F45

After that, Siwoo didn’t appear again for quite some time. Whether nearby, far away, or anywhere at all, there was no sign that he was watching Yeonho anymore.

And with Siwoo’s gaze no longer following him, the nightmares grew longer. His dependence on sleeping pills increased. Whether this was Siwoo’s intention or not, the result was clear: Yeonho’s life was becoming more miserable, just as Siwoo would have wanted.

At the graduation exhibition held in late autumn, a flower arrangement congratulating Yeonho arrived with the name “Kim Yeonho” on his graduation– not from Kim Siwoo, but in that name. Yeonho reached for the ribbon and fiddled with the name of the man who had killed his older brother for a long while before smiling.

It doesn’t feel like I’m really living without your sweet threats. So hurry up and appear before me again.

***

At the end of that year, the official opening date for the Platte Resort was confirmed. A week before the opening, Yeonho left Seoul and relocated permanently to Gangwon Province. This made it feel all the more unlikely that he would run into Siwoo again. The flower pot at the graduation exhibit had been his final trace.

Yeonho was uneasy. Had Siwoo really lost interest in me? Was it because I reacted too calmly and boringly when he finally voiced his hatred? What should I have done to make him more obsessed? Maybe he should have just said, I already know who you really are, and mocked him as the murderer who killed his family?

In Seong Junyoung’s car, on the way out of Seoul, Yeonho was reading a book titled 223 Ways to Provoke Human Hatred. He felt like a fool for only discovering such a useful resource now.

If I’d known the stalking would stop like this, I would’ve just gone all out and made a scene. Trying to appear dreamy and delicate in front of him had been a fatal mistake. With a face as vomit-inducing as his, what good did that do?

Where is Kim Siwoo now, and what’s he doing? He would probably stay in Seoul. If I’d known it would turn out like this, I should have stalked him first before moving to Gangwon. That would’ve been way more fun. A person shouldn’t just sit around waiting to be stalked, they should go after it themselves.

But it was all too late now.

“So boring… so dull.”

He closed the book, leaned his head against the car window, and shut his eyes. Life had never felt more painfully dull. Even if he wrote an autobiography, no one would read it. It would just be tossed into a fire and disappear.

Yeonho checked into Room 315 of a small apartment unit provided by the resort. It took considerable effort to ignore Seong Junyoung, who had suggested they buy a mansion nearby and live together. After telling him to screw off over a hundred times, he finally managed to shake him off. In the end, Junyoung also moved into the 10th floor of the same building.

After dragging his luggage inside, Yeonho collapsed on the floor, leaving the front door wide open from sheer exhaustion. He had no strength left to unpack or close the door. The two suitcases, one sky-blue and the other gray, looked like exactly the same color now. He lay there like a corpse, eyes shut, listening. Not long after, the sound of footsteps in the hallway reached his ears.

Why does that sound so familiar? The weight of the steps, the pace, the rhythm, nothing about it felt unfamiliar. His heart started racing as those footsteps stopped right outside his front door.

A shiver of intuition jolted through his brain, and Yeonho sat upright with a gasp.

“Kim Siwoo-ssi!”

There he was, the person he had longed for, standing and looking straight at him. A white shirt with two buttons undone, black slacks, both hands tucked in his pockets, and a smirk on his lips.

Siwoo reached out a hand for a shake as Yeonho stumbled toward him, then offered him a business card. Yeonho bowed his head to read it.

Kim Siwoo – Management Support Team, Platte Resort

Yeonho fumbled through his wallet and pulled out his own card. He held them side by side to compare. The texture and design were exactly the same. It felt too surreal. He looked around to see if there were any hidden cameras, then turned back to ask,

“You really got hired?”

“Yes. That’s how it turned out. I was trying to figure out the most effective way to make Ju Yeonho-ssi miserable, and things just kind of escalated. I don’t know how you feel, but I’m satisfied. I live right upstairs. Room 415. I can torment you with noise from above.”

“Noise complaints? You really are the devil.”

Yeonho grabbed Siwoo’s wrist tightly and called the resort headquarters to confirm whether Kim Siwoo had actually joined the management support team. It turned out to be true.

