CH 55

A boy was sitting by the window. The sun was shining through the window, so it was dazzling and he couldn;t see the boy properly. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he couldn;t take his eyes off him because he wanted to keep seeing the boy. The profile of the boy reading a book was as beautiful as a picture. It was as elegant and beautiful as the figure in the painting where a famous French painter had just finished his last touch and removed his brush. He wanted to call him, but his mouth didn’t move. He wanted to take a closer look, but his feet didn’t move. The boy’s figure gradually faded into the light. ‘No, don’t go, I have something to tell you, wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait, I have something important to say…’

“… … !”

Inseop, who woke up under the pale incandescent lamp, stared blankly at the ceiling for a long time. Realizing that all the vivid scenes were dreams, Inseop closed his eyes in regret.

Inseop, who was trying to sleep again with his face buried in the soft pillow, realized that the place he was lying in was not his rooftop room.

“――!”

He got up and looked around. It was a strangely familiar room. Because he slept here a few times. He remembered yesterday’s events. Choi Inseop covered his mouth with his hand. His head felt like it was going to explode and he felt nauseous.

After a while, he suddenly remembered the flight time and turned his head to check the clock. It was eight o’clock. He had to go to the airport by at least 9 o’clock to catch the plane.

Inseop got up from the bed, got startled, and grabbed the sheet with his hands.

“What, what…”

Inseop looked inside the sheet. When he saw that he was naked and had nothing on, his face flushed.

Yesterday, Lee Wooyeon… and… was it like that?

Inseop traced his body with his hands. But there were no traces left and there was no pain. Courageous, he lowered the sheet again and scanned his body thoroughly.

“… ”

He confirmed that nothing was wrong, but he was not relieved. Wrapping himself in a sheet, he carefully opened the door and went outside. Lee Wooyeon was nowhere to be seen. After confirming that Lee Wooyeon was not in the living room, the study, and the bathroom, Inseop quickly searched for his clothes this time around. He looked everywhere, but he couldn’t find his clothes. At first, he thought it was put somewhere where he couldn’t find, but when he saw that Lee Wooyeon’s dressing room was firmly locked, he corrected that idea.

…Lee Wooyeon hid his clothes.

Inseop was frightened and decided to get out of this place before Lee Wooyeon returned. He grabbed the handle of the dressing room and turned it with force. The firmly locked door showed no sign of opening.

Choi Inseop searched the chest of drawers and found a hammer. If he breaks the handle, he’ll find something to wear. Taking a deep breath, Inseop raised the hammer with one hand. As the hammer banged, a heavy recoil was transmitted to his hand. Checking that the connection of the handle had loosened slightly, Inseop raised the hammer again.

“What are you doing?”

“――!”

Slamming the handle at the sudden voice, he missed, so he hit the tip of his nail. Inseop let out a silent scream and bowed his back.

“That must hurt. Tsk.”

Lee Wooyeon frowned and clicked his tongue. He said, “Give it to me,” and grabbed Inseop’s blood-stained hand.

“It’s, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. You’re bleeding.”

“Don’t don’t touch me.”

With the hammer in hand, Inseop trembled and shouted. With one hand in his pocket, Lee Wooyeon, who was watching him, started to laugh like crazy.

“Hahahahaha. What? Are you threatening me?”

“… Don’t, don’t come near me.”

“Hahahahaha. Really, you’re a funny guy.”

Lee Wooyeon smiled and stretched out his hand. Inseop, frightened, shook his head and stepped back. But because of the door that was behind his back, he had nowhere else to retreat.

Lee Wooyeon straightened the hammer in Inseop’s hand and said,

“If you’re going to hit it, you have to hit it like this. You can only break a bone with that. You have to take a sharp shot to break it at once.”

It was as if he was teaching him a math problem that he didn’t know.

At that time, when the sheet wrapped around his body slid down, Inseop panicked and dropped the hammer and grabbed the sheet.

Lee Wooyeon clicked his tongue and picked up the hammer that had fallen to the floor.

“You’ll get hurt..”

“… … .”

“I had a job in the morning, so I went out and bought some food. Are you not hungry?”

Inseop blinked and looked at Lee Wooyeon. Inseop was completely confused by his attitude as if it had never happened in the first place.

Did he not wake up from his dream yet?

