Dirty Sweet Baby Chapter 77

“There’s no one who calls me Heon. That’s not my nickname either.”

A terrible throbbing filled his chest.

“I just told you. ‘Heon’ for house.”

Like a plague that won’t disappear even if eradicated.

Like heroin, an addiction you know will lead to ruin.

Along with a heart-fluttering feeling that clung to his soul and wouldn’t let go, an unidentifiable…

“House?”

“Yeah. My house.”

Why?

What is it?

This feeling, the first I’ve felt since I was born and came into this life, this feeling I haven’t yet defined, what on earth…

“The place where I belong.”

Heeheon had done nothing but endlessly avoid Cha Moogyul. He had only thought of dying, of asking to be let go, of running away and turning his back, and yet Cha Moogyul called Baek Heeheon his house. He named him as the place where he belonged.

The concept of a house is fundamentally a building, but it also means a home, it means family, and it also means a haven. A sanctuary. It signifies a private space that provides physical and emotional stability, is essential to humans, and is equipped with a sense of belonging, connection, and bonds.

Perhaps that’s why. For a moment, the very act of trying to figure out what he meant by those words, how Heeheon’s heart was similar to and different from his, whether his expectations would be met or missed—all of it felt meaningless.

Whatever Cha Moogyul’s true intentions were, whatever Cha Moogyul was planning and executing, whether he was doing this out of simple interest or out of impure obsession, aside from all that, Heeheon was, in the end, Baek Heeheon.

Just as he could never become the son his mother wanted, despite feeling guilty toward her, even if Cha Moogyul was Cha Moogyul, and even if a life with him was difficult and painful, Heeheon’s heart had been singular from the very start. No matter how hard he tried, he could not escape that heart. It was his fate, his brand.

If that’s the case, shouldn’t he just accept it? And shouldn’t he hold on?

After all, Cha Moogyul is here, right by his side.

“…Okay.”

It didn’t matter if Cha Moogyul’s feelings were different from Baek Heeheon’s.

It was fine even if they were shallower and lighter than Heeheon’s, and it didn’t have to be pure love or affection.

It was fine even if they didn’t do things like call each other darling or honey, and he could prepare himself to accept it even if they formed an exclusive relationship that was completely different from a typical romantic one. From the beginning, their relationship, in any form, was not one they could be so proud of in front of others.

“The ring.”

So for now, he thought, he should at least get this ring in his hands.

“I won’t take it off. I’ll keep it on.”

While cleaning his disassembled rifle, Heeheon was quietly lost in thought. Following the familiar sequence, he neatly wiped the exterior of each part with a cloth, one by one, and also used a tool to remove the lubricant from inside the pipe-shaped barrel. His hands were moving busily without rest, but Heeheon’s gaze was fixed on a single spot, as if his sights were locked.

Every time he used his left hand, a glint of light flowed along his ring finger.

As if playing tag with Heeheon, the white light sparkled here, then sparkled there, moving like a living creature. It was as if a star containing Cha Moogyul was frolicking on Heeheon’s finger.

‘Haha…’

Was I this easy?

‘Was I really the kind of person who gets all worked up like this over a single ring…?’

The corners of his mouth twitched.

If he let his guard down, the corners of his lips would try to curl up into a smile without him even realizing it. It felt strange, as expected. It wasn’t just once or twice that he had been indecisive and anxious over something trivial, but this sort of tingling feeling was quite new. It was as if he would bounce up if someone just poked him.

‘Why does my body feel so light?’

In the past, whatever he did concerning Cha Moogyul, it had always felt heavy and suffocating. He could never be lighthearted. His worries and conflicts about him, as well as the influence and presence he had on Heeheon, were all endlessly burdensome.

‘I always thought I was just being swallowed up.’

When he was alone, it felt like he was bound by chains that constricted his whole body, dragged down into a deep sea where not a single point of light could enter, and was being suffocated. It was like someone was hitting his chest with a hammer; he was bruised, hurt, and in pain, but he couldn’t even show a sign of his agony, a storm of emotions that had to be suppressed and hidden inside. It was simply no different from a punishment.

His worn-out, exhausted affection for Cha Moogyul was an impurity that the young Heeheon could not reveal to the world, and he wanted to erase and abandon himself for wanting him, feeling that he was in the wrong.

That wasn’t all. The more he held him in his heart, the longer the years of secretly watching and desiring him grew, the more Heeheon had no choice but to compare himself to him and repeatedly engage in gloomy self-blame.

‘Cha Moogyul is perfect and I’m pathetic, things like that…’

Cha Moogyul. As his name, Moogyul, suggested.

In contrast to him, who had no flaws, Baek Heeheon was a mere commoner. Anyone would be the same. Compared to Cha Moogyul, who had a look of extraordinariness in his eyes and exuded an intense scent, anyone would inevitably be reduced to an inferior being.