The college student who had caused a fatal accident, so infamous they even had to change the resort’s name, had somehow managed to sneak into the company. There was no way HR would have known that this Kim Siwoo was that student.

At last, Yeonho’s heart began to beat again. Forcing down the upward curve of his lips, he looked up and asked, eyes sparkling for the first time in forever,

“So, you quit Namyeon Construction after just six months? Didn’t they offer a better salary? Or no?”

A company he’d never actually worked at. Siwoo, who had already openly declared his intentions to Yeonho, answered shamelessly, showing no desire to hide anything.

“Oh, Namyeon? Never worked there. I lied to mess with you. I hate that company. Their CEO is a psychopath.”

Yeonho, who knew that the CEO of Namyeon was Siwoo’s father, simply smiled without giving anything away.

“Mmhmm, I knew you were lying. From the first day.”

“What? Then why pretend not to know? Ju Yeonho-ssi, you’re scary. You give me chills.”

Siwoo feigned surprise with a face that looked entirely unsurprised. Yeonho burst out laughing.

“So you think I’m scarier than you?”

The one who got a job at the very place where someone died because of him, just to torment that person’s younger brother?

But Siwoo looked at him with gentle eyes and a pitiful expression. His beautiful face melted Yeonho’s heart again.

“It’s kind of amazing that I’m such an important person to Kim Siwoo-ssi.”

“You have no idea. I think about you all day long. I even dream about you.”

Yeonho blushed. He wanted to applaud Siwoo for his desire to ruin someone so thoroughly.

Siwoo carefully put Yeonho’s business card into his wallet. Then he pulled Yeonho into an embrace, patted his back, and whispered sweetly into his ear.

“I’ll use every method I can to make sure there’s no one left by your side.”

“Would it be more fun if I tried to escape?”

“Do whatever you want. Let’s both do exactly what we want.”

Yeonho nodded. His whole body felt charged with energy. For the first time in a long while, he felt alive.

“Okay. I’ll do what I want.”

And depending on how things went, he might even let himself be isolated, just as Siwoo wished. They’d see soon enough.

***

Yeonho couldn’t stop smiling. For the first time in a while, he went on a walk, even went for a drive. While having dinner with Junyoung on the 10th floor, where he now lived, Yeonho hummed happily the entire time.

Across the table, Junyoung was on his phone, yelling at their father about Siwoo joining the resort staff.

“That guy killed our brother. Whether it was an accident or not, how can you just dismiss it like that? He got drunk, went snowboarding, and killed someone, and you’re calling that an accident?”

[So what? He was punished, wasn’t he?]

His father’s indifferent voice came through the speaker. There wasn’t a hint of resentment toward Kim Siwoo, the student who’d caused Seong Junhee’s death. Junyoung exploded.

“Are you serious? Am I the only one who sees how insane this is?”

[After the accident, Namyeon’s CEO personally apologized and gave us a huge settlement. How do you think we could afford a remodel of this scale? Can’t you use your head?]

Junyoung’s voice rose again, realization dawning.

“Oh, so it’s because you got so much hush money from Namyeon? Wow. Poor hyung. And now that CEO wants you to help his son get a job? Because no company will take a murderer?”

The call ended with a sharp click. Across the table, Yeonho popped a bite of salad into his mouth, snickering. He rarely watched TV, but tonight, even the slightest joke from the variety show on-screen had him bursting with laughter.

Junyoung tapped the table with his fingers and chewed on his nails. There was only one reason he was freaking out so much over Siwoo’s employment.

The fact that Siwoo had caused Junhee’s death wasn’t what really bothered him. He understood it had been an accident, not a premeditated act. And while it was a little uncomfortable that Siwoo had infiltrated the resort to get close to Yeonho, it wasn’t enough to truly threaten him.

Looking back on the things Siwoo had said that day, it was hard to interpret them as threatening. More likely, he’d simply been watching Yeonho from afar because he liked him, then used his status as the CEO’s son to approach in a creepy, underhanded way. People had always approached Yeonho like that, regardless of gender.

The real problem was that Siwoo had seen Junyoung being physically intimate with Yeonho. And Yeonho knew that at the time, Junyoung had drugged him with sleeping pills. If the two of them talked and put things together, Junyoung’s secret would come out.

What should I do? How the hell am I supposed to fix this?