Unlocking the suitcase and laying it flat, Yoon Jooho placed his hands on both sides of his waist and swept a stray lock of hair back.
“By the way, are you really going out like that?”
Realizing Yoon Jooho’s gaze was fixed on his hair, Song Hyunsoo checked himself in the mirror.
Having left it to air dry after a shower, his hair looked ridiculous.
He tried raking it back with his fingers, but it was no use.
“I’ll just wear a hat or something.”
“This will probably be the first photo of you taken at the airport, and you want to cover up with a hat?”
“Honestly, who would even come to take my picture?”
“Come here. I’ll fix your hair for you.”
Yoon Jooho led the way back toward the bathroom.
With every step he took, the firm muscles of his backside flexed in turn beneath the towel.
For some reason, the motion looked even more blatant than being fully exposed.
Admiring his lover’s solid build anew, Song Hyunsoo followed after him.
â–
To Song Hyunsoo, Yoon Jooho’s bathroom still looked like Majesty’s Bathroom.
The space was big enough that you could fit a table and chairs and easily host several people for a meal, and the elegant ivory marble that wrapped the whole bathroom added to the sense of luxury.
But what Song Hyunsoo liked most about this bathroom was the sunlight.
A wealth of sunlight streamed through the large window behind the bathtub.
Magic Mirror. That is, from this side you could enjoy the outside view, but from the outside it just looked like black glass—a one-way mirror.
So there was no need to worry about anyone peering in, Yoon Jooho had reassured Song Hyunsoo.
He’d done so while pressing the anxious, naked Song Hyunsoo up against the window, nibbling on his earlobe and pushing his penis in tight.
Why on earth would anyone need such a big window in a bathroom?
At first, Song Hyunsoo hadn’t understood. But now, he liked it.
Relaxing together in the tub and gazing at the nightscape, or sometimes exposing their naked bodies to the wide open glass while enjoying sex… Well, it wasn’t so bad after all.
Music was playing from the Bluetooth Speaker in the bathroom.
It was a song called “Stay In Love” by Aaron Kellim. Humming the melody, Yoon Jooho arranged oil, wax, a comb, and spray across the wide sink counter.
He looked rather cheerful.
Leaning against the marble sink, Song Hyunsoo glanced over at Yoon Jooho.
Noticing the gaze, Yoon Jooho spoke without even looking at him.
“If you want to touch me, then touch me. Don’t just sneak glances.”
“I wasn’t sneaking glances, you know?”
Plugging in the dryer, Yoon Jooho snorted.
“Sneaking glances is your specialty. I don’t really trust you.”
Song Hyunsoo started to protest, about to say he’d never peeked, but then closed his mouth.
He remembered that from the very first day he’d come to this house, he’d stolen glances at Yoon Jooho’s half-naked body.
Had it just been glances?
Thinking back, even then he’d already been sexually aware of Yoon Jooho’s body.
That must have been why he’d even unconsciously thanked the heavens.
Grabbing the wax and pretending to smell it for no reason, Song Hyunsoo replied sullenly.
“I did look. But I wasn’t sneaking.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
“Why would I sneak a look? You’re mine. I looked openly. Is that good enough for you?”
Chuckling, Yoon Jooho grabbed Song Hyunsoo’s wrist and pulled him closer.
“You never let me have the last word, do you.”
He positioned Song Hyunsoo in front of the mirror, making sure he could see himself, and lightly started touching his hair as if to check its condition.
Arms crossed, Song Hyunsoo stole a glance at Yoon Jooho’s serious expression reflected in the mirror.
“You’re good at styling your own hair, sunbae.”
“There are times when I can’t get to the Shop. And it’s too much hassle to look for one for every personal appointment.”
Turning on the dryer, Yoon Jooho began styling with a round brush.
Wrapping hair around the brush and pulling with the right amount of force, he heated it skillfully with the dryer.
The messy, sticking-up hair was now forming soft, natural curls swept back.
Switching off the dryer and putting it down, Yoon Jooho spoke.
“Thirty years since Debut, and this much is nothing.”
He picked up oil meant to give a damp look and dispensed it onto his palm.
Then he worked it thoroughly from the roots into the dry hair.
Yoon Jooho’s hair, cut short during the middle of filming, had grown out quite a bit since then.
Still, it wasn’t as long as when they’d first met.
The neatly trimmed hair, cut to reveal the ears and perfectly tamed with styling products, was nothing like “Baek Kang,” who’d spent his whole life in a fishing village with the smell of the sea soaking into his nails.
