Harmonious Love

A Perfect Lie (11)

As time passes, that difference will only grow wider. Will he be able to endure even then?

Quite a long time had passed while feeling this overwhelming sense.

He was used to stopping the bleeding. Fortunately, whenever this happened, his nosebleed tended to stop quickly.

However, there was no way to prevent his clothes from getting ruined every time. Mo Yeon frowned as he carelessly glanced down at his sleeve.

“Ah, why today of all days…”

It wasn’t even his usual pitch-black clothes that he wore every day, but why this?

Today, Mo Yeon was wearing the snow-white knit sweater that Tae Young-won had once teased him about, saying he looked like a teacher.

Lately, whenever his laundry piled up, he often found the clothes he received from Tae Young-won quite useful. Not that he considered them his own clothes.

Somehow, he had ended up with a few pieces of clothing from Tae Young-won and was just wearing them. He planned to try exchanging them for his own clothes someday when Tae Young-won’s persistent interest in him finally subsided.

At this rate, he wouldn’t be able to return it later.

Biting his lip, Mo Yeon reached out to pull out a new tissue.

No matter how much he rubbed the stained area with clean white tissues, the blood that had already turned red wouldn’t come off. Instead, it only spread more reddish along the thick threads.

The more he tried to fix it, the worse it looked.

“This is so frustrating…!”

After rubbing vigorously, he finally threw away the tissue.

Mo Yeon slumped down against the wall he had been leaning on. A sigh escaped involuntarily.

He glared at the dirty sleeve, then turned away, not wanting to look at it anymore.

Is this what an explosion feels like? Today, everything seemed particularly irritating. His jaw clenched as he bit his lip.

‘It would have been much better to live without knowing about yang energy.’

He had known this would happen from the moment he rejected the initial offer, but now that it was reality, the bitterness just wouldn’t go away.

His eyes remained tightly shut for a long time. Only after calming his breathing several times until his heart settled did he slowly open his eyes.

It was time to come to his senses and go outside.

Since when had it been there? Amidst all this, he could feel an eerie gaze from a corner of the storage room. He didn’t even think about turning his head to confirm its shape.

Ridiculously, for a while after first breaking up with Tae Young-won, he had let his guard down and attracted the attention of ghosts.

But lately, he was getting used to not making eye contact again, just like before. No matter how he thought about it, he had been too comfortable during his time with Tae Young-won.

After all, this was normal for him.

Mo Yeon jumped up from his seat, picked up the tissue he had thrown earlier, and went outside.

His blood-stained hands, face, and the tissue in his hand were beyond the level that could be hidden from customers anyway. Smiling awkwardly at the people he encountered, he headed straight for the bathroom. Not knowing how to hide his expression, he tried his best to smile, but it was uncertain whether others would see it that way.

As he threw away the tissue and washed his dirty face with water, Mo Yeon repeated to himself:

This is how I originally was, this is normal for me.

***

On the way home from work, which he had been walking almost every day lately, Tae Young-won was sitting on the bench in front of the officetel building waiting for him again today. Even though Mo Yeon saw him from afar, he didn’t stop walking, as if used to it.

“Mo Yeon, you’re here?”

Although he knew Mo Yeon wasn’t good with alcohol, he always had a beer can in his hand whenever he saw him. When Mo Yeon stopped and stared blankly, Tae Young-won raised his handsome eyebrow.

“What, you’re not jumping at me today either.”

“…”

“Am I less handsome these days?”

How he could say such things so casually was beyond understanding.

“What are you doing here every day?”

“I’m trying to use my looks to win you over, like you do. It seems to be more effective.”

As he said this, he even slightly lifted his top. The abs that Mo Yeon couldn’t resist touching a few days ago were slightly revealed. Mo Yeon’s eyes automatically widened.

“Here, touch them before you go up. I’ll give you special permission.”

His demeanor as he said this was indescribably shameless. Mo Yeon looked around.

“Are you crazy? Put it down, quickly!”

“Ah, do you want to touch them inside?”

Crazy, crazy, crazy.

Mo Yeon, momentarily frozen, was repeatedly amazed inwardly, but responded calmly.

“Wow, sunbae, you’ve really become a strange person now. If your friends knew how you’re acting these days, they’d all want to cut ties with you. Quickly put your clothes down.”

