“Then I’ll come get you after preparations! Ah, of course…”
The man’s loyal server approached, covering his mouth. His bright red lips wriggled near his ear.
“Without Managing Director-nim knowing.”
He smiled brightly with an expression that suggested they’d shared quite a pleasant conversation, then suddenly bowed 90 degrees at the waist. Soon he disappeared quickly like a praying mantis, sasa, swish.
Watching that scene made him feel unbearably uneasy. Didn’t it seem exactly like someone who’d achieved their intended goal and disappeared without regrets?
“……”
The corridor flowed with silence. Woonghee was now staring at the empty space.
…That aside, Gi Junhyuk. Where on earth had this man gone?
To find him easily, he could use the walkie-talkie… But the words he’d said echoed in his head.
‘Love needs tension too, you know.’
He had several perverse hobbies. Sometimes when he disappeared from sight like this, Woonghee had to go find him directly.
His broken brain was terribly addicted to dopamine. This was, in other words, a kind of game. The places he hid were different each time. But one thing was the same.
‘Welcome, Woonghee-ssi.’
A smile hung on the man’s face welcoming him.
“……”
Woonghee walked down the red carpet. Pin lights hung precariously from the ceiling, turned on.
Why on earth did he enjoy this kind of game? He couldn’t know the man’s intentions, but it felt like hide-and-seek. He was ‘it,’ and the game ended when he found the man.
His heart squeezed with a thump thump. It wasn’t like he was watching a horror movie, so why was he so nervous every time? Cold sweat seeped profusely from his inner elbows.
Where could he be today?
Gi Junhyuk, that violent man, liked days just like him. He liked rough weather when storm clouds dominantly seized the sky and waves rushed in like a pack of dogs. The wind was rough outside today too—was he standing on the deck? Or had he perhaps hidden in the damp basement where he could better feel the waves’ movement…
‘Where the hell are you?’
While wandering around like that, Woonghee stopped in his tracks in front of a certain door. Like Hansel chasing cookies, his gaze was drawn to the sign hanging in front of the door.
“Control… room.”
Control room. This was the place where he could see into all the rooms of this cruise. Woonghee approached that door as if enchanted. And the next moment, he added certainty to his suspicion. Because the man’s body scent was wafting strongly.
As he slowly opened that door.
“……”
Screech—their eyes met through the carefully opening door gap. A palm that shot straight out grabbed Woonghee’s wrist. He was pulled along by that rough touch. After the large frame trapped him against the wall, it blocked his way forward.
“Peekaboo.”
Right, the man was right there.
Woonghee cast his gaze over his shoulder. On the wide wall, small screens were densely attached. What was he doing—he was looking at CCTV.
“…Were you watching me come?”
How ironic.
I say I’ll make a cake for you, while hiding a gun behind my back.
You sing disgustingly about loving me while monitoring my every move. Even the path I’m taking to you.
Do we suit each other well? If others saw us, they might say we’re really disgusting sick people.
“Not ‘seumnida.'”
He whispered. With a voice as soft as whipped cream on a cake, as if whispering love.
“You should add ‘yo.'”
Now he forces tenderness on me too. That I should enter his embrace like a cat lifting my chin whenever he beckons, acting like a soft tongue inside a mouth.
“Were you watching me come… yo?”
“Then what else would I be doing?”
“The waves outside are rough…”
I thought you were watching the sea again—he was about to continue saying that. In an uh-oh moment, the ship staggered. Woonghee quickly braced with his feet to support his body, but the huge cruise gradually tilted. He could feel it so clearly that his body unconsciously poured toward the man.
Woonghee grabbed his solid shoulders and raised his eyes upward.
“Ah…”
He smiled. The corners of his mouth naturally rose, and thin wrinkles formed slightly at his well-groomed eye corners. His narrowly folded eyes looked exactly like someone genuinely happy, and that smile held mischief somewhere within it. Woonghee somehow felt breathless at the fact that smile was directed at him.
“Why do you keep… doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“You keep smiling whenever you see me.”
“Well, why would that be.”
He laughed haha as usual, leaned his large body toward Woonghee, and kissed him without hesitation. Even after squeezing his eyes shut, that smiling face still flickered before Woonghee’s eyes. The expressionless face completely shattered with a single smile, as if truly happy. If all this was acting, could even this be fake? But that face seemed… sincere.
“Don’t worry, they say it’ll rain soon.”
