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He was waiting for me in the back seat, dressed in casual clothes, not a suit. The sun had completely set, yet he was wearing sunglasses inside the car.
It struck me as odd for a moment, but he was someone with an occasional quirky, playful side, so I didn’t bother asking why.
The dull ache still lingering between my legs and the sensation of having been forced open made my posture awkward as I tried to settle into my seat. It was a fresh realization that I, a man, had been with him, another man, and that I couldn’t help but show it like this after penetrative sex.
The doorman closed the door, and the car started moving. It was the same driver from the day I went to see Ms. Suki Kim.
“I’m sorry.”
Just as the car had completely left the hotel’s vicinity and was entering the overpass, he spoke an unexpected first word. I turned to him, but I couldn’t tell where he was looking behind his sunglasses.
“You must have been uncomfortable all day.”
“It’s not like I expected to be perfectly fine the next day… I’m alright. You really don’t have to worry about it anymore. I got much better while I was resting.”
To be honest, receiving any more of his consideration regarding my current physical discomfort felt like it would be awkward. It wasn’t that I was as uncomfortable or in as much unbearable pain as he seemed to fear.
Above all, it wasn’t something he needed to apologize for. We had spent the night together because we both wanted to, and I felt he had shown every courtesy, thoroughly prepping and stretching me, his partner who wasn’t even his lover. His apology, rather, made me feel as if I had been consumed by him, so I wished I didn’t have to hear it, if possible.
“You’re very resilient, Seo Yeehyeon. I thought you’d be… more shaken.”
Tapping the slender envelope in his hand against his crossed legs, he murmured without looking at me.
“I’m glad you’re a resilient person, Seo Yeehyeon.”
I couldn’t be sure what he meant by being shaken.
If he meant the kind of shakenness that comes from failing to distinguish between sex that naturally follows a confession of feelings as a way to convey and confirm one’s heart, and sex that happens impulsively, drunk on the atmosphere; the kind of shakenness that mistakes the intimacy after sleeping together once for romantic feelings.
Then perhaps he wasn’t entirely wrong.
No, to be precise, the sex was merely a catalyst for being shaken, but in any case, it was true that my current state was far from stable or peaceful.
“It’s just… you have to accept what happened, one way or another.”
Whether you like it or not.
I added, as if to myself, and looked out at the Hong Kong cityscape, which was receding in the opposite direction from when I had arrived.
Experiences and emotions I had never anticipated when I first encountered the city while riding in the ‘Phantom’ and listening to Prince’s ‘Kiss’—the things Yuni-noona and Juhan-hyung had raved about—were now filling me up in different colors and textures.
Looking back, ever since I got to know him, it had been a series of changes and commotions that I could neither predict nor prepare for. It wasn’t just the incidents. The emotions I felt when facing him were the same.
I had thought that meeting Ms. Suki Kim was the biggest event of this Hong Kong trip. I recalled the me of a few days ago, who had felt a bashful excitement at a single glance in the rearview mirror. To put it nicely, I was naive; to put it unsparingly, I was emotionally naked, without even a thin layer of cloth to protect myself from danger.
That I hadn’t expected it.
I couldn’t say that I hadn’t expected it at all—that last night’s incident might be a catalyst for a change in our relationship, in his stance toward me. And so, I was ashamed of that expectation, which only I knew.
In his attitude, which remained consistently flat-toned as he stared at the screen on the back of the front seat, I couldn’t find any such possibilities… like affection, attraction, or love.
He said he had arranged things so I could go through the departure process quickly upon arriving at the airport, and handed me the envelope he was holding. It contained a simple document certifying me as a VIP passenger permitted for the fast track, and a first-class ticket.
“Take tomorrow off to rest. I told them you showed the same symptoms as last time, so everyone will understand.”
The excuse he had concocted cleverly hovered between lies and truth.
“I’m fine. Thanks to your consideration, I rested well. I think I’ll be back to my completely normal condition by tomorrow.”
On top of the first-class designation printed on the ticket he handed me, the day off I would be getting as the person he had sex with felt inappropriate.
I thought I finally understood the source of the discomfort that had been building up inside me the more I received his consideration.
It wasn’t just the awkwardness of being unaccustomed to such luxurious treatment. Within those kindnesses, I had sensed a sort of obligation, one devoid of any special warmth.
I know that from his perspective, it’s a matter of manners, of not ignoring someone who has become physically uncomfortable because of a night with him. I understand. But,
Manners. Kindness.
At a glance, they seem like words based on affection, but they also mean treating someone outside a certain boundary with politeness.
Standing there naked, I had hoped that everything he had arranged for me would resemble the affection of caring for a lover. As a reaction to that expectation, I had felt discomfort from his kindness.
That was the nakedness of my feelings, my bare face.
