Come Back

Part 7

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Lee Hae-seong chose to take a chartered plane to return home with Choi Hong-seo.

It was a decision to move without being noticed at LAX, where many Koreans use, of course, to the public’s eyes, it would be seen as the arrival of actress Yoon Hye-an from the group ‘Titan’ and ARA’s Lee Hae-seong, not Choi Hong-seo, but either way, it was bound to pique the curiosity of some people, even if only a little.

“People won’t think it’s strange just because we’re on the same plane,” Choi Hong-seo had said, passively opposing the use of chartered planes. Lee Hae-seong had a clear answer to Choi Hong-seo.

‘I’m not confident that it’ll end just because we’re on the same plane.’

Then he shrugged his shoulders and added with a calm expression.

‘You’ve been right next to me for over 13 hours, and you just look at me like we just happened to be on the same flight?’

It was a firm expression that it was absolutely impossible and that he had no intention of doing so. Choi Hong-seo never expressed any more objections after that.

After completing a very streamlined departure process in a private location, the two people and their group were able to board the plane without encountering any other passengers.

Choi Hong-seo, sitting on a long leather sofa, half-turned his body and looked out the window at the airport scenery. The charter-only terminal had a more relaxed atmosphere than a regular airport terminal. The vast grounds that seemed to extend endlessly beyond the runway were beyond admiration and even a little overwhelming. The November California sun pouring down on it made my mind hazy.

Could it be that everything that happened here was a dream?

While waiting for Hae-seong, who had left for a while, Choi Hong-seo felt a strange sense of unease. Was it because the events had happened so far away? Or was it because the series of events in which he was reunited with Choi Hong-seo and accepted at the exhibition in the small gallery were in themselves too dreamlike?

Choi Hong-seo, who was blankly staring at a group of noisy passengers trying to board another charter plane far away, suddenly turned his head toward the interior.

Behind the main space, which was decorated like a reception room, Lee Hae-seong’s attendants were riding in a separate second space, and Lee Hae-seong had moved over there for a moment. Choi Hong-seo sipped champagne from a glass on the table in front of him as he peered through the open door.

When he turned back to the window, the same noisy group was still taking passionate pictures in front of the plane. They were a group of men and women who looked to be in their early to mid-twenties at most, and they looked very noisy and happy. As he absentmindedly watched them laughing out loud while checking the pictures they had just taken, Choi Hong-seo found himself chuckling.

“What are you looking at so intently?”

A gentle hand and voice touched his head at the same time. Choi Hong-seo looked up reflexively. Lee Hae-seong was looking down at him with a gentle smile, not knowing when he would return.

“just…”

“just?”

“I feel sad for some reason as I leave.”

Lee Hae-seong, sitting next to Choi Hong-seo, crossed his legs and lifted his glass.

“Really? There are some good aspects to it, too.”

“The good side?”

“It was a really boring flight on the way here.”

He tilted his glass so that his glass slightly touched Choi Hong-seo’s.

“The return flight looks like it’ll be a lot of fun.”

Choi Hong-seo couldn’t help but agree with those words. He smiled and responded to his toast. The anxiety had been fading away rapidly since he had appeared. Like the morning fog that was dispersing as if fleeing in the warm morning sunlight.

“hmm.”

Lee Hae-seong, who was drinking champagne, straightened his back against the sofa as if he suddenly remembered something. And while he was wearing a watch on his own wrist, he checked the time by holding Choi Hong-seo’s wrist. It was the watch with the blue dial that he had purchased at the select shop during this trip.

“Mr. Choi Hong-seo, there are about 30 minutes left until takeoff.”

“……”

Understanding Seong’s face was expecting something and was eagerly waiting for the desired reaction. However, Choi Hongseo could not figure out what it meant.

“Didn’t you say you’d answer before you left LA?”

“ah…”

“That’s why I waited until now without complaining.”

Choi Hong-seo, who only then realized the meaning of the words, smiled awkwardly and lowered his gaze to the glass in his hand.

The last few days in Malibu have been nothing but sex.

Sometimes we would take a dip in the pool, go downstairs to eat at the restaurant, or take a walk along the beach, but all other times were filled with sex. The time spent at the pool, in the restaurant, or on the beach was just a kind of foreplay that ultimately led to a heated, entangled lovemaking.

‘Honeymoon couples are probably healthier than us.’

In the infinity pool that created the illusion of floating between the sea and the sky, Lee Hae-seong admitted as he floated while embracing Choi Hong-seo. Choi Hong-seo’s two arms were wrapped around Lee Hae-seong’s neck, and his two legs were wrapped around Lee Hae-seong’s waist. They just floated in the water, facing each other and hugging each other tightly. They didn’t look at the California sky above their heads, nor at the Pacific Ocean that spread out whenever they turned their eyes. They didn’t take their eyes off each other, they didn’t take their hands off each other, and their lips barely separated.

‘I’m already worried about going back to Seoul.’

‘why.’

‘If I don’t have your tongue in my mouth for more than 10 minutes, I start to experience withdrawal symptoms.’

At the end of those words, which were either a romantic confession or a dirty joke, Choi Hong-seo laughed as if he couldn’t stop himself and put his tongue in his mouth. A long kiss followed, and it was right after that that he proposed that they live together.

‘I want us to live together. What do you think?’

Although he was asking for Choi Hong-seo’s opinion, Lee Hae-seong’s eyes were filled with an extremely desperate light. The desperation to the point where he thought that if he refused the offer, this person might die, could have been a kind of threat. If it was a threat, it would probably be the sweetest threat in the world.

