Chapter 104: Aftertaste of Kindness

It tasted so bad.

It tasted so bad that it would be impossible to count how many times he had thought it was disgustingly bitter, even as he made sure to take it every single day.

He usually received an excess of vitamins, herbal medicine, and health foods said to be good for the body, but he was never the type to enjoy such things in the first place.

Even so, the reason he kept taking it every day was because the image of Choi Han-geon’s faintly flushed face, warming it in a cup before bringing it to him, kept coming back to mind.

‘You said your head’s been hurting a lot lately.

You haven’t been able to sleep either… so I tried making it once.’

Because Han-geon knew how much Eun-gyeol disliked things like that, he must have already steeled himself for rejection.

And yet, despite hesitating so much, he still warmed the herbal medicine and handed it over.

Because Eun-gyeol knew that kind of sincerity from Choi Han-geon, he could not bring himself to refuse him all the way through.

Later, after returning home and searching the name of the clinic written on the box, he found that it was an extremely famous place, and therefore very expensive.

Once he learned the price, anger surged up inside him, but that only made it even harder to throw it away.

He forced himself to gulp down one packet a day of something that tasted awful, and now there were only two or three packets left.

With his eyes fixed on the herbal medicine box, every step he took was painful.

It felt as though he was stepping not on the floor, but on his own heart.

Feeling a dull ache spread through his chest, Eun-gyeol reached out toward the box.

With trembling fingers, he gently stroked the medicine that no longer retained even the slightest warmth.

He forgot in that moment that he had been about to leave the room and stood there, staring at it vacantly.

As if traces of Choi Han-geon still clung to it.

Each time he touched the cold medicine, a longing for something he had already lost, something he could never have, surged up distantly like a rising tide.

Fearing that he might drown himself in those swelling emotions, he forced his tightly shut eyes open.

Indulging in sentiment like this was a luxury.

There was no time for this.

Even if it killed him, he had to go find the person he could not afford to lose like this.

As he hurriedly scooped up the herbal medicine packets with shaking hands, he knocked the box over with a dull thud.

At that moment, something unfamiliar caught Eun-gyeol’s eye.

When he saw the back of the box, Eun-gyeol froze completely, every movement stopping dead.

It was something he had failed to notice until now, even though he had taken the medicine out and drunk it every day.

[Even though it’s really bitter, make sure you take it for your health.

When you finish it all, I’ll make more for you.]

The moment he saw Han-geon’s handwriting, pressed down firmly and written with care on the yellow Post-it note… Eun-gyeol collapsed.

Han-geon’s faded affection poured down over Eun-gyeol like a meteor shower.

The knees that had arrogantly supported his body until then finally lost their strength and sank helplessly to the floor.

Faced with longing and despair too immense to bear, Eun-gyeol did not know what to do.

As the traces of Han-geon’s kindness battered his body, he could only break apart helplessly and miserably.

He wanted to go back to that moment.

To the time when he accepted such enormous affection as something only natural.

But he could not.

He simply could not endure that fact.

“Haah… ngh…”

Tears overflowed and soaked his face.

It was the first time Han-geon’s kindness had felt so heavy and frightening.

The consideration Han-geon had left behind for him had now become the only keepsake Eun-gyeol possessed.

Like air that came without effort, like each day that arrived without fail.

That was how unremarkable Han-geon’s feelings had seemed.

His affection being directed toward him felt so natural, so absolute, like an unchanging law.

And so Eun-gyeol lived while treating Han-geon’s feelings lightly.

He believed it was something he could receive in abundance whenever he wanted.

Only now, after losing everything, did he finally understand.

He finally understood what meaning that love—so common, so naturally given—had held for him.

With not even a single shred of Choi Han-geon’s kindness left for him to hold in his chest, Eun-gyeol could not breathe.

When he thought about how long the days he would have to endure without Choi Han-geon might continue, the only emotion that rose up was fear.

It felt as though someone had set fire to his chest.

The searing pain vividly tore through his skin.

Tears spilled endlessly, making it difficult to even see ahead.

Clutching his chest, Eun-gyeol rolled across the floor and groaned.

Did he hurt like this too.

Choi Han-geon… did he hurt like this as well.

He wanted to ask.

The emotion Eun-gyeol realized for the first time the moment Choi Han-geon turned his back on him was more terrifying and overwhelming than anything he had ever experienced in his life.

Was this the love Choi Han-geon had borne alone all this time.

Something so painful, so lonely, and so agonizing, he had endured by himself for all those long years……

Eun-gyeol could not even begin to fathom it.

