Chapter 52: Best of Both Worlds

Lashes that had been trembling like leaves in the wind slowly lifted. When his dark pupils, hazy with lingering sleep, finally revealed themselves, Yunhwan let out a soft chuckle.

“Did you sleep well?”

Despite the fog of sleep he hadn’t quite shaken off, Seonghye’s eyes moved toward the source of the voice. As soon as his gaze met Yunhwan’s, his tightly closed lips curved into a gentle arc.

“Yes. …Good morning, Hyung.”

Seonghye pushed himself up, propping his weight on his hands behind him and tilting his head back. His body let out a silent scream of stiffness from sleeping on the floor instead of a bed, but when he leveled his head again, the smile on his face only deepened instead of showing exhaustion.

“Why did you sleep in the living room instead of your room? It must have been uncomfortable without even a pillow.”

Yunhwan, who had already stepped out, pushed the living room window open further. Sunlight flooded the house, enough to cover Seonghye’s entire body.

Seonghye leaned forward and buried his face against Yunhwan’s thigh. A muffled, half-crushed voice leaked from his lips against the fabric.

“Because it was hot.”

Seonghye exhaled a deep breath. Hidden against the fabric, his Adam’s apple bobbed heavily.

Just as Yunhwan had been surprised by Seonghye’s choice of sleeping spot, Seonghye himself was quite bewildered by it.

However, explaining the reason in detail would have been ridiculous. The scent of his own pheromones that he inhaled with every breath was thick enough to be nauseating, and his entire body still hadn’t shaken off the lingering heat from last night.

Thinking back, it had been a terrifying fever. He’d had the illusion that a fire had ignited in every corner of his body, hot enough to instantly snap his mind out of a deep sleep. His room had been too small to cool the heat, and his body had moved outside before his rational mind could even process a thought.

After that, everything was a blackout. Like a lie, he had no memory of anything following that moment. It was as if someone had completely incinerated the memories.

Opening his closed eyes slowly, Seonghye spoke.

“I came out to the living room because it got hot while I was sleeping.”

Min Seonghye figured he must have collapsed in the living room; after all, they say a person can lose consciousness if their temperature spikes suddenly.

However, the tingling sensation still lingering between his legs served as proof that the heat from yesterday hadn’t entirely faded. Even if it was just the residual warmth of burnt-out ash, heat is still heat.

Furthermore, encountering Kwon Yunhwan this early in the morning….

“Hyung.”

A low, husky voice called out to Yunhwan. It was then that Seonghye’s hand, which had been resting against the back of Yunhwan’s thigh, slid down in a smooth motion. As his soft fingers brushed against Yunhwan’s ankle beneath the hem of his pants, he found himself instinctively applying pressure with his fingertips.

“…Mm….”

His vocal cords, which had been choked by the burning embers until dawn, let out a small groan. He kept it quiet so it wouldn’t reach Yunhwan’s ears, letting it linger beneath the other man’s upper body before scattering like smoke.

When he opened his eyes again, a subtle heat swirled within his dark pupils.

Every time Seonghye inhaled, Yunhwan’s scent—floating in the air—was pulled deep into his lungs. It wasn’t the pheromone of an Omega, yet that scent always managed to violently scatter Min Seonghye’s sanity. Just like right now.

The man, who had been consuming the other with deep, long breaths, now moved his hand slowly.

His long fingers pressed against the sturdy bone structure between the calf and the ankle. The sensation of skin seeped into his fingertips. Seonghye’s gaze sank like a swamp.

The blue veins beside the ankle, the texture of the skin that reminded him of the other’s gender—every tactile sensation against his fingertips indicated that Yunhwan was just an ordinary man. He was neither an Omega nor an Alpha, belonging firmly to the category of Beta, yet he was the one and only being who anchored Min Seonghye’s hollow soul to this world.

Therefore, I am the only one in the world allowed to touch you.

As if saying those words, Seonghye’s red lips parted and closed repeatedly.

As he pressed firmly with his palm against the hollow behind the ankle, Yunhwan’s thigh tensed slightly. Seonghye exhaled a deep breath against the gray training pants. The moment he noticed the other’s fluster, a strange light flickered in Seonghye’s eyes again.

Then, he sensed it instinctively.

This is it. This is the line Kwon Yunhwan has drawn.

This was the man who had promised to no longer look for the past in front of him. While he wasn’t avoiding contact by making silly jokes like before, Yunhwan remained unchanged in his resolve to stay within his defensive wall.

Seonghye’s Adam’s apple bobbed hard.

