Passion: Diaphonic Symphonia Novel - Chapter 67

Christoph left, and Jeong Taeui, truly feeling like an outsider left behind in the room, briefly wondered when he should take his leave. However, his hesitation didn’t last long, as his paternal uncle, just about to speak, caught sight of him and silently motioned for him to go.

Of course, it wouldn’t do to have an outsider present when discussing family secrets.

Jeong Taeui promptly bowed politely and turned around.

His eyes met Ilay’s, who was standing by the door as if he were a doorman.

Ilay narrowed his eyes and looked at Jeong Taeui with a somehow meaningful gaze, but he made way without a word. He even opened the door himself and made a polite gesture pointing outside, as if telling him to go back safely.

‘There’s a saying that if a person does something they don’t usually do, they’ll die.’

As Jeong Taeui brushed past him and muttered very softly, Ilay narrowed his eyes and whispered back with a similar volume.

‘If possible, death during intercourse would be good.’

Hey, I don’t want that! You don’t know how heavy you are, do you?!

Barely suppressing the urge to shout out, Jeong Taeui slipped out through the open door. Then, with a low voice saying, “See you later,” the door closed.

Jeong Taeui stood blankly in front of the door for a moment, then shook his head and turned away. The gazes of people bustling in and out of the office outside the door occasionally landed on Jeong Taeui and then disappeared. Indeed, this was not a place for Jeong Taeui to be.

It was different from Berlin. Kyle’s house and this place were too different.

He had stayed there for several years and had never felt uncomfortable. It was no different from a home where he lived with his family.

But this place—perhaps Jeong Taeui felt this way because he wasn’t a part of this family—was like a sophisticated community. Somewhere between a family and a company.

He wanted to go back to Berlin. Suddenly, that thought came to him. To that place which had now become Jeong Taeui’s home.

“Uh… but what happens if things go wrong with Ilay later?”

At the sudden thought, Jeong Taeui, who had left the office and was heading to the west wing, tilted his head.

Even if he returned to Korea, his family was no longer there. He wasn’t particularly close with the few relatives he had.

“Then I guess I’d have to go live in New York, where my brother is… No, I probably wouldn’t get a visa. What country gives a visa to a terrorist? It’d probably be better to just live comfortably with my friends in Korea. But would I even be able to go back to Korea…?”

Muttering to himself, Jeong Taeui crossed over to the west wing. The people he passed in the main building were all strangers, so it was better to be back in the west wing, even if the gazes were as sharp as blades.

…There was nowhere to go back to.

Other than where he was now, there was nowhere to return.

Jeong Taeui didn’t know what that feeling was like. It wasn’t a feeling he could understand by imagining it in his head. He could only guess.

Where would that man go back to?

“Chris.”

Jeong Taeui quietly called out to the man sitting in front of a table in one corner of the room, silently tapping his fingernails together. Even though he clearly knew Jeong Taeui had arrived, he didn’t look up. He just stared at his fingertips.

Jeong Taeui sighed and entered the room.

“Is there anything… I can help you with your packing?”

Only then did Christoph briefly glance at Jeong Taeui. And he spat out.

“I have no luggage. There’s nothing I want to take from this place.”

Jeong Taeui pulled up the chair opposite Christoph, who said he could just leave as he was, and sat down. After some more silence, Christoph suddenly mumbled to himself.

“I shouldn’t have come here. I swore I’d never come back.”

But this place suited him. Although he was an outsider among the people, the spaces in this house suited him very well. Even if this wasn’t where he belonged.

However, he would soon leave this place and never return. Jeong Taeui somehow felt a pang of regret about that fact.

“Yeah, if it’s going to upset you this much, maybe it would have been better not to come at all.”

Jeong Taeui nodded quietly in agreement. Christoph then shot Jeong Taeui a displeased look.

“I’m not upset. As if I’d get upset over something like this.”

Jeong Taeui chuckled, watching Christoph speak sulkily as if it were out of the question.

“Where will you go when you leave here? Where are you living now?”

“Wherever I feel like. Anyway, I travel all year round for work.”

“How about Berlin? Kyle’s house is a bit out of the city, it’s quiet and nice.”

“Berlin… Kyle dislikes me.”

Christoph, who had been lost in thought for a moment, soon shook his head and spoke. It was somewhat unexpected. He thought Christoph would proudly lift his head and say, ‘Who cares if he dislikes me, I’ll live there if I like it.’

“Why? You have Ilay there, too.”

As soon as he said that, swallowing the unspoken ‘and me, for that matter,’ Christoph’s eyes hardened.

“Rick… No, it’s still not good. Berlin has bad vibes. Now that I think about it, there’s a huge Tarten branch office there too. Richard often goes there. No, it’s definitely not a place for people to live.”

In front of Christoph, who immediately shook his head, Jeong Taeui, who was living in that ‘bad place not fit for people,’ clicked his tongue.

Richard was not a topic to dwell on. He quickly changed the subject.

“Then, what about other siblings…? Come to think of it, do you have any siblings?”

The moment Jeong Taeui asked, Christoph flinched. His lips tightened, and his expressionless eyes stared directly at Jeong Taeui.

As if he were facing a complete stranger.

He stared at Jeong Taeui with emotionless, sculpted blue eyes, then slowly shook his head.

“No… I don’t. My father passed away early.”

