Jeongju temporarily suspended all schedules. Speculative articles about the top star who ran out of the filming site out of nowhere and hadn’t been heard from since appeared on the main portal page. Panicked, the agency pursued Jeongju’s whereabouts and tried to deal with the situation, citing deteriorating health as the reason, but it was in vain.
The search term ‘Jeongju’s disappearance’ rose and fell at the top of search engine every day, and reporters and paparazzi lined up in front of the residence where Jeongju lived, but they couldn’t see a single hair of him.
It was because Jeongju was not staying in a residence, but in a two-story house at the foot of a mountain. After hearing about the situation through Mesani, Jeongju blamed himself harshly and teared up.
The precious people who were like family to him were in danger, but he couldn’t even go to rescue them. He was filming, getting makeup done, and memorizing lines. The life Jeongju wanted was not like this.
After returning home last night, he became contemplative, seeing the scene of the living room full of the intruder’s rude footprints. Once targeted, this house was no longer safe. A sense of crisis prevailed; they had to move. Jeongju decided to leave the house as soon as Jaegyeom woke up.
Until Jaegyeom opened his eyes on his own, Jeongju and Mesani had to go through a hard time. Moreover, Jaegyeom tossed and turned and groaned as he suffered from nightmares at night even while he was unconscious. Jeongju and Mesani stayed by his side in silence. They tried to talk to him, carefully wiped his sweaty body, and watched him struggle with nightmares and babble nonsense, crying and being pained together. The two of them waited day by day for the three days that had been promised to the pegasus to pass quickly.
***
Just like that, a day passed that felt like a year. He had to endure two more nights. When evening came, Jeongju covered his face and prepared to go out, thinking of making porridge for Jaegyeom, who hadn’t eaten anything.
Mesani told him not to worry, that he would be by his side, and courageously saw off Jeongju, who was going out to buy food. Then he went back into the room and stared at his lord. As if the nightmare hadn’t started yet, Jaegyeom laid motionless with a calm expression on his face.
After some time flew by,
Knock knock…
A faint knock was heard from somewhere. At that, Mesani paused and pricked up his ears. Wondering if Jeongju was already back, he left the room and headed for the front door.
He wondered if he could not open the door because he was carrying too much. Mesani, who was standing in front of the door, was about to open the door as usual, but suddenly stopped his hand. If it were Jeongju, he would have told him to open the door. He suddenly had doubts because he had been tricked once before. If he opened the door and the exorcists burst in like they did last time…
At that thought, the child jumped and was terrified. Mesani looked at the front door with bated breath. After waiting for a long time, there was no more knocking. Finally, his face became contemplative. ‘See! It’s not Jeongju-nim!’ After that, he was sure of it. Surely the exorcists had come again.
Mesani’s legs started to tremble. He covered his mouth and backed away. With his eyes on the door, he passed the front hallway and reached the living room. Suddenly, he felt strange goosebumps.
As if someone was watching…
Mesani slowly turned his head with a creak. At the moment he looked at the large sliding window on one side of the living room leading to the yard, he froze in place. There was someone standing outside. Their eyes met! Then, the other person mouthed ‘Hello’ and tapped the window with his fingertips.
‘It’s me.’
That person was Yoon Taehee, with one arm in a half-cast.
Yoon Taehee, wearing a white V-neck short-sleeved tee and a black blazer draped over his shoulders, looked emaciated at first glance. He greeted by waving his hand. His haggard face looked more sensitive than usual.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“They can’t come here. They’ll have to lie still for a while. Rest assured, they won’t be able to move for at least a month.”
Only then did Mesani’s tension ease. He didn’t know why, but he just felt strangely relieved. In the light of the day’s events, he had the idea that the man wasn’t a bad person anyway. Besides, his lord deflected the arrow he shot, so it would probably be okay…
‘Open it.’
Yoon Taehee, who stood facing Mesani with the glass window in between, grinned and mouthed. The latter hesitated for a long time before he carefully opened the sliding window. Yoon Taehee took off his shoes and came into the living room.
“How have you been doing?”
Yoon Taehee greeted kindly. Then he calmly turned his head, looking around the house. Mesani swallowed nervously and asked.
“Wh- What are you doing here…”
“There is something I want to check.”
At the same time as he answered, he took his hand to the blazer he was wearing over his shoulder. He pulled back the blazer open and pulled his deep V-neck T-shirt to the side. His toned shoulders were exposed alongside a long collarbone. It was the same shoulder that had been hit by Jaegyeom’s arrow.
Bewildered, Mesani blinked. The man’s injured shoulder was covered with a white bandage, as if it had been treated, so the piercing wound was not visible. “Look closely.” Yoon Taehee pointed at his shoulder with his chin.
“I should have been scarred, but it’s clean.”
Mesani’s eyes widened at Yoon Taehee’s words. It really was true. Looking closely, the skin around, which should have been dyed black, was clean. Yoon Taehee, who was showing his shoulders, lifted up his blazer afterwards.
“Did you purify it by any chance? No, right?”
“Yes? I- I didn’t do anything…”
“Right, that’s even weirder. I was also hit by an arrow, but I am the only one who is fine.”
Two days ago, Yoon Taehee, after painstakingly sorting out the situation, returned to his temporary living quarters to commute to and from school. His body ached so much that he didn’t even know what mind he was in as he brought himself home. His condition was beyond words. Three of his fingers were broken and he had a torn forehead. The biggest problem was his shoulder.
Second, the wounds caused by the arrow had to be washed away. Since he couldn’t borrow the help of the Purification Department, he thought to at least ask a shaman he knew. But when he painstakingly stripped off his clothes and examined his wounds, he realized his shoulders, which should have been blackened, were clean.
