Cold City Romance Chapter 18.2

“After we broke up and time passed, in the Taebaek Mountains, I kept having that strange dream every day. In the dream, you were strangling my neck, but dying wasn’t scary at all. But your face, suppressing and holding back while howling in tears, was so sad…”

“…”

“My heart felt like it was being torn to shreds. So I remembered it… I wanted to tell you that it’s not a lie, it’s my true heart. While recalling your crying face, I apologized to you, saying I never forgot even for a moment, that I remember.”

Hyun Jaehwi looked down at Cha Dokyung with still cool eyes without a single word. The man who had become a mature adult no longer easily revealed any emotions on that perfectly restrained face. However, just the fact that he existed in front of him, standing in the same space like this, made Cha Dokyung’s heart ache and pound.

His heart, fluttering as if it would burst, naturally uttered that confession. The words he had never uttered from his own mouth to anyone, not even during puberty, nor to anyone he had been intimate with until now.

“Jaehwi-ya, I like you…”

“…”

“I’m thirty-six, to me who’s aged plenty…”

“…”

“Jaehwi, you are my first love.”

Until now, the pure and honest face of Cha Dokyung that he had never seen poured out that clumsy confession word by word into Hyun Jaehwi’s heart without a shred of hypocrisy or falsehood.

Hyun Jaehwi came right up to his nose with that childlike honest face and whispered lowly.

“To you, I’m a very convenient and easy bastard, right?”

However, unlike the cold tone, the straight face that thrust his sharp nose in created a shadow covering Cha Dokyung’s face.

The high bridge of his nose pressed against his cheek. The cold man’s lips, which had only seemed heartless, overlapped. With a tingling breath, the hard nose ridge touched the bridge of his nose and then gently fell away. He skillfully gripped Cha Dokyung’s waist and whispered lowly in his ear.

“A bastard with no pride who crumbles like this to just the words ‘I like you’…”

As he uttered those words and tried to pull away from him, Cha Dokyung strongly held onto Hyun Jaehwi’s body. Cha Dokyung clung to that iron-like man’s body, whining like a spoiled child, wrapping his arms around his firm neck and shoulders and hugging him tightly. Cha Dokyung’s sleek body slipped in between his suit jacket and clung closely, swaying.

Seductive breaths scattered roughly in the air.

“Ha, don’t go…! Continue, ha… Jaehwi-ya, hug me. Kiss me.”

However, Hyun Jaehwi coldly removed Cha Dokyung’s arms that were clinging and pleading.

“Sorry, but this time, I’m not going to fall for it as easily as before.”

The man’s hair, sexily revealing his forehead, became disheveled and scattered in the breeze. His long eyes curved attractively. The mature man leisurely winked and took out a cigarette from his suit pocket, put it in his mouth, and said.

“Because I’ve become weak and aged too much for that.”

Hyun Jaehwi checked the heavy metal wristwatch under his shirt sleeve. The thick tendons on his wrist stood out in an instant.

“Five hours left. Until I return to the airport.”

“…”

“No time. Since I delayed the departure time, I have to take the earliest dawn flight and return to the institution tightly.”

“…”

“Yeah, tell me.”

Hyun Jaehwi held Cha Dokyung’s elegant chin tip and asked.

“What can you give up for me.”

“…”

A quiet silence flowed along with the clearly blowing wind.

To the man’s question asked in a leisurely manner, Cha Dokyung similarly calmly looked into his pupils and answered.

“You tell me. What I need to give up to get you.”

Cigarette smoke scattered over the handsome face like a painting.

“Even if it’s revealed to the media that you’re meeting the youngest son of HK Group, known as a dominant alpha, the world’s attention, people’s eyes and gazes that Cha Dokyung fears so much, doesn’t matter?”

“…”

“In front of my father, who is your family’s supporter and lifeline, Chairman Hyeon, the head of HK Group, can you openly declare with your own mouth that you’re meeting me.”

“…”

“Cha Dokyung, who abandoned me in the past because of that, can he truly overcome that problem this time?”

“…”

“Because if the problem isn’t resolved, in the end, you’ll abandon me again like before at the decisive moment.”

At the word “abandoned,” whether feeling guilt, his neat eyes trembled faintly under the man’s gaze.

As Cha Dokyung gave no answer, Hyun Jaehwi turned away ruthlessly with a cold attitude.

“Then, I’ll go board the plane now. It’d be good for us to stop these useless endeavors here.”

Cha Dokyung held the waist of the man turning away resolutely with a calm face as if he had made up his mind.

“I’ll give up everything, so take me to America too.”

“…”

“The life I’ve lived in Korea as actor Cha Dokyung, if you tell me to abandon it, I will.”

“…”

“I’ll tell Chairman Hyeon honestly too.”

His resolute pupils, having firmed his resolve, stared straight at Hyun Jaehwi.

