Cold City Romance Chapter 18.1

The clock was already pointing to midnight.

Today, the day Hyun Jaehwi took the evening flight and left, was passing by just like that without any meaning. No matter how long he waited, no one came to find Cha Dokyung in Hwachon, and in the end, no contact came from him.

It was an expected outcome.

He had not thought that Hyun Jaehwi, who had to board a plane and return to the institution in America, would suddenly receive the message and come find him. However, if time passed and his heart changed, and he suddenly wanted to confirm his true feelings, even then Cha Dokyung resolved that he would remain here unchanged, waiting for him for years, no matter how long it took.

Just as he had harbored a one-sided crush on him alone from afar since childhood without him knowing, and just as the young him had silently protected him from behind since the age of twenty. In the end, unchanging faith is proven not by words but by actions and the passage of time.

Among all that he possessed, there was no way to prove that this heart was sincere except for time and the years.

Until evening, around the time he boarded the plane and left, he had been trembling with anxiety and impatience to the point of shuddering.

He repeated picking up his mobile phone several times, wondering if he should contact him again, then shaking his head and pressing the end button. However, the message he had conveyed would have no meaning unless he came on his own and confirmed it with his own two eyes.

In the end, twelve o’clock came, and midnight passed.

The fact that Hyun Jaehwi had ultimately left Korea began to sink in to his skin in a heartbreaking way. He could not endure that deep emptiness and endless desolation.

He knew it well. No matter what he did, he would not be able to sleep tonight. It was despair and hollowness that could only be slightly alleviated by climbing the mountain or riding a horse to torment his body.

To shake off thoughts of Hyun Jaehwi, Cha Dokyung rushed out of his mansion in thin clothing without any plan.

When his heart felt stuffy, the things Cha Dokyung could do in this Hwachon were either climbing the mountain aimlessly or riding a horse, one of the two. There was nothing else. The equestrian center he had acquired was located about twenty minutes away on foot along the forest trail surrounding Mount Hwai where his mansion was.

April, a warm and full spring night. He walked along the forest path where cherry blossoms scattered in the black darkness.

To work up a sweat, he ran then walked, ran then walked, repeating it. To shake off his thoughts, Cha Dokyung crossed the deep night dark forest aimlessly. It was a path so familiar now that he could find it even with his eyes closed.

Many wildflowers and nameless flowers bloomed here, so this place was called the flower village, Hwachon. The night of a warm spring day when flowers bloomed was fragrant and refreshing even in the air.

At the time when the manager and all staff had gone home, and the unmanned equestrian center was closed for the day, Cha Dokyung opened the shutter and entrance door with familiar hands and entered the stable.

Horses are not animals that sleep a lot. They also take naps standing up, and with about three hours of sleep a day being sufficient, even at such a late hour, when Cha Dokyung felt stuffy, he would ride one of the many horses in the stable that was awake and gallop across the outdoor arena.

Cha Dokyung stroked his most cherished and precious black steed with a sleek sheen and said.

“Hee-ya, so you were awake. Were you bored? Let’s run together tonight too.”

Over the past two years, the only things Cha Dokyung had done after settling and secluding himself in Hwachon were avoiding contact with people, climbing Mount Hwai, and riding horses like this. That’s how he had endured. That’s why he liked this place Hwachon. Rather, he wanted to live riding horses like this, avoiding people until he died.

In thin top and bottom clothing that clung to his body for easy riding, Cha Dokyung mounted and warmed up his body, then galloped at full speed across the sand arena.

With the lighting tower power turned up only one notch to deliberately keep the light dim and subtle, he trotted for a long while, his hair whipping in the refreshingly blowing spring wind.

He didn’t know how much time had passed. When he had galloped at full speed for a long time until sweat broke out on his body, Cha Dokyung, who was riding the horse, discovered an unfamiliar silhouette standing in the spectator seats outside the arena fence.

Feeling the presence of the stranger, he pulled the reins to stop the horse.

It was a time well past midnight. He had ridden countless horses at this late hour to avoid people’s gazes, but there was no one who would remain in the arena at such a late hour or come all the way here.

He gauged the stranger standing faintly in the subtle light from the outdoor lighting tower. While scrutinizing who the man standing in the spectator seats was, Cha Dokyung slowly rode the horse toward him.

The closer he approached the fence slowly while mounted, the more he felt that the silhouette of the unfamiliar outsider was familiar.

A perfect silhouette of a sharp and intimidating body, a shadow with broad shoulders spread wide. It was the figure of a tall person with long limbs stretched out.

The tall man in a suit was leaning against the outside of the fence, watching Cha Dokyung who was riding and galloping. He was a man who absolutely should not be here at this hour.

Cha Dokyung held his breath and looked at the man from atop the horse.

The two of them, without closing the distance for a long while, stood with the arena fence between them, relying on the subtle light of the outdoor lighting tower to gaze at each other. His heart pounded as if it would burst in the refreshingly blowing cool spring wind.

Cha Dokyung belatedly dismounted slowly.

His detached pupils swept up the hair disheveled by the wind and walked toward the man by the fence.

