Hit by a Pitched Ball Chapter 14

With a self-deprecating voice, Taebeom, who had been covering his mouth with his palm resting on his chin, burst into loud laughter. Using his other hand to wipe from his eyes down to the bridge of his nose, he then pressed both hands together and rubbed his entire face, suppressing his fatigue. A low, suppressed groan escaped shallowly. A soft, deep bass followed it.

“So I thought you were someone who’d done this sort of thing a lot. Honestly, I thought that. But it seemed like that wasn’t the case, so I was a little worried.”

I was a bit worried. Resting his elbows on both knees, Taebeom bent his back, lowered his head, and stared at Yunjae with complex eyes.

“About what?”

“That you might just say let’s forget it ever happened.”

Yunjae frowned, feeling puzzled by the sentence without a subject. Taebeom, who always had playfulness as his baseline, also had an uncharacteristically serious look in his eyes. When revealing his inner thoughts, he even seemed a little anxious for a moment. But that attitude didn’t diminish his appeal. It just seemed like, whatever it was, he felt no need to hide it. Even if it was disadvantageous to him.

“Is that something to worry about?”

Caught off guard by that seriousness, his answer came out gruffly. He wanted to act calm, but he failed spectacularly. The end of his voice cracked, making the conclusion sound strange.

“It is something to worry about. Because I want to keep seeing you.”

Even though his clumsy reply had turned out ridiculous, Taebeom maintained his seriousness. Yunjae had already noticed that Taebeom wanted to continue what could have ended as a one-night incident, rather than letting it stop there. Traces of his constant efforts to keep the conversation going were piled up like a mountain in his phone. He also knew why Taebeom had become this blunt. The evidence of Yunjae’s lukewarm responses was piled up there too.

“Though hyung doesn’t seem to feel the same way.”

At the complaint laced with hurt, Yunjae closed his mouth, which had been about to answer. Of course not. He’d never thought about this kind of relationship in his entire life and had lived believing he never would.

When he just blinked his eyes without answering, sensing the vibe wasn’t good, Taebeom changed tactics and began persuading Yunjae in earnest. His appearance even seemed quite earnest. As Taebeom’s words grew longer, a strange feeling became clearer.

For someone who’d slept with a man for the first time, his words and attitude were more proactive than someone who’d only ever known men. Inevitably, that made it even more suspicious. Although he was listening, he couldn’t calm his constantly wavering mind. The gaze watching Yunjae, who was silently listening to the fruitless persuasion, darkened.

Then, a subdued voice continued for a long while.

“I can get the test done as early as tomorrow. I’ll bring it, of course. I’ve already promised to keep everything hyung said, and I’m not stupid enough to break that. Me.”

Taebeom pulled out his trump card. Before he even finished speaking, Yunjae sighed inwardly. His face flushed for no reason at the extraordinary resolve.

“Ah… that…”

“I’m a public figure too, so of course I can’t just run my mouth anywhere, and I won’t see anyone else either. While I’m sleeping with hyung. If you’d just adjust one thing, I really intend to listen well. Seriously, won’t you?”

“What’s that one thing?”

For someone who claimed he’d agree to everything, the mention of “one thing” triggered a sense of crisis. At the danger signal tapping at his instincts, Yunjae narrowed his eyes slightly and carefully observed Taebeom’s expression. Avoiding Taebeom, who had come down from the sofa and sat right next to him, Yunjae slowly shuffled backward. But at the same time, Taebeom noticed and grabbed his arm firmly.

Before he could even think that his arm hurt from the tremendous grip strength, his body was pulled along and stopped in front of Ha Taebeom’s folded legs.

His pulled shoulder touched Taebeom’s chest. Taebeom tilted his head toward Yunjae’s face, who was stretching his neck backward to avoid him, and chased after him, clinging close. He rolled his eyes upward and made the most pitiful expression he could muster. His plan was to appeal to sympathy and somehow make it work.

