Home Is Where She Is

“Going to sleep? What are you thinking about?”

Je-yoon, fresh from the shower, came up beside Yeon-ha. She was reclining in the massage chair, eyes closed, and answered without opening them, lips barely moving.

“Just the day we first met.”

“Ahh.”

Je-yoon gave a light nod, gaze lingering on her closed lids before he propped his arm against the side of the chair and tipped his chin up.

“What is it? Something you want to say?”

“Am I really sleeping in your bed, Noona?”

“Mm.”

She felt his eyes on her even through her shut lids, but she didn’t open them. She only nodded. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to look at him; exhaustion had simply crashed over her all at once. If he hadn’t half-dragged her out of the studio, she would almost certainly have wasted the hours until dawn there for no good reason.

“Really? Together?”

The stool scraped closer.

“Really?”

Je-yoon reached out toward Yeon-ha, whose hair had fallen a little loose while the chair worked on her neck.

“Je-yoon.”

The firm way she said his name made him flinch into a pout.

“Ah, just kidding.”

“No. Your hand…”

“I was worried your forehead might itch.”

Pinned by the pressure cuffs of the massage chair, Yeon-ha finally opened her eyes and looked at him.

“Your fingers are the itchier ones.”

When she narrowed her brows, his fingertips came straight in and pressed, slow and firm.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for your divorce, Noona?”

He massaged the space between her brows with gentle pressure. Whether it actually felt good or not, her eyebrows eased and drooped. Watching her refuse to add anything more, Je-yoon smiled faintly. She drew lines with her mouth, but he knew perfectly well she liked his touch.

“I didn’t divorce for your sake. I did it so I could live.”

“Exactly. Because it’s what you wanted.”

His hand left the smoothed space between her brows, brushed once lightly over her eyebrow, then began to toy with her ear.

“Ah.”

A shiver raced down the line of her throat and through her whole body at his touch. At the soft little sound she made, Je-yoon chuckled under his breath and worked her earlobe even more gently, as if massaging it.

To anyone watching it would have looked suggestive, and Yeon-ha knew that perfectly well, yet she couldn’t bring herself to call him on it.

When she had been little and couldn’t sleep, her father used to stroke her ears, and then she would sink into deep rest. After she lost him, the one who had put the sleepless child Yeon-ha to bed was Je-yoon’s presence. She would lie down beside him intending to help little Je-yoon fall asleep, only to drop off first more often than not. Back then he had been nothing short of a human sleeping pill for Song Yeon-ha.

So she couldn’t stop him now.

It isn’t anything particularly suggestive or loaded with other meaning, after all.

Besides, the same Yeon-ha who had always liked it when her father touched her ears would, whenever she wanted to comfort or praise the boy she thought of as a younger brother, pinch his ear and give it a little tug. When he brought home a prize, when he suddenly shot up taller, the day he became a model and first walked a runway—every time. Only when the uncle received his heart-disease diagnosis had she been unable to tug the ear of the boy sobbing in great heaving gasps; instead she had held him and fretted over the soft lobe the way she always did, out of habit, the way she always had.

To the two of them, then, the gesture was less something special than a natural thing they simply did for each other.

This is his own kind of comfort, I suppose.

And yet…

Rustle, rustle. The fingers that had been rolling her soft earlobe brushed, as if by accident, against her neck. Yeon-ha curled her toes without meaning to. The moment the air pressure pinning her arms released, she hit the stop button on the massage chair.

“You…!”

“Hm? What is it?”

But the innocent look on Je-yoon’s face made her feel as if she had simply been oversensitive.

“It’s just… you always sleep better when someone touches your ears. You looked tired.”

“That was when we were kids.”

“You kept touching my ears even after we grew up, Noona. And now you’re divorced, too.”

“What does this have to do with the divorce?”

Yeon-ha lifted a hand and covered the place where his warmth had lingered. It was a spot that would have reacted to anyone’s touch, not only Je-yoon’s. Still, she had thought it would be fine with him; the sharp protest had slipped out for no good reason.

Maybe she really was just tired.

“In the three years you were married we only saw each other seven times. I thought you’d married him because you liked him, but do you know what your face looked like every time we met?”

“……”

“You looked sad. I honestly believed that even if it was a strategic marriage, you’d chosen that man because he pleased you. But it wasn’t true. That expression back then…”

Je-yoon couldn’t finish.

To him Yeon-ha had always been someone who shone brightly, yet after the wedding she had looked at the world as if it had drained of color; even her eyes moved less, cooled and still. Even when she looked at him—at Je-yoon. That was when he understood that marriage had become her shackle. She stood straight, but in his eyes she looked as if she might snap at any moment. Other people might not have seen it, but he did.

