The tray made a harsh clink as Alberu set it in front of Taerang, who was sitting on the lignum vitae chair, on the coffee table which formed a complete set with the said chair.

“So, sir, in the end,” Taerang took a pause to sip on the tea the host had provided, though he was the junior, “Did you tell him your name?”

Alberu averted his eyes, before answering in a low voice, “...Yes.”

Taerang sighed. He cared about his employer a lot, especially because of the fact that they had known each other for quite some time, and in that time, he had come to realize rather early on, that Alberu was rather soft on the inside, despite his harsh mannerisms and stern appearance. He cared far too deeply for people and always hesitated to let a connection go. It would be bad in their line of work, but well, sometimes it was necessary. 

He remembered the way the younger college student had always shook his hand rather than barking at him and treating him like a meagre guard. Even though he was one, who had been given to him as a present for his achievements by his former ‘owner’, Angelica and right before Choi Jung Gun, and before that his guardian, Ahn Mon Ran. 

He was always viewed as a tool, almost always at least, Ahn Mon Ran had no other option but to give him to Choi Jung Gun because of the hand the man had on him.

He asked once again, “Did you say anything that even remotely points out the fact that made the person think that you’re part of the elite Crossman family, and not your average joe?”

Alberu still didn’t meet Taerang’s eyes. Taerang knew what that meant and unfortunately Alberu did too. 

Alberu struggled to meet Taerang’s eyes, “I’m sorry, hyung-”

“Don’t call me that right now, sir. You know you’re in trouble. Big time.”

Taerang took a sip of his lavender tea which had been poured til the brim of the teacup, “You were the one who originally asked for these rules to be made, and we can’t break them, since you specifically gave us instructions not to. No matter what you say at the time.”

Taerang looked at the man who was fidgeting anxiously. He knew why these rules were a safety precaution, and he didn’t want Alberu to go through that experience again. Well, technically speaking, he wasn’t there but he was told the story, and he didn’t like it either way, not one bit. 

Alberu also knew the reasons, and the repercussions, and yet it felt horrible. He knew why this had happened, and he didn’t want it to happen again but still. He looked at the table silently for a moment, thinking about the various possibilities which seemed to end with his heartbreak. 

Kim Rok Soo didn’t seem like the guy who would take advantage of him, he just didn’t. Not to mention, the connection- the connection felt as if he was a gust of wind that had finally found his tree, but he knew that in the end, this was the best move he could play. If he stayed, he had no idea what to do. 

Would he confront Kim Rok Soo? 

Would he pretend never to see him again, despite knowing that his heart longed for the other? 

That would just be running away, but Alberu wasn’t even sure what Kim Rok Soo would want. He thought that Kim Rok Soo was free, and that he, a caged bird could never compare, even if he liquidised all his assets he couldn’t compare with that man, and so, he might as well not trouble the other. 

Alberu was determined, yet this time he felt like he couldn’t win. A feeling he hadn’t felt for a long time. It reminded him of the time he had to deal with his dad, and those were memories he would rather not recall, but he was sure a broken person like him didn’t deserve Kim Rok Soo. 

After this short exchange with himself, he looked at Taerang, his eyes looked soulless, and his voice was brittle as he spoke, “So let’s go through with it.”

Taerang felt something inside of him break, he couldn’t do anything but agree, “...Yes, let’s go through, sir.”

Alberu took a short sip of the liquid that had been sitting in front of him untouched, “Ah look, it’s gone cold.”

***

Kim Rok Soo’s apartment was in an overly pristine condition, despite it normally being clean, Choi Jung Soo could tell that he had cleaned the place intensely a couple of hours earlier. The yellow evening lights had been switched on a few hours ago and the three men were sitting on the floor on a neatly maintained rug, with more than an average number of bottles that three men should consume in a single night being kept on the table. It seemed that they had all acknowledged that the only function of the table right now was to act as storage. 

“Rok Soo-ya?” Choi Jung Soo asked, waving his hand over the other’s face.

“Ah,” Kim Rok Soo blinked, adjusting his eyes to the light, before replying to the call of this man, “Yes?”

