Desires Chapter 8.1 - The Losing Game

From Manhattan, the heart of New York, to Long Island. To the Hamptons where James Han’s private villa was located, from East Hampton to Southampton, Bridgehampton, Sag Harbor, Amagansett, and even to Montauk.

Over the past year, the places where Song Yeongin stayed had changed countless times.

There was only one reason for this, and it was Cha Woojin’s persistent pursuit. He did not know the detailed circumstances because James Han had not told him.

James Han was a man of power who held a solid cartel in the capitalist country of the United States, which was his home base and where his power and influence were concentrated. That man succeeded in completely blocking Song Yeongin from Cha Woojin on this vast landmass.

Song Yeongin never even had the chance to face Cha Woojin or those presumed to be his subordinates. In every crisis, multinational agents planted by James Han, armed with firearms, protected Song Yeongin’s swift movement and his personal safety.

For the past year, Cha Woojin had been relentlessly trying to find out Song Yeongin’s whereabouts, and every time his trail was about to be picked up, Song Yeongin’s relocation continued.

For a whole year, the migration continued. Song Yeongin moved strictly within James Han’s sphere of influence.

Song Yeongin spent a short period in Manhattan and wandered aimlessly for several months, then spent three months roaming the entire Hamptons area of Long Island, two months in Sag Harbor, and two months in Amagansett.

He moved from one place to another as if fleeing in the middle of the night, and the place he was currently staying the longest was this very place, Montauk, where he had been for four months.

Montauk, located at the easternmost tip of Long Island, New York.

Among them, James Han’s grand villa, built on top of Hither Woods Hill in the Hither Woods Preserve, was perfectly cut off and isolated from the outside world. His beautiful villa, in the middle of a forest, overlooked Montauk Beach at a glance.

When he first moved here, Song Yeongin could not help but be surprised. It was because this isolated grand villa in Montauk looked as if it were a carbon copy of Cha Woojin’s island, Mohuido (慕喜島), where Song Yeongin had seen the sea for the first time, and his villa.

From the panoramic view of the endlessly blue sea from the top of Hither Woods Hill and its location adjacent to the forest, which was an ecological preserve, to the appearance of the villa’s infinity pool that seemed to connect with Montauk Beach beyond the horizon. This place resembled the scenery there so much that he thought Cha Woojin’s villa on Mohuido might have been moved to the United States just as it was.

It was this Montauk that Song Yeongin, who had been in a daze, unable to sleep day or night, and not in his right mind, finally grew attached to at the end of a long journey of several months.

Song Yeongin liked this place.

He could not tell anyone, but there was only one reason. It was because this place was an exact replica of Cha Woojin’s island, Mohuido, and the villa there, where he had gone on his first and last trip with him.

Here, Song Yeongin sometimes thought of Cha Woojin like a sense of guilt, and regrettably, those paltry memories, like a midsummer night’s dream, had become Song Yeongin’s only comfort in the United States.

In this villa, isolated by forests and the sea on all sides, Song Yeongin had almost no contact with outsiders. His life was always shared with Aiden, his interpreter and security agent, and Joan, a middle-aged woman who took care of the housekeeping.

Aiden and Joan, who had lived with Song Yeongin while moving residences over the past year, were both of Korean descent and were locals who were perfectly fluent in both Korean and English.

Until he was in Amagansett, Song Yeongin did not take a single step outside the house and only painted. Like a person who lived because he could not die, he would stand in front of a gesso-coated canvas with a brush in his hand as soon as he opened his eyes.

He would continuously paint the same thing on the white cloth, then cover it again with dark oil paint, let it dry, scrape it off, add more oil… and then, he would paint a new picture on top of it, adding more layers of color.

That method was very similar to the way he had painted <Dead Mother’s Ear> for several years. Song Yeongin kept repeating that process. As if he were a person trying to bury his own pain along with that painting. Like a person trying to bury his suffering in an unearthed grave.

The time it took to complete the painting was exactly the same as the time Song Yeongin had been away from Cha Woojin. It was a full year.

Song Yeongin gave a name to the painting he completed in Montauk.

‘<The Desires>’.

This painting was a tomb for all the desires that flickered and breathed like flames. In it, he buried Cha Woojin and his desires. Adding to it his own, single desire, the one he had wanted for the first time since he was born….

After burying everything in that tomb for the past year, the yearning and wanting for something inside Song Yeongin had all been extinguished and died.

Seven months of being unable to come to his senses passed, and he finally reached this eastern edge of Long Island, New York, Montauk.

Montauk Beach stretching to the end of the horizon. When he saw the endless sea that looked exactly like the one on Mohuido, for the first time, Song Yeongin went out of the house and walked barefoot on the beach with his only friend, Aiden.

