Sunshine Shower Chapter 129

Under the weight pressing down on his waist, Moon Seoyoon slowly lifted his eyelids. The sunlight tickling the corners of his eyes made him squint. He had to extend his hand to cast a shadow before he could fully open his eyes. Only then did he notice the man tightly hugging his waist, fast asleep.

“We’re not kids anymore…”

Moon Seoyoon chuckled softly. Both he and Woo Yeonjae had cried and then fallen asleep after their trip to the hospital, looking just like children.

Maybe it was because he hadn’t slept properly in weeks, but even a mere one or two hours of nap had cleared his mind. The past few hours felt like a soft blur.

Moon Seoyoon had sent Woo Yeonjae to the hospital. To be precise, they had gone together. He had been worried because of the glass cut on Yeonjae’s foot, but thankfully, the diagnosis was that no foreign object had entered the wound. However, the cut was deep enough to require stitches.

Even with his foot wrapped in bandages, Woo Yeonjae had been walking around just fine. To the untrained eye, he looked perfectly normal, but Seoyoon was sure he’d have some discomfort in his daily activities for a while.

‘How did he endure it? He was bleeding so much.’

After the doctor scolded them for not coming sooner, Seoyoon realized that he should have cut the conversation short earlier. He thought he had been acting rationally, but it seemed he had been swept up in Woo Yeonjae’s pace, losing his own composure. In hindsight, their conversation had gone on for quite a while.

Even so, he doubted he’d be able to cut it short if the same situation happened again. He wasn’t the type of person to end a conversation so coldly when faced with a crying childhood friend. And especially not when that friend was Woo Yeonjae. He hadn’t seen him cry even as a child, and now that they were adults, it was almost impossible to ignore a crying Woo Yeonjae, especially when it was because of him.

“…”

Moon Seoyoon gazed quietly at Woo Yeonjae. He looked worn out, as if he hadn’t slept in days, and seemed to be in a deeper sleep than Seoyoon.

‘Maybe it’s the painkillers making him sleep so soundly.’

Though he lowered his gaze, he couldn’t check Woo Yeonjae’s foot since he was held so tightly. And even if he looked, the bandages would obscure the wound anyway.

Suddenly, a distant memory surfaced. It was from when he had injured his wrist and ended up in a cast. Woo Yeonjae, who had stepped on a shard of glass, seemed even more reckless back then. Obviously, he hadn’t been in his right mind at the time. But still, Seoyoon found it hard to comprehend.

‘Have you grown tired of me?’

That was the question Woo Yeonjae had asked, almost as soon as Seoyoon grabbed hold of him. It was a question he would sometimes drop casually, as if joking around.

Rather than feeling pleased that Yeonjae no longer wanted to be just friends, Seoyoon had felt confused. It was so blatant, so overwhelmingly honest, that he didn’t know how to respond.

‘I really can’t read him.’

Moon Seoyoon once again turned his gaze toward Woo Yeonjae.

He said he didn’t know—he didn’t understand his own feelings, so he couldn’t know how Seoyoon felt either.

It was hard to fully grasp what he meant, but part of it resonated.

‘I’ve never been normal anyway.’

Looking back, he had always been mature for his age. As a kid, he had a tendency to look down on his peers. He had thought that such parts of himself had disappeared as he grew older, but it seemed he had merely hidden them well.

It wasn’t that Woo Yeonjae suddenly felt unfamiliar to him. They had shared so much time together, and he hadn’t fallen for just one side of him, so it didn’t really matter.

He just wondered where things were headed now.

Moon Seoyoon hadn’t responded to Woo Yeonjae’s confession of affection. More precisely, he couldn’t bring himself to respond. He had been too flustered by Woo Yeonjae’s tears, and afterward, they had been too busy heading to the hospital for him to think deeply about it.

“I didn’t expect him to cry…”

Before he realized it, Seoyoon muttered to himself.

There had been a time when Woo Yeonjae said he would only cry in front of Seoyoon, but Seoyoon had never actually seen him cry. Not in kindergarten, where they would often fight, nor during the early days of elementary school, when they were adjusting to new routines, nor even in middle school, where informal hierarchies started forming.

Apparently, Woo Yeonjae hadn’t been much of a crier since he was a baby, so it wasn’t surprising that Seoyoon had never witnessed it.

‘That’s why it shocked me even more.’

Perhaps it was because it was his first time seeing this side of him, but the memory of that moment remained crystal clear.

Tears had fallen after a plea—a desperate, almost begging plea—to be loved, if only out of pity. The sight of tears forming on Woo Yeonjae’s usually composed face had left Seoyoon deeply unsettled. At the same time, it had made him realize that even Woo Yeonjae could cry, which oddly fascinated him.

