Cold City Romance Chapter 17.1

—It’s no fun to play with anymore, so just go back.

— …

—This routine of starting by sticking our bodies together and devouring each other every time with you doesn’t spark any interest in me anymore.

Cha Dokyung could add nothing more to his final words. He barely gathered his trembling naked body after the climax had passed. In front of the cruel man’s gaze, he slowly nodded his dazed head.

With a pale face, he picked up his clothes and put them on, then rushed out of the hotel as if fleeing.

In the two days that followed, Cha Dokyung’s appearance was a mess.

It had been fine until he returned to his private residence in Hwachon with the resolution to empty his mind and completely erase him now. After that, the cold, ruthless face of the man who had rejected him and turned away icily lingered in his mind and wouldn’t fade.

When he opened his eyes, he couldn’t gauge how long he had been asleep. The sky had darkened, and the liquor bottles that had been displayed as decorations in the cabinet had become a pile of empty ones stacked beside his head.

Even if he drank like a madman until he died, no one would notice in this secluded villa in the corner of the forest. It didn’t matter what happened. Even if Cha Dokyung, who had suddenly vanished for nearly two years, was discovered as a corpse in his mountain home due to an extreme choice, there would be nothing strange about it. Some might even welcome it.

Nothing had meaning. He couldn’t understand why he was opening his eyes like this and getting up again to pour alcohol into himself like self-harm. He didn’t want to sober up from the alcohol. He didn’t want to return to his right mind. And only after a long while did he realize.

Though he had pretended otherwise and acted oblivious, the fact was that for the past four years, he had desperately waited for Hyeon Kangwoo to get married.

If Hyeon Kangwoo gave up on him and physically married someone else, and even had a child. Then, perhaps he could meet that boy from four years ago again and start a new relationship. Cowardly, Cha Dokyung had harbored a vain hope deep in his heart. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it because that feeling was too petty.

When he received the call from Hyeon Kangwoo saying he was getting married, he was undoubtedly filled with excitement at the thought that he could meet Hyun Jaehwi.

He had never had any expectation from the start that he could untangle the knotted threads of emotions and truly understand each other. Until the very last moment, Cha Dokyung had chosen Hyeon Kangwoo in front of Hyun Jaehwi as if to show off. While begging to be marked, to be impregnated, whispering words of love, in the end, he had cruelly deceived and betrayed the long-held pure affection of the twenty-six-year-old young man. He knew he couldn’t be forgiven for that.

But ridiculously, he had vaguely believed that Hyun Jaehwi would still be physically excited by him. He thought that even if he hated him, even if he wouldn’t grant forgiveness, he would still want to have sex with him.

He had been his first, but Cha Dokyung knew well that the boy was excited by his face and body. He had no certainty that it would remain unchanged over time. However, at least he thought he had received that answer from the man who, in the car amid pouring rain, had shown him lust like a wildfire and kissed him hotly.

He doesn’t get excited easily by just anyone. He can control and manage his desires at any time. Despite claiming to be a dominant type who has lived a life of restraint and control, his words were so unbelievable that time and again, he had hardened below like a sharp weapon and been desperate to pounce on him.

Even if he just blinked under him and called his name, he would ejaculate several times and then immediately get erect again like a lie, always going into heat for him like a mad, loyal dog.

However, even that was a delusion. A purely physical relationship with just sex was no longer possible with him.

As he said, all he could give him was this shell. The face and body of actor Cha Dokyung, sex—nothing more than that… And even that was no longer of any use.

Hyun Jaehwi pulled out without even ejaculating. He turned away coldly, ignoring Cha Dokyung who was trembling in climax.

As he fled through the hotel lobby, the man in the unidentified officer’s uniform he had seen at the wedding hall chased after him.

He was the man whom Hyun Jaehwi had kept by his side at the wedding venue, issuing authoritative commands in an unfamiliar appearance. He bowed his head ninety degrees and politely paid respects to Cha Dokyung.

—It is the Colonel’s order. I will escort you home.

— …Colonel?

At the awkward and unfamiliar title that seemed to refer to Hyun Jaehwi, Cha Dokyung hesitated with a surprised face. However, he soon shook off the hand of the man in the officer’s uniform and quickly got into a taxi waiting in front of the lobby.

He had no intention of talking about the fact that they were imprinted from the start, but after confirming Hyun Jaehwi’s feelings that had grown cold, he became even more resolved that he absolutely could not reveal the imprint fact. He couldn’t burden someone whose heart had already turned away and force responsibility on him.

Loving each other but being unable to meet due to surrounding circumstances was a completely different matter from yearning for a man who had already grown emotionally and sexually cold.

He had spent days and nights in such utter devastation with strong liquor, and late at night, like a madman, he suddenly called someone.

The response to his request was clear.

[Dokyung-ah, you’re drunk… Yeah, I got it. I’ll send you the contact.]

After hanging up, Cha Dokyung checked the contact the other had sent and immediately called Hyun Jaehwi. How could he be doing such a crazy thing, his hands trembled. But there was simply no other way.

