Standing facing the bed, the right side closer to the window was Yeehyeon’s spot, and the left side closer to the bathroom and the door was Liu’s. Yeehyeon sat down on the right side and looked at Liu with a worried expression.
“Kun, you didn’t happen to mention things like heat or rut, did you?”
“I didn’t. But… she seemed to guess that I was the reason you weren’t feeling well.”
Thanks to the air conditioner, the indoor temperature was kept pleasant, but his body had heated up during the short trip from the gallery to their home. Placing the cake and the hat on the sofa, Liu stripped off his polo shirt.
“Because of you, Kun?”
“That you’re sick because I tormented you too much.”
“Ah…”
Finally understanding the meaning behind the words, Yeehyeon awkwardly averted his gaze. He then fiddled with the unnecessary duvet to change the subject.
“By the way, what’s that hat?”
“Ah, the one I commissioned. They said the sample was ready.”
“Already? I thought it would take a few more days. Can I see it?”
A lively look returned to Yeehyeon’s tired and sleepy face. After draping his discarded polo shirt over the back of the sofa, Liu picked up the hat and approached Yeehyeon.
“I was worried the color wouldn’t come out right. It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
Yeehyeon smiled as he took the cobalt blue hat and turned it this way and that.
On the hat, below the embroidered character of a cute ghost that looked like it was wearing a large white sheet, the gallery’s name, The Phantom Bali, was stitched. The name of the new gallery they had established here was also Phantom. The Phantom Bali.
Liu perched on the edge of the bed. Watching Yeehyeon meticulously examine the hat with a look of delight, his anxiety faded, and a smile graced his swollen lips. He reached out and tidied his partner’s hair. His touch was even more tender than usual.
“You dried it so thoroughly. Good boy.”
“You shouldn’t treat your spouse like a baby.”
“It’s not because you’re younger, it’s because you’re the person I love.”
“……”
“I plan on treating you like this even when we’re old grandpas, so you’ll just have to put up with it, Seo Yeehyeon.”
He declared the firm statement in a gentle voice. Yeehyeon shook his head as if to say he was hopeless, but the smile that pooled on his face was soft.
Within a few months of moving here, anyone who frequented the gallery came to know. The fact that the owner, Liu Yì-Kūn, was endlessly soft when it came to his spouse, Seo Yeehyeon. So much so that even six-year-old Leo knew.
But no matter how much Yeehyeon might ask, Liu could never concede when it came to taking care of, worrying about, prioritizing, and overprotecting his partner. Even if that partner was already a perfectly capable and diligent person who didn’t need such care.
Liu’s hand moved from Yeehyeon’s hair to his cheek. He asked Yeehyeon cautiously.
“I don’t suppose you can go to the hospital right now, can you?”
“I can’t move an inch. Really…”
“Really?”
“It’s nothing.”
Yeehyeon started to say something, then stopped, shaking his head a couple of times.
“Why, what is it?”
“It’s not something worth making that worried face over.”
“If it’s not, then just tell me. You know I’ll just worry more if you don’t.”
“I’ll tell you if you promise not to make any weird jokes.”
“Weird jokes? You mean dirty jokes, don’t you?”
“Are you going to?”
As Yeehyeon glared, putting a fair amount of force into his eyes as if threatening him, Liu made a gesture of surrender.
“I won’t. So please, tell me.”
Even after getting Liu’s promise, Yeehyeon seemed to hesitate a little longer. After chewing on his lower lip for a moment, Yeehyeon wrapped his arms around the back of Liu’s neck and pulled his face close.
“It’s just the two of us, is this something you have to whisper?”
Liu asked, puzzled, but Yeehyeon ignored him and pulled him closer. He then pressed his lips right against Liu’s fragrant ear, which had just been washed.
“It’s so numb, it makes me wonder if this is what it feels like after giving birth.”
“……”
Liu couldn’t say a word. He just stared intently at Yeehyeon. Slyly avoiding his gaze, Yeehyeon shrugged and picked up the hat again. Then, as if he too was embarrassed, he glanced at Liu only out of the corner of his eye and said.
“You remember you promised not to make any weird jokes, right?”
“I’m already regretting it fiercely.”
