Cold City Romance Chapter 15.2

All obsessions disappeared completely from that moment on.

If what he truly wanted was honor as an actor or wealth or social success, if it was the peace and well-being of his family, then he should have been compensated for that, but Cha Dokyung was not fulfilled by anything from the position at the top.

After receiving the award, he staggered around instead like a person who had lost his goal, and he was so confused and despairing that he fell into a state of panic where he could not do anything in front of the camera.

The suffering did not disappear, and the pain and longing toward someone became sharper and more vivid like an awl with every passing year.

He could no longer smile falsely in front of people or sell himself. Cha Dokyung wanted to leave in front of the camera in his most beautiful form before he became ugly.

In order to desperately obtain what he was truly searching for, he opened the door to the last room at the top of the fake glass castle. There was a bluebird. One that could neither fly nor cry,

A fake bluebird made of glass…

When he realized that what existed in the last room at the top of the glass castle was not truly what he had been searching for and that everything was an illusion, Cha Dokyung shattered that fake glass castle with his own hands out of that emptiness and sense of futility.

He finally had to admit that the time had come to shed the fake actor Cha Dokyung who had lived disguised as an alpha.

So he hid in this place. He no longer stood in front of the camera, and he did not film anything. He did not sell anything under the title of ‘alpha’ Cha Dokyung.

Four years had passed since he left. Before he knew it, Cha Dokyung had turned thirty-six.

The raindrops suddenly became heavier. Cha Dokyung stroked his glossy fine horse with his hand and whispered affectionately.

“It’s raining. Yes, good boy. Now let’s go home.”

It was a purebred Arabian breed, a beautiful stallion with a splendid frame reminiscent of a black panther and a shining gloss.

“I’ll regret the reason you didn’t want to go out riding, Hwi. You knew a shower was coming, didn’t you.”

The name of this black fine horse that Cha Dokyung cherished more than anything was ‘Hwi’.

He had attached a word that came to mind because he needed to give it a name, and he naturally gave that name to the most handsome and beautiful stallion.

A stallion with innately superior and strong conditions could usually be fierce, but to his owner, he was endlessly gentle and very affectionate, knowing how to yield to the mares.

It had already been four years by the calendar since he had parted from that one.

Over the past two years, Cha Dokyung had received a villa from Director Moon Jeongho and his wife, remodeled it into his own residence, and settled in Hwacheon.

People talked about it as retirement and disappearance. Cha Dokyung lived almost in seclusion, having left the city for the deep forest of Hwacheon.

Around the time he was turning thirty-five, he had come to hate this city intensely.

He hated people to death. Above all, he had become addicted to the fake life of deceiving himself while disguising as an alpha. And he could not forget that promise he had made with someone. Perhaps he wanted to prove to him someday that he had remembered that promise.

What Cha Dokyung had acquired was not just the villa of the director and his wife. With the assets he had accumulated from his activities up to then, he had acquired the riding club in Hwacheon where he had been training at the time.

Cha Dokyung rode horses as much as he wanted. When his chest felt suffocatingly tight, on days when the desperate face of that one, who had clutched his own throat and sobbed sadly while trying to kill himself, would not leave his mind, he would go out riding along the trails of Hwacheon or through the reed fields and gallop on horseback.

They say that the moment a flower blooms is just a fleeting instant, but a flower lives its life through that short and brilliant instant of a dream.

He doubted and doubted again what that all too fleetingly short time with you could possibly change or alter. However, he now knows that that short instant of a moment, which he could not possibly forget no matter what, can become everything in some lives.

Just as you, in your pure way, had loved him unilaterally for ten years from afar based only on hazy memories of your childhood, the past four years of time had told him that.

On a day when spring flowers were on the verge of full bloom, he received a wedding invitation via a message on his cell phone.

The person responsible for the wedding announced the news of the marriage over the phone. A man with a familiar voice conveyed the news that he was getting married in Seoul to an unexpected partner.

Four years of time had changed everything.

They say that sometimes there are stories that truly begin only after they end. And Cha Dokyung vaguely thought that this might be a new beginning for that story that had ended.

[I wanted to meet you face-to-face and talk directly, but where on earth can I go to meet you.]

“…”

[Since I don’t know where you’re holed up right now, I had no way to come find you.]

The voice of Hyeon Kangwoo, who had been pausing, soon became serious.

[Dokyung-ah, I’m getting married.]

“Congratulations… I got the invitation.”

[At least pretend to be surprised a little.]