Inseop patted his cheek with his hand and slapped it lightly. The tingling pain told him that this is now a reality.

If so, maybe he … What happened to his head after the accident?

“Are you not hungry?”

“…What about my clothes?”

“I threw it away. I’m afraid you’ll run away.”

“… … .”

“I’ll be doing that for a while.”

When Lee Wooyeon’s unusual answer came back, Inseop had to admit that he didn’t have a head injury and that this was a reality.

“Uh, give me the clothes back.”

“Why?”

Lee Wooyeon asked. He had a strange expression.

“I have to go back. The flight time…”

“This one?”

He asked, taking out Inseop’s passport from his pocket. Inseop reached out to snatch his passport, but Lee Wooyeon raised his hand above his head first.

“Don’t mess with me. I never gave you permission to go back.”

Lee Wooyeon said calmly. Inseop felt a chill and grabbed the sheet with his hands.

“I’m hungry, so let’s eat first.”

Having said that, Lee Wooyeon left Inseop and sat down at the kitchen table. Inseop, who had no desire to eat and only wanted to get out of this situation, followed him and asked for his clothes again.

“Give it back. My clothes… ”

“Sit down please. The food here is not salty and light. I bought it because I thought it would not hurt your stomach..”

“Return my clothes… ”

Lee Wooyeon kicked the chair opposite him. Then he smiled and said to Inseop.

“Sit.”

“… … .”

Inseop carefully grabbed the seat with his injured hand, raised the chair with his left hand, and sat down. With a satisfied expression on his face, Lee Wooyeon laid out the food he had bought on the table.

He put the abalone porridge in front of Inseop and handed him a spoon.

“Please eat.”

“… … .”

“It’ll be good for your health. My anger has not subsided yet.”

Without thinking, Inseop couldn’t help but grab the spoon in his hand. Although he mechanically put the porridge in his mouth little by little, Lee Wooyeon was sitting opposite him, so he was concerned and Inseop did not feel any taste. Besides, the sheet kept falling off and he was holding it.

Everything was unreal. This moment of eating at Lee Wooyeon’s house with a sheet wrapped around his body, and the events that hit him like a storm yesterday.

As Choi Inseop was slowly eating porridge with a stiff face, Lee Wooyeon suddenly spoke.

“It’s because it’s silk.”

“What?”

“The sheet is silk, so it flows down. But you don’t have to hold it like that. I don’t get excited when I see a man’s body.”

“… … !”

Rather, because of those words, the memories of yesterday came to mind, and Inseop almost vomited the porridge he was eating.

Originally, he was eating it without knowing what it tasted like, but his taste buds came back. When he put the spoon down on the table, Lee Wooyeon narrowed his eyes and said,

“Because of the sincerity of the person who bought it, please eat more.”

“… … I have no appetite.”

“If someone you like bought it for you, wouldn’t it be right to eat everything?”

“… … .”

“Eat it.”

It was a curt command. Choi Inseop, wanting to cry, lifted the spoon and put the porridge in his mouth.

“Oh right. Have you seen this?”

Lee Wooyeon opened the newspaper he brought along with the food on the table and asked.

“…What… !”

A light of astonishment filled Choi Inseop’s eyes as he read the headlines of the newspaper. Lee Wooyeon, who saw it, asked what happened.

“… the culprit…”

“He surrendered. The culprit. He went on his own two feet.”

“…”

Unbelievable, Inseop rubbed his eyes with his hands and looked at the newspaper articles again and again. In the newspaper, there was a special report about the criminal who confessed that he had hit Kang Youngmo from behind and stole his money.

“How…”

“What?”

“The culprit… Why… surrendered… ”

In fact, what he wanted to ask was, why did a person who was not the criminal surrender for something that he did not do? However, Inseop could not say that he saw Lee Wooyeon coming out of the alley.

“Well. Is your conscience pricked?”

“…”

“There must be something. We don’t even need to know that.”

“… ”

“But aren’t these criminals familiar?”

As Lee Wooyeon said, the photo of the criminal in the newspaper had his face covered with a mask and a hat, but it felt strangely like he had seen it somewhere.

“It was very strange to say that it was the Korean-Chinese who struck me in the back of the head at that time. So I went to the police station earlier, wrote a report and gave an interview.”

