Passion: Diaphonic Symphonia Novel - Chapter 49

Jeong Taeui still carried a shred of unease, but compared to the anxiety he had felt on the way here, it was less than half. He pulled up a nearby chair and sat down, quietly observing them.

Let me know when you’ve decided everything. Then, after hearing that decision, I’ll make my own decision, whatever the conclusion may be, as I wish.

Jeong Taeui watched them for a moment, overlooking the fact that they were ignoring who held the right to choose in this situation, then noticed a mini-bar in the corner of the study and approached it. He pulled out a couple of cans of beer, preparing to properly watch the show this time, and returned to his chair.

Ilay stood beside Christoph, staring intently down at him. He looked as if he was pondering what to do with him, then suddenly blurted out,

“What do you like about him?”

When that question flew out, Christoph tapped his knees with his interlocked hands. He tilted his head, remaining silent for a long time, looking as if he was thinking hard but couldn’t come up with an answer.

Jeong Taeui—though he hadn’t necessarily expected an answer about what he liked—gave him a blank look.

Hey, hey, if you don’t even know that, you shouldn’t have said you liked me in the first place and confused people.

Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue and swallowed his beer. He felt Christoph’s gaze staring intently at him, as if he needed an answer.

“Well… I don’t know. Come to think of it, there’s nothing particularly likable about him, is there…?”

Along with Christoph’s answer, the half-empty beer can in Jeong Taeui’s hand crumpled.

What the hell is that guy doing? Was he just messing with me?!

Jeong Taeui felt like he had filmed a movie about his own delusions of grandeur and clicked his tongue bitterly. Even the beer tasted bitter today.

“But I feel like it might be good to be together.”

Christoph spoke slowly, a little hesitantly, as if saying, “But I’m still not sure….” His gaze flew to Jeong Taeui, who was holding the crumpled beer can to his mouth.

“If we keep living together, I think it’ll be good. I don’t know how it’ll be good, just, well. Whatever happens, it’ll be better than all these idiots swarming in Seoyik.”

It was an extremely vague answer. He didn’t know how it would be good, just that it felt like it would be good.

Jeong Taeui sipped his beer and replayed that answer in his mind.

But perhaps he understood.

Even the man standing next to Christoph, looking down at him, couldn’t say what he liked about him if asked directly.

It just feels like it would be good to live together.

Even without it, there’s no problem living life, but still, it feels like it would be good to have it.

Jeong Taeui silently looked at Ilay.

“…”

If I said that for a moment, he was like a chicken’s rib—useless to have, but missed when gone—I wouldn’t die a natural death.

However, it was truly so. Thinking about it now, belatedly, it was. Perhaps many people who live together are like that.

He could live without it. It wasn’t particularly inconvenient. But still, he thought it would be good to have it. Sometimes, having it could make him furious, but still, he thought it would be good.

“So, give him to me.”

Then, after giving that ambiguous yet somewhat understandable answer, Christoph immediately said that. His indifferent face looked as if he was about to say, “If you don’t want to, then don’t,” but he never did.

Ilay looked down at Christoph. Then, at some point, he let out a “Ha…” and chuckled.

“So, you don’t know what you like about him, but you just think it’ll be good, right?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“That’s what I thought when I first brought that guy in.”

Ilay glanced at Jeong Taeui. Jeong Taeui hummed and nodded. He had gone into it with a spirit of sacrifice, so he was just grateful that the other person thought it would simply be good.

“Do you know how much time has accumulated? Over time, I’ve put in effort, worn him down, and made him mine. Perfectly suited for me. And you covet that? You covet what’s mine? …Are you out of your mind, Christoph Tarten?”

Ilay’s voice dropped slightly.

However, Christoph, in front of him, said nothing. Nor did he flinch or show any fear. He was simply lost in thought for a moment.

“Still… I need him. I want him.”

“Christoph. You know this. To keep a person by your side, you need qualifications.”

Suddenly, his voice dropped even lower. A subtle, low voice whispered, brushing Christoph’s ear.

A fleeting, icy blankness crossed Christoph’s usually quiet and bored expression.

The hand he had placed on the couch armrest twitched for a moment, clenching and unclenching into a fist. His lips briefly closed and opened.

“Riegrow. I’m in a rare good mood today. So, it would be better to talk about such things later. This is a very rare time, very.”

A low voice muttered. The increasingly slow and low voice drew out the last word. “Ve-ry,” he said. His voice seemed to tremble slightly.

Come to think of it, Jeong Taeui thought.