“Ah…” Jeong Taeui replied vaguely, scratching his cheek hesitantly.

Perhaps it would have been better not to ask.

But with Christoph suddenly quiet, if Jeong Taeui also fell silent, it would feel even more awkward.

“Oh, right. Any siblings on your mother’s side…?”

“No. My mother has always lived alone.”

Christoph picked up the teapot on the tray next to the table. The sound of water pouring into the teacup could be heard.

He seemed unfazed. He quietly drank his tea with such composure that Jeong Taeui’s earlier hesitation seemed awkward in comparison.

Jeong Taeui scratched his cheek again.

“Hmm… Your parents must have had a good relationship.”

“My mother loves Tarten very much.”

Christoph spoke concisely.

His face was even more composed than when he had been sitting there with a displeased expression just moments ago. It was a blank face, devoid of anger or annoyance.

“She still misses this place dearly. I heard she calls the elders every day to check in. She’s someone who cherishes Tarten far more than those born with Tarten blood.”

Suddenly, the hand placing the teacup on the saucer stopped.

As if time had stopped, he was still, not even blinking, his mind seemingly wandering elsewhere.

As if he had truly transformed from a person into a statue, the color slowly drained from his lips.

Jeong Taeui watched him quietly, then picked up the teapot and poured more tea into his half-empty cup. Steam rose from the teacup with the sound of water. Slowly, his eyes lowered to watch the stream of water.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t seen my brother in years either.”

“Brother…?”

Christoph repeated Jeong Taeui’s words like a parrot, slowly raising his gaze. Jeong Taeui casually hummed and pulled his empty teacup closer.

“After I went to Berlin, I could barely go out, and my brother was too busy to visit me. Did we even call a few times…? My brother is the only family I have, but I haven’t heard his voice in ages.”

Christoph stared intently at Jeong Taeui. He seemed to be listening to his story. Color returned to his expression.

“Brother, huh… Your brother was Jeong Jaei, wasn’t he? That lucky genius.”

“Yeah. He’s truly unbelievably lucky. Even if a glass cup breaks while pouring hot water, my brother, who was holding the cup, is perfectly fine without a scratch, but I, who went to get a rag to wipe the water, slipped on it and broke my knee and scalded my foot.”

“What…? Is your luck bad because his luck is good?”

“No, it’s not like that. That’s just how it is, so to speak. Instead, how should I put it, my brother had a surprisingly clumsy side. If I got hurt like that, he’d feel subtly sorry even though it wasn’t his fault, and he wouldn’t know what to do. Thanks to that, I made him do my homework several times.”

Thinking about it, a brother with an ordinary younger sibling suffered a lot. The younger sibling asked his brother for homework help, asked him to teach him difficult problems, and sometimes unintentionally used his brother’s name in social situations, but the brother gained nothing from his younger sibling.

But Jeong Taeui believed that even if he were the older brother, he would have been fine with it. Just as he liked his brother now, even without any give and take of profit or loss.

Christoph mumbled, watching Jeong Taeui, who thought, ‘I should really call him once, I should at least hear his voice sometimes.’

“Even if you got along so well, you can’t meet often now, can you?”

“Huh? Uh… Still, I guess it’s good enough if we just check in sometimes and confirm that we’re both living well. Even family can’t live together forever, so that’s how it is, isn’t it? Even if we’re apart and don’t contact each other often, we wish each other well, and hope they live well.”

Jeong Taeui shrugged.

Christoph stared intently at Jeong Taeui, then dropped his gaze to the teacup. He looked at the warm, orange liquid beyond the teacup, then suddenly curved his eyes faintly and mumbled.

“Yeah… that’s good.”

He seemed to be smiling. Christoph wasn’t actually smiling, and Jeong Taeui had never seen him truly smile, but still, his slightly curved and softened eyes looked as if he was smiling. So Jeong Taeui smiled.

The warm late afternoon sunlight streaming through the window resembled the tea in the cup. The deep orange color, almost golden, the pleasantly warm temperature, and the languid, quiet stillness.

Jeong Taeui turned his gaze from Christoph’s cheeks, which looked a little flushed, perhaps from the sunlight. And like him, he drank his tea. Unlike him, who drank it silently and elegantly, Jeong Taeui made regular slurping sounds.

Suddenly, he felt that nothing else mattered.

Even if the Tarten elders were noisy, even if the family atmosphere was ominous, even if Christoph had been banished and would soon have to leave this place, at this very moment, weren’t they peacefully drinking tea here like this?

With nothing to bother him.

Peaceful and cozy.

Even if he could never return to this place, it was good enough if this moment was spent quietly like this.

Then.

As they, like old, gentle beasts dozing in the sun without a word, finished their second cups of tea, and as the evening sun began to set.

The phone rang.

Breaking the silence.

Christoph frowned in displeasure.

He glared at the phone, as if the sound tearing apart this tranquil air was extremely annoying.

Jeong Taeui watched Christoph, who didn’t get up from his chair and just glared at the phone, as if he wanted to soak in this atmosphere a little longer. When the irritating phone rang for the sixth time, Jeong Taeui got up.

“Leave it. Annoying.”

But before Jeong Taeui could take a step, Christoph grumbled irritably, and Jeong Taeui shrugged and sat back down.

The phone rang for a long time after that, then hung up.

When silence returned, Christoph’s face, which had been glaring fiercely at the phone, softened somewhat.