Dirty Sweet Baby Chapter 76

“Can’t I open it in just a little bit?”

He just couldn’t bring himself to open it and check the contents right away. He felt like he needed time to collect and calm his mind, and he also needed a chance to prepare himself.

Just as a soldier needs to be armed before heading into battle, and an athlete needs to warm up before competing in a match, Baek Heeheon felt like he needed some kind of mental training, be it meditation or something else, before facing Cha Moogyul.

“Fuck, you’re playing games again.”

But Cha Moogyul was merciless.

With a sharp smile on his alluring lips, he interrogated him coldly.

“Why. Does it suck now that you actually have to do it? Was it just something you said to get out of the situation for a moment, and now you’re in a tough spot because of how things turned out?”

“No, no…”

I’m nervous, I feel like my heart is going to stop, I don’t know if this is right or not, I just… I don’t know anything. I’m going crazy. His intelligence was dropping at a speed he could feel in real time. It was a hopeless case; at this rate, he really was Baek Heeheon the complete idiot.

It seemed like Cha Moogyul had given him a ring simply because Heeheon had said the word “ring,” without any deep meaning, as if the word “ring” was input into a program and it outputted a ring in return. But Heeheon, upon receiving it, suddenly found his reasoning abilities reduced to that of a two-year-old, to the point where he couldn’t even form his immediate thoughts and feelings into verbal expressions.

“Hey, you, stop getting angry all the time.”

“What?”

“I know very well that I’m frustrating, and I’m not doing this to play games, so please, just don’t get angry at me right now…”

Ah… Hooo…

I’m not mentally prepared yet.

Once I accept this, won’t it become an unshakable, definite decision?

Doesn’t it have a meaning like driving a wedge right into the center of my chest, so that I can never run away again?

That Heeheon is really going to be with Cha Moogyul,

I mean, with Cha Moogyul…

<Hyung, you live. With me.>

<Just be mine.>

Like that…

Completely…

Ah…

‘Am I being overly conscious and giving it too much meaning? But still, it does have that meaning, doesn’t it?’

It doesn’t? Don’t tell me this isn’t it either? But it’s a ring. Can a ring just be… just a ring? No matter who Cha Moogyul is, there’s no way. He said he fell for me… didn’t he?

“…Give it here.”

Cha Moogyul scowled, his long eyes turning fierce, and then snatched the ring case Heeheon had been fiddling with. And right in front of Heeheon’s eyes, he snapped the case open.

To Heeheon, it was a dangerous jewelry box, no different from a box containing an asteroid belt, but he opened it as easily as if tearing open a bag of snacks, revealing its contents for all the world to see clearly.

‘Hiek.’

Heeheon was terribly startled.

No matter what, he had never shown this degree of emotional turmoil in front of Cha Moogyul before. No matter what had happened until now, he had always suppressed and endured it all, but now, his entire mind was turned upside down to a truly uncontrollable extent.

His heart was pounding hard enough to shatter, and his expression fully exposed his inner state, his eyes wide open and his lips slack.

His head was spinning.

‘…The light.’

It was so very. Dazzling. Excessively so.

The bright platinum bands were white and round.

As if someone had captured intangible light with both hands and gathered it into a tangible vessel.

Two rings of different sizes were nestled side by side in the jewelry box.

All of Heeheon’s senses focused there, and everything in the world blurred, until nothing was visible except for the rings. The perfectly circular bands captivated Heeheon. It was as if they were beckoning to him, calling him to the celestial realm. His very soul responded to them.

“Ha.”

Cha Moogyul saw the dazed Heeheon and let out a sharp laugh. Then, from the two platinum rings set side by side in the jewelry box, he picked up and took out the smaller one. The gleaming, silvery-white ring came closer, into sharper view.

An engraving of a name was carved on the inside of the ring.

Cha Moogyul

He thought that was the end of it, but there was an engraving on the outside too.

Gyeol

Cha Moogyul abruptly grabbed Heeheon’s left hand, which was pale and trembling faintly. Heeheon couldn’t even dare to resist and was helplessly dragged toward him.

“This is what you wanted, hyung.”

He twisted Heeheon’s wrist and forced the ring onto his fourth finger, as if cramming it on, all too naturally and casually.

“Don’t even think about taking it off.”

“…”

“You’ll be punished. Severely.”

They had never measured his size, yet the ring fit perfectly.

It even hugged his finger with the snugness Heeheon preferred. In fact, maybe Baek Heeheon liked not only his shoelaces tied tightly, but his fingers, everything, to be tight as well. This constricting feeling…

He had once mused self-deprecatingly that the white bandage he had put on the base of his finger, where he had been bitten, looked like a ring. But now, wearing a real ring, he couldn’t even recall that thought. The ring, the real ring… was achingly beautiful.

