Harmonious Love

The Harmony of Yin and Yang Is Not as It Seems PART1(22)

Mo Yeon, wrapped in a blanket, carefully approached the window and grasped the curtain. His hand, tightly holding the thin ivory-colored curtain, hesitated for a long while.

How much time had passed like that? Mo Yeon took a moment to catch his breath, then swiftly pulled the curtain aside.

The night sky, dark but not at all threatening, came into view. Mo Yeon unconsciously smiled at this predictable and utterly ordinary sight.

The night sky was very dark, yet not entirely so. The buildings across the way were visible, with some windows lit and others dark. Looking down a bit further, streetlights dotted the quiet streets.

Perhaps this same tranquil scene would have been visible if he had opened the curtains in his own apartment just upstairs, or even in his previous home. But he had never even tried, being too preoccupied with keeping everything covered.

The reason for his newfound courage was singular: this was Tae Young-won’s home.

At that moment, he sensed Tae Young-won approaching from behind. He was following Mo Yeon’s gaze out the window.

“What are you looking at so intently?”

His questioning gaze moved from the utterly ordinary scene outside to meet Mo Yeon’s eyes. As expected, he was frowning in incomprehension.

“It’s nothing.”

Mo Yeon shook his head, still wearing a faint smile. There was nothing he could explain to Tae Young-won anyway.

The moment he found out, he would leave just like Kim Sung-jin.

Mo Yeon passed by him and returned to the table to finish the meal he had paused earlier. Tae Young-won let out a dry laugh, followed him, and grumbled irritably.

“You’re definitely the strangest person I’ve ever met.”

“I know.”

Mo Yeon nodded this time, figuring he probably did seem that way.

Mo Yeon was all too aware that he was an oddball. It was only natural that he would seem incredibly strange to Tae Young-won, who must have met countless shining individuals in admired positions.

“And yet you agreed to date me.”

He muttered this almost to himself, newly amazed. Nevertheless, seeing him like this with himself, it did seem that something about his lower half had indeed turned Tae Young-won gay…

“Yeah, I wonder what I’m doing.”

Throughout the meal, Mo Yeon remained unaware that Tae Young-won’s gaze had been fixed on the corners of his mouth all evening.

Even though the briefly upturned corners of his mouth hadn’t moved again.

***

“Didn’t you come to buy glasses here recently too?”

“…”

When he went to buy glasses again, despite having bought some not long ago, he sensed a questioning look. There was no reason to deny it, nor any reason to explain the situation, so Mo Yeon simply nodded silently.

“That’s right.”

Even though he often fell and hit his head due to frequent surprises in his daily life, it was the first time he had to replace his glasses twice in such a short period. Of course, the first time was because Tae Young-won had dropped them in a glass of alcohol and lost them.

“Oh… What should we do, we don’t stock these anymore.”

“What? Really?”

Mo Yeon’s face filled with dismay at this unexpected obstacle.

“Big, thick glasses like you used to wear aren’t very popular these days. How about trying some of these styles instead? You have a slim face and you’re handsome, so I think these would suit you better than your previous ones…”

“It’s fine. Thank you, goodbye.”

Having left the optical shop without any results, Mo Yeon headed towards the school. His shoulders drooped as he walked, even more dejected than usual.

After leaving Tae Young-won’s house, he had to focus entirely on urgent assignments throughout Sunday and Monday. He had managed without glasses yesterday, but today he had many classes at school, so it might feel a bit awkward.

The real reason he had worn glasses like a part of his body was because of ghosts, and amazingly, the ghosts had started treating him like everyone else again as soon as he reunited with Tae Young-won.

They naturally assumed he couldn’t see them, paid him little attention, and went about their own business. The reason was undoubtedly because of Tae Young-won. Moreover, unlike before, they had even done those kinds of things…

Mo Yeon had his own criteria for choosing glasses. He had only ever worn horn-rimmed glasses, and among those, he had particularly liked the ones he bought recently, which is why he had revisited the same optical shop three times.

But now he couldn’t buy them again…

Left with no choice, Mo Yeon took out his broken glasses from his bag.