Watching Liu mutter blankly with a serious expression, Yeehyeon burst out laughing. Then, he casually placed the hat he was fiddling with on Liu’s head. It was a thoughtless, absentminded gesture.
But as he looked at Liu wearing the hat, Yeehyeon’s gaze changed slightly. The laughter vanished, replaced by a serious curiosity. The look in his eyes, as if he were carefully observing a man he’d never seen before, made Liu tense.
“Why? Does it look weird?”
“We’ve been together for quite a while, but this is the first time I’ve seen you wear a hat like this, Kun.”
“I didn’t wear them much even as a teen, caps like this.”
The fact that he was revealing a new side of himself to Yeehyeon, even though they were already married, made Liu feel awkward.
But for that very reason, Yeehyeon found this side of Liu refreshing.
Liu in jeans, shirtless, wearing a baseball cap, was a sight that fell outside the category of the Liu Yì-Kūn that Yeehyeon knew so well.
His thick, long neck and the deltoids at the ends of his roundly swollen shoulders, his broad chest muscles, the strands of hair sticking out from under the hat he had casually plopped on, the gray-blue eyes under the deep brim, and the high, firm bridge of his nose casting a dark shadow.
Even for casual wear, Liu preferred elegant, simple designs in high-quality materials. His upbringing and profession had shaped his current tastes. He sometimes wore jeans with a leather jacket, but even then, he never wore a baseball cap.
But right now, he looked like a young surfer lounging around shirtless on Kuta Beach in Bali.
Yeehyeon studied his partner intently.
“Don’t wear it in front of other people from now on.”
“I guess this kind of casual style doesn’t really suit me.”
Liu tried to take off the hat, lifting the brim, but Yeehyeon stopped him. He had misunderstood, and by a long shot. Grabbing Liu’s wrist and pulling it down, Yeehyeon couldn’t take his eyes off him in the cap.
“You’re not being serious, are you?”
“Didn’t you tell me not to wear it because it doesn’t suit me?”
“It’s the opposite.”
“I doubt it suits me.”
“You look cool. So cool that… I’m the only one who wants to see it.”
It was a courageous confession, but Liu chuckled as if he couldn’t believe it, as if Yeehyeon were just paying him lip service.
Ever since he was young, Liu had attracted people’s interest and favor with his looks alone. Yeehyeon knew well, having heard from Marcus and Ellen how popular a boy he had been. And it was still the same now. Yeehyeon knew that whenever Liu entered a room, he drew people’s gazes and admiration. The only difference was whether those gazes were overt or subtle; no one passed by him with indifference.
And yet, he was doubting Yeehyeon’s compliment that he looked cool.
Yeehyeon gently cupped his jaw, making him look his way. The first thing that caught his eye was his lower lip, one side of which was particularly twisted and swollen.
A trace of last night, when he had lost his mind to his rut and restrained himself in order to not ‘violate’ Yeehyeon. Knowing this, the wound was special to Yeehyeon. Because he knew, at least in theory, how close to impossible it was to resist a rut that had already broken. That was why this lip felt like Liu’s love for him itself.
Yeehyeon’s thumb, holding his chin, gently, carefully brushed the skin beneath his lip.
“You’re handsome even with your lip swollen like this.”
“Not like a brawler?”
“It’s also called untamed beauty.”
“Yuni did ask if I’d been in a fight as soon as she saw me.”
Possessing looks so fine that calling him cool was not a compliment but a simple fact, Liu still wouldn’t accept the words, and Yeehyeon felt a sense of responsibility.
“Am I not expressive enough?”
“Expressive about what?”
“I always think it to myself. That I’ve gotten myself a really cool spouse.”
Leaning on the mattress, Liu tilted his head toward his shoulder and chuckled.
“You’re being very generous with the compliments on my looks today.”
“I’ll say it more often from now on. How cool and handsome and sexy you are, Kun.”
This time, Liu reached out and touched Yeehyeon’s ear.
“You have no idea.”
“About what.”
“How often your eyes tell me that when you look at me.”
“That’s a relief.”
Liu’s face, with the cap pressed down, drew near. Tilting his head to an angle so the brim wouldn’t get in the way, he took Yeehyeon’s upper lip into his mouth like cream, then let it go. And as he gently massaged the back of his neck with his large hand, he whispered.
“Your eyes are full of sleep. Go to sleep now.”
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