Just like the exorcists who complain of pain in their chests, Yoon Taehee was also in the middle of feeling excruciating pain for breaking the taboo, so he didn’t notice it until he checked his shoulder. Since he was hit by the same arrow, he assumed he would have gotten dongti like everyone else. If so, why was it not like that? Putting the question to the back of his mind, Yoon Taehee continued to suffer through the day. It was already around sunset when he opened his eyes. His agonizing pain had finally subsided. After he stopped at the hospital and received a brief treatment, he immediately came to see the boy.
He thought maybe it was the wild ginseng child who took advantage of the time he had passed out last night to cleanse him and left. However, the wild ginseng child seemed to know nothing.
“Then I should ask the person who shot the arrow myself why it didn’t work on me.”
Yoon Taehee smiled and said. Then Mesani turned his head and glanced at the closed door, then hurriedly shook his head.
“No, you can’t.”
“Why not?”
“My lord is not feeling well right now.”
Yoon Taehee hesitated and cast his eyes at the doorway.
“Didn’t you heal him?”
Mesani quickly became sullen, and he mumbled helplessly. “I did, but he is unconscious.” Yoon Taehee asked. “Why?” As Mesani hesitantly explained the reason, Yoon Taehee quietly listened. After the explanation, Mesani said with a depressed face.
“Yeah, that’s why, when my lord wakes up later…”
“Alright, then.”
Yoon Taehee nodded and added.
“A sick visit.”
“Yes… yes?”
Mesani stopped and raised his head.
“Let’s pretend I came to pay a visit to the sick.”
“B- But…”
Mesani was speechless. Because Yoon Taehee looked more sick…
“Today, I will just look at his face.”
As Yoon Taehee took a few steps toward the closed door, Mesani, startled, blocked him hurriedly. He had led him into the house, but he was anxious for the man to face his unconscious lord. He was worried that something might happen while Jeongju was away. Mesan was restless as he obstructed his way.
Yoon Taehee suddenly raised his hand. Mesani was startled and involuntarily closed his eyes. Contrary to his expectations, he felt a soft hand caressing the back of his head. He thought he was going to push him away. As Mesani looked up at Yoon Taehee with a bewildered face, he smiled, and like last time, he bent down to meet the child’s eye level.
“I came all the way here. It would be a pity to just leave.”
Mesani only fidgeted with his hands and lowered his gaze.
“If it’s not possible, I can’t help it.”
It was a gentle voice. Mesani, after thinking about it for a long time, finally nodded his head. “Y- You have to come out quickly…” After taking a few steps back with a request filled with worry, Yoon Taehee thanked him with a laugh.
He carefully opened the door and entered the room. It was dark in the room with the lights off. He closed the door and waited for a while until his eyes got used to the darkness, then slowly walked. As he approached his bed, he saw the boy lying flat on his back. Yoon Taehee listened to the boy’s even breathing.
Faint moonlight streamed in through the cracks in the curtains that half-obscured the windows.
Yoon Taehee stared down at the boy in the light darkness. The boy looked serene. Suddenly, he remembered the expression on his face that was pulling the bowstring tightly. The strength that was unyielding despite being cornered on the defensive, his determination to throw away and thereafter retrieve something if he cannot protect it, and his unwavering clear eyes sent shivers down Yoon Taehee’s spine. However, seeing his face so defenseless, Yoon Taehee felt strange for some reason.
“…”
Examining the calm face of Jaegyeom, he reached out his hand involuntarily.
His long, straight fingers grazed his face lightly like feathers. Yoon Taehee’s fingertips moved down, very slowly, along the side of the boy’s face. A curve that started from the round forehead and fell between the eyebrows. The philtrum gave a strange three-dimensional effect through the straight bridge of the nose. And as he reached his lips, he felt a faint, warm breath. His fingertips trembled slightly as he traced the lines of his face as if possessed. Yoon Taehee suddenly stopped breathing.
It was on the spur of the moment that he put his hand to the boy’s face. Before he could even think, his hand moved first. Come to think of it, it was the same when he used the black bird on Lee Youngshin.
As for Yoon Taehee, he was the type of person who always thought about the future and aftermath. He had all the possibilities in mind, and only after he had calculated did he move. However, the black bird was a gamble that was made before he had finished his calculations. Of course, it was an action taken with the judgment that it was possible to fix it. But apart from that, he was in a situation where he could lose his life at the hands of the boy.
If there was any desire that drove him, it was to destroy Naryecheong. There was only one goal. He just needed someone to help him to do that. However, even though Yoon Taehee was aware of the possibility that he could die at the hands of the boy, and that if that happened, all plans would be in vain, he couldn’t understand his own behavior in sending the black bird to Lee Youngshin, thinking ‘nevertheless’.
If so, why?
To Yoon Taehee, ‘impulse’ was an unfamiliar sensation. He felt strange that he kept feeling impulses he had never felt before. This mysterious urge to blatantly betray the calculative head was irritating. The epicenter of the impulse was only the boy. The boy, who was equally inconceivable.
Yoon Taehee suddenly realized. There was no reason why it had to be this boy, but the desire for it to be him had created the impulse. He suddenly wanted to touch the lines on the boy’s face, and was swept away by the moment. Then, what should he call this heart that created these impulses…
“Uh…”
At that moment, Jaegyeom suddenly furrowed his eyebrows and groaned.
O taehee you poor thing you. Misa ty again.
Tq 4 d update 😄
asjshajz ohmy, thank u for the chapppter
Thank you!
Mesani is so pure and cute ☺
Is it safe to safe to say that Yoon Taehee might be the one who fell first but Jaegyeom will fell harder???
Fall*
Thanks for the translation ❤️
Poor Mesani got PTSD from those exorcist. What will happen if Jeongju comes home and Taehee’s there? I kinda want them to meet.