What kind of heart Han-geon must have had as he stayed by his side all that time.

He was someone who was terrible at pretending nothing was wrong.

Even as his ears and the base of his neck burned bright red, Han-geon had tried his best to hide it, afraid of being misunderstood.

‘Go back.

I don’t want to see your face anymore.

Go back, I said!’

And yet, in the end, Choi Han-geon—who had liked him so much—had shouted in fury.

He had glared at him with eyes filled with revulsion, as though looking at the filthiest thing in the world.

He had cried out that before anything else, Eun-gyeol should have offered a sincere apology.

Never before had resentment burned so vividly alive in his eyes.

In that moment, Eun-gyeol thought he could do anything Han-geon wanted.

A sincere apology.

Something like that, he could give it as much as needed.

If only he could go back together with Choi Han-geon.

But in truth, Eun-gyeol’s feelings at the time were closer to frustration at choosing the wrong answer than to remorse.

The emptiness, helplessness, and vast despair of losing Choi Han-geon once again right before his eyes filled his heart completely, and so he did not even know what he was supposed to apologize sincerely for.

Now, however, as he stared at the kindness Han-geon had pressed down and written so carefully, the scenes of how he had treated Han-geon replayed before Eun-gyeol’s eyes like a vivid panorama.

Cruelly vivid.

Unmistakably clear.

‘We’re friends.

He’s my manager.’

‘Just because we have s*x doesn’t mean we’re dating.’

‘I like that you’re a beta.

There’s no need to worry about pregnancy.’

He had said those words while looking straight into Han-geon’s eyes.

Even as he watched Han-geon crumble and ache beyond those pupils, he hammered nails into his heart one by one with deliberate cruelty.

He drew a line that could never be crossed, yet if Han-geon did not come right up to that boundary, he would call him there himself.

He constantly pushed, tempered, tempted, and whipped him into always placing himself first.

Choi Han-geon was tossed back and forth by those schemes to an almost laughable degree.

Yes, laughably so.

He was easy.

Eun-gyeol enjoyed the sight of Han-geon wagging his tail and running over the moment he so much as lifted a finger.

He found it pretty how Han-geon never gave up on his feelings, even spreading his legs without hesitation in miserable situations.

He loved how Han-geon gave him everything while remaining endlessly soft only toward him……

And so he plunged his fist into the wounds in Han-geon’s chest and tore his heart out mercilessly.

A handful, and then another handful.

Because he wanted to possess Han-geon even more completely, even though he was already entirely within his grasp.

Consumed by the act of possessing him, he did not hear the screams Han-geon let out as he hurt so badly.

No—he heard them, and pretended not to.

Only now did Eun-gyeol feel as though he understood, however faintly, what kind of heart Choi Han-geon had when he demanded an apology.

What Han-geon had desperately asked for while crying was nothing more than an apology, but now that he had lost him, Eun-gyeol could no longer attach the word “nothing” to it.

Had Han-geon hurt this much too.

No, Eun-gyeol could not even dare to measure his pain.

His own wound was fresh and still this raw and agonizing, yet Han-geon’s wounds must have spent seventeen years bleeding and oozing until they festered and rotted away.

Eun-gyeol had thought that as long as he could keep Han-geon by his side, the method did not matter.

Without knowing how much pain Han-geon was in, he had simply thought that since Han-geon liked him, it would be fine.

And so he never considered it.

That a day like this would eventually come.

That Han-geon’s love was finite, and that one day, it would reach its end.

No.

For seventeen years, Han-geon had steadfastly loved him.

If Eun-gyeol had not treated him so cruelly, then would Han-geon still have loved him with the same unwavering kindness even now…..

…..

There was no way to deny it.

The certainty that it would have been so completely destroyed Eun-gyeol.

In the end, it was Eun-gyeol himself who let Choi Han-geon go.

With his own hands, not anyone else’s, he pushed him away.

He drove out a stubborn, blindly devoted man who had struggled desperately not to leave for so long.

The one who scattered dirt in the face of Han-geon as he clung to the cliff, staring at him in desperation, and crushed his fingers until he finally fell was none other than Eun-gyeol himself.

And then……

Only now did he learn the truth that as Han-geon plunged down that cliff, he had been carrying Eun-gyeol’s child.

Only now.

“Huuh… haha, ha…”

A broken laugh leaked out of him like that of a madman.

Still on his knees, Eun-gyeol bent forward until his forehead pressed against the floor, where tears had pooled into a small puddle.

His broad back trembled with spasmodic laughter.

His quivering fists grasped at nothing but empty air, again and again.