“Really? …I, I can talk on the phone with my younger sibling?”
Light shone on Woonghee’s round cheeks as his face gleamed white. It was a complexion like abundant warm sunlight pouring down.
Gi Junhyuk—he looked into the face of the person before him. He was watching how that white complexion changed. Lee Woonghee’s pupils were carefully directed this way, but every time their gazes met, he flinched and avoided it.
“Why would Gi Junhyuk-ssi do that…?”
Even while asking that, his plump lips let out a shallow laugh as the corners of his mouth seemed about to curl up. That expression was like a child who’d guessed what their Christmas present was while doing their best to pretend not to know.
“Because Woonghee-ssi is curious. Are you that happy?”
The man didn’t move a single eyelid. He stared wide-eyed, observing every expression seeping into Lee Woonghee’s features.
His pebble-like pupils sparkled with anticipation. While daring to ramble on about such shabby porridge talk before him, the emotion Woonghee had tried to convey to him was precisely love.
“It’s been too long since I’ve heard any news…”
Lee Woonghee answered while scratching the back of his neck. Blushing as if embarrassed by his shy self.
…Ah, and so the man sighed as if he’d realized something. Perhaps to Woonghee, guilt was the emotion called love.
It was truly ridiculous. To have such quick realization. How hard the therapist had tried to shove the word “emotion” into his skull.
Everything was just fucking around. They should have brought this in front of him. This would have smashed his skull and properly settled in his frontal lobe to show him what emotion was.
Whoop—possessiveness surged from within the man. It would be nice if that emotion Woonghee felt toward his younger sibling was his. How exactly could he get his hands on that? It couldn’t be purchased with money or forcibly plundered, and he couldn’t split open Woonghee’s skull to inject emotions.
…Ah, right.
What if he instilled guilt in Woonghee?
Once the thought settled in his mind, the man immediately wanted to test it. He finally lowered one hand. A watch was placed near the bathtub. When he separated the watch’s hook, a sharp razor blade was revealed.
“Why suddenly this…”
Lee Woonghee asked with a dumbfounded face. At that, the man stroked his own jaw with his large hand.
“Hair grows on my jaw. Unlike Woonghee-ssi.”
“So you’re telling me to shave you right now?”
At the unexpected situation, Woonghee only blinked his eyes. What kind of disgrace was this suddenly? Come to think of it, the man hadn’t been acting strange for just a day or two.
Woonghee soon hesitantly received the razor blade. The blade looked so sharp that just grazing the edge would tear the skin.
“Please do it cleanly.”
However, Woonghee was a professional. He immediately picked up the round soap bar placed on one side. When he added a little water and rubbed it, white foam flowed immediately.
When he placed plenty of moist foam on the man’s sharp jaw and gently rubbed it, the sun-darkened skin was covered white.
Soon Woonghee skillfully adjusted his grip on the blade. Then gently, gently, he shaved his skin.
Woonghee, being an omega, rarely grew facial hair. The most he had for hair was just peach fuzz, weak enough to fall off when brushed with a hand.
“Where did you learn this? Your touch is clean.”
Actually, Woonghee had learned to work at a sushi restaurant. He’d cut off fish heads and plucked scales while pressing down on their bodies. There was no talent like Woonghee when it came to plucking scales.
‘I think it’s almost done now…’
With his fingertips slowly, as gently as possible, he supported the man’s jaw and carefully rinsed it with prepared water. Woonghee watched it quietly.
“Huh…?”
Then suddenly, a fierce grip grabbed his wrist with a swoosh.
“Why, what, what is it…?”
When he looked up at the man in surprise, drowsy eyes were already looking at him. As if already knowing everything.
“What about this side?”
Saying so, he pulled Woonghee’s wrist and pressed the blade under his own jaw.
“…Wh-what the hell are you doing?”
Woonghee stared blankly at that nose bridge rising to the sky like a lighthouse. He even stammered from bewilderment.
“There’s an artery here.”
