Vol 1 Ch 26

The door closed. Kim Jinkyung quickly took off the headband and freed himself from Mok Seongha’s arm.

 

“How long do we have to sleep together?”

 

“Until Secretary Kang believes us.”

 

“…I think he’s more likely to bury me before he believes us.”

 

Kim Jinkyung recalled the voice of Secretary Kang, who had once kindly told him that if he wanted to die, he just had to pick which sea he wanted to be buried in.

 

“What’s the big deal? It’s not like we’re using the same bed.”

 

Ever since the bombshell declaration that no one would believe—that the two of them were dating—Mok Seongha had been dragging Kim Jinkyung into his bedroom. Kim Jinkyung had protested vehemently at first, but he had shut his mouth after seeing the bedroom Mok Seongha used.

 

Mok Seongha’s bedroom, or more accurately, the space where he slept, was on a level that felt presumptuous to call a mere ‘room.’

 

The place where they studied was a library. Attached to the bedroom.

 

The place where Mok Seongha exercised was a gym. Attached to the bedroom.

 

And three bathrooms, two dressing rooms, a living room, a small swimming pool, a terrace, and a music listening room were all attached to the bedroom. The entire right side of the hallway was a space referred to as Mok Seongha’s ‘bedroom.’ Of course, that bedroom was also connected to the second floor.

 

“…Still, it’s a bedroom.”

 

The space was vast, but there was only one entrance. And based on that door, almost no one was allowed inside. The time medical staff had come in because Mok Seongha had shattered a mirror with his bare hands and was covered in blood was one of the few exceptions.

 

“He’s more likely to be suspicious if I bring you into the same bedroom, isn’t he?”

 

Kim Jinkyung sighed.

 

“I’m going to wash up.”

 

“Okay. Go ahead.”

 

Mok Seongha went into the bathroom he used. Kim Jinkyung went to the bathroom on the opposite side of the living room and showered. After drying his hair and changing into his pajamas, he was organizing an assignment due that week when Mok Seongha approached, ruffling his hair with a towel.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Organizing my assignment.”

 

“You did that yesterday.”

 

“Yesterday I just made a rough draft. Now I need to flesh it out.”

 

Mok Seongha flopped onto the bed and then rolled over.

 

“Is it fun?”

 

“Is what fun?”

 

“Studying.”

 

Kim Jinkyung took his hands off the laptop keyboard and looked back at Mok Seongha. He didn’t seem to be joking.

 

“Who studies for fun?”

 

“Then how do you do it like that? It’s not like your only grandfather is terminally ill.”

 

“…Because there’s nothing else I’m particularly good at.”

 

It was true.

 

He had no talent for sports, nor for art or anything in the creative field. Being diligent and having a reasonably good head on his shoulders was all he had.

 

“You’re a real piece of work, Teacher.”

 

Mok Seongha said, the corners of his mouth lifting as he looked at Kim Jinkyung from the bed. The one who was a real piece of work was him. He had a face that was handsome to a disgustingly unfair degree. Kim Jinkyung turned his gaze back to his laptop.

 

“What time will you be done?”

 

“It’ll take about two hours. You can go to sleep first.”

 

“I guess I’ll read a book, then.”

 

Mok Seongha pulled out a textbook from the pile next to his bed and opened it. The two of them spent their time without any particular conversation.

 

When he was about halfway through organizing his assignment, Kim Jinkyung happened to glance at the clock.

 

…A student preparing for exams shouldn’t be sleeping so late.

 

“Should we turn off the lights now?”

 

“Are you done?”

 

“Yes.”

 

He still had more to organize, but he answered that way for now. He could just wake up a little earlier tomorrow and go to the library.

 

“Okay.”

 

As if he had been waiting, Mok Seongha closed his book and lay down. Kim Jinkyung closed his laptop as well. Then he lay down, resting his head on the pillow he had placed on the floor below the bed.

 

Once the lights were out, the sound of even breathing filled the room.

 

“Hey.”

 

“……”

 

“Are you asleep?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How can you answer if you’re asleep?”

 

Yellow light flickered in the darkness. It was a phenomenon caused by the tapetum lucidum, a reflective membrane behind the retina of animals active in the dark. When Kim Jinkyung first encountered those eyes in the dark room, he almost had a heart attack. Mok Seongha freely displayed habits in the bedroom that he never revealed outside.

 

…I’m getting used to this too, now that I see it often.

