“Have you ever met the CEO?”

“More like that guy came looking for me. Maybe it was a coincidence... but that’s what it looked like to me.”

Haejun desperately wanted to know when they had met and what they had talked about. But he couldn’t bring himself to pry. No Eunjae’s confident attitude and the certainty in his eyes scared him. Just what kind of conversation had they had for him to declare so firmly that Lee Kangjoo didn’t like him?

“I’m a fucking coward, so this is as far as I can go. It pisses me off, but I don’t even have the ability to help you, hyung.”

“......”

“But hyung, even from my perspective, that guy isn’t it. No matter if you sell your body... you shouldn’t let someone treat you like a toy.”

“What the hell do you know.”

Haejun finally answered after listening in silence. His tone was slow and sharp, like it was covered in thorns.

The more he listened, the more Eunjae seemed determined to cross the line. Yohan was one thing—they had years together, and as a friend he worried about him. But Haejun and No Eunjae weren’t close enough for that. There had been a time he’d believed they were good brothers, but now he felt embarrassed he’d ever mistaken it for that, even for a moment.

“You’re crossing the line.”

“See? There it is again— that look...!”

Haejun stared at No Eunjae coldly. It irritated him to hear someone who didn’t even know the whole story spouting off like that. The pleasure he’d felt from meeting him again vanished completely.

His face stiffened as he turned his gaze toward the distant road. A taxi with its vacant sign on was approaching just then, so he stretched out his arm to flag it down. He didn’t want No Eunjae’s help in the slightest.

“Hyung, wait a second. Don’t get mad—listen to me. I know this is none of my business. But...!”

The taxi stopped smoothly in front of Haejun. He opened the door and shoved the sprawled-out Yohan into the back seat first. As he was about to climb in after him, No Eunjae grabbed his forearm.

“Do you know what that guy introduced himself as to me?”

“I said I don’t want to hear it, so shut your—”

“—He said he was Cha Haejun’s customer. Like you were completely... treated that way.”

Before Haejun could finish his sentence, No Eunjae blurted out the final words that had been left on the floor. As if he’d sensed that the moment he let go, Haejun would cut ties with him entirely.

“Well? You getting in or not?”

The taxi driver’s rough shout split the two of them apart. Haejun had no intention of listening to any more of Eunjae’s nonsense, so he shook off the hand gripping him and climbed into the car.

Once the taxi started moving, No Eunjae’s reflection in the rearview mirror slowly grew smaller. Only after the car rounded a corner and the figure disappeared did Haejun finally relax the stiffness in his body and lean back against the seat.

The alcohol he’d been holding back surged up all at once, making his vision spin. The driver’s rough driving didn’t help either, so he pressed both hands against his face, trying to hold back the nausea.

“......”

He’d grabbed Yohan and poured out the emotions bottled up inside him because he couldn’t keep them down alone. He never expected No Eunjae to throw ashes on top of it. That serious expression—without even a trace of a lie—burned itself deep into Haejun’s mind.

The word Eunjae had left out was probably “male prostitute.” He must have deliberately erased it so the driver wouldn’t hear.

It was nothing more and nothing less than the truth, so it shouldn’t have bothered him. But his chest and the pit of his stomach stung, like he’d been pricked with a safety pin.

‘Guess he doesn’t cherish you that much.’

The man’s face, wearing a thick sneer, flickered in his mind. Haejun squeezed his eyes shut tightly, hoping to wipe away the afterimage. While he was at it, he wished the thoughts muddling his head would disappear along with it.

* * *

“They say when you fall in love you stop seeing things you should see. That’s the number one reason people turn into idiots. The guys I know—once they get a woman they like, every single one of them turns fucking loose in the head. How the hell are you exactly the same?”

The day after drinking, Yohan muttered gloomily with his face buried in a bowl of hangover soup. He kept glancing up at Haejun with eyes full of things he clearly wanted to say, but knowing nothing would get through, he let out a sigh like he was about to puke up his guts and finished his soup.

“They say your brain turns into a flower garden.”

“This’ll pass. It won’t last long.”

Haejun said it mostly to reassure Yohan, though he wasn’t sure himself. Yohan’s face twisted into a deep scowl.

“...Try not to talk if you can. It’s making my head explode.”

Haejun laughed awkwardly. He tried to buy lunch out of guilt, but Yohan smacked the back of his hand mercilessly. He barked at him, saying he’d already paid for the drinks yesterday and what the hell did he think he was doing trying to spend more money.

“Don’t spend a fucking dime until you squeeze some gold out of that bastard. I’m not accepting anything less than a gold bar.”

Even after doing all that for Haejun, his irritation still hadn’t cooled down. Yohan kicked up dust as he left the restaurant, not even sparing enough time for a cigarette.