“So, take me to that place where you are too.”

At those words, the man’s thick eyebrows twitched.

For the first time, to Cha Dokyung’s answer, Hyun Jaehwi showed a surprised reaction with his body stiffened. He felt an unexpected wavering crack from the man’s tightly shut lips. To Cha Dokyung’s words of giving up everything, he had an expression of hearing a completely unexpected answer.

But he cooled the hasty passion rising in his pupils and once again replied coldly with a cold face.

“You, do you know what I do there, what kind of life I lead?”

“…”

“The things I do in the institution aren’t easy things like Hyeon Serin or Hyeon Kangwoo worrying about how to make money sitting at a desk. It’s different from the comfortable life in Korea.”

With a soft low tone, he laughed lowly as if soothing him.

“Do you know what that place is that you’re asking me to take you there?”

He vividly remembered his naked body from the intercourse a few days ago. It was clearly the scar of a major surgery. Not just that scar. Hyun Jaehwi’s body was densely covered with large scars that hadn’t been there four years ago.

Cha Dokyung reached his hand to his lower body. At the sudden white hand groping closer, the man’s hard body twitched. Cha Dokyung groped around the thick iliac region bordered by shirt and belt, and asked in a hushed voice with an anxious face.

“The surgery scar from last time where you had major suturing here… Is that related? The things done there are dangerous and cause such major injuries?”

“…”

“Why do you do such things…”

Hyun Jaehwi replied indifferently in a flat voice.

“Because the greater the risk, the greater the reward and compensation given.”

As if it were extremely natural, with a more manly and strong face than ever.

“Honorable and trusted loyalty prepared to die can’t be bought with a chaebol father’s lobbying or money.”

“…”

“It’s a position where you can trample others and rise only if you’re prepared to die.”

“…”

“That’s the life I chose myself when I returned to the institution four years ago, abandoning Father’s persuasion to come back to Korea and the comfortable chaebol family life, resolving to forget you.”

Cha Dokyung recalled Hyeon Serin drunk, rattling off praises about her little brother.

—Because he’s so smart, the Control Intelligence Agency… In an international military secret institution, at that young age, surviving political intrigues, he could become a colonel.

—According to Father, he’ll become a brigadier general in a few years. Our father isn’t investing in Jaehwi for nothing. Because he’s material who will honorably become the director of that institution in the future.

Hyun Jaehwi tilted his head back with a languid face. His thick chest let out a deep sigh into the air. He was lost in deep thought for a long while. The man who returned with cold, sharp eyes stared at Cha Dokyung resolutely as if he had made a decision.

“Don’t abandon your life as Cha Dokyung in Korea.”

“…”

“Live as a shining actor. That suits Cha Dokyung the best.”

“…”

“If you want… I’ll let you continue living in the greenhouse. That wasn’t something I did expecting repayment from you.”

“…”

“But, I won’t be in that greenhouse.”

On the outwardly aloof and indifferent cold beauty’s face, there was a jumble of unprecedented anxiety, pity, confusion, and fear. Cha Dokyung asked him back with a puzzled expression.

“What does that mean?”

“In my twenties, the naive and impulsive me of the past desperately hoped that Cha Dokyung would give up everything and choose me. Then, I too was prepared to gladly abandon everything.”

“…”

“But, now that my shoulders are heavy… Even if I want to abandon the responsibilities and duties given to me like back then, I’m not in a position or circumstance where I can.”

“…”

“Because I didn’t expect to hear the answer that you’d abandon everything you have for me. It was just a formal question I threw out. Forget everything I said.”

“…”

“Now, I don’t want you to give up anything because of me. I absolutely don’t want you to abandon what you have because of me.”

Cha Dokyung sank into thought as if trying to gauge the meaning of his words. His two eyes blinked slowly.

“Even if I give up everything and abandon it all… Now you have no intention of accepting me?”

The man refused the other with courtesy and politeness, not arrogance, with a mannerly attitude ingrained in his body. As if the act of refusing others was very familiar and proficient to him.

“I’m sorry.”

He bowed his head extremely gentlemanly and politely so that Cha Dokyung could not retort.

“I have absolutely no confidence that you, the flower in the greenhouse, can give up everything and endure the world’s stinging gazes and the aftermath. That while being with me, you can withstand the adversities that will come and bear that pain, and truly stay by my side continuing with me… I have no confidence at all.”

“…”

“And I absolutely don’t want to make you go through painful things.”

“…”

“Cha Dokyung, do you really think you can live giving up being an actor?”

“…”

“Do you think you can endure the world’s condemnation and criticism for being revealed as an omega?”

“…”

“The life with me now might become a series of much more unstable and promise-less waits than you thought.”

“…”

“You, who has lived comfortably protected like a flower in a greenhouse, loved by everyone like a prince, can you really endure that?”