Then Woo Ilkyung must have remembered that too, because he suddenly said, “Let’s just sleep together. We’re both guys, so what does it matter?” But only for a moment—with a quite flustered face, he said, “I-I’m not gay!” He must have been bothered by something after being teased all day.
“I’ve told you over and over. I have no hobby of touching straight people. No matter how desperate I am, I don’t just eat anyone.”
At Daehoon’s words, Woo Ilkyung barked again. He probably thinks he’s some kind of scary wolf when he does that, but look at it this way or that way, Woo Ilkyung is a newborn Maltese puppy. Everyone else seems to know that except himself.
“Anyway! Let’s just lie down together. What does it matter? We’re just going to sleep.”
And so the two lay down on the bed.
“Wow, it’s really beautiful.”
Woo Ilkyung was a Seoul native. He was practically a Seoul country bumpkin. His mother’s family was in the provinces, but he couldn’t go there often. His parents were busy with Center life at their peak, and his noonas had manifested as Espers early on and were busy too.
“Do you like it?”
“Yes, I like it. It’s really beautiful.”
Ilkyung gaped as he gazed at the night sky.
“I’ve never seen a shooting star even once. Have you ever seen one, Director-nim?”
“I’ve seen them a few times lying here like this. I thought, so that’s what it means when they say stars are pouring down.”
“Wow, if I came here, I don’t think I’d want to go back to Seoul.”
At Ilkyung’s words, Daehoon laughed in a low voice.
“I was in England the whole time, so I haven’t been here in a while either. I saw shooting stars when I was very young.”
“What’s England like? Does it really fog up often?”
“Yes, as many people know, there really is a lot of fog. Even though I’m usually not too particular about the weather, sometimes I want to see a clear sky for several days straight.”
Perhaps because the two had been together all day, they felt a bit more comfortable. It was okay to lie side by side like this. Now Ilkyung no longer felt uncomfortable with Director Ha.
“Oh! Did you see that? Just now!”
Seeing a falling shooting star, Ilkyung flipped his body over onto his stomach, raised his head close, and spoke to Daehoon. He looked like a curious puppy lowering its upper body and preparing to leap somewhere. While wagging its short tail energetically. No matter how you looked at it, Woo Ilkyung was exactly like a Maltese.
“Did you make a wish?”
“Ah!”
It passed by in an instant, so he didn’t even think to make a wish.
“Ah, it was too fast.”
Ilkyung said regretfully. Daehoon chuckled at that childlike appearance.
“Do you even have a wish you want to make?”
Daehoon lay on his side with his arm as a pillow and asked Ilkyung. When Ilkyung’s eyes met Daehoon’s, he tilted his head. Probably if it had been before, he would have shouted, “For this contract relationship with you to end!” but now, well…
“Now that you mention it. Right now, not particularly…”
“Then did you have one when you were young?”
The eyelashes of Ha Daehoon, who was making eye contact with him, were casting shadows in the moonlight. How could eyelashes be this long? Ilkyung was seized by the urge to reach out and touch those eyelashes.
“Did you have one?”
“Mm, well, it was something like that. Please let me become an Esper too.”
Daehoon stared at Ilkyung quietly.
“Why?”
“I’m thinking about what kind of role would suit you if you had become an Esper. Was there something you particularly wanted to be? Telekinesis-type?”
In a household that had everything, Ilkyung didn’t care about anything specific. He just needed to be an ability user. But thinking about how difficult that was even now, it’s a bit absurd and annoying.
“Not really. I didn’t have anything particular. It’s just that all my noonas were Espers, so I wanted to be one too—that’s what I thought. If I had to choose, anything except a telekinesis-type Esper.”
“Why not telekinesis-type? Honestly, aren’t telekinesis-types the ones who are most active in the field?”
“That’s exactly why.”
Ilkyung wrinkled his nose and smiled awkwardly.
“Actually, my second noona is S-rank, but even though she’s A-rank, because my youngest noona is telekinesis-type, she seems to do the most work. And that’s the truth too.”
