.

"Were you... working on a painting?"

"I'm usually the kind of person who can paint fine with someone staring right over my shoulder, but knowing you're watching makes me strangely self-conscious."

"I didn't know you painted at home."

"I'm not someone who stakes everything on painting to the point of needing a separate studio either. Like someone once said."

Setting the glasses from the tray onto the table, Inwu glanced up at Yeehyeon with just his eyes and smiled. Yeehyeon thought he knew who that "someone" was, but he only lifted the corner of his mouth slightly without reacting further. He accepted the glass — whiskey, three or four ice cubes — and sat across from him.

"The feel of the work seems a little... different."

"You really are a fortune teller when it comes to paintings. Like someone once said."

Because Inwu was clearly bringing Liu up repeatedly — intentionally — Yeehyeon couldn't follow his smile this time. He lowered his gaze, holding the glass lightly, and slowly let the liquor slide down his throat the way you'd drink hot coffee.

"Maybe it's because Yeehyeon-ssi is honest when it comes to paintings that you're so good at recognizing the sincerity an artist pours into a work, whether intentionally or not. It's true that with literature or music, the more you study, the more you see, and the wider your interpretation becomes. But I don't think that inability to see a painting as anything more than an object of academic analysis is something you can fix just by studying harder. That's what I think."

I looked up at Inwu. He was leaning back loosely in his chair, upper body relaxed, and he laughed while rubbing the back of his neck, as if embarrassed by his own long, serious speech. Perhaps his change wasn't limited to his paintings.

Everyone was moving forward somewhere. While I remained frozen — shaped by fear of change, shaped by the ways my thoughts and wounds had warped me — those who had made different choices were drawing in shock and transformation itself, absorbing it as nourishment.

For them, scars had become identity. Just as Liu had said....

But no scar could become identity without a price. It was a radiance granted only to those who had faced their wounds with their own strength and endured the passage of pain without compromise, with their whole body.

I bit down on my lower lip, and the lingering taste of alcohol swirled on my tongue.

"I appreciate you thinking that, but..."

The sharp bitterness of the whiskey Liu often drank reminded Yeehyeon of kissing him. They had shared a deep kiss just that morning before he left, but now it felt distant and hazy — like reaching for a memory from a past life.

Yeehyeon tightened his grip on the glass, bore down on his lip with his teeth, and stared at the ice before continuing.

"You can't really call someone who gave up on their art... honest in front of a painting."

"But you're painting again. You couldn't completely let go of it. That's what matters."

Before Inwu could even finish speaking, Yeehyeon drained the rest of his glass and delivered his own verdict without mercy.

"Fortunately... I got to paint again. With someone else's help."

He stood up with a bitter smile, feeling trapped — like a maze where no matter how many corners he turned or how hard he ran, every path led back to the same place, back to Liu. He retrieved the shopping bag he'd left on the sofa, brought it to the table, and pushed it slightly toward Inwu.

"Here..."

"......"

Inwu's eyes widened slightly, asking.

"Starbucks City Tumblers. This one I bought in Chicago, and this one... in Boston...."

As Yeehyeon set them down one by one and explained, his hands and voice suddenly slowed. He let out a faint, useless laugh and ran a hand over his face.

"I should have at least wrapped them. I have no sense for things like this...."

"You have plenty of sense — look at what you picked. These Starbucks City Tumblers are genuinely pretty. I didn't expect you to bring one back from Boston either. The two of you... must not have had much time to spare for yourselves. Thank you. Honestly... I wasn't expecting much. I thought you probably wouldn't remember."

Holding the orange tumbler from Boston and turning it in his hands as if admiring it, Inwu sank into thought, a very faint smile touching the corners of his mouth.

Back in Boston, when Yeehyeon had said he wanted to buy a tumbler for Inwu and asked to stop by Starbucks for a moment. Liu's brow furrowing in jealousy, his tone going petulant like a young boy. And then the feel of his arms wrapping around from behind, pulling at his waist while he tried to choose, and the body warmth pressed against his back — all of it came rushing back at the sight of one orange tumbler.

