Come Back

“Who is it?”

The voice from outside the door seemed hesitant, as if the visitor was caught off guard. After a brief pause, a simple answer came.

“It’s Lee Hye-seong.”

Ga-yoon shrugged and looked back at Choi Hong-seo. Then she leaned toward the door and raised her voice.

“I think you’ve got the wrong house. This is the 5th floor.”

“Unnie.”

“Huh?”

“It’s not a mistake. He’s someone I know.”

“Someone you know?”

Despite her confusion, Ga-yoon opened the door. Lee Hye-seong, tall and wearing a long autumn coat, slowly appeared in the crack of the door. Ga-yoon, startled, took a step back, and instinctively tilted her head back to fully see his face.

Lee Hye-seong, who had not expected to see Ga-yoon there, looked down at her before speaking.

“I was hoping to see Choi Hong-seo.”

Seeing Choi Hong-seo standing behind Ga-yoon, he paused. Then, he addressed Choi Hong-seo directly.

“I heard you’re very sick.”

His expression seemed even more pained than the words themselves.

Lee Hye-seong, ignoring Ga-yoon, walked swiftly into the foyer and approached Choi Hong-seo, who was standing near the divider. He set down the black bag he was holding and without hesitation placed his hand on Choi Hong-seo’s face.

“You should be lying down with a fever this high.”

He checked Choi Hong-seo’s temperature, moving his hand from her cheeks to her forehead and the back of her neck. Although Ga-yoon was present, he seemed completely uninterested in her. It was clear that he would have done the same even if it hadn’t been Ga-yoon. Meanwhile, Ga-yoon stood aside, staring intently at Lee Hye-seong’s profile.

“Did you go to the hospital?”

“I did… hmm, yes. I got a shot and took the prescribed medicine.”

Choi Hong-seo answered while trying to ease her sore throat, gently pulling down his wrist.

Ga-yoon couldn’t possibly fail to recognize Lee Hye-seong of ARA. She was very interested in stock investments and economic news, and even someone who wasn’t interested in business would find it hard not to know Lee Hye-seong if they were Korean. However, it took her a moment to reconcile the news image of Lee Hye-seong with the reality standing before her.

“Where have I seen him before… who is this?”

Her expression slowly shifted from confusion to shock as she stared closely at Lee Hye-seong’s profile.

“I heard you were alone, so I brought some soup…”

Lee Hye-seong, interrupted while touching her face, turned to Ga-yoon and gave a slight nod.

“She’s… my stylist. She was just about to leave because there were some things to check with the outfit.”

Ga-yoon’s eyes darted between Lee Hye-seong and Choi Hong-seo, as her thoughts raced.

“Unnie… well, I guess, take care.”

“Ah? Oh… okay. Rest well.”

Ga-yoon, who exchanged a brief, wordless glance with Lee Hye-seong, quickly left through the door. Her face was full of surprise and confusion, but Ga-yoon wasn’t the type to spread rumors. Even if rumors circulated, not all of them would turn into gossip or make headlines. There were countless stories in the entertainment industry and business circles that the public never got to hear.

Ga-yoon’s presence wasn’t an issue when Lee Hye-seong appeared. The attention that Lee Hye-seong of ARA attracted was a bit overwhelming, but since they were both the same gender, no one would immediately jump to conclusions about a romantic relationship.

It was simply awkward and embarrassing. She had no idea how to present her real relationship with Lee Hye-seong, not as the star ARA’s Lee Hye-seong but as her boyfriend.

Once the door closed, Lee Hye-seong gently took hold of Choi Hong-seo’s fingers. Despite her standing on a step, his height still made him look down at her. She found it oddly fascinating that their eye level was now a little closer, and she kept looking into his eyes. His face was pale, and he seemed to be in more pain than before.

“Can I come in for a moment?”

Choi Hong-seo nodded and lightly tugged on his hand. Lee Hye-seong, who had slung his bag over his shoulder, followed Choi Hong-seo, looking around as if it were the first time he was seeing the inside of his own mansion.

“The room… it’s a mess.”

In front of the bedroom, as Choi Hong-seo hesitated, Lee Hye-seong came up behind her and placed his hand over hers, which was holding the doorknob.

“No matter what kind of scene is behind this door, I won’t judge. So, let’s go in and lie down, okay? You’re burning up right now.”

As his whispering voice brushed against her temples and ears, Choi Hong-seo felt a slight tremor, a tingling sensation of unease. Her shoulders flinched. It was unfamiliar to her that she was still experiencing a jolt of excitement from skinship with him, especially after having been so numb to physical sensations for so long.

She pushed the doorknob down, inviting him into the room.

“Come on. Let’s lie down first.”

Without looking around the room, Lee Hye-seong lifted the blanket and gently laid Choi Hong-seo on the bed. She had wanted to entertain him and talk since it was rare for her to be alone in the dorm, but after spending so much energy with Ga-yoon earlier, she was exhausted. As they slowly settled into the bed, Lee Hye-seong pulled the blanket up over her and brushed her hair back gently.

He looked at her with an expression that made it seem like there was no one in the world more pitiable than her. His hand, moving from her forehead to her crown, was soothing.