Baek Heeheon, too, was gradually worn down and diminished, becoming a person as insignificant as a grain of sand. He had nothing better or worth showing off than Cha Moogyul, and even if he did, he had to hide Baek Heeheon in front of him.

He was afraid it would show, afraid it would be revealed, afraid that Cha Moogyul might discover his true feelings, so he kept shrinking back, avoiding him, and trying with all his might. Looking back now, he had really done it with determination. Because he firmly believed that was the only way for Heeheon to survive.

He believed that was the only way to protect his ego and not collapse completely. Otherwise, he felt like he would be completely devoured by Cha Moogyul. Not by the real, existing Cha Moogyul, but by the conceptual Cha Moogyul that had taken up a large space in Baek Heeheon’s mind.

A whole eight years. His heart, stained with longing and yearning for a long time, had made Cha Moogyul an absolute being to Heeheon. There was simply no way to go against it. If it was thesis and antithesis, Cha Moogyul was the thesis; if it was light and dark, Cha Moogyul was the light; if it was good and evil, Cha Moogyul was the good. That’s why Heeheon kept shrinking and breaking down.

‘At some point, whenever I felt good, I got scared first.’

It was because he was afraid. Simply because he was afraid. ‘I shouldn’t, I have to stop, Cha Moogyul probably doesn’t have any special feelings, this is all because of the guiding.’ He kept putting up walls and blockades, only to be pushed further into a disadvantage.

‘But why? Why do I feel so light now?’

Heeheon frowned as he swiftly and accurately assembled the rifle. His expression was twisting strangely. While trying to press down his smiling lips, his eyes were also trying to look at the ring, so his facial muscles couldn’t help but scrunch up suspiciously.

After finishing the cleaning and assembly of the gun, Heeheon put the rifle in its storage locker. He operated the pad to check the box on the maintenance log and let out a short breath.

‘I don’t know. I’d have to have owned something before to know.’

Until now, Heeheon had never been able to possess even a single part of Cha Moogyul. He had always been the one giving himself or being taken from. But now that he held him in a tangible form that he could see and touch, it felt… stabilizing. He even felt a strange sense of certainty.

‘And also, he said it was winter.’

He had only thought that Cha Moogyul meant he was perfect, Moogyul, just like his name, but it wasn’t that. Gyeol. Winter.

Of all things. Winter.

‘I really like winter.’

In fact, it was his favorite season among the four.

It was because in winter, white snow fell and the world was colored white, Heeheon’s favorite color. Ever since he was very young, whenever winter came, he would eagerly wait, counting the days and repeating like a parrot, “When will it snow?” and “I hope the first snow comes soon.” He liked the scenery of falling snow, he liked making snowmen and sledding—he just liked everything about it.

‘Does Cha Moogyul know? That I like winter.’

People say you start to dislike snow as you get older, but Heeheon, true to being Baek Heeheon, still liked snow and liked winter. Something he once liked doesn’t become disliked. There’s no way.

‘Does he not, does he not know…?’

Then again, what’s important isn’t whether Heeheon likes winter or not.

That Cha Moogyul is Gyeol.

And that Gyeol is embedded in Heeheon’s hand.

That’s what’s important…

Heeheon covered his left hand with his right and felt the smooth texture with his fingers. The engraving was so faint it was barely visible, so he could feel him more clearly by touching it like this rather than by looking at it.

‘A ring, this thing, a ring.’

A ring…

He felt like he now understood why everyone gets couple rings.

‘…It is, nice…’

He was now beginning to understand a little why, between lovers, between married couples, and even at weddings, there is always a ceremony to exchange rings. For Heeheon, Cha Moogyul was his first love, his first partner, his first… anyway, a ring was also a first, and he had just followed what came to mind indiscriminately because it was a custom everyone else did. But now that he had personally put the ring on his ring finger, there was no more wonderful mark in the world.

‘Actually, Cha Moogyul’s dog tag is still hanging on my military ID necklace, but that was, what should I say, a bit different.’

The dog tag and the ring seemed to be in completely different categories. In the world’s common sense, and in Heeheon’s common sense too.

‘Back then, it just felt like putting a collar on a dog to show it has an owner.’

A ring is definitely more…

‘Like a pair.’

Ugh!

Ah.

Shit, seriously, I’m going to lose my mind.

Unable to control the sudden surge of emotion, Heeheon’s expression crumpled and he bowed his head deeply. The blood circulation throughout his body quickened, making his blood hot as if he were angry, and the skin on his face turned a faint reddish hue as the space between his eyebrows narrowed.

He felt so terribly unfamiliar with himself. He didn’t know if he would keep floating around buoyantly like a balloon, only to be swept away out the window if the wind blew.

“Hyung.”

Cha Moogyul, who had finished assembling his rifle, called out to Heeheon as he stored it in the locker next to his.

“Huh?”