Choi Jung Soo took a seat next to him and could easily notice a couple of things that were odd off the bat. For example, the eyebags were deeper, he wasn’t paying attention at all, which even when separated from these discrepancies was odd. Not to mention he was drinking a lot, almost as if he was trying to get drunk. Even though Choi Jung Soo knew that Kim Rok Soo was aware of his own tolerance, which was inhumanly high, something must have happened and it was definitely not a good thing, seeing as the way Kim Rok Soo looked and acted. 

Choi Jung Soo patted the other’s head gently, you could hear the tease in his tone, “What’s wrong?” 

“Don’t really want to talk about it…Could you pour another one?” the other responded with a burnt out tone, letting the hand rest there. 

‘I guess it didn’t go well.’ Choi Jung Soo poured another cup for himself, using the nearest half filled bottle, before filling Kim Rok Soo’s cup. 

Lee Soo Hyuk on the other hand, was drinking a little too much than what a forty year old liver could take. He’d drunk two bottles. Downing them like they’re soup, well not like his dongsaeng hadn’t drunk about three bottles of the same type of strong alcohol in one sitting. 

‘Really, the people around me really don’t take care of themselves,’ thought Choi Jung Soo drinking down his seventh cup of scotch. He sighed and looked at Kim Rok Soo, he was sure it was a rejection. 

Kim Rok Soo felt like throwing up. He wanted to throw up all his feelings related to his former neighbor. It had only been a day, he wasn’t that close- So it wouldn’t be hard at all, if that was the case, right? 

“Who am I kidding, of course not.” he murmured. 

“Hmm?” the one beside him asked, “Is something wron-” Before Choi Jung Soo could finish his question, he was tackled with  a hug from the one he had presumed to be on the other end of the table. 

“Rok Soo yaaaaa~ Don’t worry, these kinds of things will always happen.” 

Choi Jung Soo struggled to escape the bear hug he had, without his knowledge, stepped into. “Hyung- Kim Rok Soo is there- There-” he tried to point to the clearly dispirited Kim Rok Soo, failing and being pinned to the floor, while Lee Soo Hyuk fell asleep on him. 

Gradually, Choi Jung Soo too, started losing consciousness, albeit something he did not sign up for, and drifting to sleep, while Kim Rok Soo was sitting in the end of the line of drunkards, well two pass outs and one drunk. 

Kim Rok Soo shuffled to get the two blankets to cover his hyungs before getting his own to join in on the pile of corpses. He shifted the table a bit, and tucked himself to make the rug a little more comfortable to lie on.  He tried to close his eyes, but he simply couldn’t. His mind was haunted by the brunette, and not in a good way. He turned to a couch, which brought back the incident that occured day before yesterday. He shifted once more, this time to look at the faces of his hyungs, this again reminded him of the time they were so excited about the whole soulmate jamboree. 

Everything reminded Kim Rok Soo of Alberu, and he didn’t like it. No matter how hard he tried he could simply not forget the man. He had a striking appearance and a discernable mark on his life, despite them knowing each other for a day. 

They hadn’t met each other since Kim Rok Soo had moved here, which was 6 years ago. Well, that was partly Kim Rok Soo’s fault for thinking that it was too much work to meet his neighbours, and he just ended it with seeing his then 24-year-old neighbour, who was too busy with his work once. 

Now, he regretted his decision. If only he had met him earlier. If only he hadn’t ignored his neighbour. These thoughts were the only ones going through his head that night, as he kept on twisting and turning, before finally finding a comfortable position to sleep in.

***

Alberu got up to an undesired nostalgia of mahogany furniture and neatly lined bookshelves along with the scent of cookies permeating the room. It wasn’t dense but rather a soft scent, being accompanied by a denser scent of black coffee. 

What was strange, was the fact that there was no coffee in the vicinity, and he knew his aunt, much like him, leaned towards tea. He was a bit curious about the fragrance but didn’t want to give it much thought as his brain was more preoccupied with other means- Kim Rok Soo. 

How would he deal with him? 