He played with his feet in the hot sand, and looking a mess like a child engrossed in playing in the sand for the first time in his life, Song Yeongin fearlessly jumped into the blue sea. It would not have mattered if he died right here. He wanted to drift away, very deep.

Aiden pulled Song Yeongin out of the deep sea, and there, for the first time, Song Yeongin called out that man’s name at the top of his lungs and cried his eyes out like a child.

In the United States, where he had no connections at all, Aiden and Joan, whom James Han had placed by his side, were no different from a new family to Song Yeongin.

They took care of Song Yeongin’s unsound mind and body very affectionately and warmly. Without those two people, Song Yeongin would not have been able to live, move, or eat, nor would he exist alive in this Montauk right now.

Aiden, who had a history of working for an intelligence agency, was born to a Korean mother and an American father, and thanks to that, he was able to speak both Korean and English perfectly, but he was no different from a complete American.

He had been indebted to James Han since his unfortunate childhood wandering in Harlem, and he was a loyal subordinate who had received a higher education with his support.

Aiden drove to and from a distant shopping center once a week, procuring groceries, daily necessities, and the art supplies Song Yeongin needed.

Aiden always called Song Yeongin’s Korean name in an English style, like calling a Westerner’s first name.

“Yeongin, what do you need?”

“Please buy me whiskey or vodka.”

Song Yeongin answered with an expressionless face. If there was one thing that had changed about Song Yeongin, it was that he had started looking for alcohol, which he had never touched before.

It was not that Song Yeongin was always drinking. However, when night came, Song Yeongin always had to look for alcohol like a habit.

For the past year, Song Yeongin could not fall asleep unless he was drunk. When he was alone in the dark, he kept hearing the voice of Cha Woojin, who had begged and screamed at him. The voice of his mute mother was also there.

‘……Should I throw it all away?!’

‘Yeongin-ah…. If I throw it all away. Then will you, will you stop this moronic act?!’

‘Come here, hurry…. I’ll do whatever you ask, I’ll throw it all away, so come back! …Come back!’

In the darkness, the miserable expression of Cha Woojin that he had seen for the last time became even clearer. His voice, screaming as if wailing, echoed in the empty air. Every time that happened, Song Yeongin had to simultaneously recall the thread-like incantation his mother had left behind, like an auditory hallucination.

‘I know you.’

The continuous migration in the United States was also proof that Cha Woojin had not given up on him and was still searching for him.

For the past year. In the United States, Cha Woojin had tirelessly searched for him without giving up, and Song Yeongin had leaned on James Han’s shadow, pretending not to know, and running away from his desperation.

For the first time, he deeply understood why the man who had been his father could not live or endure without getting drunk.

At some point, Song Yeongin was recalling his father, who had gone mad while looking at a child who resembled another man, not his own biological child, and was pouring out cheap pity.

His insomnia grew worse and worse. Sometimes, even sleep-inducing pills were of no use in helping him sleep. Aiden, who knew this well, nodded his head heavily at Song Yeongin’s request to buy him alcohol.

Joan, a gentle, middle-aged Korean-American woman, had been a developmental disabilities educator who taught special needs children, and she said she had been the nanny to James Han’s daughter, Chloe.

When she first saw Song Yeongin, she showed him a picture of James Han’s daughter, Chloe, with a surprised face.

“Mr. Yeongin, you look a lot like Chloe.”

The pure and bright young child smiling in the photo really had a face that looked just like Song Yeongin’s.

“Chloe didn’t have a mother. It was as if I raised her.”

“…….”

“She was a truly lovely child. Chloe was a developmentally disabled child who suffered from severe autism. She was not even registered on the family register, as if she didn’t exist, and she lived confined here with her existence erased.”

“…….”

“Chloe had a tremendous talent for painting. She painted every day, and she always waited for her father to show them to him…. While waiting for her father, who barely came to see his child once a year, she died in loneliness. In the year she turned thirteen, she took her own life in this house.”

Was this not a truly astounding coincidence.

That the place where Chloe had last taken her own life was this very villa in Montauk….

However, was the fact that James Han had brought him to that place also truly an astounding coincidence?

Song Yeongin had to once again doubt the true intentions of James Han for saying he would become his guardian. Was he really seeing him as an overlapping image of his autistic daughter who had committed suicide, who looked like him and liked to paint?

<Dead Mother’s Ear>.

Song Yeongin felt like he now knew why he had been particularly obsessed with that painting, and why he could not help but be crazy about that painting from the very beginning.

In that painting, there was his suicidal mother’s ear that could not hear and himself, who was left behind. He had painted over and over again… containing all the emotions of his younger days, his pathetic shame for being embarrassed of his deaf and mute mother, and his pain, hatred, sadness, anger, disillusionment, resentment, pity, regret, longing, and compassion, to separate his mother’s death from within his own body.

