Even if he said it a hundred times, it would be useless, so in the end, he gave up and swallowed those words down. If things continued like this, he might just get sick and die.

There were six cigarettes left in the pack. He immediately took out three and smoked them in an instant, then looked at the remaining three with a bit of hesitation.

That guy must have a cigarette with him, and it must be as heavy and malicious as himself. (Referring to Ilay, because it was Ilay’s pack of cigarettes.)

After smoking three cigarettes, his throat felt dry and sore as if cut. If he smoked the rest, his throat would surely be ruined, but if he didn’t, he would still feel restless and uneasy. With a sense of worry, he took out another cigarette and lit it.

‘Whatever, even if my throat gets ruined, and my lungs get damaged, I’ll just finish smoking.’

He sighed and gently puffed a cloud of smoke into the air. Just at that moment.

“……Hyung. I think you’ve smoked too much already. This type of cigarette is probably quite heavy.”

A hesitant voice came from above.

He looked up with the cigarette still in his mouth.

From inside the window frame, half-hidden by the leaves, stood the person who had just spoken. It seemed he had been standing there for quite a long time, long enough to witness the entire scene.

He mumbled softly, then stubbed the cigarette on the ground and buried it in the soft soil. If Tou saw this scene, he would surely jump up.

“Xinlu, how long have you been standing there?”

He asked with a happy tone. However, Xinlu did not respond. He just stood there, silently looking at him with sorrowful eyes.

His chest ached strangely.

Taeui continued to engage with Xinlu, who remained silent. He clicked his tongue inwardly. Recently, everything seemed like this. Not just recently.

To be precise, everything had started when the rumor began that the new Instructor would be from the European branch named Riegrow. Since then, Xinlu seemed to be deliberately avoiding him and had stopped appearing frequently.

Until before that, every two or three days, he would drop by his room once, and even frequently texted him. But now, suddenly cutting off contact left him bewildered.

Even when Taeui sent messages, there was no response. When he went to meet him, they still talked, but his attitude seemed reluctant.

Based on the timing and situation, the reason could only be one:

The matter of Jeong Taeui being appointed as Ilay’s instructor. It’s just that.

“How’s Taei-hyung these days? I see you’re always with the new instructor, you two must really get along well, right?”

“Not at all, it’s very difficult. That person’s personality is unpredictable. I’m exhausted these days.”

When he confessed honestly, Xinlu looked at him with a complex gaze, but his face still carried a hint of sadness.

Seeing his face seemingly simmering with anger made Taeui’s heart even more troubled.

It wasn’t anger directed at Xinlu. Nor at Ilay. But a frustration towards this situation.

When Taeui sighed sadly, Xinlu seemed to sense it and immediately looked like he was about to cry. Seeing that expression, he could only think to himself: ‘I’m the one who wants to cry here.’

Somehow, Taeui also brought a face that looked about to cry as he looked straight at Xinlu. Xinlu flinched slightly when he saw his expression.

Wait a minute. What did Carlo say before? That self-proclaimed ‘Casanova*’ had once enthusiastically given a proud lesson.

‘When in love and arguments arise or the relationship becomes tense, there’s no need for many words. Just straightforwardly pull the person close and give them a deep kiss. That way, most conflicts will be resolved’ – That’s what people often say.

At that time, he just chuckled because he thought how could it be that easy. But now, in this situation, it made him wonder: ‘Could it really work?’ Just like someone clinging to the last straw.

Taeui quietly looked at Xinlu. He knew he was truly selfish, but at this moment, he wished that just one warm word was enough to soothe him.

When it feels like no one is on your side, this is the time when just one sentence from Xinlu would be great.

“……Why are you looking at me like that? As if I’m the one who’s really wrong.”

Suddenly, Xinlu choked up as he spoke. Taeui tilted his head to look at him helplessly, not knowing what his own face looked like at that moment. He was simply exhausted.

“Don’t cry…… Xinlu, don’t cry.”

But even though he was so tired, seeing Xinlu on the verge of tears made his heart ache. Someone as lovely and sweet as him, why did he have to hurt him like this? Taeui gently raised his hand and placed it on top of Xinlu’s head.

He carefully patted his head. The soft hair touching his palm brought a strange pleasant feeling.

At that moment, Xinlu unexpectedly burst into tears and shouted at him full of reproach.

“Taei-hyung, you’re so mean! Why did you go with that jerk? If it were anyone else, I might be able to tolerate it, but that person, I really can’t stand it! I can’t bear you being with someone I can’t deal with! And why do you make that face? Acting as if I’m the bad guy!”

He shouted as if releasing all the pent-up emotions inside him.

Before Taeui could say anything, Xinlu suddenly grabbed his collar, pulling him forcefully toward himself.