He had wanted to make it possible for Song Yeon-ha to divorce, yet reality had slammed into him, and from then on he had thrown himself even harder into work with the single thought that he first needed to gather economic power. Even so, a fragile hope had begun to sprout in one corner of his heart—the thought that she might actually divorce, and the certainty that her marriage to Kevin Lee had never been for love.

“That’s why I waited for your divorce.”

He had met her while hiding that selfish wish, yet he had never even managed to give her the comfort she needed. He had known, instinctively, that if he did anything foolish he might never see her again.

“Because I never once comforted you properly. Because I knew you were struggling and still couldn’t say a word. I regretted that so much I wanted to do for you what I used to. So this…”

When Je-yoon scrubbed a dry hand over his face and let it fall, Yeon-ha’s heart softened. Why was it always like this whenever she looked at him?

Hearing it spelled out, she was certain the gesture was nothing more than a younger brother comforting his noona.

“All right. And I’ll have a bed brought in tomorrow.”

She pointed toward one of the empty rooms.

“Want to sleep in my bed? I can take the living room.”

“How am I supposed to sleep alone in your bed, Noona?”

That would be dangerous.

Je-yoon let out a silent sigh. Who knew what he might do alone under the covers she had been sleeping under every night. Ah—but sleeping together might be even more dangerous.

“We can’t sleep together. Then take the sofa, Go Je-yoon. Got it?”

Yeon-ha rose from the massage chair and gave him a once-over.

Maybe it was the soft lighting, or the damp hair still holding water, or the sharp, deep features beneath it, or the broad shoulders and the physique that drew the eye even at a glance—everything about him felt especially provocative. Her gaze drifted to the clean lines of his torso visible through the slightly parted front of the bathrobe.

“And close that a little.”

She reached up and straightened the collar of his robe for him.

Je-yoon was known for refusing photoshoots that required heavy exposure. That was why fans went wild over every tiny glimpse—the clean line of his throat, the handsome wrist wearing a watch, the arm muscle that continued from it, the occasional flash of ankle below a pant hem, the unexpectedly solid body revealed under a short-sleeved knit. Making people imagine everything unseen from the little that was seen—that was Je-yoon’s identity.

Of course, in front of her he had gone shirtless plenty of times, and he sat there now with one leg casually crossed, thigh on full display, as if it were nothing.

“What are you thinking about, Noona?”

Je-yoon tilted his head and studied her. Even through the haze of sleepiness her eyes still shone. The gaze that seemed to be savoring him swept over him, lingering here and there as if exploring.

“Thinking about work again, right? Need my hands somewhere else, too?”

At the lazy question Yeon-ha nodded.

“Mm. There’s a necklace as well. Ah, just sleep for now. We’ll talk tomorrow. You look tired too.”

Je-yoon made a face that said the answer hadn’t pleased him and lifted his eyes just enough to watch her.

“What? Lie down already.”

When she gave him a sidelong glance, Je-yoon rose. He strode straight past her and slipped under the blanket already spread on the wide sofa. Then he pulled the covers all the way over his face and sniffed. The faint scent of vanilla cream that clung to Yeon-ha drifted up around him.

“Noona.”

The corner of Je-yoon’s mouth curved. He lowered the blanket only to his eyes and called to her as she passed.

“Mm?”

Yeon-ha glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

“I’ll make sure to pay you back properly for putting me to sleep.”

“Mm.” Yeon-ha gave him a light smile and disappeared into the bedroom.

Once silence settled, a long sigh escaped Je-yoon. He flung the blanket aside, sat up, and for a moment hung his head, staring down. After thinking something through for a long while in the dark, he pulled out his phone and dialed. A short ring tone, then the other party picked up.

It was the close older friend handling the renovation of Je-yoon’s place.

“I’m back.”

“Ah, it’s fine. Two months—no, three months. Actually, just don’t do it. Forget it.”

“Hyung, I’m not renovating the place after all.”

The voice on the other end was startled, but Je-yoon’s expression stayed quite serious.

“I’ll still pay you the full amount.”

“No!”

The voice that cut him off was a little too loud. Je-yoon quickly lowered it and continued.

“Hah… two months—no, three months… well, even longer would be fine, actually.”

“Got it. Let’s call it three months. Take it easy, stay safe, yeah? Labor costs and everything—I’ll cover it all. You said you’re already swamped with wedding prep anyway. You can put me on the back burner.”

Je-yoon looked at the closed bedroom door and let the corner of his mouth lift.

“Me? I’ve always had a home.”

There had been a time he believed Song Yeon-ha’s marriage had collapsed his entire world. Until half a year ago, that had been his world. Compared to then, he was already riding the clouds.

Wherever Yeon-ha was—that was home.