Passion: Diaphonic Symphonia Novel - Chapter 50

However, it was as Christoph said. Even if you could make a laughing face with your own face, it was useless if you didn’t actually laugh.

“…It’s a shame.”

Jeong Taeui mumbled without realizing it.

The reason he had been constantly laughing to the point of facial cramps, trying to coax Christoph, was partly because Jeong Taeui himself felt a certain regret. He was curious what kind of face would emerge if that face smiled brightly.

The thought of an angel’s face with a devil’s mouth still remained, but regardless, the face itself was an angel’s. However, Jeong Taeui had never seen a painting of an angel with a bright, full smile, no matter how many masterpieces or sacred paintings he had seen.

If Christoph smiled, wouldn’t it be infinitely close to that? That thought suddenly occurred to him, leading him to bring Christoph all the way up to the roof of this makeshift tower.

It was by no means easy.

“…Let’s rest for a bit, first.”

Jeong Taeui flopped back down.

Above his head was the sky. The sun was so pleasant that instead of sitting on a shaded bench under an awning, he sat here, on the floor.

“…”

He shifted his gaze slightly from the sky. He looked at Christoph. Christoph, viewed from slightly below, did not lose his beauty even from that angle.

He was looking at the panoramic view visible through the railings of the makeshift tower’s roof. What was in the direction his gaze was fixed? To the left of his view, a forest stretched out, and to the right, there seemed to be an annex behind a mountain range. Some grass was visible, partially obscured by the annex, and behind the annex, a fairly large stable.

It was such an obvious fact that he had barely thought about it, but this place, when you thought about it, was Christoph’s childhood home where he was born and raised.

From the West Wing where they were currently staying, to the main building, or the East Wing which he rarely visited, to the annexes, and even the recreational areas within the grounds surrounding all those buildings.

Until he left this place, he would have naturally been intertwined with all of these things.

“How is it here? Is it good to live?”

“Dresden, or Tarten?”

Jeong Taeui, who had asked without much thought, immediately fell silent at the counter-question. In his mind, Dresden and Tarten were separate. As if Tarten had been a self-governing district located within Dresden from the very beginning.

“Both.”

Then Christoph seemed to fall into thought for a moment. After blinking slowly a few times, he said,

“Hmm, it’s good.”

That was all.

He waited for some further explanation, but Christoph showed no sign of speaking more. Jeong Taeui looked at him with a strange expression, but it really seemed that was all he had to say.

Jeong Taeui considered asking something more but stopped himself. Indeed, even he himself wouldn’t have much more to add if asked if his own house was good to live in. It was familiar and comfortable because he knew it well. That was the greatest advantage of his own home.

Familiar and comfortable.

Even Jeong Taeui, who was said to adapt easily and quickly become familiar with any place he went, found his home the most comfortable. Perhaps now, if he went to the empty house in his home country, he would feel a sense of unfamiliarity for a while, but Berlin, which had become his current home, was like that.

He had only been here for a short time and had somewhat gotten used to the atmosphere here—though he didn’t like it—and was moving around quite comfortably, but still, the best place to live was Kail’s house in Berlin.

“…”

—The place where I should be.

Suddenly, a conversation they had once had came to mind.

The place where I properly belong. The place where he properly belongs. Or the place where one shouldn’t be.

“What if it’s a place where you should be, but you can’t like it, or the opposite, it’s not the place given to you, but you like it too much… then what do you do?”

Jeong Taeui mumbled softly. Christoph looked at him as if asking what he was talking about, but said nothing. It wasn’t a remark made expecting any particular answer anyway.

Jeong Taeui looked at Christoph. He was still gazing at the scenery below the makeshift tower. Blankly. As if lost in thought.

—How is it here? Is it good to live?

—Hmm, it’s good.

Perhaps he liked this place.

But this was not his place. There was no place given to him.

“…I moved. From the house I’d lived in since before I had sense, since before I could remember, when I was in middle school, I think.”

Jeong Taeui suddenly brought up a past memory. Christoph glanced at him.

“It wasn’t far anyway, since it was in a neighboring city, so if I just made up my mind to go, I could go quickly. But there was no reason to go, so I just didn’t.”

Then he went there after graduating high school.

Just before entering the military academy, a memory suddenly came to him for no reason, and a sudden impulse led him to just go and see.

The place he had lived had changed a lot. In just a few years, a building had already gone up in the empty lot in front of the house, and the house next door with a large yard had become an apartment complex.