“You haven’t contacted me at all for a while now. How old are we? I knew you were dating. I even knew you were going fishing with someone else…”

[…]

“I didn’t know that the partner was Ms. Kang Seoyeon.”

The invitation had the groom’s name, Hyeon Kangwoo, and the bride’s name, Kang Seoyeon, written side by side.

Kang Seoyeon, the youngest daughter of Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Kang Kio. The fact that it was Hyeon Kangwoo, not Hyeon Jaehwi, who was marrying Kang Seoyeon was surprising enough…

[Seoyeon is having my child.]

He could not help but be shocked by the news that she was having a child. His nose tingled at the trembling in his voice.

“Ah, congratulations… Hyeon Kangwoo, you rascal, you’re becoming a dad. I can’t believe it, and it feels so strange.”

Cha Dokyung did not ask how the two of them had progressed to this point over that time.

After Hyeon Jaehwi left, the Hyeon Kangwoo who had begged him tearfully for love over the past few years had collapsed from exhaustion at Cha Dokyung’s cold and harsh rejection, which left not even the slightest opening.

It had been such a long time that it would not be strange at all for Hyeon Kangwoo, who was well past marriageable age, to date Kang Seoyeon and have a child.

“Please convey my congratulations to Ms. Kang Seoyeon too. Chairman—no, your father must be really delighted.”

[You heartless jerk… You suddenly disappear and don’t even send me a single call. Your nephew is being born. Hey, more than anyone else, I wanted to hear your congratulations the most.]

You reach out your hand first, saying let’s go back to being friends as if nothing had happened.

“Kangwoo-ya. Thank you for forgiving me… I’m sorry. I’ll do well by Ms. Kang Seoyeon and the nephew.”

As he aged, every time countless stories that had to be buried in his heart arose, Cha Dokyung thought of that one.

At thirty-two, he had thought he was an adult who knew everything about the world.

But now that he had turned thirty-six, even thirty-two had been too young. He had been nothing more than a fresh, clueless child who did not know even an inch ahead.

[No matter how much you’ve disappeared and it’s hard to show your face in front of people… Cha Dokyung, you jerk, you’re coming to my wedding, right?]

“Of course I have to go if you’re getting married. You’re my one and only brother and my only friend…”

Four years of time had changed everything.

They say that sometimes there are stories that truly begin only after they end. Cha Dokyung thought that this might be a beginning. It might be an opportunity to meet again that one he had buried in his heart after four years.

A person with any sense of shame knows he should not hold any expectations. He just wanted to meet that one one last time.

Even if he had someone else now, or even if his anger and hatred toward him had faded to the point that he had completely forgotten his existence. Just once.

One last time, just once…

If he could hear just one word from you saying you were doing well and face each other’s changed appearances after time had passed. If he even confirmed the existence of another person who had appeared by your side, then no longer would the lingering attachments and suffering remain, and everything would become memories that he had to let go.

You had come to Korea to find him in order to end a one-sided love that had lasted over ten years, and he had to meet you in order to end the regrets and lingering attachments that had continued for four years.

He realized that enough time had passed that he could finally utter that name.

Cha Dokyung’s lips trembled.

“…How is Jaehwi?”

At those words, Hyeon Kangwoo on the other end of the cell phone fell silent for a very long time.

“Is Jaehwi in America… coming to your wedding that day too?”

However, Cha Dokyung did not mind his silence. Over the past four years until Hyeon Kangwoo got married, he had wanted to ask about Jaehwi’s well-being but had barely suppressed that name that kept rising to the tip of his tongue.

Hyeon Kangwoo laughed in a somewhat resigned, matter-of-fact way.

[Yes, Jaehwi, who will have returned to the country by then, will attend my wedding that day too.]

Just as he had not asked how he had met Kang Seoyeon, started dating her, and decided to marry her, or why he had hidden that fact from him, Hyeon Kangwoo no longer asked why Cha Dokyung was curious about Hyeon Jaehwi’s news.

“Yes, that he’s coming…”

Kangwoo-ya, a very perfect implication has arisen between the two of us. An implication that we must tacitly allow each other.

“Hyeon Kangwoo, congratulations.”

When the flowers bloom, I will go to congratulate your wedding. The whole world will bless you, your bride, and your child. My one and only friend, my brother…

“Kangwoo-ya, you deserve to be happier than anyone else.”

Over the past few years, the thing that Cha Dokyung had felt was the strangest was precisely about desire.