They say ignorance is bliss. It felt like a proverb made specifically for him. Haejun had never realized the difference between knowing and not knowing could be this huge.

Neither Yohan’s nagging nor No Eunjae’s meddling had any effect. The man’s words—about how Kangjoo didn’t seem to cherish him that much—had stuck in his chest for a while, but even that faded as time passed.

He was like a motorcycle with broken brakes. He’d already been crazy about him before, but now it had gotten even worse.

After confiding in Yohan—more precisely, after realizing that what he felt for Lee Kangjoo wasn’t just “liking” him but something beyond that—everything started racing toward the extreme.

Just hearing Kangjoo’s voice over the phone made his heart feel like it might leap straight out of his mouth. He kept coming up with all sorts of excuses to stretch out their calls because he didn’t want to hang up yet. And whenever Kangjoo stopped by the house, the words telling him to stay the night came out before even a greeting. It was a terminal case if there ever was one.

He tried to hold back in his own way, worried it might be rude to keep a busy man tied down. He’d tried to swallow his disappointment and see Kangjoo off politely.

But the fingers clutching at Kangjoo’s sleeve refused to open, as if they knew their owner’s real feelings. There were even times he fidgeted and stalled until Kangjoo looked at him, only then jerking his hand away in surprise.

Still, Kangjoo indulged Haejun’s requests more often than before. He stayed at the house when Haejun asked him to, lying down in the same bed with his eyes closed. On the rare nights Kangjoo fell asleep first, Haejun would pinch his own thigh to keep from dozing off and quietly admire his sleeping face for a long time.

Just last night, Kangjoo had been beside him too. He’d left early at dawn, but spending the long night together had made Haejun unbearably happy.

His life drowning under loan shark interest hadn’t changed at all. But sometimes the words slipped out of his mouth anyway.

This isn’t such a bad life, is it?

Yohan had been right about his brain turning into a flower garden. It felt like someone had taken his brain out and filled the empty space with flower seeds.

These days he found himself grinning even at something as simple as a leaf rolling down the street. Smiling at this, smiling at that, until the delivery company boss even snapped at him, asking if he’d gotten wind in his lungs.

Even now it was the same. Just thinking about Lee Kangjoo made him smile. There was nothing he could do about it, so Haejun bit down on his lip and headed out to work.

He stopped by the office to greet the boss and then went outside to get his motorcycle. As he stretched and took in the crisp air, his eyes caught a man crouched over there, fiddling with a bike. It was another rider he’d gotten acquainted with over the past few days.

“Hyung, what are you doing over there?”

“Ah, this thing’s acting weird.”

The coworker clicked the brake lever in his hand a few times before smacking his lips. Remembering something, Haejun pressed the brake on the bike he was supposed to ride today.

Now that he thought about it, every time he stopped at a signal lately he’d heard a metallic squeal, and the stopping distance had been strangely long. He’d gone to a repair shop after that, but they’d only told him it was still fine to ride.

He’d considered switching to another bike, but their conditions were all about the same. The boss had been chain-smoking recently, complaining that business had dropped since a competing delivery company opened nearby. If Haejun asked him to replace the brake pads, he’d probably start swearing with that gloomy face of his.

“Isn’t there anything better than this one?”

Even in a scrapyard you could usually find at least one usable vehicle, so he looked around for a bike that seemed intact. But the man shook his head as if it was pointless.

“They’re all the same. If someone gets into an accident like this, what then? Even if insurance covers it, the boss would still take a loss.”

They’d been whispering, so there was no way the boss should have heard them—but the office sliding door suddenly rattled open. As if he couldn’t stand it, the boss stuck his head out and glanced between the two of them. He folded his arms, glaring as if annoyed they were loitering outside instead of working.

“Your asses glued to the ground or what? Why aren’t you out yet?”

“The brake pad on this thing feels weird. I think it needs another inspection...”

“It already got checked last week. What’re you talking about?”

“Ah, come on. That repair shop guy always half-asses things. It squeals every time you hit the brakes. It’s time to change the pads.”

Other repair shops tried to replace even perfectly good parts, but the one the boss had a contract with was unbelievably lazy. According to his coworker, it was obviously because the cheap bastard boss didn’t pay them properly. Honestly, it sounded like a pretty reasonable suspicion.

“How many kilometers you put on it?”

“About a hundred thousand?”

“You can ride another fifty thousand. Stop whining.”

The boss waved his hand dismissively. He clearly had no intention of spending any more money at the repair shop. The coworker frowned but eventually shrugged and climbed onto the bike.

“And what’re you standing there staring for? Planning to dig your grave here?”

The tone was slow, but the meaning was clearly a scolding. Haejun, who’d been fiddling around pretending to be busy, quickly hopped onto his seat before the sparks reached him too. After saying he’d be back, he sped off from the shop in a hurry.