Alberu was fully aware of what a jerk he was being. He knew that it had been very unfair of him to just straight up leave.

“Aunt Tasha-” he called out to the similar looking black haired woman, her eyes glistened. Her hair was cut short which gave her a gentle look. 

“Yes?” she answered with a hum.

“So…” he couldn’t help but fidget in worry, was he allowed to ask such a thing in the first place? He knew fully well that what his aunt was doing was for his best interests, for his sake. 

Yet, it bugged him. 

He wanted to see the other man desperately. 

It nagged at him. 

Like a gnawing frostbite that never seemed to go away. 

“Speak up, Alberu. You know I’m willing to listen so take your time.” 

Alberu looked at her, always supportive of him no matter what he wanted to do. Always watching, and he felt guilty about that.

Alberu gripped his arm, he told himself that he had to remain firm. This was just a simple and easy task, so what was he getting all anxious about?

“I think I found my soulmate,” Alberu blurted out, wanting to get it over with. It made him feel a bit too bizarre, a feeling he didn't enjoy. He thought a little about the man, his calming, and sarcastic attitude. It made him smile lovingly and softly, it was almost invisible.

When he saw Tasha’s eyes, his smile fell apart, she didn’t meet his eyes with the same gaze he did. Her face was instead painted with a base of shock, and another which was an even more unfavourable expression on it; outrage. 

One glance is all it took for Tasha to assess the situation. She had already been informed by Taerang about his leaked identity, which in itself had been surprising. Tasha could smell the coffee and cookies off her nephew. She didn’t know how it got there since they had no coffee at home, and she knew her nephew didn’t drink coffee, and buttered chocolate cookies. It would have been plausible if he hadn’t come out of the bedroom.

She knew what this meant, the boy had found his soulmate, but she also knew one thing– you could have problems with your past lover. It was like any relationship, simply adding in the strong connection. It wasn’t that big of a deal as people made it up to be.

After all, her sister had also been in a similar kind of relationship and she easily got replaced. Zed had simply thrown her away when he realized that his soul mark had appeared again. It was plausible that the bad luck might have carried from the mother to the son. Even though deep down, she was sure that wasn’t the case. She was worried, and terribly, terribly protective of her nephew, for he was the only one part of her sister that had remained in the world of the living. Being a soulmate had led to her sister’s heartbreak and eventual death, and perhaps it wouldn’t be as severe in Alberu’s case, but he had suffered enough after his mother’s death, she concluded. 

“You found a soulmate?” she asked, her expression now a bit less animated than her previous one, but Alberu could tell that she was not pleased one bit. 

He had a rough idea why but he wasn’t all that into the details. He was young when his mother and ‘father’ divorced, and he knew how his mother had committed suicide after a weeks of the unusual event. After that, he knew how his life had spiralled down to. She died without gaining custody of her child because Alberu’s talents had been noteworthy and rather eye-catching and Zed thought the boy would fetch a pretty price as a showpiece. 

He wasn’t wrong per se, but the exposure to the life of adults had dimmed his young eyes that had been previously filled with life. He had gotten used to going days without proper food and water, and that he wasn’t allowed anything as an emotional support. He wasn’t allowed to have a weakness, if he wanted to stay with his worth.

He had been locked, neglected, even abused if his scores or position went a bit under than perfect. Well, that was at first, then it escalated to him being the outsider of the ‘family’. 

Alberu had noted at the ripe age of eighteen, the people he lived with were hypocrites. In private they would always say the opposite of what they said under the public eye.

‘The shame of this house.’

‘The joy of our family.’

‘You dirty leech. Shouldn’t you be working non-stop? You live here rent free anyway.’

‘He’s always such a darling brother of mine. I simply worry that he works too hard for his own good.’

‘Disgusting. That skin of yours looks so ugly, maybe it’d be better if we got rid of it’

‘He looks so handsome too! He looks just like father, well his skin tone doesn’t matter.’

‘Don’t you get it? You don’t have a place here.’

‘Even though he looks different, he fits right in. Exactly, it's petty to not care about someone who shares the same blood as your sons just because they have a different skin tone.’

