Cold City Romance Chapter 9.4

Cha Dokyung was suddenly dragging out an old, stale story from long ago in front of the two brothers.

“Kangwoo, you kept your mouth shut until the end, and you did not tell anyone why you beat that guy to the point of death, not to the police, not to your father, not to his parents, not to anyone……. You did not even tell me, who was right there beside you, the reason at all.”

“It’s been too long, so I don’t even remember now. Why are you suddenly bringing up that story right now?”

Hyun Kangwoo looked at Cha Dokyung with a face that found it absurd to bring up a story from more than ten years ago during university.

“Kangwoo, the thing where Son Jeongnam and the hockey club kids tried to secretly give me some weird drug……. That day, after the university festival ended, several of them conspired to rape me while staying behind.”

“……”

“Do you think I wouldn’t know about that fact?”

“……”

“Do you think that was really because I was dense and completely ignored people’s emotions?”

“……”

“……Feelings of liking someone?”

“……”

“If I had to accept and respond to every single one of those one-sided and flimsy feelings? If I left even the slightest room for those bastards who fantasize and expect on their own, fuck……, how would I know what kind of disaster I would face or how I would suffer?”

“……”

“So do not blame me as if you know everything. What do you even know? If I had accepted everyone’s emotions and responded to each one individually like that, I wouldn’t be able to live like this right here now.”

Cha Dokyung struck his own chest mercilessly with all his strength using his clenched fist, “Thump! Thump!”

“Do not make judgments and decisions about me on your own! Pretending not to notice and ignoring other people’s emotions is just a way to protect myself in order to survive.”

It seemed like bad memories had resurfaced.

His pale face was so pitifully tormented that it hurt the hearts of those watching. Hyun Kangwoo and Hyun Jaehwi looked side by side at the pitiful face pouring out his miserable true feelings.

“What if I had pretended to know your feelings back then, Kangwoo? If I had done that……. Could our family-like relationship have continued this long, even past thirty years now?”

The pitiful and fragile face hidden behind this heavily armored shell of indifference and hardness, all for the sake of protecting himself.

“Because I hate things that are sticky and ambiguous, now that it’s come to this, I will say it clearly.”

The ends of Cha Dokyung’s eyes, which had been indifferent and transcendent until then, soon welled up with tears and turned bright red.

“I have absolutely no intention of getting entangled with anyone in your family in that kind of emotional way, that kind of manner, even if I die.”

“……”

“Just all of you, get out of my sight.”

Upon returning from Ho Seongji’s villa and entering his own residence, someone immediately pressed the bell as soon as Cha Dokyung came in.

When there was no response, there was a “Bang! Bang!” knocking on the door from outside. His figure knocking on the door was clearly visible on the wall pad screen.

“Open the door.”

In this ultra-luxury village where privacy is thoroughly guaranteed, the only person who could pass through the strict security at the lobby and desk and come all the way to the door of his standalone residence without hesitation, then knock on the front door and cause such a disturbance, was the guy who had deliberately paid extra to move into the penthouse right above him.

“Let’s talk a bit.”

Cha Dokyung replied coldly through the speakerphone.

“There’s nothing to talk about, go back.”

“If you don’t open it, I will keep sticking here. Even if I keep knocking on the door here, you don’t care about the residents’ stares?”

He knew that what he feared most was people’s stares and was threatening him with that. He had no intention of playing along with that despicable blackmail forever.

“Do whatever you want. I will report you as a stalker.”

He threw a threat as if to say go ahead and try.

Cha Dokyung ignored the man outside the door and headed to the bathroom to wash up with leisurely footsteps as they were.

When he took off the neat shirt buttoned up to the neck to cover the kiss marks, his elegantly balanced white body line was revealed.

The red traces all over his body from rolling around with Hyun Jaehwi for several days had not healed at all. Above all, the mucous membrane inside his lips hurt too much. It stung whenever the cigarette smoke brushed against it. As he rinsed under the water stream and peeled off the scab that had formed inside his lips, fresh blood dripped down to the floor drop by drop.

“Are you crazy about kissing……”

Over the past few days, every time their eyes met, that vigorous guy had kissed him like a madman and sucked and ravaged the inside of his mouth wildly, leaving his swollen lips in a mess.

“I can’t meet that bastard because my lips hurt.”

As if trying to erase the traces of Hyun Jaehwi engraved on his body, he washed every corner of his body for a long time.

After deliberately finishing the shower leisurely, he walked out to the living room. He thought quite some time had passed. Unlike earlier, the presence of him knocking on the door was not heard from outside.

Cha Dokyung, who came out shaking off the water and wearing a bathrobe, checked the clock. Nearly an hour had already passed. Just in case, he turned on the screen again to check in front of the entrance.

A large, tall man was standing there with his head bowed, just like a dog getting wet in the rain, right in front of the entrance.