I thought about whether returning the ticket and telling him I didn’t need the kindness he doled out equally to everyone he slept with would be the ending that preserved my pride, and then let out a dry, scoffing laugh. I’m not the protagonist of some drama…
Suddenly, I remembered what he had said at the VIP preview while picking at the nuts Juhan-hyung had brought over. It was nothing, just a light comment tossed out in passing.
「Someone get rid of this. I don’t even like this stuff, but I can’t stop eating it when it’s in front of me.」
If our first time sleeping together was an emergency measure for him, then perhaps last night’s sex was a happening that occurred on a similar principle to him picking at those nuts.
As it happened, he was displeased after having a sensitive spot attacked in a dirty way, and as it happened, I was the one next to him trying to lift his spirits, and in the process, a sexual atmosphere was somehow created… Perhaps the fact that we had slept together once before made the temptation a little easier.
I didn’t want to re-examine all his words and actions now and assign them pessimistic meanings, like someone hell-bent on making themselves miserable, but unfortunately, this wasn’t pessimism. It was, rather, a clear-eyed look at reality.
The car was slowing down, entering the departure gate area.
“I hope this business trip proves to be a good opportunity for you.”
“……”
I turned to look at him, but his face was still turned toward the dark, unlit screen.
“I’ll be looking forward to a positive response regarding the painting.”
I briefly considered the possibility of a man as seasoned as him being emotionally shaken by an impulsive one-night stand. The answer was already evident in his attitude. A certain stability and peace, no more intimate than before we spent the night together, and not even colder. The very things I had now lost.
The car came to a complete stop. His face, still in sunglasses, turned toward me. I couldn’t be sure if he was looking at me from behind the lenses.
“See you in Seoul.”
It was perhaps a relief that I couldn’t see his eyes looking at me.
Sitting in seat 1A, a seat I would probably never sit in again for the rest of my life, given to me as the price for a night with him, I looked down at the final view of Hong Kong receding below and calmly accepted the reason why my emotions had reacted so particularly in relation to him.
There was only the emotional ventilation that came with confirming with my own eyes an ending I had already braced myself for. Therefore, it wasn’t shocking, nor did I feel like I was plummeting to the ground.
I was in love with him.
The one-sided expectations and disappointments, the uncharacteristic sensitivity that made me perceive the situation as more dramatic than it was… it was unfortunate, but they were signs of love.
It wasn’t as if there was a clear starting point, a moment where I could say, this is where loving him began. At least, I couldn’t tell now.
I had been bothered by his attitude toward me, sometimes felt a sense of rebellion, and had wanted to provoke him, to see a change in his expression, to make him see me in a new light.
Especially when it came to work, even though I knew he was a person who spoke bluntly, ‘to the point of being off-putting’ as Juhan-hyung put it, I had been hurt by words as simple as, 「Could you give us some space? I’m very shy around strangers and feel uncomfortable if there’s someone I don’t know well. How did no one think of this beforehand?」—Hurt, of all things. Since when had I become so sensitive to how others treated me?
Perhaps my feelings had started laying their foundation much earlier than I expected.
It wasn’t particularly strange to dream of him becoming a romantic partner. He wasn’t a soft or easy person to deal with, but he was undoubtedly a charming person, someone you wanted to know more about, to get closer to.
It was just that I never thought I would have expectations and desires for another person. Even more so, I never thought I would be so foolishly greedy as to choose for that object of desire a glamorous person at the pinnacle of everyone’s interest and favor.
The me I knew was a coward who tried to minimize emotional costs like disappointment or misery by wanting and choosing the bare minimum.
So, did wanting him make me courageous?
Not at all. I had only witnessed a new side of myself, one that so easily gave in to the temptation of sex before even properly recognizing my own feelings.
A flight attendant approached and asked if she could prepare my meal. I stared blankly at her flawless, beautiful smile, then requested a beer. Soon, a cold can of beer and a glass were set up on the small table. The world he lived in was like this, like magic where everything was prepared instantly with a single word.
With a wish for me to rest comfortably, the flight attendant closed the sliding door and disappeared. In the unfamiliar comfort that was not at all restful despite being cut off from my surroundings and left alone, I began to drink the beer straight from the can, without pouring it into the glass.
Sleeping with someone who isn’t your lover doesn’t make you promiscuous, and an adult of this age can’t be expected to resolve their sexual desires solely through masturbation just because they don’t have a lover.
He had said that after the ‘Old Future’ shoot, and not only Noona and Hyung, but I too, though I hadn’t said it out loud, had generally agreed with that opinion.
At the time, I had wondered if they could maintain the same stance toward someone they loved, if they could avoid being hurt by their loved one sleeping with someone other than them.
In a way, my thought back then was a greatly misguided guess. It was possible to feel wretchedness even from a night spent with me, not some other person, by the one I loved.
I wondered belatedly if his words about being glad that Seo Yeehyeon was resilient were another way of saying he was glad I didn’t confuse impulsive sex with romantic feelings. I smiled bitterly at the thought.
By then, the lights of Hong Kong had completely disappeared from view.
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