DASH-Chapter 188

“Hyung, you didn’t sit in the athletes’ family section again today, did you?”

The moment they got into the taxi, Jaekyoung asked. Strictly speaking, there wasn’t a formal “athletes’ family section”—it was just the front row of the VIP seating, set aside. Jiheon had sat there on the day of Jaekyoung’s first race—unfortunately the day both the 100m freestyle and 200m backstroke were held—and ended up on camera four times. After that, he never went near it again. He always sat with the general spectators.

“You can see just fine from the regular seats.”

Jaekyoung narrowed his eyes, clearly thinking that’s not the point, but Jiheon just tapped the back of his hand and said,

“Anyway, congratulations, Mr. Olympic Five-Crown Medalist.”

Jaekyoung raised his eyebrows as if to say that’s nothing, but then belatedly clicked his tongue with a trace of regret.

“Ah, I should’ve gotten silver for today’s.”

In today’s men’s 400m freestyle relay final, the Korean team had won bronze. It was such an unexpected medal that even the Korean staff, as well as the other teams at the venue, were all exclaiming “Unbelievable!” (Though, in truth, what shocked the other teams wasn’t so much that Korea had medaled, but that one of the relay’s traditional powerhouses, France, had come in fourth.) Still, Jaekyoung seemed dissatisfied.

“Wow, you’re seriously greedy. I honestly thought a medal was out of the question.”

“Me...?”

Jaekyoung blinked like he couldn’t believe he would ever fall short. Jiheon laughed and said, “Come on, who doesn’t know how amazing you are?”

“But it’s a relay—you can’t win that alone.”

“Yeah, true.”

Even Jaekyoung nodded in agreement without argument. Then he added,

“The guys did great. Better than I expected.”

At that, Jiheon widened his eyes and stared at him. Jaekyoung noticed the look and defensively pouted, “What?”

“Wow. I seriously never thought the day would come when I’d hear you say something like that.”

He said it was more moving than the bronze medal itself, and Jaekyoung made a face like, Are you kidding me?

“No, really. Even if you’d won gold in the relay, it wouldn’t have hit me this hard.”

At that, Jaekyoung raised an eyebrow as if to say, Was it really that big a deal?

“It really is.”

Jiheon laughed and tapped the back of his hand again.

“Honestly, just the fact that you even entered a relay at the Olympics. I never thought you’d ever do a team event again.”

Back in his third year of middle school, when he first put on the national flag and entered an international competition, Jaekyoung had run the relay—only to get eliminated in the prelims. Ever since then, just hearing the word “relay” made him scowl. Jiheon used to think it was because he didn’t want to waste his time on an event with low medal potential—but now he understood.

It hadn’t been about results. Jaekyoung had hated doing something with teammates who didn’t have the same will. You could tell just by how he skipped all the group training camps, the national team dorm stays—everything. That’s how disappointed he’d been in the national team atmosphere back then.

But in preparation for this Olympics, he’d joined nearly all the national team camps. Sure, partly for the relay, but probably also because he now had juniors who worked hard, and the vibe had improved. Maybe he felt like it was doable now. And anyway, as the oldest one on the team, he probably figured he had to at least play the part, even if not perfectly. He kept insisting otherwise, but the way he treated his juniors and what he said in interviews betrayed how he really felt.

“You were amazing today. The way you brought the juniors out with you and raced like that, the way you pushed from fifth to third in the final leg—that was incredible. And when you listed something each junior did well during the interview—that was the coolest thing I’ve [N O V E L I G H T] ever seen.”

Jaekyoung had been cool the entire Olympics, but today topped it all. When Jiheon said that, Jaekyoung got bashful and deflected, “Come on... it wasn’t that big a deal. Honestly, breaking the world record was cooler. I personally think my best race this Olympics was the 200m IM!” and tried to act aloof.

But he couldn’t completely hide how pleased he was—he cleared his throat, looked out the window, then quietly slipped his hand into Jiheon’s. When Jiheon didn’t pull away, he smiled like he couldn’t help it and quickly kissed his cheek. Then, finally, like he couldn’t hold back anymore, he muttered,

“Why is this taxi so damn slow?”

“It’s normal? There’s not even traffic right now.”

“It’s practically crawling. I could run faster than this.”

The taxi was moving just fine, but he was clearly dying to get to the hotel. Jiheon knew exactly why Jaekyoung was in such a rush. There was an event he’d been planning for half a year waiting for him.