 

“You’re not asleep?”

 

Instead of answering, Kim Jinkyung turned his body to the other side.

 

“I have something to ask you.”

 

“……”

 

Please don’t ask. Please don’t ask.

 

Kim Jinkyung closed his eyes, chanting inwardly.

 

“Why did you ask me to be friends earlier?”

 

Kim Jinkyung opened his eyes. He hadn’t expected Mok Seongha to bring up this topic at all.

 

“Because you feel sorry for me?”

 

“No.”

 

Kim Jinkyung got up from his spot.

 

“See? You’re not sleeping.”

 

“……”

 

“Do you feel sorry for me?”

 

Mok Seongha asked again. Kim Jinkyung hesitated for a moment. It was true that he felt sorry for him when he saw him. But if he asked if it was simply pity, it wasn’t. He encountered many people begging for sympathy when he took the subway or walked down the street. Kim Jinkyung gave them cash without hesitation if he had any in his pocket. And he didn’t look back and think about them.

 

Mok Seongha was a little different.

 

He saw the man lying on his side, looking down at him. Even while asking if he felt sorry for him, there wasn’t even a hint of shrinking back. He was the kind of person who would kick someone who pitied him. Knowing he would be kicked, Kim Jinkyung kept looking back.

 

“I do, feel sorry for you.”

 

Kim Jinkyung revealed his honest feelings.

 

“Weren’t you afraid of me?”

 

“…I am afraid.”

 

He was still afraid, in fact. Apart from liking the man, he felt fear. It was an instinctive fear of a predator, engraved in his genes.

 

“But you feel sorry for me?”

 

There was a hint of mockery in the man’s voice as he said that. Kim Jinkyung sighed and muttered, “I guess so.”

 

How dare someone like me feel sorry for someone like you.

 

“What are we going to do if we’re friends?”

 

“What kind of person tries to do something when they make friends? We just, …hang out.”

 

“What do we do when we hang out?”

 

“……”

 

He wasn’t particularly talented at hanging out. Kim Jinkyung recalled the time he had spent with friends and immediately apologized, “I’m sorry.”

 

“What are you sorry for?”

 

“For a boring person asking you to be friends.”

 

“You? You’re interesting.”

 

Mok Seongha asked back, as if surprised.

 

“Me? Haha.”

 

It was the first time he had ever heard that. Kim Jinkyung knew that the expression ‘interesting’ didn’t suit him. Is he saying that because I haven’t gone out and met people?

 

“Thank you for saying that.”

 

“No. You’re really funny.”

 

A smile hung on Mok Seongha’s cool lips.

 

“Do you remember when you were making a fuss in the pond, asking me to save you?”

 

“……”

 

“That was really funny. Why the hell was there a snake there?”

 

Kim Jinkyung slowly lay back down. The disgraceful scene from that day surfaced in his mind.

 

“…Good night.”

 

“Why did you do that?”

 

“I didn’t do it on purpose, a carp got into my clothes and I couldn’t see it and it was wet….”

 

“No, the flower. You usually don’t touch other people’s things, do you?”

 

At Mok Seongha’s words, blood rushed to Kim Jinkyung’s heart.

 

Usually.

 

The gaze that looked at him indifferently came to mind. He didn’t know why his heart was racing at such a simple word.

 

Then suddenly, a large hand grabbed Kim Jinkyung’s shoulder.

 

“Why?”

 

“Yes? What….”

 

“Your heart suddenly got loud. Did I say something scary again?”

 

“Ah, no.”

 

Kim Jinkyung pulled the sheet over and frantically covered the area around his heart. Even knowing that the man could hear his heartbeat even if he did this, he had to do something.

 

“It’s beating faster. Could it be because you think I’m going to ask you to pay for the flower I broke?”

 

“Ah, yes. Th-that day, the carp too. I’m sorry.”

 

Mok Seongha let go of the shoulder he was holding and said, “It’s okay,” and withdrew his hand. The area where his hand had touched tingled as if it had been burned.

 

“Why were you trying to pick the flower that day?”

 

“…Because it was pretty.”

 

“You like pretty things?”

 

“Yes. Of course….”

 

“I didn’t know. I thought you didn’t like that kind of thing because your eyes are always on the floor.”

 

…Sang-il. I’m sorry. For this treatment.

 

“Take any flower you like if you want. That much is okay.”

 

“Can I ask you just one thing?”