Yet just like the kiss that morning — like something experienced secondhand through a fictional character in a film or a novel — it carried no real weight. It only grazed the surface of his senses without catching.

Yeehyeon could tell from the way Inwu had unconsciously slowed at the words "time to spare for yourselves" that he had already guessed: today's sudden contact had something to do with Liu.

Of course it did. What was left of him lately, if you removed Liu? It didn't require any great deduction. It was a very simple matter.

Now that he had been forced to stop and look back, everything — not just his day-to-day life but every aspect of the grand design of his existence — was completely entangled with Liu.

The influence of another person determining the course of his life itself.

Whether he was present or absent, everything changed — from the basics of food and shelter to the direction of his future. Literally everything.

Could he call that love? Could he say it with any confidence? Or was it dependence — surrender, even?

Was he loving in the exact way he had feared most — the way his father had loved, turning his back on the entire world after losing his mother? Trying to shake off that new fear, like the faint tremor a distant tsunami sends through the body of someone standing on the shore, Yeehyeon swallowed more liquor.

"When I was in Boston, there was a really wonderful Starbucks near Ellen and Marcus's place. It felt less like a chain and more like a small traditional local café... Oh, do you know Ellen and Marcus? You probably do, right? Given how long you've been friends with the Director... They're truly wonderful people, and when I visited — "

"Yeehyeon-ssi."

Leaning forward from his chair, Inwu placed a heavy hand on the table, stopping the uncharacteristic stream of chatter.

"I won't ask anything, so you don't have to force yourself to talk. But if you want to, I'm always ready to listen."

"......"

Yeehyeon's gaze, which had been fixed on Inwu, tilted sideways toward the table.

From the moment he had selected Inwu's name from his contacts, he had actually intended to ask for help. He had planned to share the impact of the shock with him, disperse it. But he knew confirming the details would only inflict greater damage — so he kept delaying, afraid to make it something certain and real.

Yeehyeon moistened his lips with whiskey that still carried the burn of undiluted alcohol. Eyes fixed on the glass instead of on Inwu, as if something else were moving him, he opened his mouth and spoke in a voice like a sleepwalker's.

"Today... Shushu came to the house."

"......"

"It seemed like she had something to say to the Director, but his schedule is completely booked until Friday, so he was out again today. I had some time before meeting nuna and hyung, so we waited together...."

As he tried to say aloud what Shushu had told him, a hollow laugh slipped out. He felt like a child about to tell some absurd story — meeting an alien, talking to his own toys.

For someone who had lived his entire life only aware of a world made of Betas, with no particular connection even to ordinary Alphas or Omegas let alone a Golden Alpha, the idea of a Ghost being able to turn a Beta into an Omega was less believable than talking to a doll. It was closer to folklore. A ghost story.

Yeehyeon rubbed his face with his free hand as if trying to crush it, then rested his chin on the table.

"Hyung — do you happen to know?"

Unsure how to continue, he changed direction and posed the question to Inwu. With his chin propped heavily, as though forcibly supporting a collapsing body, his gaze still lowered, Yeehyeon looked exhausted.

"Phantom, Ghost... why the Director is obsessed with those words."

"......"

Inwu's mouth went rigid while his eyes flickered, unstable. Seeing it, Yeehyeon's eyes narrowed. A cold, sinister premonition — one he didn't want to believe — seemed to freeze him from the inside out. His shoulders jerked as his breathing went ragged all at once. Even after swallowing dryly and wetting his lips with his tongue, his mouth felt filled with sand.

He had asked if Inwu knew — but that was only the form of a question. He had never actually imagined the answer would be yes.

"Then... you knew about the other things, too?"

Both the hand gripping the glass and the lips shaping those words were trembling against his will.

