F8

Yeonho did not avoid Siwoo’s murderous gaze. He met it head-on. While driving, Siwoo turned his head briefly to look ahead. Their eyes stayed locked for about three seconds before breaking apart. By the time they met again, that violent gleam in Siwoo’s eyes had vanished completely.

Had he imagined it? Siwoo, if anything, seemed even more affectionate and kind than before. It was unsettling.

“I’m the broken one and you’re the normal one. How many people want to spend their whole life loving someone they met at twenty-something?”

“No, I think it’s cool. Loving just one person, that’s something you only see in dramas or novels. I guess I’m not the kind of guy who can be like that.”

“Right. Most humans can’t love just one person.”

Siwoo let out a bitter laugh, then clenched his teeth and muttered to himself.

Yeonho concluded that while Kim Siwoo might lie more easily than he breathed, it was probably true that he hadn’t moved on from his first love. No matter how skilled an actor might be, no one could convey that kind of aching disappointment with such detail unless it was real. Still, what about that look of pure hatred from a moment ago? Was it truly just a misunderstanding?

Yeonho was insensitive when it came to feeling loved. Regardless of gender or age, he interpreted most affection shown toward him as either familial or humanitarian.

This way of thinking had its roots in his oldest brother. Even if someone confessed their feelings with words like, “I want to know you better,” or “I want to become your lover and spend time together,” Yeonho couldn’t accept it as anything more than a general fondness. All expressions of love felt the same to him as those from his eldest brother.

There had been people who approached him with clear sexual desire, but Yeonho always thought they just needed someone in the moment. As long as they could reach orgasm, it didn’t matter who the other person was.

Yeonho, in his own view, was not sexually attractive and not someone worth dating. Maybe that was why he had become the easy target for fulfilling someone’s need. People who tried to touch him or ask for sex appeared regularly, but Yeonho rejected them all without exception.

Stories of such rejections spread among those around him, and before long, he earned a reputation. People would say, “It’s nearly impossible to win over Joo Yeonho’s body or heart.” Some even claimed, “Joo Yeonho provokes a sense of challenge and conquest.”

Since he had never experienced romantic feelings and never been aroused by another person, none of that was really wrong. If he had to define himself, he believed he was closest to being asexual.

And yet, the person who made Yeonho think, even on impulse, that it might be okay to sleep with someone was Siwoo. Even though he didn’t know the man’s identity, his face and voice alone made him feel that way. Being wrapped up in his embrace, letting himself be swept along, was so enjoyable that he thought it might not be so bad to just let it happen.

Despite how dull he was when it came to love, Yeonho was sharply attuned to hatred. He had not encountered many people who showed him hostility, so he found it easier to sense the unfamiliar aura of hatred.

The only person who had ever hated him enough to use the word hatred was his mother. Yeonho knew she had ambivalent feelings toward him. She was undoubtedly one of the people who loved him most in the world, but she also hated him just as deeply.

She had never once told Yeonho that she hated him, so he couldn’t be sure of the exact reason. He believed she had changed after the accident with his older brother. But the root of that hatred was impossible to guess. Since she would never explain it, Yeonho figured he would never truly know.

And now, he felt something similar from Siwoo. A cold shiver that came from hatred. But why? What reason could there be? In families, love and hate could mix, that was understandable. But Siwoo had no reason to feel that way toward Yeonho. They had only met for the first time yesterday.

To hate someone was to consume yourself, to walk willingly into the darkness. It was not a feeling to hold lightly toward another.

Sometimes, hate weighed more than love. It was built upon intense attention and layered with time and energy. There was no reason for Kim Siwoo to hate Joo Yeonho enough to want to kill him.

If Siwoo really did harbor murderous intent toward him, then it wouldn’t be for any specific reason. It might just mean he was the kind of person who found interest in the act of murder itself. Yeonho reopened a possibility he had previously dismissed.

One of the two words that had provoked Kim Siwoo that morning, murderer.

Just as Yeonho finished organizing his thoughts, the car stopped at a red light. Siwoo reached over and touched Yeonho’s chin. His fingers lightly brushed over the round peach-colored bandage stuck there.