He suddenly bit down on his lip, then his tongue slipped inside to gently lick the inside of his mouth. Once, twice, three times…… Xinlu continued to suck on Taeui’s lips until they both were out of breath, their breathing becoming ragged. Only when Taeui desperately tapped his shoulder did Xinlu reluctantly release him.

“…………!”

After Xinlu let go with a look of regret. Taeui panted, using the back of his hand to wipe away the saliva still glistening at the corner of his mouth. Everything happened so unexpectedly that he could only widen his eyes, covering his mouth with his hand and looking at him speechlessly. Xinlu bowed his head showing a gloomy face, his eyes once again shimmering with tears. In the end, he couldn’t hold back anymore, and big tears fell like raindrops on his cheeks. Despite the heavy breathing, Taeui was shocked to see those tears.

“No, the thing is…… I also hate the idea of you having to be near that guy. But you and I are different. I didn’t want it either, it was just out of necessity. What can I do when they forced me into the role of Assistant Instructor? Oh, by the way, Xinlu, you misunderstood. He doesn’t care about me; he’s actually targeting someone as adorable as you. That’s why I don’t want you near him…… Come on, don’t cry anymore, okay? Don’t cry.”

Taeui wiped the sweat pouring down him as he tried to comfort Xinlu. After a bit of hesitation, he gently wrapped his arm around his shoulder. Xinlu let the tears fall without bothering to wipe them away, suddenly tightening his grip around his waist.

“Hyung. Taei-hyung. Don’t hate me…… I will definitely do much better than him…… We haven’t even tried seriously yet. I promise to make you see heaven, really. Okay, hyung.”

Taeui’s hand on Xinlu’s shoulder stiffened slightly. He looked at Xinlu burying his face in his shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably, and felt confused. He intended to console him, to make him stop crying, but why did everything take such a strange turn?

“Hyung. I promise I won’t hurt you, so…… we can do it now. Let’s go back to my room.”

Xinlu, while crying, clung to him and said: “I will do well, hyung”, his voice full of weakness and pleading. If it weren’t for the unusual content of the conversation, maybe Taeui would have fully sympathized with his touching desperation that reached his heart. But he keenly realized that this situation was taking a wrong turn. Therefore, he quietly let go of Xinlu.

“Um, well,…… let’s leave this for later…… Right now…… I’m not ready for that with you.”

Honestly, he did want it. Being with this adorable kid, rolling around on the bed together at any time, was indeed an attractive thought. But not now. When their preferences and feelings were going opposite ways, he didn’t want to step into that intimate relationship. Taeui still wanted to hug Xinlu, but there was a bit of psychological resistance when he hugged Xinlu.

At that moment, Xinlu’s face turned pale and stiffened, clearly showing confusion at Taeui’s interpretation of his words. He glared at him for a moment with a pale face, then burst into tears, rubbing his red eyes with the back of his hand, took a sobbing breath, and turned around, running away quickly.

“Hey, wait, Xin……!”

Taeui hurriedly tried to call him to stop, but Xinlu had already run far to the end of the hallway, not looking back or returning.

************************

On his way back to his room as usual, Taeui felt heavy and gloomy. Every time he passed by someone, they would recognize him and glare at him with hatred in their eyes, or as they passed by, they would hurl curses clearly intended for him to hear.

‘Can’t grab them and hit them, nor get angry every single time since it happens too often. Maybe I should be thankful that those who used to be teammates just give me cold looks and walk away, without doing anything more.’

Taeui trudged back to his room, thinking: ‘I wonder if there’ll ever be a day when I’m stabbed in the back.’ The incident earlier still made him shudder. Earlier in the dining hall, he heard people openly cursing Ilay, and he unconsciously said: “Anyway, he’s a member of the Asian branch now.” and almost got stabbed for it. The shouts of “Do you know how many people he has killed in the Asian branch?!” echoed with a chilling murderous intent.

He thought he was just stating a fact, but he immediately became someone deserving of execution the moment he spoke.

“Will spring ever come to this desolate field……”

He didn’t know when, but if it came, he wished it would come soon. Or at least, he hoped it would come before he left this branch, and not let the harsh winter arrive. With the situation as tense as a tightrope, even the slightest reason could explode into a mob beating at any moment.

Thinking about it, Taeui involuntarily shivered.

A mob beating. The thought that all the staff of the Asian branch would simultaneously rush in and threaten Ilay Riegrow made his spine chill. Just thinking about the outcome of that made him break out in a cold sweat. He recalled that man’s past – even when confronted by those mobilized in the Cluster group. Yet he only got a dent in one shoulder, while the others who were pushed in as replacements were all killed. He had killed everyone involved in that incident.

If anyone naively thought that rushing Ilay would have a good result, and many people surged in……

“Ugh, it would be a great disaster…… Just imagining it is scary.”