Inwu's face answered for him. He opened his mouth as if to speak, couldn't bring himself to say it — then closed his lips again tightly, as if he would say nothing further on the matter, his gaze falling away in something like grief. His face alone was the answer.

"I guess you did know."

It wasn't a calculated reaction. He simply couldn't bear it. He pushed himself up from his seat to breathe, to survive.

Even the place he had come to for refuge — to hide for a moment, catch his breath, get himself together — had turned out to be enemy territory. It felt like everyone around him knew Liu's secret. So much so that he wondered how he had gone without knowing until now. Threats and crises were right at hand. Right behind the smiles of kind, gentle people.

How fragile peace was — like a floor of thin glass, so easily shattered. He thought he had already learned that lesson from his mother's accident, had always been on guard because of it. But once life decided to be cruel, there was no preparation that was ever enough.

Without thinking to grab his bag or jacket, with no plan whatsoever, driven only by instinct, Yeehyeon moved away from the table and walked quickly toward the entrance.

"Yeehyeon-ssi! Yeehyeon-ssi!"

Halfway down the hallway, Inwu grabbed his arm and held him fast. Forced to turn, Yeehyeon saw the desperation in Inwu's face — but he didn't want to let his guard down. He wanted to harden himself. To become ruthless. He pulled his gaze straight down to Inwu's chest and bent forward, pushing against him.

"It might sound like an excuse, but I only found out recently myself. Yeehyeon-ssi, please... just listen to me. Right now, Weikun and I — I know you probably can't even stand the sight of us — but if you really can't, I'll leave. Just... don't try to leave. Okay? Where would you even go right now?"

Inwu's grip on his arms was so tight his arms went numb, but Yeehyeon couldn't even register the pain.

When Shushu had told him that Liu was using his unique ability to change his body into an Omega — at the time, there had been shock, instinctive and immediate, but he couldn't truly feel it as real. But Inwu's reaction in front of him — now — transformed that vague, drifting ghost story into something concrete. Something happening to his own body.

It wasn't Inwu Yeehyeon wanted to run from. It was this reality. Like someone trying to shake off a swarm of winged insects closing in from all sides, Yeehyeon shook his head.

"No... I know it's not your fault, hyung. I know you're not the one who did this. But right now, what I know in my head is useless... It's like my brain stopped working and my body is moving on its own. I can't control it. I want to handle this calmly, I do, but my body — "

"Don't blame yourself. Who could stay calm in a situation like this? That would be strange."

"What's strange and what's normal... I don't even know anymore. How am I supposed to... how am I supposed to accept this, this situation... Director... nim...?"

Looking up at Inwu, Yeehyeon had completely lost the equilibrium he usually maintained — the restraint that had always kept his emotional range smaller than his age. With the face of a frightened young boy lost in chaos, he grabbed Inwu's arm and shook it, repeating the question.

"What is this... what is this, hyung?"

"......"

Like a truck slamming into a taxi waiting quietly at a red light, listening to the radio.

Rushing in from the side of ordinary life without any warning — shattering everything, breaking the flow, ruining plans — and in an instant turning the touch of someone he had taken into himself, had felt as close as his own skin, into something terrifyingly unrecognizable.

He never thought he would experience that kind of impact twice in his life.

Inwu, who had been gripping Yeehyeon's arms tightly and looking down with an expression like he'd just swallowed something unbearably bitter, pulled him in hard. He wrapped his arms around his shoulders and squeezed his back, holding nothing back.

"You don't need to understand it. You don't need to try to accept it. You haven't done anything wrong."

"Then what am I supposed to do? What do I do?"

"......"

"Blame someone? Hate someone? Demand answers? Is that what I should do?"

"If that's what you want to do, then do it."

Being held like this felt wrong. Inwu's shoulders were a little lower than Liu's. The warmth of their chests meeting, the brush of ear against cheek — the fact that it wasn't him — made Yeehyeon flinch inward.

But even in Liu's arms, he realized, he would probably never feel the same familiarity and safety again. Probably. He was realizing it in someone else's arms.