The problem was his appearance, which didn’t really inspire pity. His excessively handsome face and meticulously maintained body only contributed to losing persuasiveness and didn’t help at all. But Ha Taebeom, as if he couldn’t care less about that, clung to Yunjae’s side like a large dog unaware of its own size.

“Well, my lifestyle is a bit different from regular office workers. There are away games too. Hyung watches baseball, so you know that, right? Right?”

“Wh-what does that have to do with it?”

“Saying only weekends—that’s really because office workers are tired on weekdays, right? But you and I aren’t people who necessarily need to distinguish between weekdays and weekends, so I was wondering if we really need to be that strict.”

“So just do it whenever?”

Yunjae retorted with a dry expression and voice.

“No, not just whenever…”

Yunjae’s expression as he retorted with a look of disbelief was no different from a market trader dealing with a peddler. Without changing his expression, Taebeom, who had been coaxing Yunjae, leaned his forehead against Yunjae’s shoulder with a deflated air and let out a long sigh. Then, finding the situation funny himself, he shook his shoulders and laughed.

“Let’s just do it within limits that aren’t too much for each of us. Don’t draw such a strict line.”

Lifting his forehead that had been leaning and raising his chin, Taebeom put force into his persuasion with a voice disguised as kindness. Turning his head without thinking, Yunjae flinched as their eyes met up close. Taebeom laughed, curving his eyes like a playful child. It was a smile more persuasive than all the countless words he’d poured out.

He must have coaxed plenty of people like this. Life must be easy for him…

“Hyung said you liked it too. You didn’t… hate it, right?”

Of course, he didn’t hate it. If he thought about it, it was actually among the best he’d ever had, countable on one hand. Had he ever felt so much with someone that he cried? No matter how hard he searched his memory, there was no such time.

“I don’t understand why Ha Taebeom would go to such lengths and take such risks.”

“I told you not to call me player…”

Taebeom rested his cheek on Yunjae’s shoulder and let out a deflated sigh. By now, the arm around his waist was casually fiddling with Yunjae’s side. Without realizing it, Yunjae was leaning back in a half-embrace.

Aware of it, Yunjae stiffened his back. Once he noticed, the subtle thrill from the physique made his heart feel like it was shrinking.

But the other party, committing what could be called an attack of skinship, seemed completely unconcerned with such things, rubbing his cheek and forehead against Yunjae’s shoulder in a shameless way to urge an answer. He was stirring up Yunjae’s insides with infuriating ease.

“…I mean, I don’t really care!”

The pounding heartbeat turned into embarrassment. He had no way to handle this kind of skinship. For Yunjae, who was clumsy in all human relationships, someone like Ha Taebeom was a monster with no strategy to defeat him. At a loss, Yunjae blurted out clumsily, and Taebeom’s movements stopped.

He might have been expected to be upset at the sudden outburst, but when he lifted his head and met his eyes, there was no such sign on his expression. Rather, as if happy with the scolding-like answer, his eyes, full of anticipation, blinked adorably.

“First… let’s talk again after I see the test results.”

At the answer that carried a hint of permission, Taebeom’s eyes changed. As if accurately catching Yunjae’s meaning, his drooping eye corners shot upward. It goes without saying that the smile that followed looked so beautiful it was mesmerizing.

∞ ∞ ∞

“I think I’ve definitely gotten caught by a crazy person.”

The next day, after making a decision based on impulse and facing it together. Yunjae saw Taebeom off as he left the house still half-asleep. After barely sending Taebeom off, Yunjae lay back down in bed, thinking to make up for the lack of sleep from a restless night.

And about an hour later. Forced to open his eyes by the continuous vibrations, Yunjae was left speechless by the messages that had arrived.

In an instant, his face flushed red up to his neck, and Yunjae repeatedly wiped his still-dazed face with dry hands, reading the messages over and over to understand them with his head.

Ha Taebeom

They said the results take a whole week TT

Asleep?

You didn’t block me, did you, after making me go through all this

I’m going to work now. Make sure to reply when you wake up

It was only after reading it about three times that the content finally sank in. The messages ended with an emoji of a waving hand.