James Han had seen his suicidal, disabled daughter, whom he had hidden from the world, in that painting, and he had been sharing the same feelings as Song Yeongin.

What on earth did he want to do, bringing him to this house where his own daughter had taken her own life?

However, nothing was important to Song Yeongin anymore. After leaving Cha Woojin, his thought process, which seemed to have broken down somewhere, began to drift toward the idea that it did not matter.

He could not feel emotions, nor did they register with him. He just hoped that the people left behind would be safe, and that was becoming the only reason for him to live. If James Han could do that for him, then just like this… just like this, really nothing, nothing else mattered anymore.

James Han had recommended that when the new semester began, he should return to New York and major in Fine Art at an art university.

He was acting like a strict father to him. He said that Song Yeongin, who seemed to be thoroughly broken like a person with a screw loose somewhere, desperately needed education, communication, and social activities.

Official documents are required for admission. Hearing him bring up the issue of pursuing further education, which would inevitably reveal his personal information officially, Aiden added after he had left.

“Yeongin… Cha Woojin is no longer looking for you.”

At Aiden’s words, Song Yeongin felt as if he had been hit on the head with a club.

“Well, it’s already been a year. Since there’s no problem even if you put your name on legal documents and enroll… That’s why James suggested it. It’s proof that you’ve become free from that person.”

Shocked, Song Yeongin felt a twinge in the back of his neck.

He did not know what to feel from those words. Should he be grateful that he could now end this nomadic life of constant moving because Cha Woojin was no longer looking for him? Or should he be grateful for James Han’s consideration in trying to pull him out into the world?

Something had already died inside Song Yeongin. It felt as if all the mechanisms for feeling emotions had completely broken down. He was not happy to be alive, nor grateful, nor regretful. In fact, even the desire to learn something or the child-like curiosity that made his eyes sparkle had disappeared.

He thought he knew why James Han was recommending that he enroll in art school. It might be his greed to have him fulfill the dream of Chloe, who had died without being able to grow up.

However, nothing was important. For a person who was enduring each day simply because he was still breathing, demanding such absurd things was all just an imposition.

It was just that, Song Yeongin was comfortable being confined and only painting as he was now. There was nothing else he could do. Song Yeongin felt as if he had regressed back to the years he had spent trapped in that rooftop apartment, only painting and enduring for three years after losing his mother.

He hated feeling that he was alive. He hated all the biological reactions he felt the moment he became aware that he was alive.

Was this because of Cha Woojin?

It felt as if everything he had been barely holding onto and enduring until now had crumbled at once.

My unfortunate childhood where I always had to tremble in anxiety, my father’s violence, the real reason my father beat me, the priest who was my biological father, my mother’s suicide and absence, my younger sister’s misunderstanding and turning away, my father’s death in a foreign land, the sad news of my hyung who was in his prime. Rape, hiding… and then gang rape again. And now, on top of that, I had lost the only person I had loved with my own will for the first time in my life, Cha Woojin.

The one who was tattered with scars was not Cha Woojin, but me. It was rather a relief that the one whose heart was patched up and in tatters was himself and not him.

Clearly, the distant and faint pains that had been completely forgotten on the days with Cha Woojin were now revealing their merciless reality to me again with his absence and were rushing in uncontrollably.

Was it because I met him and loved him that I was able to endure all these things until now? Was I blinded by love and had been living forgetting these harsh pains?

If that was the case, I was truly a moronic fool crazy in love.

James Han visited Song Yeongin once a week or every ten days, though not as often as when he was in the Hamptons, which was closer in location to his residence in Manhattan.

Mainly, all he did was visit Song Yeongin’s studio and watch Song Yeongin, who was painting, with bated breath.

Today, James Han, who had come without fail after a week, was quietly watching Song Yeongin, who was engrossed in painting and putting the final layer of varnish on the completed work.

“Your hair has grown quite long.”

He pushed his hair back to wipe away the sweat that was running down, and under the hairline where his baby hairs were growing neatly, his clear forehead and fine eyebrows were revealed.

The light-colored, fine strands of hair flowing along his facial line because his bangs and back hair had grown a lot. The fine-lined forehead and delicate nose, faintly visible through the strands of hair that flowed softly like water, made Song Yeongin look like a beauty with an even more mysterious and subtle atmosphere than before.

James Han was silently looking at the paint smudged on Song Yeongin’s forehead. His drooping eyes curved slyly. However, perhaps because he had become immune to his gaze, Song Yeongin paid no heed and focused only on the work he was doing.

James Han came closer to the painting.

“This painting. The title is….”

“…….”

“You said it’s <The Desires>, didn’t you.”

Song Yeongin nodded his head without a word.

“Looking at this painting makes everything feel futile, just like a midsummer night’s dream.”

“…….”