Yeehyeon slowly pushed Inwu's chest away. The arms that had held him so tightly — as if determined never to let him go — loosened more easily than expected, as though the force from a moment ago had been an illusion.

He steadied his staggering steps, backed away until he met the wall, and leaned against it. To maintain some minimum of composure, he wiped both hands down his face and lowered his voice.

"And then? After I've vented all of that... do I just go back to how things were like nothing happened? Or...."

Or is this something that should never be forgiven?

He bit his lip until it went white, swallowing the words. Still — more real than the terrifying change Liu was supposedly causing in his body were the sincere expressions Liu had shown him, or at least what he had believed to be sincere, the words of healing and empathy he had offered. That accumulation was still trying to defend him.

"I'm sorry... I really don't know how to apologize... No, this isn't even a matter of apology anymore. Regardless of when I found out, I'm just as much of a bastard for staying silent...."

Yeehyeon shook his head, cutting him off. Inwu was right — it wasn't a matter of apology. And right now, apology wasn't what he needed to find his footing again.

Yeehyeon gnawed on his lower lip and muttered.

"It's not something you need to apologize for... I think that, I want to say that, but I don't know...."

"Even I, as an Alpha, can't understand this — so for you, who has lived as a Beta... it goes without saying. I agreed with that bastard when he said the shock would be less if you heard it from him directly. So I kept my mouth shut. But if he was so afraid of the shock you'd receive, he shouldn't have started any of this in the first place. I know I can't be free of responsibility for this — for falling for that sophistry and staying silent."

Inwu's voice was rising with agitation. He leaned back against the wall across from Yeehyeon and ran a hand through his carefully styled hair. He repeatedly clenched and unclenched his fists — like before a blood draw — staring down at his own forearm, revealed beneath the sweatshirt pulled up past his elbows, with fierce eyes.

"My pheromones went wild. The Alpha instincts I'd never once been swayed by before took control of me." Isn't that too flimsy an excuse coming from the mouth of that great, near-perfect Golden Alpha? If he couldn't resist the pheromones — if he couldn't control himself around you, couldn't keep his hands to himself — then he should have given up on being near you entirely."

Inwu clenched the fist he'd been working open and shut, looking as if he was barely holding back the urge to drive it into something. The veins on his forearm stood out, faintly blue.

"He watched the object of his desire every single day. Observed him. And then claims he never intended rape. That's nothing but an excuse."

Inwu's voice was low and quiet, almost a whisper, but it had gone cold as metal — as if there was no room left for reconsideration in the conclusion he had already reached.

"......"

The word "rape" seemed to drop the temperature of the room and his own body by several degrees. Yeehyeon flinched and went rigid, staring straight at Inwu. But Inwu, burning with rage toward Liu who wasn't even present, didn't even register Yeehyeon's reaction.

Strictly speaking, no coercion or force had been used during the act itself. But he had never been told about the essential physical changes that could result from it. It wasn't rape in the conventional sense — yet even as he felt revulsion at Inwu's analogy, he couldn't step forward to defend Liu by calling it an unfair leap.

Was it really like that? Had something that vile happened — to his body?

The weight of that word poured cold water over the scattered thoughts churning in his head. He needed to be cold. To see past the confusion without distortion, he had to be cold and steady and still. But it wasn't easy.

"How... how can you turn a Beta into an Omega? What method did he — "

His voice still trembled faintly at the end. Inwu's guilty eyes met his cautiously.

"Through knotting...."

"......"

"Normal knotting has no effect on a Beta. But a Ghost can perform a special kind of knotting. It causes some inexplicable chemical change. If a Beta is continuously knotted in that state, they gradually turn into an Omega — and that's what they call Changing. That's what I heard."

From Shushu, he hadn't received such a detailed explanation. Only that Liu was a Golden Alpha — a Ghost with the unique ability to transform a Beta into an Omega. That whenever he attempted to Change someone, his eye color would cloud over like a ghost's within a few hours. That was all.

