Page 37 of Perfect Companion
Hongjoong sits up against the headboard, his hair an absolute disaster, wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung sweatpants. He watches me stand and reach for the shirt I left draped over the back of his desk chair, and says with a casualness that doesn’t match the words, “If we just lived together, you know, you could wake up like this every morning and you wouldn’t have to worry about going back and forth.”
I don’t look at him as I pull the shirt over my head. “You’ve said as much before.” I say evenly, minding my expression even with my back turned. “But I don’t live alone. I have no good way to explain you to my son, and even if I did, what happens at the end of the contract?” I tug the hem down and reach for my pants folded on the chair. “I’d have to uproot us all over again and lose the lease on my current apartment.”
The silence behind me lasts a second too long.
“Then why don’t we forget about the contract,” Hongjoong says, “and make this permanent.”
I freeze with one arm through my sleeve. The fabric bunches at my elbow as I turn slowly to look at him. He’s still sittingagainst the headboard, one knee drawn up, but his expression is completely sincere. There’s no trace of a joke in it, no dimpled grin to undercut the words, no playful tilt to his head. He’s watching me with steady eyes and a set jaw, and he looks like a man who’s been thinking about this for longer than just this morning.
“What are you saying?” I manage.
Hongjoong gets up from the bed and crosses to me, his bare feet quiet on the hardwood. His hands find my waist and pull me close, my half-dressed body fitting against his chest, and he looks down at me, his expression unwavering. “I’m saying forget the contract terms. You don’t have to move out, ever.” His thumbs press into the dip of my waist, firm and grounding. “I can claim you. You can live here permanently.”
I look up at him and I can see it in his eyes, the steadiness there, the certainty that comes from having already argued himself through every angle and arrived at a conclusion he’s confident in. He really means it. I struggle for words and blink several times, dropping my gaze to his chest where the tattoo curls around his side, the crane’s wing curving over his ribs.
“You can’t mean that,” I say quietly.
“I do.” His grip on my waist tightens slightly. “Think about it, Jae. You wouldn’t have to do this work anymore. I have more than enough to take care of you for the rest of your life.”
I shake my head, refusing to let myself believe it. Believing it would mean letting hope in, and hope is the most dangerous thing I can afford right now. “You need to think about what you’re offering. I understand maybe you wanted me when we were younger, but I’m not young anymore.” I gesture vaguely at myself, at the body I know too well, the scars and the wear and the chronic aches that flare up at the worst times. “My body is worn out. I have nothing to offer you.”
Hongjoong’s brow furrows, and he lets out a sharp breath through his nose. “Oh, come on. We’re the same age, for fuck’s sake. And I don’t care about any of that.” He squeezes me closer, one hand sliding up my back to cup the nape of my neck, and leans down to press his mouth against the shell of my ear. His voice drops, warm and rough against my skin. “No one has ever pleased me the way you do, so it doesn’t seem like there’s anything wrong with your body from where I’m standing.”
His words land settle behind my ribs, warm and aching. I pull back enough to meet his eyes and say the thing I need to say, the thing that matters more than anything else in this conversation. “And what about my son?”
Hongjoong shrugs, easy as anything. “I’ll adopt him.”
I lean back in his arms, genuinely startled. “You’d do that?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Hongjoong, you’ve never even met him.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like I’m being dense for questioning it. “He’s a part of you. He’s your blood, so he’s family to me too.” I blink hard, my jaw working. I have to look away because the wave of emotion that rises in my chest is too big and too sudden and if I’m not careful, it’s going to spill out of me in a way I can’t take back. Hongjoong isn’t finished though. “You said he’s an alpha, right? He probably needs an alpha parent to help guide him through his presentation and everything that comes with it anyway. I can do that.”
I’m speechless. Everything I’ve wanted for fifteen years is being laid out in front of me like it’s the simplest thing in the world, like all I have to do is say yes and it’s mine. Hongjoong offering to claim me, to take care of me, to adopt his own son without even knowing the truth. And it’s too good. I know it’s too good, because I know what’s underneath it, the lie I’ve been sitting on since we were eighteen, the secret that could shatterevery single thing he just said the moment it surfaces. When he finds out who Sungyoon really is. When Sungyoon finds out who Hongjoong really is. When both of them look at me and realize what I’ve done.
I force myself to breathe, to be logical, to push down the desperate wanting that’s clawing at the inside of my chest. “Maybe we can discuss it later,” I say, my voice only shakes a little. “After the conference. When we’ve both had time to think.”
Hongjoong searches my face for a moment, then nods. “All right. I won’t push.” He kisses my forehead, lingering, his lips warm against my skin, and then lets me go.
I walk to the bathroom on unsteady legs and close the door behind me. My hands are shaking as I pick up my toothbrush, and when I look at myself in the mirror, I barely recognize the expression on my own face, cracked open and terrified and wanting so badly it hurts. I brush my teeth and splash water on my face and grip the edge of the sink until my knuckles go white. I tell myself to get it together, that I can’t say yes to something this big while I’m still lying to him about the most important thing in both our lives.
But God, I want to.
Hongjoong drives. I sit in the passenger seat of the absurdly expensive sports car he picked from his collection this morning, watching the city slide past the tinted windows as we cut through midday traffic. Hongjoong has one hand on the wheel and the other resting on my knee, his thumb rubbing absent circlesagainst the inside of my leg through my pants. I let him because it’s easier than making a thing of it.
He pulls into the lot outside my apartment building, and I unbuckle my seatbelt, reaching for the door handle. “I’ll be quick,” I say, already calculating how long it’ll take me to throw a weekend bag together. “Fifteen minutes, tops.”
I push the door open and step out, and I’m halfway around the front of the car when I hear the driver’s side door open too. I stop and turn. Hongjoong is climbing out, stretching his arms above his head with a groan, his jacket riding up to flash a strip of tattooed skin at his hip. He shuts his door and clicks the lock, pocketing the key fob as he rounds the hood toward me.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Coming with you, obviously.” He falls into step beside me like it’s already been decided, sliding his sunglasses up onto his head as he squints at the building’s facade. His eyes move over the cracked concrete of the front steps, the rusted railing, the intercom panel with half its buttons missing. “I’m curious about where you’ve been living all this time.”
I hesitate with my hand still on the car door I haven’t fully closed, my fingers tightening around the edge. The request isn’t unreasonable. He’s been inside my life in every other way for weeks now, inside my body, inside my head, worming his way back into the spaces I sealed off fifteen years ago. But the apartment is different. The apartment is where Sungyoon lives, where his school photos hang on the fridge and his soccer trophies line the shelf above the TV, and his shoes sit in a messy pile by the front door. It’s the one place I’ve kept completely separate from Hongjoong, and letting him walk through that door feels like inviting a lit match into a room full of gasoline.
Hongjoong arches an eyebrow at my silence. “Is that a problem?”