They weren’t memories he would want to remember at all, even though they constantly played on his mind like a broken record player. Constantly. 

That’s why he trusted his Aunt’s judgement, for she was the only one who had helped him get out of that hellhole. It was her acceptance that Alberu wanted the most.

Alberu nodded, in return to which Tasha’s unamusement became even more apparent with a long sigh. She was very reluctant to entrust her nephew in anyone’s hand, and the thought of him getting used made her boil over with rage, and so she simply cut off the communication between the two, by a few words, “Alberu, I don’t approve.”

***

Kim Rok Soo grumbled at the white noise that was playing on repeat in the background. He could hear the chattering that was going on between the two other men in the house. He laid on the makeshift bed until he heard a ringtone. A particular ringtone which made him sure of the person on the other line. 

‘Basen.’

He stretched his hand out to reach his phone, still remaining tucked in his blanket and refusing to move. By the third ring of the phone, he had successfully maneuvered himself in a way that he could stay comfortable and pick up the phone. He finally received it.

“Hello?” The voice on the other end greeted Kim Rok Soo. 

Kim Rok Soo, still groggy and voice still unsettled, spoke in a lower tone than his usual. It sounded synonymous to the croak of a frog, “Good morning Basen. What makes you call this early?”

Basen knew that tone belonged to his uncle, and he also knew that this was the tone of voice he had in the morning before he had even gotten up from bed. He’d found out so from the several sleepovers he had with him. Still it was odd to hear his voice this deep. Had his Ahjussi been drinking? “Uncle Rok Soo, how much did you drink last night?”

“Why do you ask?” Kim Rok Soo said, shuffling in the sheets, shifting his movements ever so slightly to stay within the warmth of the blanket that covered him up completely like a cocoon.

“Have you still not gotten up?” Basen asked, his tone a bit shocked.

Kim Rok Soo hummed to give an affirmative response.

Basen sighed, “Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s...” He slurred while reordering his position to face the clock. “Three.”

Basen sighed, his voice then went low as he turned his face away from his phone “Haaaa... What’s that Pen?” 

Kim Rok Soo’s ears perked up, “Pen’s there?”

He could hear Basen crack up a bit, “Uncle Rok Soo, you attended the wedding, didn’t you? We’re married, so of course we’re living together.”

Kim Rok Soo relaxed again remembering the joyous event that had taken place a month ago, “Ah, yeah yeah.”

Basen slid the phone between his ear and shoulder, “Uncle, are you still out of it?”

Kim Rok Soo twisted his head, cocking it out of the blanket. “Maybe,” he yawned. 

“Rok Soo-ya? You’re finally up?” Kim Rok Soo saw Lee Soo Hyuk standing in front of him. 

“Um, yeah.” Kim Rok Soo lazily replied. 

“Ah,” Basen said from the other end, “If Lee Soo Hyuk Ahjussi is there, why not give him the phone, and probably freshen up.”

Kim Rok Soo nodded and handed the phone to Lee Soo Hyuk, while informing the other person about his nephew, “It’s Basen, he wants to talk to you.”

Lee Soo Hyuk’s face quirked up to form a grin, “It’s been a long time since he’s talked to me, has he been busy with his lover?”

Kim Rok Soo looked over and casually answered,“Their honeymoon did get over a few weeks earlier. So it is a  possibility.”

Lee Soo Hyuk sighed while taking the phone from Kim Rok Soo, “Aiya, I really am getting old. Everyone around me is getting married or starting to date someone. Ah, the woes of an old man.”

He heard an annoyed voice from the far side of the kitchen, “Did you forget that you’ve been with your lover for over 15 years, Mr. old man?”

The mention of Lee Soo Hyuk’s lover made Kim Rok Soo think about his friend, “Ah, I need to talk about the details about the meeting with Beacrox.”

Lee Soo Hyuk turned to him, his head tilted to the right, “He has been talking about that too. Do you have something in mind for the day?”

Kim Rok Soo could feel the headache rushing over him like a tidal wave, “I'll talk later, I need to wash my face and brush.” 