“What are you imagining that’s so frightening?”

He was mumbling to himself while cold sweat still streamed down his forehead, as he opened the door to his room to step in. Suddenly, a voice countered, making him freeze. This room was his alone, so there shouldn’t be anyone else to answer him. Yet there was a man sitting there. In the unlit room, he lay stretched out on the bed but sat up as soon as he saw Taeui enter.

Just by hearing the voice, Taeui knew who it was. He turned on the light switch by the door, and as expected, a familiar face appeared. Saying it was familiar was an understatement, since being with each other all day, he could almost count each remaining unshaved stubble on his chin.

“Why are you here?”

Taeui looked at Ilay with a clearly annoyed expression. Ilay, leaning on his elbow on the bed, sat sideways in a leisurely manner, then waved his hand as if uninterested.

“When I’m in my room, I keep getting annoying calls.”

“Annoying calls…… Not responding would be an issue, wouldn’t it?”

“Who knows. At least I haven’t had any issues. If someone can’t get in touch with me, it’s only the person trying to contact me who gets frustrated.”

“……”

Taeui suddenly felt his future seemed bleak since he would be the one who had to find a way to contact this guy whenever there was something. Even if Ilay had a pager around his neck, he surely wouldn’t wear it, and even if he did, he would never check it when it beeped.

“So, how am I supposed to contact you?”

“We’ll be together most of the time, so why bother coming up with a way to contact me?”

On second thought, that was true. If he needed to contact him, maybe the first thing Taeui would think of was how not to contact him at all.

Taking off his coat and hanging it on the back of a chair, Taeui continued to unbutton his collar before heading to the fridge to grab a beer. He glanced at Ilay and asked if he wanted a drink, but Ilay just waved him off. Upon closer inspection, there were already two empty beer cans on the table next to the bed. Clearly, this guy had helped himself to the beers in his room!

He completely disregarded the habit of helping himself when entering his uncle’s room and glared at this cheeky guest with resentment. However, instead of questioning that, he decided he needed to vent his pent-up frustration first.

He opened three cans of beer in succession and downed them without stopping. When he set down the last can, he wiped the beer trickling from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Even that didn’t relieve anything.”

“Hahaha, you must be really frustrated to turn to alcohol like that.”

Seeing Ilay laugh so nonchalantly as if nothing happened and saying such things, Taeui thought momentarily about smashing the three empty cans onto this guy’s face, one by one, without hesitation. Even though it was a smiling face, just his face alone made Taeui want to spit on it.

Taeui glared at him fiercely, then pulled the chair to hug it and sat down backward.

“What the hell is this? It feels like I’m a member of the European branch thrown into the Asian branch against my will.”

Hearing this made Ilay burst out laughing. He seemed very amused, but Taeui, who was being made fun of, didn’t feel comfortable at all, his face increasingly scrunched up.

It’s fair to say that the main culprit for all these general troubles was his uncle. But the immediate cause of this specific situation was none other than the man in front of him. This guy had filled the medical room with people just a few days after becoming an instructor here. Taeui’s uncle, when passing by him in the hallway earlier, even said: “But anyway, since becoming an Instructor, that kid seems to have toned it down a bit. At least, no one’s dead yet.” His uncle then laughed, but Taeui didn’t find those words funny at all. How could he be sure that the first person to die at the hands of Ilay Riegrow, the new instructor of the Asian branch, wouldn’t be him, the one always beside him and surrounded by the threat of death in every way imaginable?

At that moment, Ilay raised an eyebrow and asked with a slightly teasing tone:  

“There’s a smell of cigarettes. Did you just smoke?”  

Immediately, Taeui fell silent. He remembered exactly who the ‘real owner’ of the cigarette he had just smoked was. He wondered if that person had discovered that their pack of cigarettes had disappeared yet.   

“Earlier, on the way back from the instructor’s office, I saw you chatting happily with some cute kid.”   

Taeui dared not open his mouth. This time it wasn’t because of the cigarette, but because of that statement. He was slightly startled.   

“……Did you hear it?”   

“Hear what?”   

“The conversation of others.”   

Taeui spoke sharply while looking at Ilay with a piercing gaze, clearly implying that eavesdropping was a violation of privacy. But in his heart, he silently cursed: ‘Damn it!’   

Even though it wasn’t a secret conversation, it wasn’t the type of dialogue Taeui wanted others to overhear. Not because he was embarrassed or ashamed. It was a little different because it involved the small pride of a man still in good health.   

“I just saw briefly while passing by, so I didn’t have time to listen carefully to what you two were saying.”   

Ilay shrugged, indifferently stating. Taeui looked at him with suspicious eyes, but temporarily sighed in relief. It seemed he really hadn’t heard the conversation clearly.   

