“You really are a fucking homo. And a fucking degenerate, too.”
Siron provoked Baekgyeong with a face full of laughter.
“I am a degenerate, and a son of a bitch, sure. But I’m not a homo.”
The smile on Siron’s face slowly darkened. He licked his upper lip and laughed lifelessly.
“Then why are you obsessed with me? I’d at least understand if you said it was... love.”
“If I ever felt fluttery looking at you, maybe it’d be love. But I’ve never felt something so silly.”
Baekgyeong answered firmly, folding his arms behind his head as he leaned back against the elevated half of the hospital bed. He stared at a meaningless point in the air for a long time before finally asking:
“Do you feel fluttery when you look at me?”
“...Are you crazy?”
“Thought so.”
Unexpectedly, Baekgyeong turned to him with a gentle, almost affectionate expression.
“I think what we have is a feeling far deeper than love. Like the relationship between a flower and a bee—far more stable, something that’ll never change for the rest of our lives. Like fog.”
He was making it sound all poetic, until the last part completely derailed. Siron burst out laughing and asked with a mischievous smile:
“Fog that never changes for life? What the hell does that even mean?”
“Fog? ...Did I say that?”
Baekgyeong asked with the unfamiliar face he showed during his partial seizures.
“Oh, maybe I misheard.”
Siron replied casually, picking up the half-eaten apple. It was obvious now—the tumor was slowly swelling, starting to interfere with his language function. Even as he imagined himself screaming inside, Siron glared at Baekgyeong with irritation and said:
“So you’re not a homo, but you want to do homo things with your twin-brother-type best friend?”
Baekgyeong giggled, then suddenly broke out into loud laughter. Siron frowned in confusion and looked at him.
“What’s so funny?”
“My mom said exactly the same thing.”
Siron furrowed his brow, replaying Baekgyeong’s words. And the moment he understood, his face turned cold as ice.
“She knows? About us?”
“That bastard Choi Seongmin told her everything. Knowing his personality, he probably spiced it up a little. But yeah—Mom knows all about it.”
“When you say ‘all about it’... how much does she actually know?”
“Relax. I told her myself we don’t do penetration sex.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
Siron immediately realized how pointless that question was. Asking a lunatic if he was insane only made him feel more hopeless.
He pressed both hands to his face, dragging them down hard enough to distort his expression. There was no way he could face Baekgyeong’s family now. It wasn’t just that he was being kept as Baekgyeong’s personal toy under the guise of sponsorship—he’d also probably been branded as the obstacle keeping him from undergoing surgery.
“You’re really not going to get the surgery?”
“Nope.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because the success rate’s too low.”
“How low?”
“Not even fifty percent.”
At those hopeless words, Siron’s face hardened.
“If you don’t get the surgery... how long do you have?”
“Maybe five years.”
Baekgyeong answered indifferently, picking at the loose thread of his blanket. Even though the blanket’s edge was already fraying to the point the stitching was visible, his hand didn’t stop. After a while, he finally answered, as if reluctantly:
“Yeah. Five years. So just stick with me, even if you’re sick of me. Just for five years.”
Baekgyeong was lying.
Two days ago, Siron had visited Choi Seongmin’s room, one floor below. From him, he learned the truth: without surgery, Baekgyeong would be lucky to survive even two years. More likely, not even one.
“So you’d better milk that bastard for everything he’s worth and get out before you end up as useless as a fucking duck egg floating in the Nakdong River.”
Seongmin had even thrown in life advice, glaring at Siron with eyes brimming with hostility.
Baekgyeong was melting, like a snowman that couldn’t survive the spring—disappearing, inevitably, toward the end.
Rubbing his chest in frustration, Siron finally jumped up and stormed out of the hospital room. He sat on a bench behind the hospital, staring blankly at the passersby.
“I’m sick and tired of this shit! You hear me? I’m done matching your emotions! It’s over! Let’s just—end this already...”
His moment of truth, blurted out in anger, had never reached Baekgyeong. Of all times, he’d said it when Baekgyeong was mid-seizure, and every emotion from that day had turned meaningless. Siron already sensed it: he wouldn’t be able to leave him.
He didn’t know whether he was worn out from Baekgyeong’s obsession or just couldn’t handle the reality that Baekgyeong would die within two years. He was confused. His voice trembled as he tried to breathe through it. He had planned to leave Baekgyeong so he could film Host Spirit, but it wasn’t like Host Spirit meant more to him than Baekgyeong did.
Starting next week, he was supposed to go down to a small temple in South Chungcheong Province and recite sutras under a monk introduced by the production company. After that, he’d train in shamanic rituals under a mudang in North Jeolla. He’d spend months out in the provinces filming—but what if Baekgyeong’s condition worsened while he was gone? He might miss his final moments.