“Pure and brilliant desires, love, dreams… things that can never be eternal.”

“…….”

“I really like the work that will be put into the exhibition’s lineup last. It’s been worth it for you to hang onto this painting day and night for the past year.”

Song Yeongin hung up the re-coated painting to dry and caught his breath.

Only when he talked about that did Song Yeongin look James Han in the eye.

“My sister-in-law and nephew are….”

“We talked on a video call, didn’t we. Cha Woojin hasn’t laid a hand on your acquaintances, so don’t worry. As you saw in the video and pictures I sent, your sister-in-law and nephew are living a prosperous life without any worries in the top-class mansion I got for them.”

“Yes…….”

“In the end, <Dead Mother’s Ear> also came into my hands…. Your official debut exhibition is also proceeding smoothly. Mr. Song Yeongin just needs to focus on his painting.”

His red, full lips hesitated, letting out a precarious breath, before he struggled to speak.

It was time to touch a raw nerve.

“I heard… your daughter took her last breath in this house.”

James Han answered brazenly without batting an eye.

“So what. Is there a problem?”

The beautiful face, smudged with red paint, stared straight at James Han and asked.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“…….”

“Do you regret what you did to Chloe?”

“…….”

“Hiding your autistic daughter here without anyone knowing, as if she were a child who didn’t exist in the world… I heard that the child waited for her beloved father for a very long time, wanting to show him the pictures she drew all day long….”

For the first time, a human-like expression flashed across James Han’s face. The sorrow, longing, and sadness that can only be seen in those who have lost someone… it was the miserable and weak sorrow of a man of power hidden behind a mask that had been deeply bowed.

“So you brought me here to paint like Chloe, and you’re playing this game, right? Telling me to enroll in university is also… on behalf of that child….”

“…….”

James Han quickly erased his remorse and put on a natural smile.

“I don’t regret anything from the past.”

“…….”

“It’s just that, sometimes, people want to be compensated for their lingering attachments in a way no one can understand.”

James Han always gave Song Yeongin a farewell kiss on his forehead as a final gesture before leaving his studio to go back.

James Han, who was about to leave the studio, asked for a farewell kiss on Song Yeongin’s forehead like a ritual today as well. Although he knew that the act was very strange, Song Yeongin did not refuse it.

There was only one reason why Song Yeongin did not refuse. It was because he did not feel any sexual intent, greed, or carnal desire from that act. It was like a gentle farewell given to one’s own grown child.

Like a father giving a goodnight kiss to his child, saying goodnight. Perhaps, every time he gave a farewell kiss on his forehead, James Han was really saying farewell to his dead daughter Chloe in his heart.

Song Yeongin had noticed a long time ago that he was very deeply immersed in this role-playing.

“Then, I’ll see you next time.”

Song Yeongin hurriedly grabbed James Han, who was leaving the studio. Nothing else mattered. In fact, he had been dying of curiosity about it from the very beginning.

“Now, does… Cha Woojin no longer look for me?”

A desperate expression flashed across the beautiful face, shadowed with gloom.

“Mr. Song Yeongin…. The one who is regretting is not me, but perhaps you.”

“…….”

Song Yeongin was asking James Han, bringing out the name he had not mentioned for a year from his own mouth for the first time.

“I want to know…. Is Cha Woojin not looking for me anymore? Is my escape finally over?”

James Han, holding his head up stiffly, answered in a very stern and business-like tone.

“Officially and unofficially, Cha Woojin is no longer looking for Mr. Song Yeongin.”

“…….”

“Cha Woojin’s efforts have been very persistent and tenacious, enough to surprise me, but… a year has already passed. All passions are bound to wither.”

“…….”

“Cha Woojin’s wedding is just a few days away. Cha Woojin is on the verge of marriage with the presidential election approaching. When he becomes the president’s son-in-law, he’ll be busy here and there. So busy that he won’t even think of someone like Mr. Song Yeongin… that high and mighty, arrogant crown prince. It must have already become that way.”

“…….”

“So, I hope you wake up from that dream soon too.”

“…….”

“I’ll be going now. As I said, soon, three of your paintings will be hung in my gallery….”

“…….”

“It will be your official debut as an artist in New York.”

“…….”

“So, I hope that you, the main character, Mr. Song Yeongin, will be sure to attend and grace the occasion.”

A full year had passed since leaving Cha Woojin.

Looking at the blue horizon of Montauk Beach, which became one with the sky, everything felt distant, as if nothing had ever happened. It was as if the past time with Cha Woojin had been carved out of his life.

‘So, I hope you wake up from that dream soon too.’

Now that Cha Woojin was no longer looking for him, it was truly a matter of him just coming to his senses.