“How are you feeling?”

“It’s just a cold. I got a shot and took medicine, so I should be fine after some rest.”

“With a fever this high, resting for a day isn’t going to make it go away.”

Lee Hye-seong, still wearing his outer coat, carefully sat on the edge of the mattress. His hand, which had been stroking her head, slowly moved down to gently caress her cheek, his thumb brushing over her skin with a soft touch.

“I heard you were alone in the dorm, so I didn’t want to bother you, but I didn’t expect anyone to be here.”

“Unnie’s fine. She won’t spread rumors or ask unnecessary questions.”

Lee Hye-seong nodded and gave a faint smile.

“If I’d asked if I could come, Hong-seo would’ve told me not to. So I came without asking.”

“…”

“Knowing you were sick and alone in the dorm… after that, I couldn’t focus on anything. I couldn’t just leave you alone.”

She simply felt at ease when looking at him. Maybe he was such a huge presence that everything else seemed to fade into the background, hidden by his vastness. Even though she knew that this wasn’t a solution, but rather a numbness or oblivion, thoughts of Lee Seo-kyung or the past seven years couldn’t penetrate when she was under his big shoulders. Strangely enough, she felt comforted, and her anxiety diminished.

Now, more than ever, Choi Hong-seo could truly understand the cliché expression of feeling like the only two people in the world when in love.

“When I was a kid, like everyone else, I wanted to have a puppy.”

As she quietly felt the touch on her face, Choi Hong-seo listened attentively to his words.

“I know people think that I’ve lived a life where I get whatever I want, but my parents never allowed me to have a pet indoors.”

On Wikipedia, there were detailed accounts of Lee Hye-seong’s cousins, the children of Chairman Lee Woo-yeol, but there was relatively little exposure about Lee Hye-seong and his siblings. There weren’t many trivial rumors circulating about him either. That’s why the stories Lee Hye-seong told her about his own life were precious to Choi Hong-seo.

“I finally got permission to have a medium to large dog in the garden, and I brought home a puppy beagle, but of course, indoor access was strictly forbidden.”

“…”

“But the poor thing spent the whole day trembling in a corner of its little house. The employees said it was nothing, just that it was cold and nervous because it wasn’t used to the environment, and it would get better over time. But to my young eyes, it seemed serious. I couldn’t just leave the trembling puppy alone, even though they said it was fine. So, secretly, I took it into the house without my parents knowing, and without the employees seeing. At that age, doing something secretly at home was nearly impossible.”

Choi Hong-seo could easily imagine the image of young Lee Hye-seong sneaking into his large mansion with the puppy wrapped in a cashmere sweater. Just imagining that scene made her heart swell with warmth and love, though she couldn’t understand why her eyes were stinging. She blinked several times to prevent the tears from welling up.

“I brought it into my room, and it just trembled in the corner for a long time. But when I stayed close to it, kept touching it, hugging it, and petting it, after a few hours, it started sniffing around, and even licked my face while lying on the floor. It became pretty lively.”

A smile spread across his face as he reminisced. The smile was as soft as the touch that brushed across his face.

“It was as if I had saved a dying creature, and it made me so happy. But after half a day, it was found out, and I had to return it to its house.”

“Am I… like that puppy from back then?”

“Yeah, similar. I feel like I have to do something for you, and I’m anxious that something might go wrong.”

No one had ever looked at Choi Hong-seo in such a way. She was always the one who had to take responsibility, the one who had to stay strong, and the one whose tears were never allowed. No one had ever seen her as a pitiful puppy, like Lee Hye-seong did. He was really… such a strange and special man.

“What happened to that puppy?”

If it was the puppy he raised when he was young, then even if it had lived a healthy life, it wouldn’t still be alive now. Choi Hong-seo asked carefully, and his smile deepened. As they locked eyes warmly, he stroked her eyebrow.

“…It lived healthily and passed away peacefully.”

Perhaps he couldn’t bring himself to speak badly to someone who was lying sick in bed. For some reason, Choi Hong-seo instinctively felt that he was lying. But she didn’t want to press further. If he was telling a small lie to protect something, she, too, wanted to protect whatever it was that he was trying to keep safe.

He lightly tapped her cheek, stood up, and took off his outerwear, hanging it on a chair by the desk.

“I brought a few kinds of porridge with me. They’re homemade, so they should be decent.”

“How many kinds?”

“Well, I didn’t make them myself.”

He gave an apologetic look, as he wasn’t the one who made it, and grabbed the bag he had placed on the floor. Now that he mentioned it, the bag looked like an insulated food bag.

“There’s rice porridge, vegetable porridge, and if you want something savory, shrimp porridge. Want to eat after you wake up?”

“I’ll eat a little now.”

Although she had no appetite, thinking about how much effort he had put into bringing different kinds of porridge made her want to eat at least a few spoonfuls. She thought that showing him she could eat would help put his mind at ease. Slowly, Choi Hong-seo sat up.

As he left the room to fetch some water, a call came in from Jeong Ji-in. She must have heard from the manager that she needed to cancel the appointment because of her illness, and likely called out of concern.