March Novel (Completed) - Chapter 115

Involuntarily, I lifted my head, then let my cheek fall back onto the pillow. It was a negligible movement, but there was no way Gi Taejeong wouldn’t have noticed. Sehwa’s eyes repeatedly traced the small shoes. He knew it was a blatant announcement that he wasn’t asleep yet, but he couldn’t stop his body from flinching.

It’s just an ornament, or maybe a toy… He tried to dismiss it belatedly, but it was futile against the conviction that already filled his mind. Even rubbing his eyes and looking again, they were indeed baby shoes.

Why did he suddenly buy something like this? As the surprise, bewilderment, and embarrassment subsided, a dark wave of questions spread like ripples.

Of course, Gi Taejeong had been buying expensive childcare equipment every day, but that wasn’t for the child’s sake. He spent money like water, burdening people without asking their opinions, so how could one interpret that as an act of cherishing the child?

But this.

Without any fancy packaging, those baby shoes Gi Taejeong brought himself, holding them in his hands…

“Go to sleep.”

It was the lowest voice he had ever heard. Not drunk on alcohol or sleep, low but precise in pronunciation, Gi Taejeong whispered for him to sleep.

Then, he stretched out his arm, touching various parts of Sehwa’s stiff body, and carefully took his hand. A small weight, a slightly warm breath, was felt above his crown. He didn’t know if Gi Taejeong was resting his chin or burying his cheek, but… he seemed to be trying to lie down and sleep, just as he always did.

“You have a check-up tomorrow morning.”

Sehwa held his breath and closed his eyes. He squeezed them so hard he thought his thin skin might stick to his eyeballs, then suddenly lifted his eyelids. At the same time, he pushed away Gi Taejeong, who was covering him like a blanket, and abruptly sat up.

“Sehwa.”

In the dim darkness, the man who was shamelessly trying to sleep beside him seemed a little surprised by the sudden action.

It was just yesterday that he had asked him to give up his parental rights. But now, as if nothing had happened, he was trying to entwine himself like a vine again, and even brought something like that…

Now sleep, sleep comfortably in my arms… Gi Taejeong’s low voice, as if pulled from his toes, and his incomprehensible actions, struck Sehwa’s heart hard.

He tried desperately not to remember. He had been trying to empty and discard everything that could be called emotion…

Gi Taejeong effortlessly pulled down the mask Sehwa had barely managed to wear. As if to say, don’t be aloof by yourself, let’s roll in this hell together, he poked at the festering emotions Sehwa had tried to ignore all along.

“What are you doing now?”

Sehwa’s hands trembled as if in a fine tremor, unbuttoning his top. No, he tried to.

“What are you trying to do?”

Gi Taejeong’s face turned pale as he grabbed Sehwa’s hands, which were flailing awkwardly, unable to move as he wished.

“Let’s do it. Sex. You like that, don’t you?”

“What?”

“If it’s not… for that, why are you, General, and I, why are we… sleeping together?”

Gi Taejeong, who had gotten up following Sehwa’s violent movements, froze at the subsequent words and just stood there. He didn’t grab his wrist and tell him to stay still, nor did he wrap his arm around his waist to tell him to just sleep. And Sehwa found Gi Taejeong acting this way even harder to bear.

“Hugging like lovers, sleeping… that’s not something we, no, someone like the General and I… can do.”

Did he think that if he brought something like that now, if he acted like he cared about the child even a little… then his feelings would change? Did he expect to be touched like before?

He hated Gi Taejeong for thinking he could appease him with baby shoes, and he was sick of himself for his heart throbbing reflexively the moment he saw that tiny thing, even though he knew it was all a trick.

“Just, do it. Don’t do something that doesn’t suit us… spread your legs, and fuck me.”

When he had hidden in Hwan 2, he was desperate to inflict even a small scratch on Gi Taejeong. But when the words he spat out became arrows and spears, piercing his own body, he even forgot his hatred. The clumsy poison he had spewed… he just swallowed it. He thought it would be better to take it inside himself and crush it all. If his insides melted away and were worn down… then perhaps he wouldn’t feel the pain.

Only then, after his mind had been a mess, his voice temporarily lost, and he had barely regained his senses, could he appear outwardly calm.

But Gi Taejeong wouldn’t even allow that. He arbitrarily stripped away the hard-won peace and turned his insides upside down in an unexpected way.

“Don’t do this.”

“Let’s do it, why aren’t you?”

A button on the very top of Sehwa’s hospital gown ripped off due to his violent struggles.

“Don’t do this, Sehwa.”