“Oh wait, before you go-” Lee Soo Hyuk stopped him, causing Kim Rok Soo to turn, “You kinda smell like aloe vera? I didn’t know you kept any plants here?”

Kim Rok Soo pulled his t-shirt to sniff it, indeed, it smelled like the said succulent. He furrowed his eyebrows. It was odd, but it was too much for his woozy head to think about. 

He pulled himself out of the mattress and walked to the bathroom, lazily scratching his hay-like hair. His eyes lazily lolled around, scanning the surroundings of his own apartment as if it was something foreign. He sighed, standing there for a moment facing his reflection in the mirror. 

He ran his fingers through the messy strands that gently lay on the shoulder, remembering Alberu’s fingers cold touch. They were hardened and felt like they had been holding a pen their entire life, never wanting to try anything else, though Kim Rok Soo thought that Alberu merely never got the time to engage in hobbies. 

‘That’s not how hair gel works, hyung.’ 

He remembered the annoyed tone the man could endlessly fill his voice with. He splashed some water on his eyes, still wondering where the other had gone. It would be quite foolish to disappear if he were fearing rejection, if that is the reason the dark man had disappeared, he would think of the said man to be quite dense to not recognize Kim Rok Soo’s feelings towards himself.

***

Alberu tried to keep the volume down as he washed the dishes in the empty and eerily huge villa’s secluded kitchen. To be fair, it wasn’t empty, there were servants and Aunt Tasha was lounging in the living room. 

His mind was currently occupied with his aunt’s reaction.

He didn’t expect such a strong rejection since he believed his aunt would be a little more liberal towards this aspect. 

However, Alberu knew the reason why his aunt was overprotective since he was well aware of what happened to his mother. Sure, he understood why she didn’t want him to date Kim Rok Soo, but she also refused to acknowledge that his soulmate was different than his mother’s and it wasn’t fair to not give him a chance. Or at least give him the benefit of the doubt.

‘Bitten once, twice as shy, I guess.’ He thought, sighing. 

He simply wanted to meet Kim Rok Soo, simply wanted to check something, a simple gut feeling. 

An instinct. 

Normally, he would have ignored it, but it was a sensation that he couldn’t help but dwell upon. It wasn’t gripping, more like a mild fever that had come over him. He thought that it was something that would easily go away and not bother him anymore, yet it stuck persistently, that it can’t help but get noticed no matter how much he tried to look the other way. 

It felt real and that scared Alberu. 

He didn’t hate the feeling of love. 

It was just that, he was so scared of being involved with it, that it felt like he couldn’t breathe. 

The so-called love he knew was only based on the last sole affection he’s gotten from his mother. 

He believed that Kim Rok Soo wouldn’t be the kind of person to ‘love’ him. Alberu wasn’t the type to have gotten everything in his life in a neatly packaged bow, and that included his relationships all the more. 

Love? He couldn't trust it nor did he have the guts to risk letting the feeling take over him.

Any relationship he tried to maintain didn’t end on a good note, for numerous reasons. Even though his face wasn’t shown and he had a fake surname, his previous partners always knew he was rich. His arranged marriage partners thought of him as a mere money milking tool or someone who would just settle for just a crumb of bread. 

The idea of that appalled Alberu. Somehow he couldn’t think of it in a good light. He didn’t want to be the sort of person who would force someone to be with him just for his money.

If that was the case he was better off without anyone. 

But why was it that he couldn’t forget about him?

That man, who had seen him in his most vulnerable state had simply accepted it. Had waved off the thought that he was odd or unbelonging. He had given him the chance to feel these new sets of emotions he thought he would never experience in his lifetime.

Unbeknownst to Alberu, his hands were working fast and intensely out of all the stress. Only when he heard a loud clang was he snapped back to reality. His eyes immediately darted to the cause of the noise, which was a plate that had slipped from his hands and had fallen into the sink. 

Alberu stared at it for a bit, sighed and washed it. 

It was a good thing it didn’t break.