From time to time, Song Yeongin would look at the sea of Montauk, which seemed to be a replica of Mohuido, and all night long, he would recall the passionate lovemaking and secret rendezvous he had shared with him on Mohuido. As if by a lie, the whispers that Cha Woojin had murmured to him vividly lingered in his ears, carried by that low voice.

On such days, he absolutely needed strong liquor, and on the days he poured strong liquor until he lost his mind, that man came to find him in his dreams.

Due to the trauma of rape and gang rape, Song Yeongin had consciously avoided masturbation like a sin until now, and had forbidden himself from the act of seeking sexual pleasure. Even when desire arose in his body, he did not touch his front or his back with his own hands.

Whenever the physiological need for release built up, he would dream of Cha Woojin once in a while, and whenever that man appeared in his dreams, Song Yeongin would have a wet dream like an adolescent boy.

The man in the dream had a disgustingly ferocious erection, his dick standing terrifyingly erect. Whenever he dreamed of the savage body with a sensual frame raping him violently, Song Yeongin would wet his underwear like a thunderbolt.

In the end, it always ended with him becoming more desperate, wanting him and clinging to him. In the dream, he would writhe his hips like a prostitute, tightening and pressing Cha Woojin. His body, which remembered pleasure, would clamp down on him through the lasciviously parted hole and clench his ferocious member, begging to be pounded. Wanting to receive Cha Woojin’s semen and seed deep inside him, he would vulgarly shake his hips and not let him go.

For the past year, Song Yeongin had been repeating this insane act periodically, whenever he was about to forget.

When would that man stop appearing in his dreams? No, when would his subconscious stop wanting him? He recalled the words of the man who had taught him that there was something lewd inside him.

You were right. In dreams more debauched and obscene than a prostitute in a brothel, he tumbled around with Cha Woojin, engaging in messy sodomy.

After having that dream, Song Yeongin would wash his underwear in the dark, and wash his soiled body over and over again until morning came.

To wash away this dirty and lewd body, to wash away all the vulgar lust hidden inside him without a trace.

Song Yeongin checked his own face in the mirror. Looking at his dirty, prostitute-like face, flushed lewdly with the loss of reason, he threw up into the toilet several times. Since he had not eaten anything, only vodka and stomach acid came out.

The act of desiring something, no, someone, and craving them reproductively was unbearably disgusting. The fact that he could have sex with the ghost of a non-existent Cha Woojin and come with his front and back drenched in such a mess shredded even the last of his paltry integrity and morality.

Yearning for the embrace of a man who no longer even looked for him, having such promiscuous dreams and going into heat… after a year had passed, he was the only one who could not forget him.

Song Yeongin berated his lewd body. In truth, he might have been putting on a pathetic pretense, pushing him away every time, rejecting him by saying it hurt and he did not like it. It seemed that he had liked that man’s body so much that it was maddening, to the point where he had to consciously and painstakingly deny that being treated this way by him was unbearable.

Disgusting. I really want to die.

I don’t want to live.

Until the dirty body that was crazy for that man’s dick became paralyzed and could feel nothing, Song Yeongin washed and washed his thin body in water as cold as ice.

The words that Cha Woojin was no longer searching for him, who had run away from him, were true. Song Yeongin was freed from all restrictions.

No, he was liberated from him.

Aiden and Joan encouraged Song Yeongin, now freed from him, to put an end to the unstable life of moving from place to place and the isolated, confined existence of the past, and to step out into the bigger world.

They genuinely worried about Song Yeongin like family and had taken care of the unwell Song Yeongin for the past year. During that time, whenever he moved from one of the countless houses to another, Song Yeongin had no choice but to lean on and rely on their warm protection. It was the fence of a family that he had not felt in a long time.

He knew of the efforts they had made until now, somehow comforting and trying to keep him alive. Because he knew that the two of them were very affectionate and warm people, Song Yeongin had to put on a forced, fake smile and pretend to be okay.

When the new semester began, Song Yeongin was scheduled to leave Montauk, move to the center of New York where James Han was, and enroll in an art school. Now, all that was left was for him to truly escape Cha Woojin’s shadow on his own.

Song Yeongin, knowing it was cowardly, could not give up the one and only way he could check on that man’s current situation.

After Cha Woojin’s image began to be intensively revealed to the media in earnest, Cha Woojin, the next successor of Woosung Group, was receiving the full spotlight of the media and the public’s attention.

His sexy and attractive appearance, which surpassed that of a celebrity, and his outstanding business skills were mentioned in the media, making him as famous as any star. Now, it had reached a point where, conversely, the actress Shin Hwayeon was being referred to by the title of Cha Woojin’s fiancée, the successor of Woosung.

Song Yeongin did not know whether it was fortunate or unfortunate that the man was appearing in the media quite often, with the public’s favor and powerful topicality.