He hadn’t complained about noise today.

Normally, Christoph would have been muttering, “It’s noisy,” “My ears hurt,” and clicking his tongue from the moment he woke up in the morning, as if it were a habit. There was a difference in how often he said it, but there were almost no days he didn’t say it.

But today, he hadn’t heard that. He didn’t particularly look happy, but he certainly seemed calmer than usual.

Don’t touch me. Don’t make me noisy anymore. It’s quiet for once. Don’t call those voices back.

With a voice that sounded like that, Christoph spoke to Ilay.

Ilay narrowed his eyes. As if he knew that saying just a little more would easily trigger Christoph, a faint, satisfied smile appeared around his eyes.

“Alright. Then I’ll just say one thing for now. I won’t give him to you.”

Christoph didn’t reply. Ilay continued.

“For now, let’s just observe. I don’t want to cause trouble with less than a month left. Christoph, I want to leave this place very gently after I finish my work.”

“I don’t particularly want to cause trouble with Tarten, or with you,” Ilay added, his lips curving slightly.

Jeong Taeui flattened the empty beer can and watched them.

He felt an infinitely ominous feeling, yet it seemed this situation would end smoothly without any major incident.

But at the same time, it sounded as if he couldn’t leave gently because there was an obstruction.

Jeong Taeui frowned slightly. A thick sense of unease remained, as if the underlying meaning of those words was enveloping his heart.

Ilay, who had bent slightly to bring his face closer to Christoph and spoke in a low voice, then straightened up again as if he had finished saying everything he wanted to say. And he took a step back.

“I clearly warned you beforehand. Don’t say later that you received no warning.”

Ilay turned around. Having said all he needed to say, he strode away from Christoph towards the door, then suddenly saw Jeong Taeui sitting a little distance away.

He slowed his steps slightly and looked at Jeong Taeui, then a smile suddenly appeared on his lips. It was that familiar chuckle he often gave when looking at Jeong Taeui. But soon, a chilling light mixed with that smile. A cold voice whispered one last thing.

“Christoph. If you covet what you shouldn’t, you’ll only suffer. It’s not something a fool who doesn’t even know pain and can’t laugh can desire.”

The last words were particularly sharp.

At that low, yet clear, statement, Jeong Taeui’s chest grew cold.

It was a clear warning. From Ilay to Christoph.

Ilay headed for the door again. As he passed Jeong Taeui, he left a very generous remark: “Comfort him well, then return to your room.”

He was looking in the mirror.

He didn’t know how long he had been standing in front of the mirror.

It was a morning on a day without other schedules—a morning closer to noon for others—when Jeong Taeui went to Christoph’s room to wake him up.

Unless it was a day he taught children, Christoph almost never woke up until Jeong Taeui came to his room. He always struggled to get up, even when the sun was high in the sky. As soon as he opened his eyes, he would furrow his brow and groan, “I can’t open my eyes,” and then habitually start his day by muttering, “It’s noisy,” and “My head hurts.”

However, that day, when Jeong Taeui, who lived a moderately similar life to others, spending a leisurely morning without demanding superiors, went to his bedroom at a similar time to others, he was already awake.

He hadn’t changed out of his pajamas yet, so it seemed he had only recently woken up. While not exactly a quirk, one of his habits that Jeong Taeui, who lived a reasonably conventional life, couldn’t understand was his strict adherence to dress codes.

Normally, everyday clothes, sportswear for exercise, and pajamas for sleeping were similar to others, but he had to precisely match the situation to the clothes he was wearing.

In the morning, after getting out of bed and going to the bathroom, he would always change his clothes first. Even if he had a few tens of minutes of free time before leaving the room and it was inconvenient to change into outdoor clothes beforehand, he wouldn’t walk around in his pajamas after washing. He would rather change into indoor clothes and then change back into outdoor clothes a short while later; he was meticulous about matching his clothes to the situation.

This guy really has all sorts of mental illnesses: contact aversion, OCD, personality disorder, etc…

Thinking that, he had nevertheless grown accustomed to it from living with him.

Jeong Taeui was surprised to find Christoph already awake when he entered the room, but he seemed to have just gotten out of bed. He was still in his pajamas. Now that he looked, his hair was also disheveled.

Whether his hair was a bird’s nest or he was wearing cat-patterned pajamas at his age—perhaps he always quickly changed out of his pajamas because he didn’t want to show that appearance to others—he thought that people with good looks certainly had an advantage.

Christoph stared intently at the mirror, motionless.