But the appearance of the alleyways and the scattered scenery overlapped with the images in his memory, and walking those paths felt simply nostalgic and good.

He still liked and missed that place, but it was no longer his place. He remembered returning with a slightly desolate feeling after realizing that fact while walking those streets.

“…Chris.”

He called him, lying on his arm, silently gazing at the sky. Christoph didn’t turn around, but Jeong Taeui felt that he was listening.

“Were you perhaps bothered?”

“By what?”

“That Ilay said you were a cripple who couldn’t even laugh.”

Would it have been better to soften the words a little? But if he softened them for no reason, it would seem even stranger. Rather, it seemed like he was overly concerned about those words.

Jeong Taeui soon thought, Ah, who cares? If he had been a weak soul to be hurt by something like that, he wouldn’t have grown up like this until now.

“No.”

The answer came back immediately this time too.

There was no feeling of him deliberately covering up or sugarcoating himself. Indeed, he was a man who was clumsy at such things to begin with. In that case, those words were his true feelings. Or a lie that he truly believed to be true.

“Right,” Jeong Taeui mumbled. After a moment of silence, he added,

“You don’t have to laugh if you don’t want to.”

As Jeong Taeui spoke casually, Christoph looked down at him from the side. Their gazes met. Both Christoph’s and Jeong Taeui’s gazes were casual. As if they were talking about a topic neither of them particularly cared about.

“It shows in its own way.”

Jeong Taeui added one more word unnecessarily.

However, Christoph merely nodded a couple of times, as if he didn’t care much about these words either.

…Now that he thought about it, if he was going to be so nonchalant about it, why did he ask how to laugh in the first place?

Jeong Taeui, who had just told him he didn’t have to laugh, thought a somewhat twisted thought and stared at him with a glare. Without realizing that gaze was piercing his back, Christoph casually opened his mouth.

“I tried it before, but I stopped. It didn’t work well.”

“Hmm… you’re a man who gives up quickly.”

“Because it wasn’t something I wanted to obtain by putting in a lot of effort.”

He added, “It’s just a shame not to have it, that’s all.”

Jeong Taeui closed his mouth. After a moment, he mumbled, “I see.”

There were countless things around that weren’t absolutely necessary but were missed if absent. When he thought about it, there were surprisingly few things that were truly indispensable.

Things considered impossible to live without. Excluding things like food, water, air, or sunlight, there was almost nothing that one couldn’t live without losing.

There were so many things one could live without.

Things one could live without, but still deeply missed.

People one could no longer meet, words one wanted to hear from anyone, the unnecessary warmth of another person, a longed-for voice rarely heard.

“…Let’s try again.”

Jeong Taeui abruptly sat up. Then he sat facing Christoph again and smiled broadly.

Christoph frowned slightly, looking at Jeong Taeui.

“I said let’s quit.”

Jeong Taeui sent a sharp glare at him, who spoke as if annoyed, while maintaining his smiling face.

“Why? You have to at least laugh first to say things like ‘I like you,’ or whatever. Look, lift your cheeks like this. Like this.”

Jeong Taeui placed his hands on his cheeks and lifted them.

However, no matter what, a convincing expression rarely appeared on Christoph’s face. Jeong Taeui sighed, pounding his chest, and quickly brought his hand to Christoph’s face.

“Lift them like this—”

But just before his finger poked Christoph’s cheek, Jeong Taeui quickly realized his mistake upon seeing Christoph’s face momentarily stiffen. His hastily withdrawn hand stopped precariously in front of Christoph’s face. Was it even an inch away?

“…Sorry. I just did it without thinking.”

Jeong Taeui quickly pulled his hand back. He almost touched him. If he had, a ‘川’ character would have instantly appeared between his eyebrows, and he would have seen something unpleasant.

Jeong Taeui wiggled his withdrawn hand and smiled brightly again. As if to appease Christoph’s momentarily stiffened expression.

Christoph was looking at Jeong Taeui with a displeased face.

“Hey, I didn’t touch you. I didn’t make contact.”

Jeong Taeui quickly spread both hands and said, thinking it would be terribly unfair if a bloodbath suddenly erupted with Christoph saying, ‘Who told you to touch me as you please?’ Christoph glared at his hands with a very displeased look.

His gaze shifted to Jeong Taeui’s face. Jeong Taeui grumbled, ‘I didn’t touch you,’ and looked at him ambiguously.

Christoph, who had been staring intently at Jeong Taeui for a while, suddenly let out a silent sigh. And then he said,

“You can touch me.”

