Harmonious Love

A Perfect Lie (7)

Lately, he often felt this confused.

Pushing aside the uneasy feeling, he habitually picked up the perfume bottle next to him. As soon as he sprayed it once on his wrist, he felt Mo Yeon’s gaze.

“…Why are you spraying that?”

From what he had seen so far, Mo Yeon hadn’t shown much interest in perfume, so this was the first time he showed any curiosity.

Tae Young-won raised an eyebrow and immediately moved his hand. Feeling a bit mischievous without realizing it, he sprayed some perfume on Mo Yeon’s nape as well.

“Ah…!”

Mo Yeon immediately hunched his shoulders and quickly covered his nose. As Tae Young-won watched him frowning with his nose covered by his sweater sleeve, he sprayed once more over him. At the same time, he was aware that his current behavior was a bit childish, but he didn’t change his expression one bit.

Today, they had no overlapping classes, and it was a day when Mo Yeon would be coming back late after his part-time job.

“This way, you’ll think of me later, right?”

“Ugh, stop it!”

Tae Young-won sprayed the perfume several more times with mechanical gestures.

‘Think of me a lot until dinner, you brat.’

The fact that he was having such childish thoughts would be a secret he’d take to his grave.

And a moment later, he couldn’t hold back his laughter.

“What is it?”

At first, Mo Yeon had struggled and covered his nose, saying he didn’t like it, but after a while, when the alcohol smell had somewhat dissipated, small sniffing sounds could be heard. Mo Yeon, feeling Tae Young-won’s gaze, awkwardly rolled his eyes.

“What, finding it charming now that you’ve smelled it?”

“That’s not it…”

Mo Yeon was now bringing his nose to the arm he had used to cover it earlier. After sniffing for a while, he said with round eyes as if he had discovered something:

“There was always a scent coming from sunbae, and this was it. I couldn’t recognize it earlier because it was too strong. Now it smells similar to sunbae’s usual scent.”

You can even recognize that? With your glasses held together with tape when they break, and wearing all sorts of strange clothes, yet you recognize my scent. How should I express this oddly endearing feeling?

“What did my usual scent smell like?”

“It was nice. I thought it was like fabric softener or something…”

His tone was as usual, flat and potentially perceived as cold by others. However, he kept sniffing various parts of his sweater sleeve. Tae Young-won thought he looked just like a dog writhing on its owner’s clothes. He reached out his hand.

“Mo Yeon.”

“…”

He lifted Mo Yeon’s cheek, which was still buried in his sleeve. It wasn’t visible before, but as his face was revealed, Tae Young-won noticed his reddened ear tips.

“Want to kiss?”

As he kept staring, even Mo Yeon’s face turned red in an instant. He thought he might be able to confirm something through a kiss. Somehow, whenever he brought it up, Mo Yeon’s gaze naturally turned to Tae Young-won’s lips.

Mo Yeon often showed unexpectedly innocent sides like this. And for Tae Young-won, there were many times when he suspected it might not be unintentional. It was too effective a tactic to not be suspicious.

“…No.”

He answered after staring at the other’s lips for a long time. Mo Yeon, speaking in a dazed voice, suddenly got up and headed for the window.

“There must be something about that window. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense that he always runs there.”

Even though there was clearly nothing to see, why did he keep looking out there every day?

While grumbling discontentedly, a smile appeared on Tae Young-won’s lips. He looked down at the perfume bottle in his hand again.

His favorite perfume, which he had been using for a long time, was still more than half empty. That day, Tae Young-won ordered the same perfume.

***

If Mo Yeon liked him, it would be quite troublesome for Tae Young-won.

He had been thinking to himself that Mo Yeon probably liked him. After this misconception deepened, Tae Young-won’s gaze towards Mo Yeon had become much more pitying than before.

‘What are you going to do, Mo Yeon?’

Falling for me now.

He thought there was no emotion as messy and annoying as love between a man and a woman. Looking closely, it seemed that this was also starting to happen between Mo Yeon and himself.

Especially from his position of thinking about their future relationship, it was an emotion he couldn’t welcome at all.