With each step closer to him, he could not tell if this was reality or a dream, or an illusion created by longing. The tender and soft spring and his frame blurred faintly. He could not properly recognize the entity right in front of his eyes at all.

The man without a tie was in a loose and disheveled state with several shirt buttons above his neck undone, much more unkempt than usual.

The man in the suit, despite uncomfortable dress shoes, lightly vaulted over the fence with agile movement. The man with sharply trained physique approached Cha Dokyung with remarkably precise motions, leaping over the fence.

“Jaehwi. Why are you here at this hour…”

His heavy voice echoed low in the empty outdoor arena.

“From when you left home until here, I secretly followed, but your carelessness in not looking back even once…”

“…”

“Even if I’m a professional who’s an expert at lurking and secretly tailing.”

Cha Dokyung silently looked up at the handsome man’s face, who had come within one meter.

“Is it that you’re oblivious and insensitive, or did you deliberately pretend not to know?”

“I didn’t know… At all.”

At those words that he had followed from home, his clear face damp with sweat changed to a surprised expression.

Hyun Jaehwi’s eyes narrowed.

“Ah, so that day too… That lanky dominant alpha guy with glasses was deliberately lecherously tailing your behind from the hotel wedding hall, and you didn’t notice at all. To the point where you didn’t even know he chased you out of the hotel and deliberately crashed into your car.”

A cool spring breeze blew. Cha Dokyung’s hair scattered beautifully, revealing his forehead.

“You, who’s become desensitized to external environments and stimuli, really are an easy target.”

“…”

“A person whose face is known, not knowing if someone is following in this deep forest… Do you know what could happen, moving here on foot through this dark mountain at this late hour dangerously alone?”

Cha Dokyung replied with a calm face.

“I’ve lived here for nearly two years.”

“…”

“At night or dawn, I climb the mountain alone to the summit. I go up and cry, even scream out loud. Not once has a suspicious person followed me.”

Hyun Jaehwi replied coldly.

“Incidents or crimes happen suddenly without warning.”

“…What?”

“When they detect the same behavioral pattern, they monitor the target for a long time and watch planned, then one day, they suddenly make it the target of the crime.”

Cha Dokyung swallowed hard. He was simply bewildered by the sudden lecture pouring from Hyun Jaehwi who had appeared here at this hour.

“You have absolutely no awareness of yourself?”

“…”

“In this Republic of Korea, there’s no one who doesn’t know your face, and why don’t you know that fact stimulates a strong motive in those dirty and sleazy bastards.”

“…”

“At thirty-six years old… You’re still a insensitive and careless person who can’t do without someone protecting you like a flower in a greenhouse.”

Cha Dokyung took one more step closer to the man who seemed angry.

Since the power was not turned all the way up deliberately, a subtle light like moonlight leaked out from the outdoor arena’s lighting tower.

Under that light, Cha Dokyung confirmed the cold man’s suppressed and restrained gaze and opened his mouth.

“A flower in a greenhouse…”

Cha Dokyung murmured blankly to himself and then added.

“Jaehwi-ya, I know too.”

“…”

“That greenhouse, you made it for me.”

“…”

“From the age of twenty, to protect and guard me from behind, you bought my agency…”

He didn’t know if he had lived like a pretty flower in the greenhouse he had made, as he said.

“Even while pressuring Representative Yeom’s management rights, without any external pressure or coercion regarding sexual tributes, you’ve ceaselessly protected me until now.”

Cha Dokyung’s voice, ringing calmly, trembled subtly.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t know at all until now that I was a flower in a greenhouse and that to make that greenhouse, you worked invisibly from behind.”

Hyun Jaehwi’s pitch-black pupils shook faintly in the darkness.

Cha Dokyung took one step after another closer, stopped at a distance where breaths could touch, and looked up at him piercingly with steadfast eyes.

“…You didn’t board the plane? Why are you here at this hour?”

At those words, he instead laughed lowly.

“You tell me, why are you here.”

“…”

“They said Cha Dokyung vanished without a trace from the media. You were living there for two years, in that same place, why on earth?”

“It’s a place that has very great meaning to me. I begged and pleaded with those two to buy that house.”

“…”

“The promise I made to you…”

“…”

“I want to keep it no matter what.”

Cha Dokyung caressed the sharp, veil-like contours of the man’s face with the tips of his white, long fingers.

“Jaehwi-ya, forgive me.”

“…”

“Until the end, I’m selfish, but this heart that’s broken and a complete mess, sick…”

“…”

“Can’t you just let me live in that greenhouse you made?”

That promise, eerie in how each syllable was vividly imprinted in his mind. The thing he had imprinted on him at that moment was not just the body. That moment of the love’s promise and vow was imprinted so intensely inside him too.

In the dark spring night, under the arena’s subtle light, Cha Dokyung whispered once again to the man six years younger than him, the vivid vow from that day.

His lips trembled as he whispered in a clear voice without a single word wrong, and just like that, time seemed to hide the frame in the middle of spring and stop silently.

“I want to live… with you.”

His pitifully wet pupils gazed at Hyun Jaehwi, then pulled at his suit jacket.