Wooyeon gasped thinly as he looked at Jeonghan. A tear fell from beneath his pitifully trembling eyelashes.
“Suck my cock.”
At Jeonghan’s words, Wooyeon inhaled deeply as if sobbing. Above Wooyeon’s trembling gaze, Jeonghan kept his eyes lowered while curling up one side of his lips. Jeonghan’s pinky finger, which was running through Wooyeon’s hair, touched Wooyeon’s earlobe. The earlobe that had turned bright red flinched.
“Why, can’t do it here?”
When Jeonghan pulled Wooyeon’s head toward his lower body, Wooyeon was dragged powerlessly. His slender body collapsed and stuck close, and Wooyeon raised his head while gripping his firm thigh to keep from losing his balance. The hand touching Jeonghan’s thigh was burning hot.
When Wooyeon barely lifted his gaze by pushing up his increasingly heavy eyelashes and met eyes with Jeonghan, Jeonghan moved one eyebrow as if telling him to try it.
“Hic……”
The sob wasn’t loud. Tears were streaming down the cheeks of Wooyeon, whose trembling hands reached for Jeonghan’s buckle. His flushed, beautiful fingertips hesitated. Senses sharpened by arousal drove Wooyeon to his limits.
“Did I not tell you, Seo Wooyeon-ssi?”
At Jeonghan’s low growling voice, Wooyeon’s fingers faltered. Wooyeon’s wavering pupils turned toward Jeonghan’s eyes again, shedding tears.
“I think I told you several times not to use your hands when sucking cock.”
As soon as those words ended, Wooyeon’s fingers trembled. As if he had made a huge mistake.
With eyes wide open as if startled, Wooyeon withdrew the hand he had extended toward Jeonghan’s lower body. Then, after taking a few quick breaths, he slowly brought his red, plump, swollen lips to his lower body.
That’s when it happened. At that sight, Jeonghan’s laughter leaked out with a pfft. Just that was enough to make Wooyeon flinch in surprise and shrink his shoulders. Jeonghan laughed low again, and Wooyeon could only look up at him blankly with an expression that couldn’t get its bearings.
“Sunbae. Why are you suddenly so scared, it was just a joke.”
The moment Jeonghan grabbed Wooyeon’s arm and applied force, Wooyeon, who had been kneeling, instantly straightened his body. When Wooyeon, still not in his right mind, staggered, Jeonghan smiled gently again and wiped Wooyeon’s lips with his thumb. The red lips completely soaked with saliva from the earlier kiss were pressed like jelly under Jeonghan’s thumb.
“I shouldn’t joke with sunbae. You get startled too easily.”
Wooyeon was pitifully still trembling. Jeonghan was smiling with satisfaction as he watched such a Wooyeon. When Jeonghan lowered his head toward Wooyeon with half-lidded eyes, Wooyeon flinched again as if frightened.
With a smack, Jeonghan’s lips touched Wooyeon’s wet cheek. The act of Jeonghan sticking out his tongue and licking away Wooyeon’s tears felt almost persistent.
“You know I didn’t call you to hear that insignificant Executive Director from you, right?”
“……”
It was Jeonghan as usual again. Wooyeon stared at Jeonghan, who was smiling at him, while forcibly calming his trembling heart. Jeonghan was still fiddling with Wooyeon’s lower lip like a toy. With a cheerful smile like a child.
“Let’s have dinner together today. I want to eat with sunbae.”
An affectionate voice, gentle expression, and warm touch caressed Wooyeon’s frozen skin.
* * *
The rain that had started falling without warning had become quite heavy. The water droplets falling through the darkness of night under the long eaves were heartbreaking.
On this rainy night, the atmosphere of that hanok was something unique again.
Wooyeon, who had been blankly staring at the raindrops bouncing off the jars, turned his head at the warmth embracing his shoulders. Beyond Jeonghan’s shoulder, a middle-aged woman in elegant hanbok smiled as she opened the paper door.
“You two, it’s been a while since you came.”
When Jeonghan entered the room, Wooyeon also bowed to her in greeting before following him inside. As if the words weren’t meant to receive an answer, the middle-aged woman also smiled gently and withdrew from the room. When they sat at the table following Jeonghan, the cushions prepared in advance were pressed down softly.
“Feels like it’s really been a long time.”
“Yeah.”
“Sunbae, do you remember when you first came here?”
The two sitting across from each other made eye contact. The sound of rain beyond the paper door mixed with Jeonghan’s low voice.
At Jeonghan’s question, Wooyeon blinked slowly and caught his breath. Five years ago, it was this very Korean restaurant they had come to not long after reuniting with Jeonghan at university. They had come together several times after that as well, but the memory of that time remained especially vivid.
“I remember.”
“Sunbae, you couldn’t eat much back then.”
Jeonghan smiled at Wooyeon as if the old memory came to mind. For Wooyeon too, the sense of alienation and inferiority he had first felt toward Jeonghan, which had dulled after spending so much time together, came back to him.