“What did you do before?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

But something was strange.

“Well, it’s not really that kind of problem…”

“…”

“Isn’t it a bit odd for us to talk about this when we’re dating?”

Blinking his eyes innocently, Mo Yeon answered briefly.

“I don’t mind. You can talk comfortably.”

“Hmm…”

Although he was smiling as usual, his mind was racing. It seemed he had seriously misunderstood something.

After that, Mo Yeon would often follow Tae Young-won’s clothing choices, and try to imitate his habit of fixing his hair in front of the mirror before going out. When spraying perfume, he would stand next to him and ask to be sprayed too.

When trying new food for the first time, he would only feel comfortable eating after watching Tae Young-won eat it. But such actions didn’t align well with Mo Yeon’s occasional careless remarks. At least, that’s how Tae Young-won understood it.

“How can someone who likes another person not care about how well they treated their previous partners, or how they treated them?”

“Should I not…?”

Seeing the look of sudden realization on Mo Yeon’s face, Tae Young-won was momentarily at a loss for words. The moment he glimpsed the bewilderment in Mo Yeon’s eyes, it felt like something had hit him on the head.

The annoying sense of déjà vu felt from subtle words and actions couldn’t be erased. The way he stirred things up and then ran away was exactly like his old tactics.

Tae Young-won slowly began to understand. Mo Yeon’s feelings didn’t seem to have changed from the beginning. The brief doubt he had was probably just a misunderstanding.

“I was just worried about you, Mo Yeon. If you’re okay with it, that’s good.”

“I’m really fine with it. Are you not okay with it, sunbae?”

He had been thinking wrong. Mo Yeon was still dating him because he had a weakness to exploit. Unaware that his insides were boiling at the thought of being fooled again by a badly behaved cat, Mo Yeon remained carefree.

“Well, I’m not okay.”

“…”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think I’ll be okay with it. Not in the future either.”

They almost got into a troublesome situation, but if he doesn’t actually like me, it’s really for the best.

Nevertheless, his pride was deeply hurt this time. It was a different kind of emotion from what he had experienced before.

Tae Young-won couldn’t believe that he had made such a ridiculous misunderstanding, as if he was a child dealing with romance for the first time.

The absurd misunderstanding that he thought Mo Yeon liked him when he didn’t.

From the beginning, both of them had been wearing ill-fitting clothes for a long time. Everything had been a battle of pride, and he could no longer find anything to gain from his fight with Mo Yeon.

It was time to end this game of love. However, Tae Young-won still wanted to keep Mo Yeon as a cherished junior.

Ironically, although he had decided to break up, Tae Young-won had no intention of giving up on Mo Yeon.

***

Tae Young-won idly fiddled with a half-empty beer can in his hand. The park near the officetel was a good place where you could sit on a bench and see wandering cats, and also run into a disrespectful junior who goes straight home after his part-time job.

It had been about three weeks since they broke up, that is, since the vacation started? Mo Yeon seemed obsessed with scraping together living expenses, only doing part-time jobs.

Honestly, he had followed him around with burning eyes, thinking he might have found another man, because Mo Yeon kept rejecting him so firmly despite several attempts at persuasion. But after observing for a while, it didn’t seem to be the case.

Come to think of it, although Mo Yeon often seemed naturally gifted in bed, he wasn’t actually skilled at sex.

Despite admitting that he liked men enough to follow them around and that he needed men himself, he rejected the proposal to be sex partners because of the fact that he had deceived Tae Young-won.

<…>

The way he rejected him with reddened eyes made it look as if he was hurt because he liked Tae Young-won.

But Tae Young-won had already confirmed multiple times that this couldn’t be the case. He now tried not to think in that direction.

“If only I could understand what he’s thinking.”

Such a small thing, yet with so many thoughts.

His lips, which had been grumbling discontentedly, soon curved smoothly.

This was because a familiar figure began to appear in the distance just as he spoke. As he was about to stand up before it quickly passed by, he sensed something strange.

It was different from his usual expressionless face and sluggish walk.

“…”

Right now, Mo Yeon looked as if he was being chased by something.