As a temporary measure, he put on the glasses with tape wrapped around the temples and bridge. The loosened glasses kept slipping down, so he took them off and held them in his hand. Still, the ghosts weren’t bothering him much now. Mo Yeon’s body was currently charged with the most positive energy it had ever been in his entire life.

Of course, the glasses had broken because of a ghost. When he had covered his face in surprise at seeing a ghost, his glasses had flown off and were unbelievably run over by a passing truck.

While separated from Tae Young-won and until he started following him again in the alley, Mo Yeon felt his body becoming weaker with each passing day, even more than before. At home, he had to keep averting his gaze from the dark figures that swarmed around, and when he woke up from erotic dreams, he felt as if all the strength had been drained from his body, as if he had been violated by a ghost. Mo Yeon dared to suspect the uncomfortable truth that he might indeed have been violated.

This was something he could never tell Tae Young-won, but in those dreams, the partner was always, annoyingly, Tae Young-won.

How miserable must he have been to follow Tae Young-won?

And over the weekend, Mo Yeon had seen even worse things before he could finally return home…

“Want to meet on Monday?”

“What?”

“Let’s meet on Monday.”

“…We’ll see each other at school anyway, even without making plans.”

These words, exchanged in front of the front door that Tae Young-won had personally opened, were still their last conversation.

Mo Yeon found it very awkward to see Tae Young-won making plans in advance.

After that, two days flew by in a blur as he struggled with assignments, and he realized that on Monday he had to work part-time right after classes ended.

‘Ah, right. Sunbae!’

It was only late at night, after his part-time job ended, that he belatedly remembered the appointment they had made.

After hesitating for a long time between the 8th and 9th floor buttons in the elevator, Mo Yeon finally decided that Tae Young-won must have forgotten too and went home to sleep. Mo Yeon’s phone, which rarely rang due to his lack of friends, hadn’t rung once that day either.

By the way, after spending the entire weekend with Tae Young-won, he had enjoyed two days completely free from ghosts. The positive energy was the reason he could focus on his assignments and part-time job.

Mo Yeon, who had realized this important fact quite late due to the shock of Tae Young-won, suddenly found himself thinking:

‘If I keep staying with Tae Young-won, could the ghosts disappear completely?’

The first class on Tuesday was at 1:30 PM, which was also when the school was most crowded. Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for Mo Yeon to spot Tae Young-won filming something on the school’s lawn.

Mo Yeon unconsciously stopped in his tracks.

Tae Young-won had been a cover model for the school magazine once last year too. It was thanks to the September issue cover displayed in the Business Administration department’s room that Mo Yeon had first properly familiarized himself with Tae Young-won’s face.

And then, his first memory of Tae Young-won was being startled when the face he had seen in the magazine suddenly spoke to him.

Come to think of it, he seemed to remember overhearing Han Chae-yeon asking him about the photoshoot at the coffee shop recently, wondering if he was doing it again this time.

Among the students who looked like school magazine reporters was a female classmate of Mo Yeon’s. Was her name Kim Na-eun? He had never spoken with her. Naturally, Mo Yeon hadn’t properly spoken with most of his classmates.

“Let’s take a short break!”

She had been taking pictures of Tae Young-won with her phone camera alongside the main camera, and when one shot was finished, she ran over to tidy his hair with a tail comb. Tae Young-won smiled, lowering his head slightly as if used to it, allowing her hand to reach. She laughed, covering her mouth, and a moment later, seeing Tae Young-won looking hot under the sun, she offered him some water.

“Wow… he’s really something else.”

Mo Yeon muttered unconsciously.

How could people be so different? They could be different, but how could they be this different?

Mo Yeon had momentarily forgotten the absence of his glasses, which were usually as familiar as his own body. So his eyes, uncovered by glasses, were narrowed intently, fixed on Tae Young-won.

In other words, there was no trace of the person who had been all over his private parts all weekend, fondling someone else’s property and acting like a pervert.

Where had the person who had been spouting all sorts of nonsense about white porcelain skin disappeared to?

As if such a person had never existed in the first place, it was completely different.