“Ha, this is driving me crazy……”

He watched the man on the screen who had stood there quietly for an hour without knocking on the door, for quite a while like that. But even as time continued to pass, he showed no intention of moving from that spot at all.

Cha Dokyung soon seemed to have made up his mind, tightened the bathrobe firmly, and walked to the entrance. Water dripped from his casually swept-up wet hair onto the floor drop by drop.

As the front door suddenly opened, the broad shoulders that had been standing with his head bowed quickly gripped the door with rough force through the gap, as if it might close, nimbly holding it open.

“Because I waited here quietly without causing a fuss, let’s talk a bit.”

Cha Dokyung, soaked with water and wearing the bathrobe, looked up at him steadily.

“I will give you exactly ten minutes. No more than that.”

“Say it one more time.”

Cha Dokyung, sitting across from him at the table, gave the confirmation kill once more to Hyun Jaehwi who was laughing hollowly.

“We are done now……. I will never sleep with you again.”

His long eye shape narrowed prickly, and he tilted his head back as if it was absurd and laughed emptily.

“Fuck, after just rolling around a few times, now it’s over.”

His clear face soaked with water openly let out a tired sigh.

“Yeah, then did you think I would keep meeting you even though Kangwoo is suspicious of the two of us?”

“……”

“So I warned you in advance that the moment Kangwoo or Serin or Chairman Hyun, anyone at all, finds out about the two of us doing this, it ends immediately.”

“Don’t make me laugh. I can’t end it.”

His arrogant face nailed it down firmly.

“Jaehwi, wasn’t this what you wanted?”

“……”

“You chased after me like a madman who wanted to show off that you slept with me in front of Kangwoo, and you deliberately provoked him.”

“……”

His languidly wet eye rims sneered calmly at the man in front of him.

“I am a man too, but fuck, why are all you guys like that……”

“……”

“Whose possession am I? A trophy or something……. Why are you so desperate and charging in triumphantly because you can’t show your brother that you have me? That’s why Kangwoo caught on that you and I are suspicious.”

Even at those words, Hyun Jaehwi just silently observed Cha Dokyung with his unwavering pitch-black eyes.

“You wanted to flaunt to your brother that you slept with me like that?”

“……”

“That’s why, dominant or whatever, no matter how much you act mature, you can’t fool your age……. It means I can’t do it with an immature kid who is only twenty-six years old when it comes to handling emotions.”

Hyun Jaehwi furrowed his brows and replied with a composed face.

“Yeah. I wanted to let him know naturally what we have been doing without saying it.”

“……”

“That way, he will grasp the situation and back off, the older brother who is delusionally thinking of marrying you.”

“……What?”

“Since it’s come to this, it’s rather good.”

Hyun Jaehwi took off his stiff suit jacket as if frustrated and hung it on the chair next to him. The firm outline of his muscles was clearly revealed over the shirt that was tightly clinging.

“Do you still not know why I chased after you and hurriedly returned to Korea?”

“……”

“Do you not know why I came at you physically right from the start at Messiah……. I was impatient because I was afraid my older brother would take you away, and I didn’t have time.”

“……”

“You are like a sacrifice and food in front of the tenacious Hyun Kangwoo who plans long-term for a long time and thinks of slowly recovering his investment! If it weren’t for me, you would have ended up being handed over to Hyun Kangwoo carelessly and forced into a marriage in the end.”

Cha Dokyung swept his gaze over Hyun Jaehwi with a cold, sneering look. Water droplets from his wet hair trailed down his slender jawline drop by drop.

Hyun Jaehwi chuckled.

“Damn, how could I watch that. You and Hyun Kangwoo doing that……”

“……”

“Fuck, I was about to have to call you sister-in-law.”

“……”

“So before my older brother could scheme and steal you away somehow, I had to do first what Hyun Kangwoo couldn’t do even if he died for thirty years.”

Cha Dokyung swept up his wet hair as if it was absurd. His elegant bare face coldly glared at him in mockery.

“You are going back to the institution anyway.”

“……”

“In the end, I have to stay in Korea with Kangwoo.”

“……”

“Isn’t it too obvious what realistic choice I would make? I do not want to lose my brother-like friend of a lifetime.”

His sharp face gauged the hidden meaning in Cha Dokyung’s words and soon softened gently. Hyun Jaehwi stretched out his long arm and caressed the clear cheek soaked with water with his large hand. When he touched the bare face of a man over thirty who had just washed, the peach fuzz felt soft.

To Hyun Jaehwi, Cha Dokyung’s words sounded like he should not go back.

“Whether I go back or not is entirely up to you.”

His neat face rolled his transparent eyes. His rough touch that had been caressing the cheek deepened. As it touched the red and plump earlobe and slid down the elegant neckline, Cha Dokyung irritably wrinkled his face and ruthlessly swatted his hand away.

“Still, it’s not allowed now!”