Cha Woojin, who sometimes appeared in the official press photos of Woosung Electronics, was still the same dazzling figure he had first seen. He had to confirm that man’s presence, which made people feel awe and envy, even if it was just in such a small photograph. Every time he did, Song Yeongin felt a deep sense of relief. He felt no regret either.

And now he does not even look for me anymore.

It truly seemed as if everything had returned to its original state, to the natural order, just as he had wished. Song Yeongin’s task of putting everything back to the way it was had been a success.

His belief that time would solve everything was not wrong. At the very least, he did not doubt that Cha Woojin would forget him and be able to achieve everything he wanted. As the president’s closest aide and the successor of Woosung. Cha Woojin had obtained everything that would realize his ambitions. Now, all that was left for him was to race down the smooth, paved road of life that was laid out for him.

Song Yeongin patted himself on the back and praised himself for that day when he had callously turned his back on Cha Woojin’s screams and harshly walked away.

‘See that. Yeongin-ah…. You did a really good thing doing this.’

That night, Song Yeongin had a very vivid dream. He met Chloe, James Han’s daughter, who had died of loneliness while painting in this isolated villa in Montauk, waiting for her father.

She, who had slit her own wrist, held his hand tightly, smiled, and spoke gently.

‘We are so much alike. If you’re lonely, come with me.’

“Do I really have to go?”

“It’s your debut exhibition. You’re the main character. You must go.”

“It’s complicated… and I don’t like places with a lot of people.”

Aiden, who had always been gentle, spoke with a firm and strict face that was unlike him, not backing down.

“James said to bring you this time, no matter what. If you say you won’t go, I have to drag you there by force.”

“I don’t even know how to speak English… I’ll just have to stand there blankly among strangers whose language I can’t even understand.”

“You’re a painter. What words do you need besides your paintings? If that’s the problem, don’t worry…. That’s why I’m here, your dedicated interpreter.”

When he stared blankly with a face shrunk with lack of confidence, Aiden delivered a direct hit.

“You have to go. It’s not like you’re in danger anymore, since Cha Woojin isn’t even looking for you.”

Song Yeongin had to face reality.

“Yeongin…, snap out of it now! You’ve been given an opportunity that others can’t get even if they want it. Meet James and the critics.”

“…….”

“A year is long enough to have been childish.”

At the word childish, Song Yeongin lowered his head in shame. He wanted to find a hole to crawl into. It was just as Aiden said. He was being childish, wallowing in his good fortune.

And perhaps what he truly needed was someone to scold and lecture him like this, to face reality, to clash with the world even if it meant getting broken.

Song Yeongin nodded his head toward Aiden, who was scolding him out of genuine concern for him.

It was time to step out of Cha Woojin’s shadow. Just as he had run out of that cramped rooftop apartment and begged the priest to let him earn money, the time had come to face with his whole body once again that nothing could be done unless he came out into the world.

He recalled the days spent in the slums below Cheongsong Mountain, greeting the dawn and going from one manual labor job to another all night long. He had forgotten that if you are alive, you must move. Now, it was time to face with his whole body the seasickness on land that he had only feared.

His clear and neat eyes hesitated for a long time, as if trying to shake off fear.

Song Yeongin asked Aiden.

“How do I look?”

“…….”

“My hair is too long, so it’s messy and unsightly, right? I should get my hair cut neatly before going to the gallery.”

“It’s not unsightly. You’re dazzling enough right now. So much so that it’s a pity you’re just cooped up in this house….”

New York, the heart of Manhattan. Located near Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ‘Lo.e Gallery’ was one of the contemporary art museums owned by James Han, situated on Museum Mile where Manhattan’s museums are concentrated.

Lo.e Gallery, which used the entire 5-story building, was a renovated mansion where a famous musician from early 20th-century New York had lived, transformed into a stylish and modern exhibition space.

Passing through the first floor, which was connected to a bookstore and a gallery cafe, Song Yeongin had to go up to the third floor, where the exhibition of emerging artists was being held. His paintings were displayed there.

Song Yeongin was dressed in a neat and stylish outfit that James Han had sent him to wear when he came to the event where he had also invited New York’s critics today.

A refreshing blue shirt and a dark navy blazer, fitted to his well-proportioned body with neat and high-quality tailoring, made Song Yeongin’s fair skin and his neat and tidy appearance look even cleaner and more vibrant.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“I’m fine.”

“We arrived too early for our appointment. Then, would you like to take your time looking around at your paintings and the gallery first?”

“Yes….”

Having arrived much earlier than the scheduled time, Aiden sent Song Yeongin up to the gallery first from in front of the cafe on the first floor.

“Just five minutes, I’ll just have one shot of espresso and come up.”

“Aiden. I’m fine. We have a lot of time, so come up slowly.”

It seemed that he, whose duty it was to always watch over him, also needed a little respite.

Holding onto the ornate Art Deco banister, he climbed the stairs of the old building to the third floor.