Cha Moogyul let go of Heeheon’s hand and put the remaining ring on his own hand. Heeheon stared blankly at the sight of him slipping the ring, which was slightly larger than Heeheon’s, onto his left ring finger, and then clenching and unclenching his fist. Without even blinking, his gaze was fixed, unable to look away.

Because Cha Moogyul’s ring also had an engraving.

He had only witnessed it for a fleeting moment as it passed by, but he had clearly read it.

The inner engraving was Baek Heeheon. And the outer engraving was…

Heon

Cha Moogyul. Baek Heeheon.

Gyeol. Heon.

‘…This crazy bastard.’

Heeheon gasped heavily, panting like an injured person.

‘Seriously. Has he lost his mind? How could he just bring a ring like this? What is he trying to do with me right now? What is this…’

It was a good thing he had been on the treadmill until just a moment ago. Maybe he could pass off this overwhelming panting as being out of breath from running hard? Couldn’t he just blame it on that, the way his face was flushed red, his eyes were getting inexplicably moist, and his chest was overflowing with emotion…?

‘Ah…’

Or maybe not.

I guess there’s no avoiding it anymore.

The fact that Baek Heeheon’s name was engraved on Cha Moogyul’s finger felt like the result of him thoroughly blocking any excuse for Heeheon to run or evade and completely taking away any chance of escape, just as he had declared.

In the end, Cha Moogyul had seized Baek Heeheon’s life.

He had taken Baek Heeheon.

And Heeheon, too.

‘What do I do? He’s like that.’

Platinum. Atomic number 78. A group 10 transition element. Melting point 1,768°C. English name, Platinum. Chinese characters, 白金 (Baekgeum).

‘Because he’s like that, Cha Moogyul… feels like he’s mine.’

If it shines with such a lustrous, silvery-white sparkle even under fluorescent lights, how brilliantly will it glitter in natural light? A timeless elegance and an understated luxury were captured perfectly in the ring.

It was as if it symbolized purity and eternity, Heeheon thought. Someday, when he died and his flesh rotted and his bones decayed, the ring would remain in its current form and become a memento. If this was not immortality, then what in the world was?

Heeheon felt confused, dizzy, and a little sad because he was so overwhelmingly happy.

He didn’t know how to process this version of himself, who was jumping up and down like a child, purely, crazily happy.

He was so happy—happy, happy, happy—so happy that his mind felt like it was breaking down and malfunctioning, but he didn’t know if it was okay to say just how happy he was. He didn’t know the depth of Cha Moogyul’s feelings toward the ring either. And at the same time, it felt as though he had simply lost the ability to express these kinds of feelings.

Just as the eyesight of a beast trapped in a dark, lightless cave would degenerate, he had suppressed and hidden his true feelings and had run and avoided them for so long that now he seemed to have forgotten even how to reveal anything. For Heeheon, who had constantly denied himself and Cha Moogyul, affirming himself and him was in itself a challenge and an obstacle.

Heeheon covered his left hand with his right and very carefully felt the surface of the ring with his fingertips. It was flawlessly smooth, but he could feel a slight unevenness only where the engraving was.

“…On the ring.”

Heeheon gently caressed that spot with his thumb again and again as he whispered. His voice trembled terribly.

“There are two names… on the inside and outside.”

Cha Moogyul didn’t get angry, but he smiled coldly with a somehow displeased look.

“So?”

“…So, I’m just saying.”

Actually, it had been bothering him on the inside for a while.

Gyeol. Cha Moogyul. Gyeol…

“You seem to use, nicknames, a lot, huh?”

Though it had been taken back now, he had saved his own number as ‘Gyeol’ on the phone he gave him, and Heeheon, Heeheon, had called him that as he pleased, and he’d even said that if he had a problem with it, hyung could call him Gyeol too.

‘Does it have some kind of meaning?’

Or is it just a habit?

Done inertially without any particular meaning, because he’s been called that since he was young…?

He again pulled at the hand of Heeheon, who was continuously fiddling with the ring. He removed the right hand that was covering the left and looked down with a persistent, intense gaze at the ring on the curled finger. At the spot where the engraving signifying Cha Moogyul, himself, was carved.

“It’s short for Gyeoul (winter).”

“…”

“Gyeol is Gyeoul.”

“Ah.”

“Heeheon is the sun.”

Cha Moogyul placed his left hand over Heeheon’s. The rings brushed against each other, making a soft clinking sound.

“‘Hee’ for sunlight, ‘heon’ for house. That’s your name, isn’t it?”

“…”

Heeheon (曦軒). The sun.

Come to think of it, that was exactly what his name meant.

“It’s easy to understand and intuitive, isn’t it? At least it is for me.”

“…Then what’s the ‘Heon’ written there?”

Heeheon’s pupils, his clear grayish-brown irises, wavered. He looked down at their overlapping hands before raising his head to look at him. It felt as if he was looking past his unchangingly handsome face and meeting the soul of Cha Moogyul, contained deep within his shell.