He didn’t know what exactly it meant to have a feeling deeper than love, but Siron still found himself wishing, with all his heart, that Baekgyeong’s life—like a candle flickering in the wind—wouldn’t be snuffed out. If Baekgyeong died, it would be like living without a shadow beneath his feet. The world would remain unchanged, yet he’d feel fundamentally out of place in it.
After a long time, Siron made up his mind. If Baekgyeong really refused the surgery, then Siron would give up the movie.
It was the chance of a lifetime, but he resolved to throw it away. Rising from the bench, he walked toward the VIP ward.
At some point, Siron had already started planning to spend Baekgyeong’s final days with him. He would go through Baekgyeong’s entire bucket list, one by one. They’d watch A Moment to Remember and Christmas in August, bawling their eyes out together like the tragic leads. His only desire was to give Baekgyeong the most precious memories possible in the time he had left.
Just imagining attending Baekgyeong’s funeral brought tears to Siron’s eyes.
And after Baekgyeong was gone—after Host Spirit was canceled and he lost every opportunity to stand in front of the camera—Siron would keep drifting from audition to audition. Unable to give up on acting, even as his once-glamorous looks faded, he’d quietly return to America. He’d scrape by on day jobs, clutching the memories of Baekgyeong from long ago. The only comfort at the end of a grueling day would be a single film before bed.
In this melodramatic spiral, Siron found himself somehow more miserable than the terminally ill Baekgyeong. On the verge of tears, he threw open the door to the hospital room.
“Gyeong-ah! Leave me that baby building in Gangnam when you die!”
His voice cracked slightly as he shouted. But Baekgyeong’s expected snort of laughter was nowhere to be heard.
What greeted Siron instead was a middle-aged woman with graying hair, sitting on the parlor chair, looking up at him with slightly raised brows.
She didn’t look harsh or warm. Her gaze was detached, observant—Choi Baekhee’s calculating eyes locked with Siron’s, and he jumped in surprise, bowing hastily. His tears instantly vanished.
“Ah, hello!”
“You’re a brazen little thing, aren’t you?”
“Uh? Ah, haha...”
Siron laughed awkwardly and looked around for Baekgyeong. They made eye contact—he was standing between the parlor and the hospital room. That shameless bastard, who normally seemed to lack the part of his brain responsible for embarrassment, now had his red face buried in his palms, peeking between his fingers at Siron and his mother.
“What building were you talking about?”
“Ah, n-no, nothing!”
Choi Baekhee asked in a flat tone.
“Nothing? I clearly heard you asking for the baby building in Gangnam. Gyeong, do you even have a baby building? You know, a ‘baby building’ means a small commercial building with fewer than five floors—”
“I know what a baby building is!”
Baekgyeong snapped, his face still flushed with shame. He glanced at Siron like he was pathetic and muttered:
“I bought one in Nonhyeon-dong. Five floors. The first floor’s leased to that hammock-chewin’ place.”
“Hammock... chewin’?”
Siron chimed in hesitantly, eyeing Choi Baekhee’s reaction.
“He means a hamburger chain.”
“Oh. Right. That. I got them to open there ’cause Siron likes it.”
Last year, Baekgyeong had bought a five-story baby building in Nonhyeon-dong, where Siron’s agency, Green Company, was based. On the first floor, he’d installed the hamburger chain Siron had loved since America—a retro-style brand with a smiley-faced yellow logo. Siron couldn’t eat it often because of his diet, but still.
“So that’s the building you want.”
Siron flinched under Choi Baekhee’s cool, analytical stare and scrambled to explain.
“Baekgyeong’s refusing the surgery, so I’m trying to stay and take care of him. But I’m a celebrity, right? I just got cast as the lead in a blockbuster. And I’m giving that up to stay by his side. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance—3,500 to 1 odds, four audition rounds! But I’m staying because we don’t know how long he’s got left. And now he says he won’t get surgery because of me...”
He usually held his tongue around Baekgyeong, who didn’t respond to reason, but Siron had never been shy about defending himself. Stammering, but unfiltered, he looked at Choi Baekhee with an emotional face. He wasn’t upset—he felt like trash. Trash for already thinking about how to survive after Baekgyeong’s death. He couldn’t bear to look him in the eye.
“So what you’re saying is—you’re giving up the lead role, staying by his side until he dies, and in exchange, you want that baby building in the will? ’Cause you still have to make a living.”
“...Yes. I-I mean, I was just talking. I don’t actually need it.”
Choi Baekhee slowly crossed her arms, distancing herself from the situation without making any clear judgment. After a long pause, she asked, like she was genuinely curious:
“What the hell are you doing all this for, because of that bastard?”
“...Huh?”
“Ah! Mom!”
She waved her hand like shooing a fly, brushing off Baekgyeong’s interruption.
“You. Go film your movie.”
A faint smile rose to Choi Baekhee’s otherwise indifferent face.
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