“Woo Ilkyung-ssi, you like working.”
“Oh please, that’s only for a day or two. Even when you’re always together, you get called out, and there are no proper vacations. No matter how much you like work, what’s good about that?”
Even as Ilkyung said that, he recalled his young days when he thought, if only I could become an ability user. Back then, he felt like he was the only adopted child, like he wasn’t family, and all sorts of thoughts came to him.
“Do you still feel alienated sometimes even now?”
“I don’t know about now. What you said to me back then, Director-nim, must have been very comforting.”
“What was it?”
“That arrowroot juice. That it wasn’t just consideration for the Espers, but that Mom is probably someone who’s obsessed with health originally.”
Daehoon chuckled. Woo Ilkyung had a tendency to misinterpret what others said a bit.
He was talking about when Woo Ilkyung, still with a sleep-drunk face, grumbled about who drinks arrowroot juice like an old person and complained that his family had some stuff like that. He muttered that maybe it was because there were many Espers or they really paid attention to the body, but he didn’t need such things, so Daehoon had said maybe it was just an atmosphere of paying attention to health.
Woo Ilkyung was saying that those words had become a catalyst for changing his perspective.
“So now you don’t have any particular wish?”
Daehoon slowly closed and opened his eyes as he asked. His long eyelashes fluttered like a painting. It was like the elegant flapping of a butterfly’s wings. How could someone be this handsome? His thick eyebrows, his high nose bridge, his slightly upturned lips… His face illuminated by moonlight was like a painting.
“I’m thinking now…, ah, no.”
“What is it? Hm?”
“Huh?”
From earlier, Director Ha gently grasped the hand that had been thinking about touching those eyelashes just once.
“What do you want to do that you’re fidgeting with this hand like that? Do you want to touch something? Even if it’s not a wish, I’ll grant it.”
Watching the gradually rising corners of his mouth, he realized he’d been played in Director Ha’s palm again. He hurriedly tried to pull that hand away, but Ha Daehoon gently drew it in and pressed his lips to his palm.
“N-no, that’s…”
Ilkyung stammered in confusion, but he just stuttered because he liked the feeling of the soft lips and his fingers touching his wrist. Under the night sky that seemed to pour with starlight, Ha Daehoon kissed like kissing a precious lover.
Ilkyung could no longer speak and only moved his lips slightly. He couldn’t even close his eyes. Daehoon slowly closed and opened his eyes again, making eye contact. His spine tingled. He had no choice but to be helplessly drawn into this atmosphere. Even while saying no inside, he was deceived by his elegant face and just blinked while leaving his hand in his care.
“Why are your hands so small? So cute?”
“What?”
Usually he would have snapped, “That’s because Director-nim’s hands are big!” but right now Ilkyung couldn’t say anything, like someone whose thought circuits had broken down.
“You’ve worked hard.”
“For what?”
Daehoon still held Ilkyung’s wrist and gently caressed it as he spoke. Ilkyung asked while offering his wrist to Daehoon, frozen like ice like someone who had forgotten how to move.
“For dating.”
“Well, no… At first I didn’t like it, but later it was fun.”
Ilkyung mumbled. It was the truth. At first he’d just thought Director Ha was annoying, but now he thought more often that he was unexpectedly kind and interesting.
“I’m glad it was fun.”
Why was his voice so low and tantalizing? Was it because it was night? Or was it because they were lying down facing each other on the bed completely sober? He was too conscious of this space and atmosphere. Ilkyung unconsciously withdrew his body backward little by little.
“Ah!”
“Why are you backing away? Trying to fall off?”
His senses are like a ghost’s! Ha Daehoon grabbed Woo Ilkyung’s waist with his long arm and pulled him in. Because of that, their bodies stuck together completely. Ah, are you crazy?! When things were already a bit strange, because their bodies stuck together, it felt like his heart dropped. No, his heart was beating like crazy. Ilkyung twisted his body to lie flat, worried that this heartbeat sound might be heard by Ha Daehoon.