And when Jiheon thought about what would come after that event, he felt his own patience start to wear thin too. To calm himself, he gave Jaekyoung’s hand a firm squeeze, then released it, speaking in an unusually calm voice.

“Hold it in a little longer. You’ll lose your luck if you keep shaking your leg.”

Jaekyoung had been pestering Jiheon for the card key since the hotel lobby. The moment the elevator doors opened, he bolted down the hallway and unlocked the room with lightning speed. But the second he stepped inside—

“Oh.”

He stopped dead in his tracks, all that wild buffalo-like energy suddenly gone.

Even just seeing the back of his head, Jiheon could tell what face he was making. He closed the door behind them and followed him in.

“Pretty, huh?”

What had startled Jaekyoung were the bouquets scattered around the room.

“You saved all of these?”

“Of course. Why would I throw them away?”

The seven bouquets decorating the suite were the ones Jaekyoung had received at each medal ceremony. Every day after his event, he’d handed that day’s bouquet to Jiheon. And every time, Jiheon had gone straight to the hotel, filled an empty cup with water, and placed the bouquet inside. After a week of doing that, the ordinary suite had transformed into something that looked almost like a honeymoon suite.

“It’s gotta be at least this romantic if you want it to feel like a proper proposal.”

At Jiheon’s words, Jaekyoung blinked wide-eyed.

“A proposal...?”

His face said Wait, what? A proposal? Now?

Jiheon raised his eyebrows right back.

“Weren’t you in such a hurry to get here so you could propose?”

“...Huh?”

Jaekyoung blinked again, clearly not having even thought about that. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

This time, Jiheon was the one genuinely caught off guard.

So that means... really... he’d just been that excited to, well—do what people usually do in hotels? Okay, not everyone, but still...

He stared at Jaekyoung in disbelief. That’s when Jaekyoung seemed to finally understand and dropped his gaze with a low “Um.”

And then—despite Jiheon saying nothing—he suddenly burst out in frustration.

“I mean, come on! I’ve been holding back for three whole months between training camps and the Olympics!”

Jaekyoung spoke as if he’d been some chaste monk for three months straight, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Sure, there had been two training camps in the last three months—but in between? They were constantly at it. And the non-camp days far outnumbered the camp ones. Even for the Olympics, he only flew out three days before the opening ceremony. They had sex right before he left. It hadn’t even been ten days.

Some people say that once their partner gets pregnant and the belly starts to show, they stop doing it for all sorts of reasons. But Kwon Jaekyoung was not one of those people. When Jiheon’s belly just started to show, Jaekyoung had gone on and on about how adorable it was. When the bump got bigger, he said the way Jiheon cradled his belly while doing it was unbearably hot. He kept saying things like “I’m seriously gonna lose my mind.”

And Jiheon—whose libido had only grown during the second trimester (not that it had ever gone away in the first)—had also been thoroughly enjoying their sex life, so he had no intention of complaining.

But still...

“I honestly thought today was the day.”

Jiheon crossed his arms and muttered.

Jaekyoung must have taken it as a sign of disappointment, because he suddenly panicked.

“I was gonna do it the day before we left Australia! Originally, I was planning to propose at the medal ceremony, but you told me absolutely not, so I thought, okay, I’ll rent a yacht and do it at the harbor on our last day!”

He went on to explain that he’d already researched which yacht to rent. But Jiheon couldn’t even focus on that part—he’d gone pale at the realization that Jaekyoung had seriously considered proposing during a medal ceremony. Thank god he’d stopped him ahead of time.

“Did you want to be proposed to today?”

Jaekyoung asked, looking unsure of what to do.

“Well... not necessarily, but...”

Jiheon trailed off. It’s true—it didn’t have to be today. But they’d decorated the room with flowers. They were still fresh. It felt like the perfect moment to finish the event, before the petals wilted. And if they didn’t do it today, then he’d definitely have to go to the harbor and get on that yacht—and honestly, that sounded like a hassle. If he were only six months pregnant, maybe he would’ve gone along with it, thinking, Well, he put effort into this... But at eight months—nine, if you went by belly size—it was no longer “romantic.” It was just plain torture.

Most importantly, if Jaekyoung proposed today, he could wear the ring to the team press conference tomorrow.

Thinking that, Jiheon made up his mind: no matter what, the proposal had to happen today.