When he entered the entrance of the sunlit third-floor gallery, a few people were looking around the exhibition.

It seemed he had arrived too early for his appointment with James Han, but he thought it would be best to check on his works hanging in the gallery first.

As he stepped inside the third floor, his three paintings were hanging side by side in the most prominent central location.

The paintings were, in order, <Dead Mother’s Ear>, <The Flame>, and finally, <The Desires>. In front of <The Desires>, the most recently completed work, stood a single person from the audience.

The moment he saw the unusually familiar back, Song Yeongin felt his heart sink in a cruel sense of déjà vu that devoured his cells.

‘No way… no, it cannot be.’

He thought he was seeing a phantom.

Having seen an ominous shadow, dreamed of the dead Chloe, and now seeing a phantom in broad daylight, Song Yeongin denied that this was his own illusion and blamed his unsound state of mind.

It is someone else. It is a mistake.

However, Song Yeongin could not take a single step from a distance and was frantically scanning the back that so strongly resembled someone. In case the thing he feared might happen. In case the world he had painstakingly built would crumble miserably.

The tall, towering man boasted a formidable frame. Strong and broad shoulders, a sharp and sensual back and physique, the man stood wearing a pair of free-spirited jeans that highlighted his long legs. The reason for the unusually familiar sense of déjà vu was that the man was wearing a black leather rider jacket he had seen sometime before.

When he confirmed the sound of the metal buckle dangling at the end of the sleeve and the familiar platinum metal watch, Song Yeongin had to take one step, two steps back.

It was then.

The man, with his face half-hidden and a black ball cap pulled down low, turned around.

When Song Yeongin, who was backing toward the entrance, confirmed the face that had turned, everything in his field of vision seemed to stop, frozen in place.

Every cell in his body, on edge, seemed to have lost its function, unable to move a muscle. He was frozen on the spot like an inanimate object that could neither hear nor speak. His clear and limpid eyes, wide open, simply stopped, forgetting to blink. His gaze inadvertently met that of the man who had turned around.

And, in an instant, the entire world vanished.

In the end, the thing he had feared had come to pass. The flimsy glass castle he had built over the past year shattered into a thousand pieces miserably before his eyes. From between those fine cracks, he was overflowing everywhere. His vision, narrowed by moisture, could not take in any of the surroundings.

In the collapsed, disastrous world, only a single person existed.

Right there, was Cha Woojin.

He had forgotten even how to breathe, so there was no way he could move.

Under the pulled-down black ball cap, long, coolly drawn eyes were revealed. A straight-bridged nose and a masculine, sharp jawline. A flawlessly perfect and cool symmetry, a man with a composed and arrogant face was gradually walking toward him.

His cold, inorganic gaze, devoid of any emotion, swept over him without hesitation. It felt as if everything his sweeping gaze touched turned to ash and burned away. He really did not know if there was still anything left to burn in his heart, which had already turned to ashes.

With each step he took, as if in slow motion, as he drew closer to him, Song Yeongin felt the illusion of a specter of death walking toward him on its own feet, awaiting its sentence.

However, it was a foolish apprehension.

The man, who had come close enough to be within arm’s reach, disappeared as quickly as a lie. The intimidating male body, honed sharp enough to cut, passed by him coldly with a chilly gaze. He looked away, and we were strangers to each other.

Like a stranger he had never encountered in his life, Cha Woojin brushed past Song Yeongin’s shoulder heartlessly. Cha Woojin ignored him as if he did not know him.

Song Yeongin did not look back.

The sound of the man’s footsteps descending the stairs followed. Until that sound disappeared, Song Yeongin held his breath and replayed the faint sound of footsteps in his mind.

And then, nothing more could be heard. Only the collapsed,惨혹한 world spread out before his eyes as quiet as a dead mouse.

And so, until the people in the gallery passed by him one by one and disappeared down the stairs, Song Yeongin had to stand there blankly for a long time without even blinking, like a dead corpse.

When he could not judge how much time had passed, Aiden walked up behind him.

“Wait just ten minutes. Soon, James will come up with the critics and the director.”

At that moment, Song Yeongin, like a madman, ran past Aiden with all his might and sprinted toward the exit.

He could not even gauge how fast he was running down the stairs, only the violent sound of his heart pounding, thud, thud, against his ears.

In an instant, he descended the third-floor stairs, burst through the door he had entered, passed the cafe on the first floor, and ran out of the gallery building.

The man was nowhere to be seen.

He passed several food trucks parked in front of the sidewalk. To find the man whose whereabouts he did not know, he turned the corner of the gallery without a sense of direction and ran straight down a block, cutting through the blaring horns and car sounds of the Manhattan streets.

His hair flew wildly around his delicate face, the corners of his eyes and the tip of his nose a messy red. He was sprinting at full speed, cutting through the wind.