Hesitating, Gi Taejeong finally embraced Sehwa. He tucked Sehwa’s arms under his armpits and carefully wrapped his side and back, preventing him from using his hands freely. Sehwa, momentarily speechless by the heavy embrace, soon panted and shook his head.

“Why, why aren’t you…?”

“I bought them a long time ago, I thought you’d like them if you saw them.”

“……”

“But I was short-sighted.”

A deep sigh was embedded in the man’s scattered words.

Sehwa’s eyes, which had been devoid of luster like a stone with its surface completely worn away, gradually became moist. His heart, which he thought had already been crushed, throbbed again as if stepped on.

“…General, you truly… know nothing.”

How much he had agonized before admitting he liked him, what feelings he had when he thought of drugging him and leaving, and how much more when he asked him to give up parental rights in front of the protection room yesterday…

“Even now, you’re acting, General, as you please. Is it good to care for someone as you feel like it? Does that solve everything?”

In the lightless night, Gi Taejeong’s expression wasn’t clearly discernible. The deep shadows cast by his high nose bridge made it even harder to identify, but Sehwa knew he kept moving his lips.

“Then… will everything be as if it never happened?”

“…Yes, I don’t know anything. So you tell me.”

“……”

“I’ll fix it, no, I will fix it. Everything, all of it.”

“……”

“If you tell me, from now on, I won’t hurt you or the child…”

His throat tingled as if thorns had grown. Sehwa, who had been panting with short, sharp breaths, struggled again. His body, which seemed unyielding, was surprisingly easily pushed away.

“Ah, ugh, ugh…”

Sehwa let out strange, choking breaths, neither a cry nor a retch, and sprang out of bed. Then, like a weak animal looking for a place to die, he stumbled towards the table.

“Who, this… this thing…”

He snatched the object Gi Taejeong had placed on the table. He tried to grip it roughly, as if to tear it away, but he couldn’t put any strength into his hands, even if he wanted to act out.

“This thing…”

He wanted to throw it hard at Gi Taejeong, telling him to take it back because he didn’t need such a thing. He wanted to scream that it was his child, and he would never let Saessak wear it, even if Gi Taejeong bought a hundred of them. He wanted to rage, telling him never to stir people up like this again. But…

“This thing…”

Sehwa lifted his barely moving arm high. Gi Taejeong remained on the bed like a still life. So he could just throw it. Then… it would be…

“Who… this, thing…”

Like a drained robot, Sehwa’s hand dropped with a thud. The chestnut-sized shoe fell silently to the floor.

…He couldn’t bring himself to throw it. The shoe in his hand was too… tiny. Tiny, yet also large.

Saessak was still in the incubator. It would be a long time before he came out, and even longer before he could wear shoes for walking practice, so it was still far off.

But this shoe looked like it could only be worn after a year or so. Gi Taejeong, who had no interest in a newborn’s development and didn’t know anything about it, had just casually bought baby shoes, thinking Sehwa would like them, which was absurd, and…

His stomach churned as he felt the traces of long-term handling on various parts of the shoe he had gripped. The flimsy decorations, the plump interior with fingerprints… On the tiny shoe brought by the man who had threatened to throw the child into Hwan 4 if he dared to die, there were countless textures that couldn’t have formed from just a day or two of handling.

A brief silence fell, followed by the rustling sound of bed sheets crumpling. Gi Taejeong, who had risen from the bed, was walking towards him. His movements were a little slower than before, perhaps due to the alcohol, which had made him reckless.

“Rest. I’ll sleep outside from now on.”

The man bent down and picked up the baby shoe that had fallen to the floor.

“And this…”

Gi Taejeong brushed his thumb over the toe of the shoe, then briefly looked around the bedroom.

That was all. He thought he would add some explanation, but Gi Taejeong slowly turned around without any excuses.

It was a little while after Gi Taejeong was out of sight that the door closed and footsteps were heard walking towards the living room. Sehwa, who had been standing rooted to the spot, collapsed as soon as the door closed, his legs giving way.

“Hmph… uh…”

Sehwa, who had been staring at the spot where the tiny shoe had rolled for a long time, curled up slightly. Tears, whose cause he couldn’t discern, poured out.

Tangled memories and all sorts of emotions converged sharply, stabbing at his heart. Thinking of the words Gi Taejeong had poured on him, the things he had done, this was nothing. He couldn’t even say he was being cold. But… what was so special about baby shoes, what was the big deal about him bringing them, that his insides kept aching? The man’s clumsy apology, long overdue and not even really an apology, struck his heart like a heavy bullet.

Tears, having lost their purpose, flowed endlessly.

Thus, a night passed where no one could sleep.