Standing in front of the half-length mirror hung on the wall, he didn’t even turn his head, watching Jeong Taeui enter the room through the reflection in the mirror.

Because he was staring so intently, Jeong Taeui initially thought there was a bug on the mirror.

“What’s wrong?”

He walked closer, but all that was reflected in the mirror and what Christoph was looking at was Christoph himself.

When Jeong Taeui approached and was reflected in the mirror, Christoph briefly looked at him but soon ignored him and looked back at himself. Jeong Taeui silently watched him from the side.

Watching a person who looked like a sculpture stare so eagerly at his own reflection in the mirror, barely blinking, made Jeong Taeui feel like he should put daffodils in the vase below.

Is this guy going to add narcissism to his list of mental illnesses now?

Observing this strange behavior that he hadn’t seen before with interest, Jeong Taeui asked him,

“Did you suddenly fall in love with your own face?”

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

Christoph muttered indifferently.

Even Jeong Taeui thought Christoph wasn’t the type to fall in love with his own face. He had never shown such a tendency before.

He thought it wouldn’t be strange if he had suddenly fallen into narcissism this morning, given that face, but seeing him flatly call it nonsense, that wasn’t it either.

“Are you perhaps thinking of fixing something because you don’t like your face…?”

“If you’re just going to keep saying foolish things, get out. You’re distracting. My ears are already killing me.”

Christoph irritably cut Jeong Taeui off before he could even finish his sentence.

Jeong Taeui, looking at him with suspicion, wondering if this was truly the same guy who had told him he liked him, opened the window and shook out the bed, muttering, “Now I’m completely a housekeeper.”

“It’s not working out…”

As Jeong Taeui finished tidying the bed, Christoph suddenly muttered to himself. His face in the mirror slightly wrinkled.

Jeong Taeui scratched his neck, looking at him with a strange expression.

“Can I help you with something?”

Jeong Taeui said, as staring at the mirror seemed quite difficult, though he didn’t know why. He expected to be told to leave again because he was distracting, but Christoph, after a moment of silence, slowly turned to Jeong Taeui.

“Yes, then.”

“Yeah, what can I help you with?”

“How do I smile?”

Hearing his words spoken in a calm tone, Jeong Taeui was speechless for a moment.

I’d been laughing for so many hours that my face felt like it would cramp.

It had been a long time since the fierce desire to deny the theory that laughter is a person’s most beautiful expression had surged within me.

Jeong Taeui continued to laugh, facing Christoph.

And in front of Jeong Taeui, Christoph glared at that laughter.

His lips twitched slightly. The corners of his mouth turned up crookedly.

“Your cheeks, your cheeks. Lift the muscles in your cheeks.”

Jeong Taeui smiled brightly, placing his index fingers on both corners of his mouth and pushing them up. Christoph followed suit.

Something resembling a laugh emerged.

Just as he had first asked, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with his facial muscles. If he forced himself to consciously laugh, he could make such an expression.

But the problem was that somehow, it didn’t look like a laugh at all.

“…”

Finally, Jeong Taeui wiped the smile from his face. Now, he couldn’t even tell what his own expression was.

Jeong Taeui collapsed onto the floor, rolling around and muttering.

“Hey, go grab someone to laugh for me. I can’t laugh anymore. Ah, my face hurts…”

He rubbed the corners of his mouth as he mumbled.

Christoph clicked his tongue.

He looked down at Jeong Taeui for a moment, then shrugged. And with no particular expression, he said,

“It’s fine. It was a pointless attempt.”

“…”

Hearing words like that always left a strange, uncomfortable feeling…

Jeong Taeui abruptly sat up. He sat cross-legged on the floor, scratching his head vigorously. Then he quietly looked at Christoph.

Christoph’s lips were slightly creased, as if he thought he had indeed done something pointless, just as Jeong Taeui had said.

“No… don’t frown like that, lift them.”

Jeong Taeui said quietly, like a sigh. Christoph, whose eyebrows shot up at his words, did as Jeong Taeui said.

Jeong Taeui fell into thought.

“What’s the problem? His lips are properly curved, he’s put strength into his eyelids to curve his eyes… but why doesn’t it look convincing…”

To Jeong Taeui, who was muttering with a very serious face, Christoph waved his hand. And then he returned to his usual indifferent expression.

“It’s fine. Thinking about it, there’s no one I particularly want to smile for. There’s no situation where I need to laugh either. I’ve lived perfectly fine like this until now.”

“No, I always thought laughter was an instinct.”

He actually still thought so, but he said it in the past tense, having lost a little confidence.