After running for a while, Song Yeongin, who was looking around for Cha Woojin, had to ask himself what he was doing right now.

‘……What on earth are you doing?’

Why was he doing such a crazy thing. He himself could not understand.

Song Yeongin, who had been running, stopped and gasped for breath, panting heavily. He was so out of breath. It felt like it was going to burst. He had run with all his might, to the point where his heart felt like it would pop out and tear. Thanks to that, he had come this far from the gallery.

What on earth are you doing? What if you find Cha Woojin?

Then, what will you do then….

Song Yeongin, who was looking around like a madman for the man who was nowhere to be seen, realized that he had to give up this crazy act at this point.

James Han and the critics would be waiting for him.

Song Yeongin, with slumped shoulders, trudged back the way he had run in a daze. ‘Gasp! Gasp!’ his heart ached, and he was laboriously exhaling ragged breaths as if it would burst.

He turned the corner again and was passing by the building next to the gallery in a daze.

And, it was in an instant.

A large figure appeared from the very narrow alley next to the office. That intimidating figure snatched Song Yeongin in an instant with a ‘whoosh—!’

A body like a swiftly trained lethal weapon, a firm upper arm packed with sharp muscles and a broad chest, pulled Song Yeongin with all its might into the narrow alley in a single breath.

His body was dragged along as if by a lie by a force so rough it made his mind go blank. Without being able to resist even once. He was dragged by that powerful and absolute force.

His thin back was thrown against the narrow wall at the end of the gap between the buildings with a ‘thud!’ as if it would break.

“Hmph, ugh…! It hurts….”

When he let out a pained groan and opened his eyes, there was the man he had been frantically searching for. The tall man wearing a black cap pulled down low and a leather jacket.

Cha Woojin held Song Yeongin’s thin shoulders fiercely and pinned him against the building wall. He met the deep, cool eyes revealed under the cap worn to hide his face.

Cha Woojin grabbed Song Yeongin’s white, slender neck in one motion. In the man’s large, thick-knuckled hand, his long, thin nape trembled pathetically.

The cold-blooded eyes, tinged with cruelty, narrowed, and a flat, low voice struck his ears.

“Who are you looking for?”

A low voice without any pitch. Pitch-black eyes, a vanished flame that could not be found anywhere. An empty desire with nothing left was there.

That was the first thing the man who had grabbed his neck and pinned him to the wall said.

His Adam’s apple quivered faintly in his hand. A drop of water fell on the back of the man’s hand that was gripping his neck. Tears, which he could not even remember when they had started to flow, were dripping down from the tip of his slender chin.

In his own horribly collapsed world, Song Yeongin flailed like a drowning person, unable to breathe. He himself did not realize what his eyes, messy and blurred with tears, were saying. But, he must have known.

Cha Woojin, who saw the collapsing plea in Song Yeongin’s eyes, sneered coldly.

It was an extremely cruel voice.

“Do you know me?!”

The man who had grabbed him by the collar looked at Song Yeongin’s shirt, neatly buttoned up to the neck, and let out a scoffing laugh with a ‘pfft!’.

The small face, soaked in bright red tears, was searching for Cha Woojin’s eyes under the cap.

Cha Woojin was only looking at Song Yeongin’s shirt, neatly buttoned up to the neck. Without warning, he grabbed the shirt as if to tear it.

The man, who was panting with anger, ripped open the buttons of the shirt that were tightly fastened up to the neck in one go. Amidst the trembling sobs, half of the shirt buttons came off from that immense grip.

Cha Woojin scanned the inside of the shirt, which was ripped open to reveal his chest, as if he were searching for something. Between the dark navy blazer and the refreshing blue shirt, a smooth, white body without a single blemish was revealed. His beautifully colored red nipples were erect with goosebumps.

Cha Woojin, who had been scanning his chest and the area around his neck, laughed hollowly and let go of the collar of the shirt he was holding. As he released his grip and tossed him aside, Song Yeongin’s thin back was thrown against the wall at once.

Cha Woojin turned around heartlessly and coldly without looking back, just as Song Yeongin had done a year ago.

Song Yeongin, with his white, smooth chest exposed under the torn shirt, was staring at the man’s back as he turned away with a dazed face.

Like a person who had lost his voice, the voice to call him would not come out of his throat. It was a terrible curse cast by someone who was deaf, mute, and voiceless.

Song Yeongin clutched his ripped-open chest tightly in frustration. His tattered heart ached so much he could not bear it. His chest, which had been in tatters and ripped apart for a long time, had turned into an irreversible pulp with even the smallest wound and shock.

Cha Woojin’s broad back, having turned far away, was leisurely exiting the alleyway. Song Yeongin could only stare endlessly at the man’s broad back as it disappeared.