“See, you’re not saying you don’t want to.”

Tae Young-won shrugged and lowered his hand that was lifting his top.

Although he didn’t show it much, his heart was pounding because he was very surprised inside.

Mo Yeon was shocked for a different reason. Tae Young-won’s recent behavior reminded him of his own past actions.

For a moment, he saw an overlap between Tae Young-won and himself from back when he tried to seduce using his lower body. Although the feeling was completely different compared to how desperate he had been.

While he had his reasons for acting that way, why would someone who had nothing to lose behave like this…?

Wondering if Tae Young-won had been this flustered back then, Mo Yeon’s face started to heat up.

‘No matter how much I pretended to be a man-crazy gay, how could he think I’d fall for such a trick…’

After all, what drew Mo Yeon to him was his yang energy. Although he had often thought Tae Young-won’s abs were impressive, even when he touched them a few days ago, it was all because of the yang energy. It absolutely, absolutely wasn’t because he was attracted in that way.

Having responded as if nothing was wrong, Mo Yeon tried to pass by him again without saying anything more.

“Am I really going crazy?”

At that moment, Tae Young-won muttered lowly.

“I really thought it wouldn’t be bad.”

“…”

“If we could be like we were before.”

As expected, it wasn’t easy to ignore his nonsense. Mo Yeon stopped walking again.

“You might have disliked how different we are. You might have endured it when we were forced to date, but you might not want to endure it anymore. I thought you seemed okay with my friends talking to you, but you might have secretly disliked it. Do you want that?”

“…”

When Mo Yeon shook his head, Tae Young-won’s brow furrowed as if he was anxious.

At times like this, it became confusing which was real – the relaxed appearance from earlier or now.

“Stop looking for other reasons. I clearly said I’m not interested in being a partner.”

“You also said you were scared things would be different from before.”

“When did I…”

Ah. He didn’t mean to answer. Mo Yeon bit his lip hard.

“I said I didn’t want to, not that I was scared. Why are you interpreting things as you please?”

“It’s your specialty to be inconsistent without any logic.”

“…”

“Your words and actions don’t match either. That’s why I said I wouldn’t listen to your words and would interpret things myself, but I keep forgetting without realizing. Now I’ve come to my senses again.”

“You’re being quite long-winded about saying you’ll ignore what others say.”

“This is Mo Yeon’s charm, indeed.”

He grinned and took a sip of his remaining beer.

“If you’ve decided on a concept, stick to it properly… You always show your soft side, scratching people but making them worry about you.”

He added in a low voice and handed the beer can to Mo Yeon. Mo Yeon’s hand twitched unconsciously, but he quickly came to his senses and shook his head.

See? Tae Young-won chuckled, muttering.

“Come to think of it, I think that’s why I was curious from the beginning.”

“…”

“You do things I can’t understand at all, and you’re not really doing anything cute, but you keep hiding things, so it makes me curious. Even when you do strange things, it doesn’t seem like you’re doing them without reason.”

When did he mean by “from the beginning”? As Mo Yeon quietly listened, Tae Young-won’s eyes were already fixed on one spot.

“I just feel… a bit sorry for you.”

“…”

Throughout his speech, Tae Young-won had been staring at the blood-stained sleeve. Mo Yeon hadn’t even thought to try hiding it.

He wondered if he should hide it behind his back, but since it had already been noticed, that would look more unnatural.

“Well, of course, your looks were also fatal.”

He finished the remaining beer and spoke again.

“Mo Yeon, you don’t have to talk about things you don’t want to.”

“…”

“But I don’t think things can be completely the same as before, in my opinion. I have things I can’t compromise on too.”

Mo Yeon just stared at him silently without answering. His tightly closed lips didn’t move at all.

“I just want us to be able to stay the way we were. But instead of being lovers who could break up at any time, I want a relationship like close brothers who will stay together until the end.”

“…”

“Even if we don’t become partners later, I want to stay like that.”

A long silence followed. After a bit more time passed in that state, Mo Yeon started to move.

“That’s the most important thing to me, Mo Yeon.”

As he passed by, he heard the voice behind him once more. But Mo Yeon still didn’t answer anything.

Today, Tae Young-won didn’t try to stop him either.