“Gi Junhyuk-ssi, to me….”
Woonghee’s reddish lips trembled and twitched. Like they’d been caught on a fishing hook, they jerked upward.
“So, um… are you angry?”
His toes curled inside the sneakers he’d retrieved. His calves trembled cowardly. He wanted to turn his head and run away just like this. If only he really could.
If he had to bury his head in the ground and apologize, Woonghee could do that as much as needed. He could kneel with these cheap knees as much as necessary.
But that’s not what this man wants.
Would he resent him? Would he be glaring at him, asking if he ran away again like that, calling him a cowardly bastard?
If he resented him, it would be unbearable. Even now, guilt felt like it was rushing at him like minnows, gnawing and tearing at his flesh….
While waiting only for the man’s answer like that.
“Me?”
The man furrowed his thick eyebrows. Like a bowstring being drawn, his fierce expression was tautly pulled up. Woonghee felt like his heart was shrinking.
“Are you asking if I’m angry at Lee Woonghee-ssi?”
It sounded like he was asking, ‘Do you think someone like you can upset my mood?’, so Woonghee rolled his pupils around.
He couldn’t predict each word flying at him like a harpoon. It was like walking carefully on thin ice with tiptoes. If the ice broke and he fell, he’d plunge headfirst and die instantly. While bleeding profusely….
“Yes….”
“Why, do you have another lie you’ll get caught in?”
His pupils spun rapidly. A gaze that seemed to be searching, trying to uncover lies.
“It’s not that, the gift was too shitty.”
The man let out a breath like he’d heard something absurd. It was an impatient laugh. Looking somehow thirsty. When he gulped and swallowed, his Adam’s apple in the middle of his throat bobbed.
The man’s gaze slowly descended. To the sneakers Woonghee had retrieved, the ones he himself had personally put on him that day.
“Where did you get the money?”
“…Ah, well.”
Woonghee couldn’t confess the truth. The man didn’t want to give him even a single bill. Afraid that if he gave it to him, he’d run away, that he’d slip out of the man’s grasp.
Worried the sparks might fly to Server, he just bit his lower lip tight, and the man pulled his body back, then grasped a cigarette pack placed on one of the nightstands.
“Why, did you sell your body?”
“…….”
Just moments ago his heart had been trembling achingly, but his floating mood crashed down in an instant.
Right, fuck, this is the kind of bastard you are.
“Everyone couldn’t take their eyes off you, you were born with it, Woonghee-ssi.”
Saying that, the man tapped the heel of the cigarette pack, then bit a cigarette that popped out with his lips.
“I can’t keep my head on straight either.”
He muttered unclearly. Soon he dug his nails into something clutched in his hand and scratched roughly.
What he pulled out was none other than the lighter Woonghee had given him. The gift he’d given while wondering whether it was really okay to give such an insignificant cheap thing to the man, whether he should just never give it at all….
“Give that back to me.”
Give it back, Woonghee awkwardly extended his white hand out of habit. Had there ever been a time when he tried to grasp something first like this? No, there hadn’t. Until now, all he’d been able to hold in his hands were grains of sand.
So he tried to grab his gown, but the man flinched and shook his shoulders. He avoided his touch. It happened so quickly that Woonghee’s fingertips tingled. Like an electric current had flowed through them.
Woonghee couldn’t believe it and hastily covered his gaping mouth with his hand.
Huh, what the… don’t tell me I was rejected?
It was a first. Because it was always him who approached first. The one who looked at him as if yearning and desiring him, as if seeing a mermaid from a fantasy, with an enraptured expression.
This, this was strange….
“Gi Junhyuk-ssi….”
Before Woonghee could take a step, the man’s palm stopped him. With his other hand covering his own mouth, he acted as if he wouldn’t allow any closer approach.
Fuck, what is this….
‘Pretend to love me, for 2,132 hours.’
This is how it’ll be after two months anyway. He’ll be abandoned anyway, so why is this so shocking? Why is this. Is there a reason for him to be confused? …It’s like he’s become an abandoned puppy. Terribly confusing emotions arose.