Lee Wooyeon calmly explained the situation.

“In the first case, there were many witnesses and there was a lot of evidence, so the crime was established immediately. In the second case, there were no witnesses and there was no evidence, but it is a similar case and there is a confession that they did it, so it is easy to establish a case. People don’t think there’s a man who’s done it only once. There are people who haven’t done it, but there are no people who have done it only once. So naturally, if you add a confession, this is what they did”

Every time Lee Woo-yeon added an explanation in a soft voice like a flower petal, Inseop got goosebumps and sweated.

As Jennie said, Lee Wooyeon was a bastard. no… More than that. He didn’t know how to explain, he was such a bad guy.

“Do you know who wrote this article?”

Inseop looked at the reporter’s name written in the place where Lee Wooyeon was pointing and opened his eyes. Whether Inseop’s reaction was interesting, Lee Wooyeon sat with his arms crossed and watched him.

“Why? You don’t understand why Kim Haeshin suddenly changed her mind and turned her palms over like this?”

“He… Lee Wooyeon…”

“What he needed was an article, not me. There are no permanent comrades and no permanent enemies in this field of work.”

The article written by Kim Haeshin praised the professional spirit of actor Lee Wooyeon, who was attacked by an illegal immigrant and did not say anything for fear that the filming of the drama would be disrupted.

There are no permanent enemies and no permanent comrades. Lee Wooyeon’s words echoed in Inseop’s ears.

“What kind of interview were you planning on having with reporter Kim Haeshin?”

“…She said that she would be interviewing the reason why I quit.”

“Okay. I’m curious about that too. You’re not going to go to the US to study civil service.”

Inseop bit his lip in embarrassment. Excuses such as studying to become a civil servant or because his father is ill no longer work for Lee Wooyeon. Fortunately, Lee Wooyeon did not know that he had witnessed the scene that day. Inseop thought that he was lucky enough to put the picture in his notebook, and came up with an excuse.

“Just…it was hard.”

“What?”

“Being next to Lee Wooyeon…”

It was true. The more Inseop was next to Lee Wooyeon, the more confused he became, and he even forgot what he was here for.

“You liked me so much, you chased me all the way here and even worked as a manager, but you just quit because it was hard?”

But the opponent wasn’t that kind of person. When Lee Wooyeon sharply dug into the gap, Inseop stuttered and answered.

“That day… Lee Woo-yeon and the woman…”

“Ah, that day.”

Lee Wooyeon nodded, remembering that Choi Inseop had come to see him the night before he said he would quit.

“You’re going to stop because of that?”

“… … .”

“Did you just quit because I had sex with a girl?”

“… Yes.”

Inseop knew that he had no options. The best thing he could do now was to match Lee Wooyeon to his rhythm as he wanted. He must never be a nuisance to the college student who lent him the name.

Lee Wooyeon frowned and made a troubled expression with a frown.

“At the same time, you were threatened by Kim Haeshin. Well, you don’t have to do an interview. Anyway, the reason Kim Haeshin wanted to interview Mr. Inseop was something else.”

“…What is it?”

“The person who found and reported Kang Youngmo and Inseop’s voice were very similar.”

“…”

“So she was probably trying to get the media to share something similar to eyewitness accounts. It almost got me in trouble.”

“… sorry.”

Lee Wooyeon clicked his tongue softly.

“Why would you do something that would be intimidating like that? Even though you were threatened, you sold me to Kim Haeshin?”

“… sorry.”

“It’s disappointing.”

Inseop was so shocked and scared that his stomach was stinging, but Lee Wooyeon, who was so happy, continued to talk with a smile on his face.

“It’s a disappointment to know that your feelings for me are only that much.”

“… sorry.”

He didn’t have anything to say other than I’m sorry. Not knowing how this breathtaking game of lies would end, Inseop trembled with his fingertips and quietly swallowed dry saliva.

“Still, yesterday was a little more believable.”

“… ?”

Lee Wooyeon smiled and ran his fingers across Inseop;s lips as if he were running them down. It was very clear what that short movement meant. Choi Inseop’s face heated up at once. Inseop quickly lowered his head and grabbed the sheet with both hands as if embracing it. His body trembled again.

“Do you want to go to America?”

“…!”