In that sense, they didn’t seem so different after all.

Moon Seoyoon slowly lowered the hand that had been shading his eyes from the sunlight. The brightness still stung, but his arm was growing too tired to keep holding it up. He thought about getting up and shifted his body, but suddenly, the arms around his waist tightened.

“I told you not to run away…”

Woo Yeonjae muttered in a low voice, still sounding drowsy. His eyes remained closed, as if he were half-asleep. Contrary to Seoyoon’s expectation that things might become awkward once they both woke up, Woo Yeonjae acted just like before, which helped Seoyoon feel at ease as well.

“Let go. It’s too bright.”

Moon Seoyoon struggled to push away the arms holding him, but they didn’t yield so easily. Even though he knew that, he kept trying to push, which made Woo Yeonjae furrow his brows and open his eyes. As soon as Woo saw the sunlight on Seoyoon’s face, he chuckled softly and buried his forehead into Seoyoon’s shoulder.

“I said let go. You’re heavy.”

“Heavy?”

The arms around his waist tightened, and then Woo Yeonjae rolled his body. As a result, Moon Seoyoon had no choice but to roll with him, making a half-turn on the bed.

“What are you doing?”

By the time he regained his senses, their positions had switched.

“If you lie over there, the sunlight won’t bother your eyes.”

Now, Woo Yeonjae was the one facing the sunlight. The sunlight that had been bothering Seoyoon’s eyes now fell on Yeonjae instead.

Was that why he rolled over so suddenly? Seoyoon looked at him in disbelief, and only then did Woo Yeonjae fully open his eyes. The sunlight glaring straight at him made him squint.

“That’s why… don’t run away. I only managed to sleep because I was holding you.”

“…Haven’t you been sleeping well?”

Woo Yeonjae’s face looked completely relaxed, perhaps because of the sunlight or the nap he had just taken, but only a few hours ago, his expression had been much sharper.

“How could I sleep?”

Avoiding the glare of the sunlight, Woo Yeonjae buried his head back into Seoyoon’s shoulder. He looked like a large dog curling up, which made Seoyoon unconsciously reach out and ruffle his hair.

“Moon Seoyoon was the one who said to stop.”

Since that day, Moon Seoyoon had consciously tried not to think about Woo Yeonjae. There were times when his mind would be invaded by memories, but they were all just fragments of the past. That’s why he had never wondered what Woo Yeonjae was doing when he couldn’t sleep.

“By the way, you’ve lost weight.”

Woo Yeonjae tightened his arms around Seoyoon’s waist as he spoke. Clearly, he knew Seoyoon wasn’t answering on purpose, so he changed the subject. It was only then that Seoyoon opened his mouth.

“Because of someone.”

“Oh, that’s nice… If I think you lost weight from worrying about me, it feels good.”

Woo Yeonjae lifted his head, smiling slyly as he responded. It wasn’t annoying; it was just so typical of Woo Yeonjae’s shamelessness that Seoyoon let out a small chuckle through his lips.

“So, have you given it some thought?”

“About what.”

“Whether you’ll give me a chance or not.”

The arms around his waist loosened, and Woo Yeonjae easily shifted, moving on top of Seoyoon. He was kneeling, supporting his upper body with his arms, so there wasn’t any real weight pressing down on Seoyoon, but he was unmistakably trapped beneath him.

Seoyoon looked up at him in silence, and Woo Yeonjae’s long eyes narrowed, as if trying to gauge his thoughts.

“Moon Seoyoon.”

It seemed his hesitation was always obvious to Woo Yeonjae.

He slowly reached out his hand. As it neared Seoyoon’s face, his fingers gently cupped his cheek, with his thumb sliding toward Seoyoon’s lips.

“Can I kiss you?”

Suddenly, a memory came to mind.

‘You should only kiss someone you like.’

Fingers that had been playing with his lips throughout the night followed that statement.

“…”

There were moments that only became clear after hearing a confession of affection.

Why did you always act that way?

The desperate voice, saying he hadn’t known, replayed in his ears. Was it even possible not to know such emotions? For Seoyoon, those feelings had been so painfully obvious that it was impossible not to recognize them. The moment he realized he liked him, the moment he acknowledged it wasn’t just a crush, the times when even trivial things caused him heartache, and even now—those feelings had always been clear and vivid.

Moon Seoyoon silently gazed up at Woo Yeonjae. A hint of nervousness crept into Woo Yeonjae’s furrowed brows. The sight of a nervous Woo Yeonjae was as unfamiliar to Seoyoon as when he had seen him cry.

His lips parted slightly on their own.