In fact, this wasn’t something to be ashamed of. Everyone in this branch knew Taeui liked Xinlu. And now, the fact that Xinlu had also given his heart to Taeui was no longer unfamiliar to anyone. Therefore, if someone happened to catch them standing next to each other or accidentally heard a few somewhat affectionate words, there was nothing to be embarrassed about. But the problem lay elsewhere.   

Taeui always thought that if it happened between two people in love, as long as both agreed, anything was possible. He wasn’t the type of person who had to hold onto his ego till death, but in his relationship with Xinlu, there was a limit he would never compromise on. It wasn’t just a matter of compromising with Xinlu but with anyone, but with Xinlu in particular – someone he always wanted to protect and considered dear – he could not concede.

“Oh, so it turns out, you still haven’t managed to do that with the kid.”

Ilay, standing next to him, let out a small laugh, as if he just realized something, and mocked while Taeui was still thinking.

The moment Taeui heard that sentence, his face immediately froze. His neck felt so hot that he didn’t dare to lift his head. This bastard! Earlier he said he couldn’t hear clearly, but it turns out he heard everything.

Taeui slowly, very slowly, lifted his stiff head. He opened his eyes wide, shooting a sharp glare at Ilay as if wanting to pierce through him. But Ilay pretended to know nothing, putting on a thoughtful face, and mumbled:

“I don’t understand where the problem is. You said you were confident, even assured to take him to heaven…… With such a promise, shouldn’t he be ready to receive that service?”

“Having almost been crushed to death once when receiving that kind of service, who would still be in the mood to think about it!”

Taeui shouted. But immediately after he uttered the words, he realized he had misspoken. Yet it was too late. Ilay raised an eyebrow and looked at him with a strange gaze, then suddenly burst out laughing. He laughed heartily as if this was the most amusing thing in the world.

“Haha, ha ha ha, so that’s what happened. You’ve been through a dangerous situation, haven’t you? It must have been quite a shock when you intended to pin down that cute and adorable boy, only to be counterattacked, right, Taei?”

“I didn’t intend to pin him down! I’m not like you, I planned to do everything step by step, in the most gentlemanly way!”

Taeui nearly shouted, not caring about his image anymore because once the water is spilled, it’s hard to gather it back. Although his plan had completely fallen apart, and the future was uncertain, the hope in him hadn’t extinguished: He wanted to gently lead the young man, bringing him the joy of love’s ascension.

Ilay laughed for a while, seeming to find it funnier the more he thought about it. Then he nodded as if he understood something and mumbled to himself:

“So that’s it. That kid looks so meek, but he turns out to be ambitious. Well, his family is inherently ambitious. But I never expected you to dare aim for ‘Gil-sang-cheon.’”

Taeui paused. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard this term. On Ilay’s inauguration day, the General Governor had also looked at him and said something similar. ‘Gilsangcheon’ – could this be some kind of code? Its meaning clearly surpassed his usual understanding.

“What is Gilsangcheon? What does it mean?” – Taeui tried to ask calmly.

Upon hearing Taeui ask so seriously, Ilay smiled enigmatically, then whispered as if talking to himself:

“It’s not some secret, so why don’t they just say it outright……”

“……? Say what?”

Taeui looked at Ilay with a puzzled expression. Ilay returned his gaze with a contemplative look, then chuckled softly.

“Well, that’s true. Teaching an important thing to a kid doesn’t always guarantee a meaningful result. But now it’s time to say it.”

“What? Stop being so cryptic.”

Taeui frowned. Ilay’s tone made it hard for him to tell whether he was monologuing or deliberately speaking for him to hear. Ilay continued to look at him and muttered a few indecipherable words. Then suddenly, he gave a faint smile and spoke:

“You, you’re the ‘Gilsangcheon’ of Jeong Jaei.”

Taeui silently looked at Ilay. ‘Gilsangcheon’ of Jeong Jaeui. He hadn’t misheard. Every word, every letter was clear. But the problem was, he didn’t understand what he was talking about.

His eyes darted back and forth, trying to grasp the meaning of the statement. He tilted his head to one side, then habitually touched his finger lightly to his lips. Then, he tilted his head to the opposite side.

Though not as intelligent as Jeong Jaeui, at least he’d never been called stupid or slow…… Yet Ilay’s recent words left him completely lost.

***************************

*Casanova: typically refers to Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798), an Italian adventurer, writer, and historical figure known for his charismatic personality and numerous romantic exploits. He is often regarded as a legendary seducer and is famous for his autobiography, Histoire de ma vie (“The Story of My Life”), which provides a detailed account of his travels, romances, and adventures across Europe. => The term ‘Casanova’ has since become synonymous with a man who is a charming and prolific lover, often with connotations of being a womanizer or a playboy.