Yeehyeon wrapped his arms tightly around his own trembling body.

"Then, all those times we knotted...."

A hollow laugh slipped out after the murmur, quiet as talking to himself. What he had believed was the most intimate form of connection with Liu had only ever been a tool — the realization settled over him, heavier each time it returned, shock layering upon shock.

Inwu gripped Yeehyeon's shoulder again as he shook his head slightly, as if refusing to believe it.

"Let's go to the hospital tomorrow. We can check how far it's progressed — whether there's still a chance of living closer to a Beta if we stop it now. I'll arrange a VIP examination. I'll do the checkup myself."

Yeehyeon looked at him. His eyes were unfocused, asking what difference that would make now. Inwu loosened his grip on the shoulder beneath his hand — Yeehyeon looked like a defenseless young animal before something violent — and stroked it as gently as he could.

"Of course, if you're not ready, we don't have to do it right now."

"How long will the results take?"

"We should be able to confirm quite a bit right away with an ultrasound."

"By how developed my uterus is...."

"......"

The word "uterus" cut through him with the same metallic chill as "rape" had — sharp and cold and alien — and his speech slowed without his choosing it to. Seeing Inwu set his jaw and avert his gaze rather than answer, Yeehyeon let out a faint breath.

He remembered Liu asking him to sleep together without having sex, just wanting to stay until morning. And his own question that followed — why couldn't they sleep together after having sex — and now a bitter smile slipped out. Right. That wouldn't have been possible. What expression had Liu worn while looking at him then?

Pity? Apology? Conflict and a strange tenderness? Whatever complicated story had been mixed into it, at this moment, he didn't want to block his own feelings to try to decipher Liu's.

Yeehyeon took a deep breath and bit down hard on his lower lip.

He felt he could vaguely understand now — the desperation after their first penetration and first knotting in Hong Kong, when Liu had frantically scraped the evidence from his own body like a man losing his mind. The reason for the repeated apologies. The reason for the "unnecessary cleanup." Liu's confusion, having to do something, anything, to address what could not be addressed.

"I want it. Do that for me. Knotting... do it again."

His own voice, begging Liu for it, was still vivid. He released the arms wrapped around his own chest and scrubbed at his face as if trying to wipe it away. His breathing was quickening again, steep and sharp, and he couldn't steady it. He wished he could lose consciousness — the way he had when he first came face to face with Alienation again in Liu's living room — but his foolish body demanded that he be present for every moment of this.

Every moment he had spent with Liu looked different now. The sex with him, where he had felt gloriously free — liberated from convention and morality as if he had become an entirely different person. How afterward, even having said such explicit things that he would have burned with embarrassment just thinking them alone, he had felt more intimacy with Liu than ever before — a profound sense of security, as if they had shown each other everything and been understood.

It had all been an illusion. For Liu, sex with him hadn't been only that. It had always contained another direction, another purpose.

"It was me...."

"......"

"I was the one who asked... who kept asking him to knot me, who said I wanted it... so many times...."

"That's not it. It's not your fault!"

Inwu shook his shoulders and raised his voice. Yeehyeon hadn't meant it as an admission of fault, but he didn't feel the need to correct the misunderstanding.

"Liu Weikun is just a bastard. You were a victim who knew nothing. You shouldn't blame yourself at all."

"......"

Like the day his uncle had visited — he felt soaked through, drenched to the bone. Foolishly, he missed Liu's warmth. The body warmth of him jumping out of the car that day and pulling Yeehyeon into his arms first, before asking a single question. Even though Liu was the one who had driven him into this cold — wanting to be warmed by his body heat now....

Concluding that his love had probably been nothing more than dependence and surrender, moisture welled in Yeehyeon's eyes. He raised his hand immediately to wipe it away, unwilling to give it room — and at that moment, Inwu's head tilted slowly, deeply, forward.

"......"