Jeong Taeui nodded, saying, “Oh,” at his quiet, calm tone, then after a few seconds, he stopped his head, saying, “Huh?”

“…”

Jeong Taeui stared at him intently. The first reason was to confirm if he had heard him correctly, and the second was to confirm if he had understood what he said correctly.

“Touch what?”

He asked a question to resolve both doubts at once.

Christoph frowned and clicked his tongue. Then, looking hesitant for a moment, he suddenly grabbed Jeong Taeui’s hands.

Ah, right, he said it was fine for him to touch other people, but he said to touch something.

As Jeong Taeui thought in confusion, Christoph held Jeong Taeui’s hands and pulled them towards his own cheeks.

“Uh…”

Jeong Taeui blinked, only mumbling a clumsy exclamation. Something strange was happening before his eyes.

Christoph, who had pulled Jeong Taeui’s hands right in front of his cheeks, hesitated for a moment there. He made a truly disgusted face, as if facing some abhorrent food. He frowned so much it was pitiful to see.

“…Hey, do you really have to go that far…”

Jeong Taeui, unable to watch any longer, spoke up, but Christoph, hearing his voice, seemed to take it as a signal and placed Jeong Taeui’s hands on his cheeks.

“…”

“…”

The warm, soft sensation that touched his palm.

Jeong Taeui was surprised.

He was surprised that he was touching Christoph’s cheek, and he was surprised that Christoph had led him to do so, but even more so, he was surprised by the feel of the cheek that touched his hand.

It was warm and soft. It felt like stroking a warm silk cushion.

“What’s wrong with your face?”

Jeong Taeui said with a serious face, firmly cupping his cheek.

After saying it, he thought it might be a somewhat misleading statement, but he didn’t care.

“No, wait. But is it okay to touch you?”

Jeong Taeui, as an afterthought, asked the question he should have asked first.

Christoph, who was still gripping Jeong Taeui’s wrist and making a very difficult, strangely contorted face, looked at him. It was a gaze mixed with displeasure and relief.

“…Hmm. I think it’s okay. But it’s not very pleasant.”

“Right… but why did you pull my hand? Let go.”

“Because I think I need to get used to it.”

Christoph mumbled in a still displeased voice. Jeong Taeui’s eyes widened slightly.

This might be a good sign.

“To get used to being around people?”

Jeong Taeui asked, pleased. But Christoph shook his head. Jeong Taeui raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“To your touch.”

“…Why?”

“Because, thinking long-term, it seems better if I do that to live with you.”

Christoph said bluntly.

Jeong Taeui fell silent at his tone, which was not a question testing the other’s will, but rather a direct statement of what he believed without a doubt.

He had clearly refused yesterday…

Jeong Taeui, who was about to speak again, saw Christoph’s serious face, where he had somewhat gotten used to having another’s palm on his cheek, and had begun to very lightly rub his own cheek with that hand, and he closed his mouth.

Very slowly, the frown lines that had been there from displeasure smoothed out. A slight hint of confidence even spread across his expression, as if he thought he had gotten somewhat used to another’s hand.

Jeong Taeui suddenly twitched his finger impulsively. The tip of his index finger lightly sank into the soft cheek. At that moment, Christoph’s hand, which was holding Jeong Taeui’s wrist, reflexively tightened.

“…My wrist will break.”

Jeong Taeui mumbled, speaking calmly but with half-sincere intent.

He thought his wrist bone would break because Christoph had suddenly grabbed it so roughly.

Christoph didn’t yank Jeong Taeui’s hand away, but he immediately raised his eyes and said displeasedly,

“Why did you suddenly move?!”

“If I didn’t move and didn’t budge at all, how would it be someone else’s hand? It would just be a lump of flesh attached to someone else’s arm.”

Jeong Taeui said indifferently. And he watched Christoph’s expression change strangely before his eyes. He suddenly felt like laughing.

“Chris. How did you come to like me?”

He almost added, “Of all people,” but he held it back.

However, though he asked with a smile, it was actually a serious question.

Why did he come to like him? What did he like about him? Why him, of all people, when he couldn’t reciprocate?

But Christoph answered Jeong Taeui’s question, which contained a faint hint of regret, casually.

“Well… do I really like you?”

“…”

Christoph’s words were not a joke or teasing either. He lowered his head slightly and fell into thought, as if seriously asking himself.

How long had it been since he said he liked him with his own mouth?