He couldn’t afford to lose this carefully won piece of the other’s heart, so he threw cold water on his anxious mind and heated body.

Taking one last, deep breath of Yunhwan’s scent, Seonghye pulled his head away and parted his red lips.

“…I’m going to go wash up.”

The voice that squeezed through his throat was as rough as sandpaper.

Just then, a warm hand reached out to Seonghye, who had been unknowingly furrowing his brow.

“…….”

Straight fingers pushed through his black hair, where the sunlight spread like ripples, and stroked his head. The sensation of being patted on the crown of his head was as warm as the morning sun that had woken him. Seonghye raised his head to look up at Yunhwan. His eyes, fixed on the man, curved softly.

“You didn’t have any bad dreams yesterday?”

Seonghye carefully grasped Yunhwan’s wrist.

Yunhwan looked down at him and shook his head.

“No. No nightmares… and the bed was comfortable, so I slept deeply for the first time in a while.”

A satisfied smile hung on Seonghye’s lips at those words.

“It will be like that from now on.”

“…Huh?”

“Every day will be as comfortable and cozy as last night.”

He gave the wrist he was holding a sudden tug downward, and Yunhwan’s upper body lurched forward from the unexpected strength. His body, its center of gravity shifted, looked precarious—as if he might spill into Seonghye’s embrace at any moment.

Seonghye licked his dry lips with his tongue.

“Because I’m going to make it that way.”

The moment his pale hand reached out and settled on Yunhwan’s right cheek, Yunhwan’s eyes twitched. Seonghye, cupping the cheek gently in his palm, brushed his thumb under Yunhwan’s eye.

“I’ve been in a very good mood lately. Do you know why?”

“…Why?”

Yunhwan swallowed hard. Even though he tried not to pay attention to the hand cupping his right cheek, he couldn’t help it.

Whether he noticed Yunhwan’s inner turmoil or not, Seonghye, who was staring at him with a strange look, slowly parted his lips.

“Because you don’t avoid my eyes anymore, Hyung.”

His warm palm slowly rubbed the man’s cheek. Seonghye obsessively followed the ripples in the other’s pupils until he saw a massive wave rise where the ripples had faded. Finally, unable to hold it back, he burst into laughter.

The two began their day like that, earlier than usual.

[Eco-Friendly Farming for Anyone]

The gold band wrapped around the book’s cover sparkled in the sunlight. Upon closer inspection, the bold text on the gold leaf read: Selected as one of this year’s top 100 bestsellers.

Though the two had come to the hospital early in the morning for Seonghye’s treatment, Yunhwan didn’t hesitate to open the book he had brought along while they waited for the consultation. Naturally, Seonghye’s plan to have coffee with Yunhwan went up in smoke.

“Is it fun?”

“Ah, yeah.”

He answered without even making eye contact. Seonghye let out a silent laugh.

“Seems like it.”

Boredom was evident on Seonghye’s face as he leaned against the wall with his hands interlaced behind his head, but Yunhwan, absorbed in the text, couldn’t tell.

However, Min Seonghye’s attention was solely on Yunhwan. Brushing the inside of his cheek with his tongue, he pondered repeatedly how to turn the man’s gaze back toward him.

“…Hmm.”

The way Yunhwan sat with his back straight and the way his fingertips turned the pages were exceptionally careful today. Sometimes, while reading with his eyes, his closed lips would part as he read a phrase from the page out loud. Perhaps because the field had been restored, his identity as a farmer had also been revived; Yunhwan’s expression as he read the manual was nothing but deadly serious.

“Hyung.”

“Yeah?”

With the answer, a page fluttered over. In that moment, Min Seonghye realized with certainty that his current presence was more insignificant than that book. Accepting the situation, a fox-like mask settled over his ivory-toned face. It was just that easy for him to change his impression.

He unlaced his hands from behind his head and let his long lashes drop.

Then, his full lips parted, and a naive voice flowed out.

“Seeing you so caught up in that book makes me curious about something.”

The slow voice continued after a brief pause.

“Of all the things you could do, why did you decide to farm?”

The finger Yunhwan had been using to turn the page stiffened and came to a halt.

“I’m not trying to pry into your past for no reason; I’m just curious.”

“…….”

When Yunhwan finally began to focus on his words, Seonghye leaned his body forward away from the wall.

“To be honest.”

“…What?”

The moment those brown eyes entered his field of vision, he snatched them up.

“Doing penniless labor year after year isn’t something just anyone can do. You pour your attention into it every single day across four seasons, and yet it only repays you with debt? If it were me, I would have burned that field down long ago.”