Chapter 21

Why is this guy acting like this? Did he lose his spirit just because I scolded him a little…?

Gyuhan’s gloom reached unfathomable heights.

The fellow that used to salute healthily every dawn lay flat, quiet, and docile even in the morning. It wasn’t that he had trouble peeing. It was truly erections—that single issue alone.

‘It appears to be psychological.’

He had already visited a clinic—the nearest one, at the earliest available time.

‘Psychological?!’ Gyuhan had asked in shock. ‘You’re saying my dick won’t get hard because I’m depressed?!’

‘It could be depression… Have you felt depressed recently? Has your alcohol intake increased, or your smoking…?’

‘No. No changes like that, and I’m not depressed.’

He couldn’t very well confess that he’d reached an absolute, earth-shattering climax recently. From that very moment, something guilty had lodged in Gyuhan’s heart. Recalling that orgasm gave him a throbbing headache. Having never experienced a headache in his life, it felt as though the ache struck straight through his cardiovascular system—his chest felt heavy, and his legs felt numb. Seeing Gyuhan suddenly shaking his legs in fretful anxiety, the doctor added, ‘Hmm… Psychological factors include many things. Embarrassment, anxiety, pressure, guilt…’

Guilt!

That word stamped itself indelibly onto Gyuhan’s brain.

Right. Guilt. That was it. Fantasizing about his friend was his crime. Realizing that, the clinic, the doctor, the medication—everything felt utterly useless.

Gyuhan trudged out of the clinic. Barely remembering the advice to hold off on drinking and smoking for a while, he tossed the cigarette he had habitually put to his lips into the trash bin.

It’s my fault.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, Gyuhan engaged in long self-blame.

He’d let Lee Sohee go (of course, as a real man, he believed it was proper to end things without deceiving a lady), and now he was about to lose his friend, as well as the unused junk he’d never even gotten to use. A single session of masturbation had cost him so much.

His days could no longer be energetic. Gyuhan’s head was crammed with trouble. What was the issue? Guilt? Was the fact that he was ‘capable’ when thinking of his friend truly the problem? It was clear he was being punished. Unlike his younger brother, Gyuhan followed no particular religion, so there was nowhere he could go to confess his sins and receive absolution.

Without religion, vicarious forgiveness was off the table. That left only one solution.

“Secretary Kim.”

Gyuhan poked his head out the office door and called Secretary Kim. The secretary, who had been dreaming of pulling off payroll pickpocketing again today, stood up.

“When is Attorney Gong coming back?”

“Uh… He arrives at Incheon on Friday at 11:50 PM.”

“He’s working hard.”

“Don’t mention it, sir.”

“Not you. Attorney Gong.”

Saying that, Gyuhan ducked back into his office, his expression graver than ever before.

Two paths now lay before him. One was for little Cha Gyuhan to spring actively back to life before Friday; the other was for Gong Jio to return before that happened so Gyuhan could offer a profound apology.

Gyuhan propped his elbows on the desk and clasped his hands. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, and muttered, “I’m fucked…”

Because no matter how much he thought about it, the resurrection of his member before Friday seemed entirely out of the question.

Cha Gyuhan was a specimen of peak health who had never understood how anyone in life could fail to eat or sleep.

Lately, he couldn’t sleep.

Now, he’d lost even his rest.

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