Cold City Romance Chapter 9.3

Even though he had given him a chance to turn everything back, Hyun Kangwoo did not make any excuses. Instead, he made a bold declaration and nailed it down firmly.

“……What?”

“Even if it’s not now, that’s fine. A comfortable relationship where you can give trust to your partner for life and rely on them like a friend is ultimately another form of love.”

For thirty years, he had never once looked at Hyun Kangwoo with sexual feelings. There had never been a single moment when he felt his heart flutter for that guy.

“Ha, that might be the case for you, but not for me.”

What kind of love is that. To you, I’m,

“Brothers……. Kangwoo, to me, you are a brother.”

His throat stung as the acrid smoke entered the empty stomach that had been empty for half a day. He felt dizzy from the vertigo, as if he was about to collapse.

As if he had expected it, Hyun Kangwoo answered very matter-of-factly.

“If you don’t like it, I’ll remain as a friend.”

Cha Dokyung smiled bitterly with a chilly face.

“You think you can stir up this mess and still remain as friends?”

“Why not? Cha Dokyung, you’re good at that kind of thing.”

“……Me?”

“Yeah, pretending not to notice other guys’ feelings for you, completely ignoring them as if they don’t exist……. Isn’t that something you’ve been best at since the old days?”

Hyun Kangwoo was speaking as if he were some heartless sociopath.

“Yeah, Dokyung. If it’s not you yet, then it’s not me either. But I know the end. In the end, you’ll come to me.”

That bold assertion gave him chills.

“Hyun Kangwoo……. Are you in your right mind?”

“I know you well. The only one who will stick by your side forever from now on is me. The one who has been by your side for dozens of years, catering to your timid nature that makes you step back cautiously, is me.”

“……”

“That was the only way to be by your side. It will be that way in the future too……. If you need a friend, I’ll keep holding on as a friend, just like I always have by your side.”

Suddenly, he felt as if the blood was draining from his entire body.

As Cha Dokyung, who was exhaling cigarette smoke, staggered from the vertigo and lost his balance, Hyun Kangwoo rushed over and pulled the nearly collapsing Cha Dokyung into his embrace. It did not seem to have sexual intent. However, his touch was soaked with a desperate plea that would never be reciprocated.

“I can wait for you……. until the end.”

Cha Dokyung kicked his shin hard with his shoe heel.

“Ha, fuck, you crazy bastard…… Let go of this!”

However, even with the intense kicking, Hyun Kangwoo did not let go of the embrace. He thrashed wildly with all his strength, trying to break free from his arms. But Hyun Kangwoo, who was bigger and stronger than him, did not budge an inch.

“Hey, Hyun Kang……. Ugh! I said let go……!”

It was then. Someone who appeared suddenly from behind ruthlessly shoved Hyun Kangwoo’s shoulder, who was holding Cha Dokyung in his arms, with merciless brute force in one swift motion.

The sturdy Hyun Kangwoo was thrown onto the muddy ground soaked with moisture as if by magic with just that one touch. As if startled by the merciless strength and overwhelming power, Hyun Kangwoo looked up at Hyun Jaehwi, who was much taller than him, with a bewildered face, panting heavily.

With a face asking why he had followed all the way here, he scolded his younger brother.

“……Who are you to butt in here?”

Hyun Jaehwi replied calmly with a threatening gaze.

“He said he doesn’t like it.”

Even as he threw his brother down, Cha Dokyung stared piercingly at his chilly eyes, which had no ripple like that serene lake, with an amazed face.

“Yeah. Hyun Jaehwi, you bastard, you came at the right time……. Let’s hear what that nonsense you spouted earlier was about.”

“……”

“That Cha Dokyung is meeting someone? Who is that guy you claim to have seen? Say it directly with your own mouth right here and now.”

Hyun Jaehwi, who had been expressionless all along, loosened the tightly knotted tie around his neck, lowered his eyes, and replied insolently.

“If Cha Dokyung wants……”

Hyun Kangwoo asked back as if he was dumbfounded.

“……What?”

Hyun Jaehwi replied savagely to his own older brother again with a heavy voice devoid of any ups and downs.

“Didn’t you hear? I said I’ll tell if Cha Dokyung wants.”

The forest surrounding the lake became quiet with their silence. The three people stood there without a word, just looking at each other.

Hyun Jaehwi broke that heavy silence and gently sought Cha Dokyung’s agreement.

“Tell me. Is it okay for me to say it right here in this place?”

Cha Dokyung shook his head vigorously with a desperate face.

“What I saw that day……. Should I tell everything truthfully right here?”

Cha Dokyung shouted at him threateningly.

“No, don’t……! Don’t say anything……! If you spout nonsense here, I won’t let you get away with it!”

At Cha Dokyung’s flailing reaction, Hyun Jaehwi smiled with his eyes, looking utterly composed.

“You’re going to make me out to be a liar in front of your older brother?”

He absolutely could not let Hyun Kangwoo find out about what happened with Hyun Jaehwi. So Cha Dokyung ended up acknowledging his statement instead. In this situation, he had to hide the fact that the other person was Hyun Jaehwi no matter what.

“……Y-Yeah, Jaehwi is right……. I am meeting someone. So don’t pry anymore. And take back that crazy nonsense you said earlier about marrying me to Chairman Hyun.”

Hyun Kangwoo watched the two with a shocked face, dazed. The subtle atmosphere emanating from Cha Dokyung and Hyun Jaehwi, and the intimate world they were forming just between the two of them, felt like a huge wall that could not be breached.