Perhaps Woonghee had been running away from this emotion? If he becomes subordinate to him like this when he’ll be abandoned anyway, then I…
What happens to me after that?
That man has so much, and people will swarm around him like flies. All Woonghee, left behind, would have to face would be cold emptiness.
Woonghee realized he hadn’t been running away from this man all this time. He’d been running away from that emotion.
“Why should I give it back when it’s mine?”
Then from Gi Junhyuk, the man, such a large amount of pheromones burst out. Through the gap in his opening gown, his pounding heart felt so vividly as if it could be caught in Woonghee’s grasp.
When Omegas and Alphas’ emotions became more intense, pheromones would burst out like a fountain.
“Woonghee-ssi put it in my hand, telling me to make it mine.”
If he wasn’t angry? Then what was the reason for that strong emotion wafting out from the man like fog?
At the same time, long, thin pheromones like a tail spread out from Woonghee too. So this was hurt feelings. Incredibly, disappointment was rushing in.
How shameless.
He was the one who ran away, who sold the sneakers on his own, and on top of that prepared a cheap lighter as a birthday present.
This was exactly the difference between the man and himself. A difference in class, a difference in material wealth.
Suffocating silence flowed. Woonghee became afraid, not knowing what words would pop out of his mouth. It wasn’t fear. Just anxiety. Managing Director Gi was shaking him.
“Give it to me, that trash-like thing.”
“You too?”
Though he knew he was talking about the lighter, what the man held out was a cigarette. Is he playing with me again like this? It happened to be when he was craving that scratchy smoke. He wanted to roughly scratch this ticklish throat….
“Give me a light too.”
“You know the taste of cigarettes?”
The man’s two eyes momentarily, very briefly, opened wide. As if facing an unexpected scene.
“Should’ve said so. I would’ve given it to you right away without making you anxious.”
Soon with a ‘click’ sound, a blue flame sparked.
Woonghee bent down without hesitation. He brought the cigarette he was holding to the tip of the blue flame. And deeply, very deeply, he inhaled.
In that moment, intense heat and acrid smoke roughly scratched past inside his throat.
“Kkeok… kkeok, cough, cough!”
A fireball spun round and round inside his lungs. Woonghee bent his body forward and burst out coughing repeatedly. Tears instantly formed in his eyes.
Pahah, rough breath burst out from the man. He’d burst out laughing. At that, Woonghee also creased his eyes and with one corner of his mouth twitching, let out a laugh, pik. Because it was absurd, pathetic, and somehow futile.
Their eyes met and 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds….
Time flowed slowly.
And he realized in an instant. The fact that he and the man were laughing.
In this situation, in this air, in front of this person—the fact that he was laughing felt so unfamiliar and strange that his body stiffened.
“…Crazy.”
Did I just laugh? In front of this man? As if someone had flipped a switch, the floodgate of emotions was cut off abruptly.
The laughter melted away in an instant, and in its place, tension as cold as a glacier rushed in. As if it wasn’t just moments ago they were looking at each other and laughing.
Unable to bear it, Woonghee was the first to avert his gaze.
He couldn’t look into his eyes anymore. He didn’t know the reason. Fear, anxiety, fluttering, all sorts of complicated emotions tangled together and pressed Woonghee down. Made him lower his gaze like this.
Then, the man quietly reached out his hand and roughly grabbed Woonghee’s chin.
There was no time to refuse.
With his chin caught in his grasp, Woonghee’s head was slowly lifted up. The man pierced through Woonghee’s eyes with his darkly settled gaze.
“Should we throw it all away?”
You confuse me. While trying to push me away, with your mouth you’re trying to shake me like this again.
“I’m just asking if we should just love each other instead.”
Woonghee was afraid. What exactly was the substance of this sticky emotion? It was a swamp of confusion. He was deviating from all the paths he’d lived by. Because of this man.
“…Are you really serious?”