After neatly placing it in the dryer, he walked out of the kitchen and took a seat in the hall on the coach facing his aunt’s. 

She tore her eyes away from the book she was reading to face him. Tasha noticed the lost look in his eyes, and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Alberu blinked, turning his gaze away from the table and meeting his aunt’s, “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” He said, picking up a book lying on the Pacini e Cappellini coffee table to read. 

Tasha sighed, sticking a bookmark between her copy of ‘War and Peace’, marking her progress in rereading the classic, “Are you still bothered by it?”

Alberu tried to feign ignorance, “By what?”

“We both know what you’re thinking about.” Tasha knew that he wouldn’t outright address the topic. He was far too self constricted with her for that.

Alberu met her eyes, but still had his eyes glazed over, it was as if he actually had no idea of what his aunt was talking about, “Like I said, what?”

Tasha however, was having none of that, she knew Alberu since he was a baby albeit she was young during those turbulent times. She motioned her hand as if she was pointing to the person in question, “Your soulmate, whoever that may be.” 

“Huh.” Alberu mused, making it painfully obvious for Tasha to tell he was unimpressed, “What about my soulmate?” 

Tasha, also aware of his current ‘yearnings’ spoke without batting an eye, “You want to meet them.”

“I sure do, but there’s someone who's preventing that, isn’t there?” He said, finally keeping his book down and sending his aunt a glare that was trying very hard not to reveal its true intentions.

Tasha got annoyed at the misconception Alberu had of her. She was doing this for him. How couldn’t he not get it?“ You know that I’m doing this for your sake. Your mother died because–”

“–Of her soulmate.” Alberu completed her sentence. He had heard it for so many times he was sure that was what the next few words entailed. He sighed.

“Aunt,” He said in a chilling voice, he was the closest to his aunt but there was definitely a line that shouldn’t be crossed. 

Not everything was about his mother. He was well aware how his mother’s death had unfolded but not everyone was like his father, not everyone was as egregious as that man. 

“I understand your concerns but do remember.” He paused to take a good look at his aunt, “I am not my mother,” he took another pause “and I never will be.” 

Alberu could never be his mother. His mother was pure, and charismatic, not to mention she was the incarnation of beauty itself. Never attempting any foul means, she tried hard. She died protecting him. 

And he could never be, not even an inch close to being as great as her. Or so he believed.

Tasha looked the other way, “I know that…but it still scares me. What if they lose interest in you and desert you–”

Alberu sighed again. The next few words he had said out of the simple motivation to prove Tasha wrong about soulmates, and snag a lover in one quick move. “Alright, since you are so bothered by the fact that they’ll cheat on me or lose interest. Let me put forward the idea of a bet. I’ll not visit my soulmate for two months and after those two months, let’s see whether they get over me in that period of time.” ‘–well formally, I won’t be meeting him.’

Alberu thought about it for a moment. He would use himself and Kim Rok Soo as an experiment. He set a bet like that out of impulse to prove her wrong. Even though he wouldn’t mind if he had really moved on, a part of him wanted to know the outcome to all this as well.

If fate would really allow them to be together, or would it be another curse that had befallen since his mother’s time? 

Would things be different?

He didn’t know the answer to that. That was why he did this. That was why he made this stupid bet to at least convince himself that it was alright for him to love, or just have believed in his Aunt’s words in the first place.

Alberu was not the type to easily trust people but this time he wanted to try.

He wanted to try and place a bit of his faith on that man.  

Tasha, who was also right at the end of her wits from this conversation, agreed in a fit of confusion and annoyance with the flow of the conversation, wanting it to end, “Ok, fine. Let’s do just that. When should we start?”

Alberu asked, also getting riled up, “How about right this second?”

Tasha leaned back, “Alright then. For 2 months which start at 5pm December 8th, 2XXX until 5pm February 8th, 2XXX(+1). Deal?”

“Deal.” 

“Ok then. Taerang, write this down.” Tasha crossed her arms together, her eyes still lingering at her nephew who broke eye contact.

“Yes ma’am.” The mostly stationary man, who had been sitting on the chair beside Alberu finally spoke.