Woonghee unconsciously put strength into the hand holding the razor. He was unpredictable. In case he accidentally cut with the blade, he had to tense his whole body as if in a power struggle.
The forces tensely opposed each other. The force trying to cut the neck with the blade and the force trying somehow to stop it…
The man, strong as an ox, was reckless. While somehow trying to unfold Woonghee’s forcibly curled fingers, he pressed his own skin down with the sharp razor blade.
“Gi Junhyuk-ssi, this is an artery!”
Woonghee’s body trembled. He put all his strength into both hands to somehow stop him, but it was useless.
“Why, are you scared? Will something terrible happen if you stab me?”
“What, fuck, of course that’s what happens!”
“Why, are you scared you’ll feel guilty toward me?”
With the man’s words as the end, sploosh—a loud water sound rang out. In an instant, his vision flipped. Woonghee’s body was sucked straight into the bathtub.
“Euwak…!”
After tumbling into the water and struggling back up to the surface, the man was pulling him into his embrace.
“Cough, cough, cough… What is this, suddenly!”
Kwaak—he grabbed the man’s forearm. Scratched by Woonghee’s nails, long red wounds were drawn on his forearm. And what the man who’d done this barely had to say was.
“You love me, right?”
It was something like that.
In that moment, Woonghee roughly snatched the blade from the man’s hand. From the man’s palm that had unavoidably been cut, bright red blood dripped.
“Cr-crazy…”
At the same time, the man’s pheromones swooped in like an attack. Bright red blood mixed into the bathtub water. There was no time to frown at the fishy smell of blood. Hurriedly, Woonghee bit the man’s palm with his mouth. No, he covered his wound with his lips.
Chup, chuup…
The wet sound of sucking his palm flowed. With only the thought of somehow stopping the blood, he sucked the skin diligently. Exactly like a newborn puppy suckling its mother dog’s teat.
There had long been talk that an omega’s saliva healed an alpha’s wounds. He didn’t know if it was folklore, but the situation was urgent, so he had to do something.
While gently licking the wound with his tongue like that.
“Is this love too?”
The man’s voice descended from above his head. The moment he raised his head, their eyes met. It was a calmly settled, deep gaze.
“Say it’s love.”
The man’s voice rang lowly through the bathroom.
“……”
When Woonghee gave no answer, the man moved his body rashly, like a great volcano rising. Kuruureureung—Woonghee’s back was pushed by the bathtub water surging like a waterfall.
“…It is.”
As Woonghee nodded, water dripped from his soaked bangs.
“…It is love.”
He couldn’t bear to look into those two eyes. Because Woonghee wasn’t a born actor. In this fucking play without a script, Woonghee couldn’t dare to be shameless. How could he look into those eyes and go on about love?
So he cowardly avoided his gaze. He lowered his eyes and turned away from him. Then there was a touch gently grasping Woonghee’s small chin.
“Woonghee-ssi.”
His chin gradually lifted upward. He could see his lips moistly stained, and when he raised his head a bit more, he met that sticky gaze.
“Do you love me?”
“…I love you.”
Even at Woonghee’s answer, the man’s eyes narrowed. A thread of doubt crossed his pitch-black pupils. Woonghee moved his lips once more.
“I lo…”
His lower lip trembled like an idiot. Get a grip. Anyway, this is all a show. Think about the days you rolled around construction sites countless times. Didn’t you grit your teeth and live prepared to break a leg and lose a finger? This is a problem that ends with just a few words.
He had to remember how much was riding on the next sentence he’d spit out. A whopping 3,000, 3,000. The money he had to earn to get beta shots.
“I love you, Gi Junhyuk-ssi.”
Yeah, good job, fuck, that’s enough. Sending himself uninhibited applause for doing very well, but.
“Me too.”
At the man’s following words, Woonghee’s heart thudded down. It was a dizzying fall. A descent worse than the feeling when he’d rolled and fallen from a construction site years ago.
His heart pounded as if his chest had been stabbed by a sharp knife. Blood seemed to flow disgustingly, drip drip.
