IH Ch 71

Chapter 71

Jae-i’s expression slowly stiffened. Seeing his face grow darker with every passing second, Dohwa flinched.

“……”

Dohwa unfolded himself from his defensive, knee-hugging position. He crept forward and pointed at one of the desserts topped with a large strawberry.

“Then… I’ll just eat this one.”

“……”

Even though Dohwa had expressed his willingness to eat, Jae-i’s expression remained tense. It almost felt like he was getting even scarier, so Dohwa hesitantly picked up the cake.

“This looks delicious.”

Dohwa leaned off the bed and picked up the spoon that had fallen on the floor. Holding it between his lips, he peeled off the case covering the cake. He stared at it for a moment, then cautiously offered it.

“……Wanna share?”

His pronunciation was slightly muffled because of the spoon in his mouth. There was no response. Did this deeply troubled-looking Hwang Jae-i even realize that he was only wearing a pair of sweatpants?

There was so much exposed skin it was embarrassing, but given how well-built his body was, it also looked… cool. Even so, at this moment, he was just sitting cross-legged in front of a cake.

Moving the spoon from his mouth into his hand, Dohwa murmured,

“It’s not that I meant to ignore your gesture. It’s just… we ate so much the other day that the fridge was practically empty. I thought we shouldn’t do that again…”

Of course, even then, Hwang Jae-i had eaten much more than him. It was almost ridiculous how he managed to shove such large bites into his mouth and polish them off. Maybe Jae-i had misunderstood the way Dohwa stared at him in disbelief, because he started offering bites mid-way through.

The food was great while it lasted, but afterward, Dohwa had panicked. Jae-i never remembered what happened at night—what if he woke up in the morning and mistakenly thought all of that had been Dohwa’s doing? Back then, they had fortunately gotten through it without incident, but there was no guarantee it would go the same this time.

Dohwa had been roused from sleep by someone shaking him. Bleary-eyed and still half-asleep, he sat up. When he looked down, he saw all kinds of desserts and cakes laid out before him. There wasn’t even time to ask what was going on before Jae-i spread his arms proudly and offered him a cake.

Flustered, Dohwa asked if he’d brought all this for him to eat, but Jae-i gave no reply. Just smiling, endlessly. Then Dohwa noticed that the door behind Jae-i was wide open—and his expression turned serious. This wasn’t normal. Normally, Jae-i couldn’t enter the room unless Dohwa opened the door for him…

That’s when Jae-i abruptly pushed the cake and spoon toward Dohwa’s face. Startled, Dohwa refused several times, but Jae-i wouldn’t give up. The whole situation felt strange and unfamiliar, and before he knew it, he’d pushed the spoon away. It flew out of his hand, hit Jae-i in the head, and clattered to the floor.

“……”

Dohwa set down the cake and spoon. Then he knelt and reached out toward Jae-i’s head. Jae-i immediately pulled back with a stiff face. But once he dodged, he seemed a little flustered. Seeing the flicker in his eyes, Dohwa extended both arms.

Jae-i hesitated as the hands came toward him, but didn’t shy away this time. Dohwa’s hand reached Jae-i’s head. At first, he gently stroked it, then pressed down lightly with his fingertips.

“Did it hurt?”

“……”

Jae-i opened his mouth, incredulous at the ridiculous question, but couldn’t say anything.

“I didn’t mean to do it. You kept pushing the spoon at me, so I tried to push it away and…”

Saying it had just happened like that, Dohwa gently massaged and patted the area where the spoon had hit. Gradually, Jae-i’s expression began to soften. But only briefly—then he frowned and abruptly stood up from the bed.

“Where are you going?”

Dohwa asked, startled, but Jae-i didn’t answer. He left the room and went to the living room, burying his face in his hands.

Alright, let’s try to figure out exactly what happened. Maybe if I concentrate, something will come back. But nothing did—and that emptiness felt crushingly hopeless.

Suddenly, the memory of a man pointing a finger at him and spewing resentment came to mind.

“You exist because of me! If I hadn’t taken in you and your crazy mother, do you think you’d even be alive right now?! That woman was insane from the start! She couldn’t even recognize her own child—she tried to kill you! If I hadn’t run in and stopped her, you would’ve died too! You ungrateful bastard! You must’ve inherited that lunatic’s blood! You’re probably messed up in the head too! How long do you think you can hide it?! One day it’ll all come out, and when it does, you’ll know exactly how miserable I feel!”