‘It’ll be hard to hide, and I wonder what kind of talk will spread…’

‘I can handle that much.’

Choi Hong-seo also knew that not all incidents and accidents in the entertainment industry were made public. Furthermore, if people in positions like Lee Hae-seong were involved, it was even harder for them to spread. Neither the people involved nor the media would touch on it lightly. That was why people like Lee Seo-kyung were able to continue committing such terrible atrocities for years.

‘If you’re not by my side, I feel uneasy and I don’t think I can do it.’

He didn’t force Choi Hong-seo to give an immediate answer. He just asked her to answer before leaving the United States, and continued kissing and caressing her deeply.

As he sat on the edge of the grass, hugging his head and biting his chest, Choi Hong-seo guessed that he would not be able to refuse his offer. Of course, he did not want to refuse. But there was another bigger factor. The moment he heard him say that he was anxious and that it would not work, he remembered the image of him running out onto the beach and calling out to him like a madman.

I never wanted to make him do that again.

“Of course I want to be with you, sir. It’s not that I don’t like that so I’m delaying my answer.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Promise me just one thing.”

“Tell me. What would it take for me to have you by my side?”

Choi Hong-seo smiled lightly as he watched him come closer and sit down with an attitude of doing anything.

“I wish you wouldn’t call me Hongseo in front of other people.”

His brows furrowed. His handsome face narrowed, his eyes slightly lifted, his chin slightly lifted, an expression of incomprehension.

“Why should it be like that?”

Choi Hong-seo had been thinking about how to explain this part to him for several days, actually postponing his answer.

“People around you probably think of me as a replacement for Choi Hong-seo.”

“Actually, this person is Hongseo, this person has Hongseo’s spirit inside of him… If you say it like that…”

Choi Hong-seo shook his head firmly three or four times.

“That won’t work.”

“……”

“No one will believe you anyway. So there’s no point in talking about that.”

Hae-seong Lee, who had put down the glass, took the glass from Hong-seo Choi’s hand. Then, he held it tightly as if covering the back of the hand that was resting on his thigh.

“No matter what you think of as a substitute, you can’t let anyone say it out loud.”

“……”

“It’s not about changing people’s minds, it’s about keeping their mouths shut. That’s the least I can do.”

This time, Choi Hong-seo firmly grabbed Lee Hae-seong’s hand, who was looking down like a criminal.

“I don’t care what other people say or think, except you. But…”

Choi Hong-seo bit his lips, trailing off. Lee Hae-seong slowly blinked, lifting his lowered eyelids.

“Are you afraid they’ll think I’m crazy?”

“……”

Scandals and such are not scary. I believe his words that he can sort it out. However, if he had called the new person he was meeting Choi Hong-seo and kept him by his side, it might have seemed bizarre to his closest associates. Furthermore, if that person happened to resemble Choi Hong-seo, he might have been seen as someone whose reasoning was damaged by the shadow of the dead person.

“hmm…”

Understanding let out a long sigh through his closed lips. It wasn’t a heavy sigh. Rather, it was the sigh of a person who had shaken off his burden and made up his mind.

The flight attendant came and brought us champagne glasses, and the announcement was made that we would soon be moving to the runway for takeoff. The two people sitting side by side on the long sofa seat fastened their seat belts.

As the plane began to move, Hae-seong tilted his head and looked this way. A faint smile was hanging on the corners of his lips.

“Ms. Yoon Hye-an, let’s go to Bundang and live together.”

“……”

Choi Hong-seo was embarrassed. He had already called him by that name countless times. He had never expected to feel this kind of pain and resentment. He awkwardly avoided eye contact to hide his complicated embarrassment. He turned his head away, covering his mouth with his hand to hide his expression.

Whenever she was with him, her emotions always showed new reactions. It was the same in her previous life.

My emotions, which were so dry that they were almost dry and blunt, had learned not to react greatly to any stimulus. Whether it was anger, resentment, hatred, or the occasional joy, glory, or happiness, it was the same. I had to create a heart that did not react in that way in order to protect myself.

But when he was with Hae-seong, who called himself a baby despite his dryness, aspects of himself that even Hong-seo Choi himself had not known about were revealed. A sprout emerged from the roots of his senses that he had thought were dead. Those pale green leaves that reacted sensitively to even the slightest wind, sunlight, or water stream were a lively life that he had not known he had inside him.

Because when you’re by his side, you don’t have to protect or defend yourself.

Because you don’t have to kill your mind so that you don’t feel any sensations.

So, the heart feels joy and happiness, sorrow and sadness powerfully by his side. And Choi Hong-seo did not hate himself like that. He did not hate the feeling of being alive and feeling everything with all his might. However, he was still occasionally embarrassed.

I heard his soft laughter behind my head. Then came the sweet sighs that were characteristic of understanding. Then came a large, warm hand that landed on my head.

“Hongseo.”

“……”

“You were the one who told me to call you Yoon Hye-an. But why do you have that expression on your face?”

The hand on his head was withdrawn, and his chin pressed down on the edge of his shoulder. Still unable to meet his eyes, Choi Hong-seo hesitated and answered.

“When we’re alone… I don’t like it.”

To Choi Hong-seo, sadness was a privileged emotion that only children who received an abundance of love could feel.

So, for the first time in his life, he felt sad at the coldness of understanding shown to him in the form of Yoon Hye-an. He was the only person who could make Choi Hong-seo feel sad.

He is surprised to discover that he has this side to him that makes him sad even though he knows that he is saying it intentionally to play a joke. But he doesn’t think that it makes him weak.

For him, I could have died one more time right here, right now, without hesitation. No one could call that weakness.