“I keep noticing your wound.”

“It’ll go away soon. I don’t mind if it leaves a scar.”

“Of course you don’t. You never look at your own face. It’s the people who have to see it who care.”

“A scar like this gets buried in my face. My features are so blunt that nobody even notices the damage.”

He said it jokingly. His features were already rugged and distorted enough that a small scar wouldn’t make any difference. Siwoo chuckled like he didn’t know what to say, then said,

“You know really well what you look like.”

Yeonho flinched and shrank a little. He was self-aware enough to joke about his looks, but it still stung to hear someone else point out how strange his face was. Maybe he wouldn’t have minded if it had come from someone else. But because it was Siwoo, his heart sank.

This sexy, gentle man who might also be a murderer rubbed the bandaged area on Yeonho’s chin with his thumb, while the other four fingers pressed under his jaw. He slowly massaged the area where his chin met his neck, then pulled away and grabbed the steering wheel.

On his way out, his knuckle tapped against Yeonho’s throat. That intentional touch made Yeonho swallow hard.

While driving, they came across a structure that Yeonho wanted to photograph, so he asked Siwoo to stop the car briefly. He said he would be back in five minutes and took his camera. Normally he used his phone as a camera, but when he had the real one in hand, he forgot all about his phone.

Left alone in the car, Siwoo picked up Yeonho’s phone without hesitation. It was locked, but he entered the six-digit passcode with practiced ease. 180616.

He had deleted the photo that Yeonho had taken last night during his sleepwalking visit to Room 415. Getting rid of it felt necessary to erase the events of that night entirely.

At the top of Yeonho’s messages was a notification about an upcoming appointment at a neuropsychiatric clinic. It was four days away. That meant Yeonho would likely be leaving for Seoul soon.

Just as Siwoo was about to return the phone to its place, a call came in. The caller ID once again read “Second Brother.” Siwoo stared at the name with cold disgust, tempted to decline the call outright. But then Yeonho appeared in the window, walking back. Siwoo handed him the phone naturally and said,

“Your brother called.”

“Ah, thank you.”

Yeonho climbed into the passenger seat and took the phone. Siwoo, intentionally, asked him a question. He hoped Junyoung would hang up before Yeonho could answer.

“You talk to your brother a lot. Most siblings that age don’t do that, right?”

“He overprotects me. Says he gets worried just looking at me. Says my body and mind always seem on the edge.”

After calmly replying, Yeonho finally answered Junyoung’s call. Maybe Junyoung scolded him for answering late, because Yeonho explained that he had left his phone in the car while taking photos.

Junyoung got angry, telling him not to make people anxious. He shouted so loudly that his voice leaked outside the phone, loud enough for Siwoo to hear the entire exchange. Yeonho half-heartedly apologized.

A typical relationship. An annoying lovers’ spat. Siwoo, eyes wide and expression blank, struggled not to gag again.

While heading inside a building for lunch, Yeonho stopped to look at a capsule toy machine meant for tourists. He lost interest after seeing it only accepted coins, but Siwoo, having checked the change machine, walked off to a nearby convenience store.

Yeonho followed without thinking but stopped when he realized their destination was an ATM.

“I won’t look.”

Siwoo tugged Yeonho’s arm playfully.

“Why not? You can look. Are you going to steal my card or something?”

“I’ve been out of it lately, but I wouldn’t go that far.”

Yeonho shook his head and peeked over Siwoo’s shoulder on purpose. Siwoo inserted his card and, as if to show off, entered his four-digit PIN.

“…Huh?”

0. 6. 1. 6. Siwoo’s fingers entered the numbers one by one.

“Why are you surprised?”

Siwoo asked casually. Yeonho waved his hand through the air and replied,

“A bug.”

“Where?”

“It flew off. Bugs are really fast these days. It was even on the news.”

“That kind of thing makes the news?”

He wasn’t stupid enough to blurt out that they had the same PIN. Yeonho dodged the subject with a clumsy excuse, then moved away to pretend to browse the convenience store shelves.