Inseop nodded vigorously. Right now, he just wanted to get a taxi, run to the airport, and catch a plane to America.

Lee Wooyeon stretched out his hand. His fingers ran down Inseop’s cheek. He gently touched Inseop’s face as if stroking a small and lovely being.

“Actually, I was really, really angry.”

“…”

“I’m glad the truth came out, but I almost got fucked because of Inseop and Kim Haeshin.”

The whereabouts of the Korean-Chinese who made him like that were already known. He was so busy with his schedule that he just left it, not that he forgot. It was something he thought he would have to go down by himself after a while and either break his leg or bury him somewhere. If Choi Inseop hadn’t stabbed him in the back like that in cooperation with Kim Haeshin, there would have been no remorse for the crime of the Korean-Chinese hitting Kang Youngmo. As a result, it was fortunate that everyone was happy, but Lee Wooyeon was very dissatisfied with Inseop’s choice, which put him in a corner.

“I can’t trust Mr. Inseop.”

“…”

There was no excuse for that. It would be a strange situation if Lee Wooyeon were to say that he believed in him.

“So I can’t let you go.”

“… what?”

“How can I let someone who I don’t believe in leave with that material?”

“I will dispose of all the materials now.”

“How do I know you haven’t hidden more? Your name, age, and personal information are all lies. Isn’t it?”

“Then I will go to the police station. I will pay for my sins.”

“Lee Wooyeon’s manager turned out to be a scammer. It’ll be a good article.”

“… … .”

Inseop, who had been silent, asked in a calm tone.

“Then…What do you want?”

Even if he were sued for identity theft or stalking, there was nothing he could do. Inseop decided that he would endure all the sins he had committed.

“Yeah. I’m curious about that too.”

Lee Wooyeon clenched his chin and narrowed his eyes to answer.

It was true. He was contemplating on what to do with Inseop now. Letting Choi I-seop go, aside from being anxious, he couldn’t do it because he was so angry. He didn’t even think about handing him over to the police. He didn’t want to hand over the fish he caught. Besides, it was fun to watch him cling to him desperately saying he liked him, so he wanted to enjoy it for a while.

“I like it.”

After contemplating for a while, Lee Wooyeon finally opened his mouth.

“Let’s do this.”

“…”

Inseop swallowed and waited for the sentence to come out of his mouth.

“You’ll come back to work as my manager again.”

“What!?”

“Work next to me and make sure I trust you.”

“What…”

“How much Inseop likes me, I’ll be watching for that, so I ask you to desperately hang on to me.”

As Lee Wooyeon said one by one, Inseop’s face grew pale.

“It’s one month. Within a month, if I trust you, I’ll return your passport and ID. Of course, I won’t even touch Choi Inseop, who you borrowed your name from.”

“What is that…”

“But even after a month has passed, if I still don’t want to trust Inseop, then I’ll call you and Choi Inseop, and then we’ll talk together.”

Inseop’s lips trembled. It was a nonsensical proposal in the first place, so he didn’t answer anything and just looked at Lee Wooyeon.

“Why? You can’t? What’s so difficult? I wish you could show me a little bit of that damn sweet love of yours that made you chase me all the way from America.”

“Uh, you wouldn’t believe me anyway, would you?”

“We never know.”

It was a game with an obvious end. In the game that started with the brand of defeat, Inseop knew he could never win.

Lee Wooyeon just wanted to torment him. Just like yesterday, once was enough. Inseop couldn’t stand it.

“I don’t like it.”

Inseop looked at Lee Wooyeon and said that. He didn’t want to stay here for even a second, let alone a month.

“Please return my passport and clothes.”

“Why should I?”

“It is mine. Please return it.”

Although he was choked with fear and his hands and feet had no strength, Inseop gathered all the courage he could and said so. In the midst of this, a fairy tale about a woodcutter who ironically hid a fairy’s clothes came to mind.

“I can give it to you, but…”

Lee Wooyeon slurred the end of his speech. Laughter broke out at the end of the muffled voice. It was a beautiful and soft laughter that sounded like a piano melody. The smile slowly lifted from his face, revealing his original expressionless face.

“After you go, what will Choi Inseop do?”

“… … .”

Inseop realized it then.

The fact that it was not the woodcutter who hid his clothes, but the wild tiger.