Who the hell do you think you’re throwing out? Do you even know who I am?

That man had repeated the same things over and over, and in the end, what he left behind was a curse—a brand meant to haunt him. That one day, Hwang Jae-i would end up just as miserable as “that woman.”

But at the time, Jae-i was thinking something else entirely.

If I have that bastard’s blood in me… does that mean I’ll become someone like him too? From the moment that thought crossed his mind, Jae-i had never been able to like himself again, no matter what he did.

“……”

These were thoughts he had never shared with anyone before. Digging them up now brought unbearable pain. Letting out a shallow groan, Jae-i hunched over—and just before he collapsed entirely, a gentle hand touched his back.

“Jae-i.”

Another hand grasped the firm wrist that had been covering his face. Then, it began to pat his back. The touch was clumsy, but it felt like an attempt to do something. The hand moved in large circles over his back. That clumsy comfort made something churn inside Jae-i. Strangely, it made him want to say something he had never told anyone before.

“My mom tried to kill me.”

“……”

“At first… I thought she was trying to hug me. But she wasn’t. She… she was…”

The hand over his face trembled uncontrollably.

That man had appeared then. He’d been gone for ages, only to show up at the worst possible time. He’d forced the woman off of him, and in that fleeting moment, Jae-i had seen her face. The dull, lifeless look in her eyes had suddenly sharpened, and she flinched.

As if realizing what she had tried to do, she looked completely shocked. She reached toward him, seemingly wanting to pull him into an embrace—but she never made it. She was dragged away by force, and that was the last time he saw her. He never got to see her again.

It had been such a traumatic experience for a child that his mind had erased it. But while under the care and guidance of his aunt, Hwang Suhyeon, the memory suddenly resurfaced.

He remembered what his mother had tried to do to him.

He wondered what that man had done after dragging her away.

He snuck off to meet the man, but never got the answers he wanted. Instead, a photo of them together was taken and used to spin a story about a close father-son relationship. He had merely been used to polish the man’s image. From that point on, a slow-burning rage began to fester inside him. Hwang Suhyeon tried to help, but it wasn’t enough.

As the youngest S-rank awakened in Korea, Jae-i was constantly surrounded by people. Most of them just wanted to use him. Only Hwang Suhyeon genuinely worried about him. Knowing that, young Jae-i decided to hide his inner turmoil. He figured there was no point in making her worry about something that couldn’t be resolved.

Revealing his inner thoughts would only make them a weakness. So he kept hiding everything—but maybe that wasn’t the right way either. Maybe it had just rotted him from the inside out. After suppressing it for so long, it began to leak through, manifesting in his behavior. Arrogant, annoying, rude brat. If he could, he would’ve punched himself—but he couldn’t. He was an S-rank.

The flood of negative opinions that followed him wherever he went—none of it felt good, even for Hwang Jae-i. But it didn’t hurt him either.

Those people wouldn’t dare say a word to his face anyway. Their chatter wasn’t worth paying attention to. He didn’t want to correct his behavior just because of what others said. If he started censoring himself, he really wouldn’t last much longer.

“That’s why I’ve been living alone. I stay locked up in this huge building so no one will notice how broken I am. I don’t want anyone to know this part of me.”

Whenever someone shoved a camera in his face and said, “Please tell us the truth!”, all he wanted was to smash that damned skull. Not the camera—the skull holding it. If he put his mind to it, he could easily shatter them—

“You can’t do that. You’ll go to prison.”

“……”

At that starkly rational and cold statement, Jae-i paused.

He had just poured out feelings he’d never shared with anyone before. And this was the response he got? Wait—had he just blurted out everything that had only ever existed in his head until now? Jae-i lifted his head to look at Dohwa.

Somehow, the two of them had ended up sitting side-by-side on the sofa. Jae-i’s hair was a mess from all the times he’d clutched at it during the long confession. His eyes were clearer and sharper than usual.

Whether that meant anything or not, Dohwa reached out and started fixing Jae-i’s hair. He kept touching it this way and that, but it wasn’t going particularly well.