The call waiting tone dragged on very long, and the man answered the phone in a voice sunk in fatigue.

[Who is this.]

It was a low and heavy bass. The man’s voice like velvet came through the mobile phone.

[If you have business, speak.]

He couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth.

“It’s me, Jaehwi-ya…”

For a long while, on the other end of the mobile phone, he remained silent without responding.

[How did you get this number?]

” …”

[It’s a number I just changed not long ago.]

“I just called… I asked Kangwoo.”

Hyun Jaehwi laughed in a low voice as if it was absurd.

[You called someone on their honeymoon in the Mediterranean to ask for my number…]

“Before you left for America, there was no other way to contact you…”

[Four years ago, you were so mindful of Hyeon Kangwoo, saying he was more important than me and choosing him in the end… Now that big hyung is married, you don’t care about appearances at all, huh.]

“Kangwoo doesn’t care about you or me anymore! Don’t you get it?”

[You haven’t contacted me even once in all those years.]

” …”

[Doing this now doesn’t look good.]

As if building a wall against him and deliberately keeping distance, he whispered coldly in polite speech.

“Let me ask just one thing.”

[ …]

“Do you hate me now?”

[ …]

“Isn’t it fun to play with me anymore? Were you disappointed because I wasn’t as good as you expected? …Ha, to the point where you couldn’t even ejaculate inside me and chased me out… Have I become that loathsome to you?”

[ …”

“You said all you could see in me was my face and body, and now… you don’t even need that anymore?”

A heavy silence flowed. A weary, languid voice sunk in fatigue let out a deep sigh through the mobile phone.

[Ha…, hearing your voice, you seem really drunk right now.]

” …”

[When you sober up, you’ll forget this conversation anyway. You’re just babbling to me because of the alcohol, right now?]

” …”

[If your pronunciation is slurring like a child’s, how much did you drink? Well, if you weren’t blackout drunk, you wouldn’t have asked Hyeon Kangwoo on his honeymoon for my contact or called me.]

” …”

[Whether four years ago or now, how can you not have changed at all?]

” …”

[All that time, the idiot bastard who played the fool in front of you, pretending not to know while smiling kindly and letting himself be deceived wasn’t me; turning away now and cutting you off without blood or tears, this is my real true self.]

“I… for the past four years with you… You don’t know anything! Jaehwi-ya, just listen to me for a moment!”

[Sorry, but I don’t talk with drunk people.]

” …Jaehwi-ya, as you said, I’m really drunk… I’m weird right now. So, come pick me up like before. As for where I am…”

Hwachon. To the Hwachon villa, like that time.

His head and mouth were moving separately. Calling while drunk was the worst of the worst, as he said. But he simply couldn’t be in his right mind. For the days since meeting you and coming back, I couldn’t endure without being drunk. I had to make this petty call to you using the excuse that I was drunk and doing things I absolutely couldn’t do sober.

Now that I have no bond with you, unless I’m drunk, I don’t even have an excuse to call you out in an insane state.

Through the speaker, the annoyed sigh of the fatigued person came through.

[Ha, I’m not in Korea right now… I’m handling my schedule, and I’m really tired now.]

In a dazed tone, Cha Dokyung slowly repeated as if he couldn’t believe it.

“What… not in Korea?”

He had left Korea. A hollow tear fell to his chin from his dejected face.

[Listen well. The reason I rejected you isn’t because I hate you or because of what you did to me in the past.]

“Then, why…”

[What you and I want from each other is too different.]

” …”

[We don’t suit each other. In the end, we’ll meet the same conclusion again…]

An excessively businesslike and mature voice. Just like four years ago when I had hurt you and pushed you away for extremely realistic reasons.

” …”

[Cha Dokyung, do I look like a sex-crazed bastard to you?]

” …”

[I’ve told you dozens of times that something like that is nothing to a guy like me.]

” …”

[The tactic of seducing with your body and shaking me until I lose my mind doesn’t work anymore, it’s useless! I don’t want to fall for it like before and be swayed by you…]

” …”

[Don’t contact me anymore.]

” …”

[As you said, I’m someone who’s leaving anyway.]

Clutching the mobile phone that had been heartlessly cut off, he froze, unable even to breathe.

After the call with Hyun Jaehwi, the one phrase that stuck in Cha Dokyung’s mind was just one. Not the words that it wasn’t because of the past, nor that he looked like a sex-crazed guy, nor the words not to contact him ever again.

[Ha, I’m not in Korea right now…]

Everything turned white. At the fact that Hyun Jaehwi wasn’t in Korea, at the fact that he had left, he realized that all of this was a futile endeavor. His body shuddered with the futility and helplessness of him having completely left for America.

You left. You are gone.

Like this, again, must he repeat the past four years without promise? If he had returned to that institution in America, where on earth could he go to find you?

He recalled the man in the officer’s uniform who had politely greeted him at the hotel that day.

—It is the Colonel’s order. I will escort you home.