Paradigm

Chapter XXIII

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. March 1998.

Breathless, Seonghwa let himself lie on the side of the bed. One could say San was the inexhaustible type. And Lord, he certainly was not just good at writing.

They were staring into each other's eyes, recovering what little lucidity they had left. The unexpected turn of the afternoon had totally disoriented the Frenchman.

To be honest, he had not yet realized how far he had fallen : he had just slept with one of his authors for God's sake !

Now that he was slowly going down from his high, Seonghwa was even more mortified about the fact that San had seen him naked. His whole entire body.

There is something about himself that the editor found quite funny. During all his teenage years until the age of twenty-five, he had been completely devoid of carnal desires. He hated the raw mediocrity of being a human with primal pulsions and he took pride in overcoming the most animalistic part of himself. He could feed from the other's passion. Just watching the others falling in love, losing themselves and ending up broken was enough to satisfy his repressed yet existent curiosity on one hand and to dissuade him from involving himself in relationships that required more intimacy on the other hand. And after this age - or more exactly, after the lamentable editorial failure of his first novel project that made him realize he had lost entire years of his youth pouring his heart in a text that was worth nothing -, his whole behavior towards love changed. If he could not be the artist, then he would be the muse.

He lost his virginity with a very brutal one-night stand. Some well-respected professor who Seonghwa thought was smart enough to see poetry in his body, but in the end ended up being an adept of brainless, barbaric sex. This act was followed by profound self-loathing. Each time he offered his body to a stranger again, it was as if a gaping wound opened up where his heart had been. A wound that did not exist when he was still a mere intellectual only preoccupied with the success of his career. A greedy wound that was crying out for love.

This urgent need for validation made him vulnerable and led him to fall into many traps. One of those was Choi San's charming manners. The writer, despite his talent, his charisma and his apparent gentleness and the way he kissed so tenderly was not different from the others. Sleeping with him made Seonghwa's skin crawl in self-loathing just as much.

Overcome by the urge to hide his embarrassing nakedness, the editor discreetly hid under the sheets.

As for San, he was not hiding at all. Why so ? Apart from his abominable scar, what was unsightly about him ?

His soul, perhaps.

He stroked his editor's cheek tenderly and placed a furtive, infinitely gentle kiss on his lips, completely oblivious of his sudden closed-off attitude.

"Are you considering a relationship with me ?"

Clear, direct. He seemed very sure of himself. He thought he had seduced Seonghwa for good, no doubt.

It took The Frenchman a second to find the definitive answer to this question. Just enough time to plunge into the blackness of his author's pupils and find nothing but void.

"You're a liar and a manipulator, Mr. Jung."

Just enough time to realize that he was worth more than this toxic man, no matter how much of a pleasant, erudit company he was.

San put on a neutral face, masking his surprise his best. He had never underestimated Seonghwa's intelligence, but he was very well aware of his weaknesses. Love was one of them. Still, he was positively astonished that the older man had overcome his own demons without him even noticing, although it did not bode well for his plans.