Wasn’t this making everything seem like a real romance? Realizing that fact, Woonghee’s heart fell with a thud.
“The sea is scary, right?”
“No… no.”
The man rubbed Woonghee’s nose gently with the tip of his nose, as if soothing a cute puppy. Woonghee just let both arms hang limply. It would be fastest to rather relax and follow his will, to play the doll role until he got tired of it.
“We’ll dock at an island.”
Then the man whispered in Woonghee’s ear. Since it’s raining a lot, let’s rest a bit before going.
“…An island?”
“I heard it’s festival season, so it’d be good to enjoy ourselves.”
It seemed exactly like saying the day you’re waiting for is still far away.
***
It wasn’t a lie or a test. Exactly one hour later, the cruise slowly docked.
“It’s… an island.”
Woonghee couldn’t believe it until the ship dropped anchor. Almost absent-mindedly, he hurriedly disembarked from the cruise. He stepped down on trembling feet. To a place that, though called an island, was no different from land.
‘It’s real, it’s real… This really was an island with people. Really… I escaped that sea.’
Was it because he’d been drifting on the sea for so long? Even standing on land, he felt nauseated as if seasick.
The man followed him down. Still not quite feeling it was real, Woonghee looked around, swish swish. The bright red sun was plunging upside down beyond the horizon.
The harbor was extremely noisy and chaotic. A real festival was in full swing. The crowd was literally teeming.
“Wow…”
Lanterns scattered bright red afterglow. The smell of spices and savory smoke intertwined, stimulating hunger.
‘Really… it seems I’ve escaped that damn sea. I can return to land soon. Alive, I came back alive…!’
Waah—shouts and applause burst from one side. A performer was putting on a show, spewing flames from his mouth. It felt like being in a dream. Woonghee, catching his breath, adjusted his mask. This ridiculous mask was something the man had put on him.
‘You know Woonghee-ssi is internationally wanted, right?’
Saying so, the man also wore the same mask. It was a very ridiculous mask. The eyes looked exactly like candy eyeballs stuck in, and the bright red mouth was hideously torn all the way to the ears.
He thought wearing something like this would actually draw more attention… Fortunately, everyone was wearing the same mask. So no one could recognize the face beneath.
“Woonghee-ssi, look at that.”
The man pointed at something. It was a street stall full of dazzling jewels. But what drew all of Woonghee’s senses was somewhere else. The chicken skewer stall right across from it.
“Cr-crazy, that’s…”
Woonghee’s eyes gleamed brightly. The man following behind let out a hollow laugh as if dumbfounded.
“You like trash skewers like that?”
Origin can’t be hidden after all, the man slowly shook his head.
“Should I buy you some?”
Woonghee shook his head up and down like crazy. Eating expensive things was only good for a day or two. A mutt had to eat dog food to be satisfied. Always greasing his belly with expensive stuff was making him feel like throwing up now.
Woonghee was completely entranced and lost in thought. He hurriedly moved his feet that way.
“Uh, uh oh…”
At that moment, he was roughly swept up by the surging crowd. His shoulder bumped into the person next to him, and someone’s elbow grazed past, hitting his chin.
“Uh…, s-sorry.”
Then when he barely raised his head, he finally came to his senses. Swish—he turned his body and looked for the man who’d been following.
‘Uh, where did he go…?’
But the person he was looking for was nowhere to be found. He turned his head in all directions, swish, swish. Masked faces continued endlessly. Looking here, looking there, everyone was wearing the same mask.
But it was hard to find a man with such a large frame anywhere. No, his pheromones no longer wafted strongly from anywhere.
“Gi Junhyuk-ssi…?”
Gi Junhyuk had disappeared. Woonghee flinched and clenched his fist. Something hard was grasped in his hand. It was the walkie-talkie. He was about to press the transmit button right away, when he flinched and trembled his hand.
Because a thought suddenly came to mind.
…Wait, could this be a game too? Like searching for him on the cruise, did he just need to go find him first here too?
Woonghee slowly raised his head. Countless people tangled with each other, then scattered again. It didn’t make sense. In this wide place, in this crowd teeming like ants, how on earth was he supposed to find the man? Everyone was even wearing the same mask.
And the next moment, Woonghee slightly parted his lips at a successive thought.
…That it’s hard for me to find him means it’s hard for him to find me too.
“Ah…”
Chzzzk—Woonghee dragged his sneakers backward.