 

Kim Jinkyung asked carefully.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Who made the garden?”

 

The garden was a festival of flowers. All kinds of flowering trees competed to show their appearance in every season and emitted a complete fragrance. He said that strong scents were no different from violence to Mok Seongha. That went for flowers too. So Kim Jinkyung couldn’t readily understand the garden surrounding the mansion.

 

“My mother did.”

 

Mok Seongha replied briefly. It was the first time he had heard him talk about his parents. He regretted asking a pointless question.

 

“She said she made it because she wanted me to experience various smells.”

 

He thought of the various kinds of flowers surrounding the glass garden. When he realized that the layers of floral scents were affectionate worries surrounding him, his heart ached.

 

“It would be better to pile up garbage in the garden. Where the hell does the flower scent come from?”

 

Even as he said that, he knew that whenever he was in a bad mood, he would lie alone in the glass garden surrounded by flowers.

 

“…She probably wanted you to only smell good smells.”

 

“……”

 

“Bad smells, you’ll smell them even if you don’t want to, so she probably wanted you to be surrounded by good smells here, if possible.”

 

Kim Jinkyung stopped talking there. Mok Seongha, who would have said something if it were any other time, didn’t say anything, his lips tightly shut.

 

Did I say something unnecessary?

 

Kim Jinkyung gripped the sheet, waiting for Mok Seongha to break the silence.

 

“You don’t smell bad.”

 

It was a completely unexpected answer.

 

“That’s a relief.”

 

Kim Jinkyung smiled faintly.

 

He used to shower often anyway, but after hearing that Mok Seongha was sensitive to smells, Kim Jinkyung drastically increased the time and frequency of his showers. It was worth showering so hard today….

 

“……!”

 

Startled by the feeling of something tickling his neck, Kim Jinkyung turned his head. Mok Seongha’s face, lowered under the bed, was touching his neck.

 

Kim Jinkyung froze. Even knowing that he was inhaling, his nose pressed close, Kim Jinkyung couldn’t move a finger.

 

“Smell….”

 

“…Ah. …Apple scent?”

 

Kim Jinkyung covered his neck with his hand. Really, he was truly grateful that it was dark. He wouldn’t be able to distinguish the color.

 

“…My parents run an apple farm.”

 

“I know.”

 

He knew through background checks. It wasn’t anything else. On the day he witnessed him transforming into a black panther, he had taken a picture of the flowers he had delivered to his parents and presented it to him.

 

And yet, he hated himself for being thrilled by those words.

 

Kim Jinkyung tightened his grip on the sheet.

 

“Aren’t you curious about anything else?”

 

“Yes? About what?”

 

“You don’t ask me about anything.”

 

Kim Jinkyung, blinking, didn’t readily understand what Mok Seongha meant by ‘anything else’ until he realized what he was talking about.

 

“Usually, they’d ask that. Why I transform. Since when and how it happened. Why my grandfather is human.”

 

It wasn’t that those questions hadn’t occurred to him. He just hadn’t been able to voice them.

 

“Aren’t you curious?”

 

“…I am curious.”

 

“Then why don’t you ask?”

 

After witnessing the scene of him turning into a black panther when he got wet, Kim Jinkyung had heard a lifetime’s worth of threats that day. Curiosity was light, and the weight of secrets was heavy. He wasn’t old enough not to know that.

 

“I thought I shouldn’t hear it.”

 

At Kim Jinkyung’s words, Mok Seongha chuckled in disbelief.

 

“That’s right. Don’t listen.”

 

He lay back down on the bed. His voice was tinged with displeasure.

 

Is he sulking?

 

“Am I allowed to hear it?”

 

“No. If you listen, you’ll be buried.”

 

Kim Jinkyung gasped. Then Mok Seongha let out a short laugh.

 

“You’re really going to get your organs harvested someday.”

 

“…Go to sleep.”

 

Kim Jinkyung turned his body to the other side.

 

“Why can’t I fall asleep?”

 

Mok Seongha muttered to himself as if talking to himself, clasping his hands behind his head.

 

This is that thing. When you go on a trip and don’t sleep at night and just talk.

 

Kim Jinkyung realized that what he had done today wasn’t a date, but a kind of picnic.

 

“Shall we play word chain? In English.”

 

“…Please go to sleep.”

 

Kim Jinkyung had to tell the man who was talking nonsense to go to sleep several times. In the end, he couldn’t fall asleep until after two in the morning that day.