“Just saying, you know. Because the timing was perfect—your grades shot up and Euishin’s grades plateaued.”
“……”
Was this interpretation or the realm of truth? Something that guy hadn’t told him yet. Something he’d hidden away where it couldn’t be seen, thinking ‘there’s no need to know.’
…If so, Lee Euishin was truly a bad guy.
The teacher, watching his face drain of color, patted his shoulder and said,
“Take it as a joke.”
…It doesn’t sound like a joke, teacher.
“You helped Euishin adapt a lot too, so it was a mutually beneficial good case.”
“…He’d do well wherever you put him.”
At those words, the teacher’s eyes widened and he laughed.
“Right, you wouldn’t know. I just remembered now. When Euishin transferred in, he specifically asked to be put in the same class as you. Said you were the only kid he knew. I was passing by the main office and heard our class student’s name come up. So I heard the story and brought him over. When we moved up to third year too, the same… no, you don’t need to know that. Anyway, that’s how it was. Even though he seemed to handle everything on his own, I thought he was relying on you. Since it’s that kind of connection, you two should get along well for life.”
“……”
His mouth absolutely wouldn’t open.
A story that didn’t sound like a joke. ‘That kind of situation’ he’d never even dreamed of. The anecdotes he’d heard earlier from that guy’s middle school friend and behaviors that had seemed like childish jealousy, the domain that only opened its doors to him…
‘I said soccer was more my taste than dance.’
…You, just how much have you been hiding?
After somehow finishing the greeting and watching the teacher’s retreating figure, Kwon Yunsu felt like the ground was collapsing beneath his feet. His heart pounded as if it would burst out, and his throat, cheeks, and earlobes were all burning hot. In the large mart with air conditioning so good you’d worry about polar bears’ future, he stood alone for a long while, becoming a burning log.
And he thought.
—Can I win?
He should ask himself again.
—Do I want to beat you?
Even having come this far, do I just want to remain ignorant?
You who fear nothing in the world, who are willful and stubborn and have a natural talent for making people feel small, yet who’ve always let me win—can I……
“……”
He had no confidence.
And he was pathetic.
What should he do if in the midst of all this, he started missing that guy?
That day was truly strange.
Starting with deep cleaning, passing through the wasteland of an afternoon nap, his foot suddenly sank into an unexpected point in the past, and when he came to his senses, it was a place of memories. The park where he’d coaxed Lee Euishin to go to the convenience store, reunited with a grown-up Lee Euishin, and first faced the raw anger Lee Euishin possessed. Where fifteen and eighteen intersected, scattering his sense of reality—
“……”
And there was twenty-year-old Lee Euishin.
Kwon Yunsu couldn’t believe it and blinked, looking around like someone who’d forgotten something. He remembered picking up this and that, finishing the checkout and leaving the mart, but his hands were light. He was dumbfounded, flabbergasted, and wanted to run away somewhere. And at the same time… he was glad to see him. The guy arrogantly lifting his chin and striding toward him was so familiar, and unfamiliar, and scary… and pretty.
‘…It’s Euishin, right?’
I was so glad to see you that tears welled up in my eyes, back then.
‘You owe me a debt.’
Did you come to see me? Did you grit your teeth about why I wasn’t contacting you, when I would contact you, and finally come looking for me?
“…Eu…”
“Ha.”
And Lee Euishin was so dumbfounded he could die.
Idiot hick bastard. Just a moment ago he was watching to see where you’d bolt, so why do you make that face when our eyes meet? Is this the time to be glad to see me? Making that expression at a prepared kidnapper-rapist, fuck. Infuriating bastard. Pretty bastard. Because you do this, I…
“…Hey!”
Can’t keep my head straight.
He approached right up close, grabbed Kwon Yunsu’s hand, and immediately turned his body. It didn’t take more than a few steps to the car parked nearby, and after pushing the guy into the passenger seat, going around and closing the door, he didn’t hold back any longer.
“……!”
Like that impulse from before, he pushed against Kwon Yunsu’s body and pressed their lips together just like that. Sweet and fresh Kwon Yunsu who makes people drunk. He hastily thrust in his tongue and roughly ravaged as much as he wanted. He gripped the guy’s waist and shoulders making groaning sounds hard enough to break them. He felt like he’d go crazy from the body odor. Why does a guy who’s a twenty-year-old male have such an arousing smell? Only when he couldn’t tell whether Kwon Yunsu’s hand on his shoulder was pushing him away or pulling him closer did he release his strength. And immediately reached out to start the ignition.
“Let’s go home.”
At the words spat out like chewing, Kwon Yunsu who’d been catching his breath quickly reached out his hand.
“N-no.”
“……”
At the end of the murderously glaring gaze, lips glistening with saliva came into view. When he grabbed the arm again and brought his face close, Kwon Yunsu desperately hid his lips and mumbled.
“Let’s, let’s talk.”
What talk? He laughed in disbelief.
“With our bodies.”
Kwon Yunsu was also dumbfounded and opened his mouth.
“Then it’s rape.”
“I’ll be a rapist.”
“Then it’ll be serious…”
“I have nothing to talk about with you, so shut your mouth and spread your legs. If you’re going to act like a bastard, act like a bastard. I’ll act like a mad dog too.”
“…Why are you talking like that?”
It was an extremely wronged and aggrieved tone, so Lee Euishin felt a surge of anger.
“—If we talk.”
His adam’s apple trembled painfully.
“What good is talking when you won’t even understand?”
The guy hadn’t contacted him for two and a half days. Even when he sent all kinds of nonsense and called, there was ultimately no response. Thinking it was the last time and trying to be lenient, but on the third day of parking his car at the guy’s family home and monitoring, when he finally saw the hick appear and took him into his eyes, his patience instantly hit rock bottom. He would kidnap this bastard right now and confine him at home. Having made up his mind and appeared before him, when the guy made such a glad-to-see-him face, what more words were necessary?
“Waiting three days for you should be enough, what more do you want? Still no answer? Who told you to come up with an answer? Don’t pathetically rack your brain, I’ll just ram it in. Fuck conversation, just do as I say. If I keep my dick stuck in you until you get pregnant, an answer will come out. Anyway your bastard life…”
“Euishin-ah.”
And Kwon Yunsu quietly called his name. Tears welled up in the guy’s eyes.
“Why, why do you talk like that?”
“……”
“If you say those things, I’ll really be scared.”
You won’t do that.
In those added words was such stupidly pure trust that Lee Euishin wanted to cry too. Have we really been living in the same world?
“I will though.”
Kwon Yunsu shook his head.
“You’re not that bad of a guy.”
“I am though.”
“Dummy. Don’t bluff.”
It seemed they really had been living in different worlds. Lee Euishin lost the energy to retort and was silent for a while.
And as he silently stared with heated eyes, Kwon Yunsu’s pupils began to waver. When he opened his mouth again after a while,
“…Don’t do that…. I’m, I’m really scared to death, you know. Like, my heart……”
It was a face that had become childlike, as if about to burst into tears at any moment.
“……”
Me dealing with a kid here, really…. He sighed and reached out his hand. As he slowly pressed their bodies together, telegraphing the contact, Kwon Yunsu’s eyes widened in surprise but he didn’t resist. He embraced the thin arms and shoulders, looked into his face, and finally kissed his cheek. Kwon Yunsu who flinched and trembled his shoulders became gloomy-faced. And chewing his lips, barely chose his words.
“…I, I met your middle school friend. He said….”
He’d already heard from Shin Jaewoo. To bring this up at this timing, there’s nothing left to hide now.