No tongue. But it was a kiss deep enough to press their lips together completely, tightly, for a long moment. While Yeehyeon stood frozen, blinking slowly two or three times, Inwu slightly adjusted the angle, gently dragged across the inner lining, and then drew back.

"......What is this."

His body was stiff as if someone were pressing a gun to his spine. Without moving an inch, Yeehyeon moved only his lips to ask. Inwu released his shoulders and raised both palms in surrender, rubbing the back of his neck with an awkward smile.

"A new shock... did it at least momentarily make the Changing one disappear?"

He was trying to play it off like one of his usual cheap jokes, but Inwu's eyes were shifting unsteadily and his lips were twitching. Under Yeehyeon's gaze — direct, demanding a real answer — he quickly gave up the act. He let out a heavy breath through closed lips and looked at Yeehyeon with eyes that had been scratched raw by something.

"I can't just watch."

"......"

"I know that to you, I'm just another bastard involved in this. But at least I'm not the one who changed your body. I stepped back because I thought he genuinely wanted you and cherished you — but if that hadn't been the case...."

"What good are hypotheticals like that?"

As if Inwu's hypothetical — along with the kiss moments before — meant nothing to him, Yeehyeon's voice was neither cold nor warm.

"I understand this whole situation has been a big shock for you too, hyung."

Just as Yeehyeon tried to close the matter there, Inwu stepped forward with a scowl.

"Don't pretend not to know. You remember — I was the one who showed interest first."

"Yes, I remember. And I also know that even if it hadn't been me there, you would have done the same."

"......"

Inwu's approach in the beginning — always wrapping his words in something that felt like a proposition, as if he wanted to go on a date or take Yeehyeon to bed — Yeehyeon had dismissed it as nothing more than the habitual behavior of a typical womanizer, empty of any real feeling. Since Inwu had never tried to cross a decisive line, Yeehyeon had simply ignored him and offered no reaction.

Even if there was a possibility that those feelings could have grown into something more, beneath that seemingly careless exterior — bringing it up now would serve no purpose whatsoever.

If his father had reacted differently then. If his mother hadn't been in that accident. If they hadn't changed restaurants. If the truck driver had gotten his vehicle checked on time. What did hypotheticals like that change?

"You're too confused right now... I'll just think of it as a momentary mistake."

Inwu looked at Yeehyeon — who spoke in a weary voice, wanting to wrap this up and leave it here — and his eyes filled with something like resentment.

"You aren't even confused about me."

"......"

"You can handle me this calmly."

He couldn't stand it — Inwu deliberately choosing this moment to throw yet another problem at him. Whether his feelings were genuine or not, right now Yeehyeon didn't have the strength to carry even the weight of a feather more.

"I... I'll sleep somewhere else tonight."

Without his jacket, without his bag, without any plan, Yeehyeon turned toward the entrance — and Inwu grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. His hand this time was firm. No hesitation.

"There's no need. Like you said, it was a meaningless impulsive mistake."

"......"

"But."

"......"

"It seems even mistakes have timing."

Pushing Yeehyeon's shoulder — gripping it hard enough to hurt — back toward the living room, Inwu tilted his head at a crooked angle.

"Living as a coward who only smiles faintly on the surface and never tries anything... might actually be worse than making a once-in-a-lifetime mistake that risks everything. That's what I think."

Inwu muttered it from behind him, bitter and self-deprecating. As Yeehyeon was pushed along toward the living room and glanced back, Inwu patted his shoulder a couple of times as if in encouragement and flashed his usual playful smile.

"Haven't seen that face before. Who is it? A new lover?"

That was what he had said — curious, interested — when they first met in front of Phantom, by Liu's car. That Inwu seemed to overlap with this one now. But like two pictures in a spot-the-difference puzzle, there was something subtly misaligned somewhere.

Inwu softly pressed his hand against Yeehyeon's cheek — the one that kept turning back to look — as if telling him not to.

"At least then... something will happen."

The voice that came from behind him was no longer laughing.