Now Hyun Kangwoo turned his arrow toward his younger brother Hyun Jaehwi.

“A guy who never opens his heart to anyone approaching and just pushes them away……. A Cha Dokyung who is obsessively avoiding scandals for fear of falling from his current position, and you’re saying he’s dating?”

“……”

“No one knows Cha Dokyung better than I do! A timid guy who steps back a step when you approach a step, what kind of dating is he doing in this situation! You expect me to believe that? Do you think a lie like that will work?”

However, Hyun Kangwoo looked uncertain about the words he had spat out and seemed confused.

“Yeah…… Yeah, I get it. Let’s say that’s the case. Then come on, tell me who it is and what that guy does.”

Hyun Jaehwi brushed off those words with a leisurely laugh.

“That would be inconvenient. Since the person involved doesn’t want it, I don’t want to become a blabbermouth……”

“Wow, impressive. When did you two get so close behind my back? Who do you think you are to butt in here! You insolent bastard with no respect for hierarchy!”

Hyun Kangwoo, uncharacteristically, could not control his emotions. He burst out in anger and glared sternly at his younger brother.

“You clueless kid who doesn’t know the ways of the world……. What do you even know to insolently babble about him in front of me, who has watched over Cha Dokyung for thirty years by his side?”

However, even at the emotional belittlement of being called a kid, Hyun Jaehwi did not get excited at all. He lifted his head stiffly with a restrained attitude. His intimidating body straightened his waist and looked down at his brother. He was just cold and composed.

“After all those long years, just being friends. Do you really think you know everything about Cha Dokyung?”

“……What?”

“There are so many truths in the world that you might want to know but can’t.”

Hyun Kangwoo glared up and down at the insolent Hyun Jaehwi with an incredulous face. Hyun Jaehwi sneered coldly at Hyun Kangwoo with a crooked and arrogant gaze.

“Don’t be overconfident as if you know everything about Cha Dokyung. The beautifully packaged appearance you’ve watched from the side might not be the real thing, after all.”

“……What did you say? Cha Dokyung, it’s a thirty-year friendship since birth! You show up for the first time in just ten years and butt in between us to lecture me?”

“What can those glorious years amount to? Friends, family, blood relations, fuck, what the hell does that even mean……. I’m saying that those superficial years that have been maintained so nicely for nearly thirty years aren’t everything!”

“……”

“Just like how you or father know nothing about my growth process sent to the institution in the eastern United States, or what thoughts I had to endure those ten years I wanted to die……”

At Hyun Jaehwi’s sudden remark, Cha Dokyung and Hyun Kangwoo simultaneously made surprised faces and froze in place as if dead silent.

His long and chilly eye shape narrowed endlessly.

“Probably, that Cha Dokyung over there knows much more about me than you do.”

“……”

“Don’t confuse being Cha Dokyung’s closest friend with having ownership over him.”

Hyun Jaehwi warned his own older brother very leisurely without even getting excited.

“Because I know very well the hidden true face of Cha Dokyung that you haven’t figured out at all despite keeping him by your side for so long.”

Hyun Kangwoo froze in shock, unable to continue speaking right there.

As he watched his younger brother nonchalantly blabbering about his status and secrets that must be hidden from others until the end, right in front of Cha Dokyung, Hyun Kangwoo, who had been glaring with wide eyes, now laughed hollowly like a madman as if he finally understood the whole story.

Hyun Kangwoo said to Cha Dokyung with a face dripping with lingering attachment, like pleading.

“Haha, Cha Dokyung……. Do you know you’re really a sinful bastard?”

Cha Dokyung stood there unable to move, with a precarious face as if he would collapse any moment.

“Dokyung, I’ve never even imagined things unfolding in such a ridiculous way like this.”

A sudden vicious ripple was occurring at the serene lakeside.

“From school days, dealing with all those bugs swarming around your dense self……. Do you know how much hell I’ve gone through behind your back in secret?”

“……”

“You shouldn’t make me do that to my own blood relative.”

Hyun Kangwoo trembled with jealousy right there in the end. It was clear that he had finally noticed the meaning of the subtle heat and unfamiliar tension emanating from the two.

Since Hyun Kangwoo had caught on, there was no other way. He had no choice but to tell him properly and accurately.

“As if you know everything……. And don’t blame me again.”

Cha Dokyung let out a hollow sigh while looking at the calm lake with a transcendent gaze that had given up on everything. He bit his swollen red lips so hard they seemed about to burst. The white and pale fingers holding the cigarette trembled faintly.

Cha Dokyung, who had been observing the two brothers, soon stepped forward resolutely toward them as if he had made up his mind about something.

With the blue lake at his back, his elegant and transcendent face, indifferent to the extreme, quietly gazed at the two brothers. Cha Dokyung barely opened his mouth toward Hyun Kangwoo.

“You said that I pretend not to notice other people’s feelings for me……. and completely ignore them as if they don’t exist, right?”

Clearly, Hyun Kangwoo had said that to him. That pretending not to notice other guys’ feelings for you, completely ignoring them as if they don’t exist, isn’t that something you’re best at.

“Kangwoo, back in university……. Do you remember when I beat Son Jeongnam, who was the hockey club captain, to death right in front of you?”

“……”

“That guy, his skull caved in, and if your father hadn’t covered it with money back then, you would have gotten a red line, probably.”