That time when he was afraid Jeonghan might remember him. And when he was uncomfortable that a meal that was merely one meal to Jeonghan might become a debt even for that. Back then, and even now, Wooyeon hadn’t changed, and Jeonghan hadn’t changed either. He had only escaped the shackles of part-time work, but Wooyeon was still a pauper loaded with debt. And Jeonghan sat high above, so far away.
The women who entered again after opening the paper door brought gujeolpan and tarak porridge to the table. As Wooyeon blankly stared at the gujeolpan blooming like a flower on the table, Jeonghan stretched out his long arm and placed utensils in Wooyeon’s hand. Wooyeon, who was inwardly surprised though he didn’t show it at the suddenly touching skin, blinked and looked at Jeonghan.
“Eat a lot.”
Wooyeon, who had been staring intently at the utensils Jeonghan had given him, scooped a bit of the small serving of tarak porridge into his mouth. A savory and sweet taste spread gently in his mouth. At the unburdensome taste, when Wooyeon scooped and swallowed the porridge again, Jeonghan smiled and opened his mouth.
“By the way, sunbae.”
“Hm?”
“Do you really have nothing to say to me?”
Wooyeon’s spoon stopped mid-air with a start. When he raised his eyes to look at Jeonghan, he just smiled gently.
A scene flashed by momentarily. The commotion his biological father had caused in the company lobby and the figure of Kwon Jeonghan, the owner of that company, walking across the lobby while watching it.
Jeonghan was smiling gently, but he was urging Wooyeon to explain about that incident.
“About what?”
Pretending to be calm, Wooyeon lowered his head again and moved his spoon. The spoon clinked quietly inside the small porridge bowl.
“Your face looks like you have something to say.”
“There’s nothing like that.”
How could he explain to Jeonghan? Wooyeon put down his spoon on the table and lowered his trembling hands below it. He had a debt of 300 million won to his biological father, whose face he had been forgetting. It was a huge sum that made him wonder if he could ever even touch it in his lifetime.
If Jeonghan found out, it was obvious he would try to pay it back for him. But he couldn’t be further indebted to Jeonghan. Already, the debt he was carrying was enough to make staying by his side feel miserable.
At just the right timing, a knocking sound was heard from outside the paper door. Soon, through the sliding paper door that opened, the Korean restaurant staff entered carrying splendid dishes. Korean foods of various colors whose names he didn’t even know properly were placed on beautiful and luxurious tableware, decorating the table like a flower garden.
When the staff who had bowed again left the room and closed the paper door, Jeonghan picked up one wild pine mushroom grill and placed it on Wooyeon’s rice bowl. Feeling unnecessarily awkward, Wooyeon chewed his rice thoroughly together with the side dish Jeonghan had given him.
“Then don’t you have anything you’re curious about from me?”
The movement of Wooyeon, who had been chewing with his lips, stopped. When Wooyeon looked at Jeonghan silently, Jeonghan reached out and filled both his and Wooyeon’s sake cups.
It took a little time to interpret Jeonghan’s meaning. Wooyeon started moving his lips again that had stopped, then swallowed what was in his mouth.
“By this point, I think you should have something you’re curious about from me.”
Jeonghan, who had picked up a few side dishes, tilted his sake cup to wet his throat. His lowered gaze persistently followed Wooyeon.
“What are you talking about?”
“I proposed to you, sunbae.”
Jeonghan answered as if it were obvious. When Wooyeon froze, unable to eat while holding his utensils, he smiled with a pfft and placed a ginseng skewer on Wooyeon’s rice bowl again.
“I’m getting engaged to someone else, and you’re not curious? Who that person is, what they do, things like that.”
“……Should I be curious?”
Sharp words flew out carelessly. Wooyeon was startled by himself at the irritated noise made when he put down his utensils. Wooyeon, who had blinked a few times, picked up his chopsticks again as if calm, and picked up the ginseng skewer Jeonghan had given him earlier. The sweet yet subtly bitter taste spread into his mouth where his sense of taste had dulled to the point of not knowing what flavor it was.
He didn’t want to know, and yet while thinking that, he hated himself for secretly wanting to know it. It wasn’t that he resented Jeonghan, but that he hated himself for feeling disappointed in Jeonghan without knowing his place.
“If sunbae isn’t curious, there’s nothing I can do.”
Jeonghan continued eating as if nothing was wrong. Wooyeon stared intently at Jeonghan like that, then put down his utensils limply again. It seemed he absolutely couldn’t swallow food down his throat. Just like five years ago, the day when he had first come to this restaurant.
Just then, the Korean restaurant staff who knocked and entered again brought out several more dishes. Abalone vinegar, wrapped kimchi, and sinseollo. The staff filled the table with splendid and refined foods that the two people couldn’t even finish eating, then left the room again.