The present Yoon Jooho was every inch a man of the city.
He loved both versions…
Watching Yoon Jooho as he shaped his oiled hair, Song Hyunsoo muttered as if to himself.
“Maybe I should try a perm too.”
“Actors can’t just mess with their hair. You never know what role you’ll be cast in next.”
Song Hyunsoo nodded in agreement.
“I remember that time.”
“When?”
“When you tied my bow tie for me.”
In the mirror, Yoon Jooho smiled soundlessly with his lips alone.
He was wearing the same look as if recalling the same memory.
“You showed up in a Suit with short socks, remember?”
“And you ordered Red Wine with fish.”
“I didn’t even know where to start teaching you. It was hopeless.”
“Why?”
“‘Why,’ you ask.”
“If I’m country, then I’m country. It’s not your job to teach me everything, sunbae. So why did you think it was hopeless?”
Touching Song Hyunsoo’s bangs one by one, Yoon Jooho answered with a straight face.
“Looking at you, I felt like I’d have to take care of you for the rest of my life.”
Even though he knew it was just a sweet thing to say, it felt good to hear.
“Back then, you didn’t even have feelings for me yet.”
“What are you talking about?”
With the spray in his hand, Yoon Jooho met Song Hyunsoo’s eyes with a look of disbelief.
“That night was when I kissed you first and brought you to this room.”
“Ah…”
Now that he mentioned it, that was true.
“Close your eyes.”
Fsshh. As Song Hyunsoo closed his eyes and searched his memory, Yoon Jooho sprayed the styled hair to fix it in place.
His first kiss and first night with Yoon Jooho.
Back then, he’d been swept away as if caught in a riptide, unable to keep his head straight.
He couldn’t step back and coolly figure out what was happening to him.
Just keeping up with what was happening in front of him was overwhelming.
By the time he came to his senses, he’d already been kissed by Yoon Jooho at the Birthday Party, and then, in the next moment, had finished having sex in his bedroom.
Song Hyunsoo always thought he liked Yoon Jooho more. Maybe not now, but definitely at first.
He’d never doubted it. Because it was Yoon Jooho. And in the beginning, Yoon Jooho always kept a top-star-like air of indifference.
Sometimes, he would unexpectedly be sweet, but his default attitude was, ‘I don’t need you to be happy.’
So Song Hyunsoo thought he was the only one desperate.
But looking back, it had been Yoon Jooho who kissed him first, who first seduced him into sex, even who asked to start dating.
The spray stopped, and Song Hyunsoo squinted at Yoon Jooho in the mirror.
“Why are you looking at your boyfriend, who just styled your hair, like that?”
“Like what?”
“Defiant and full of attitude, that’s what.”
“I thought I’d seduced you so well, but…”
“What now?”
“Actually, sunbae, you seduced me first, didn’t you?”
“Me?”
Yoon Jooho pointed to his own chest with his index finger, putting on an exaggeratedly innocent look as if he had no idea what Song Hyunsoo was talking about.
Song Hyunsoo checked out his freshly styled hair in the mirror, turning his head this way and that as he muttered,
“It doesn’t matter if you deny it.”
“……”
“I was just naïve enough to fall for your act of indifference.”
Yoon Jooho spun Song Hyunsoo around by the shoulders.
Placing both hands on the sink on either side of Song Hyunsoo’s hips, he trapped his lover in his arms.
Yoon Jooho’s face was right in front of his.
“Yeah, you. You really were pretty slow on the uptake, huh?”
“……”
Now that Yoon Jooho was openly admitting his interest and coming on strong, it was Song Hyunsoo who felt flustered.
“No matter how much I touched you, smiled at you, or called you cute, you never caught on.”
“That’s…”
“That’s what?”
Yoon Jooho stared at Song Hyunsoo’s stubbornly sealed lips, waiting patiently for his answer.
“Stay In Love” was already playing for the third time.
The song Yoon Jooho had introduced to him on their first trip together to Myeonghaeri, the songs by Choi Hongseo that Song Hyunsoo had introduced afterward, and now this song.
Whenever he found a song he liked, Yoon Jooho would listen to it obsessively on repeat.
He seemed fickle, but when it came to the things he liked, he was persistent.
What he wore, what he kept with him, what he had in his house—his tastes were clear, and they hardly ever changed.
Yoon Jooho’s right hand reached out and cupped Song Hyunsoo’s chin wide.
His eyes, gazing down at Song Hyunsoo’s lips beneath lowered lashes, seemed about to close the gap and kiss him at any moment.