The man scrutinized Lee Woonghee’s expression. Eyes empty like a dead animal.
…Are you disappointed? Are you finally disappointed?
Right, look at what you tried to hold onto. Were you trying to protect just that kind of trash heap? Think about whose hand was the only one that saved you from that pit crawling with bugs…
“You should go eat too, Woonghee-ssi, it’s a seat prepared for you.”
The man extended his hand with a voice sticky like melted candy. Take my hand, because if you just take this hand, your life will be different from theirs.
Lee Woonghee extends his white hand. Slowly, straight toward him. His warmth touches the stiffly hardened palm. Aah, the man let out a wicked moan at the thrilling pleasure.
Right, how on earth could someone like you become a beta? That’s no different from castrating you. You need to be by my side. As an omega, you must stay by my side.
Lee Woonghee obediently followed the man’s escort. The place the two walked to was the only vacant spot. It was a seat at the very top of the dining table.
“Here, this is Woonghee-ssi’s seat.”
When he lifted the bell-shaped dome cover, appetizing lobster meat was revealed. Something no one had touched. Because it would go into none other than Lee Woonghee’s throat,
Lee Woonghee’s white hand firmly grabbed the lobster meat.
“Hey, fuck, get your hands off!”
Saying why only you get special treatment, Lee Ijun raved and rampaged in a frenzy. Claw-like hands dripping with greed reached toward Lee Woonghee. The man smacked down, slap, the hand that had become thick like a pig’s front leg.
Lee Woonghee safely took food under his protection. Drip, drip, meat juice flowed down his white wrist. Lee Woonghee was eating with his teeth clenched like a madman. While absorbing everyone’s gazes in this place. Struggling to bear the weight of the crown.
“That’s right, eat like that.”
If you just listen well to me, your future will shine like this, the man whispered quietly.
Ah, is it because it’s a birthday…
It felt like being reborn.
***
Lee Woonghee acted truly sweetly. Exactly like a tongue inside a mouth.
A tongue in the mouth. He could make it move as he wanted, make it speak as he wanted. He could bite down hard at any time and make it writhe in pain.
Lee Woonghee stayed so obediently in his grasp like that. Just having Lee Woonghee’s forearm gripped in his hand, just having Lee Woonghee’s chest embraced in his arms, the man was engulfed in languid satisfaction.
It felt as if he could generously grant any request.
“Junhyuk-ssi…”
As if noticing this, Lee Woonghee called carefully while crushing his body into the man’s arms.
“What, tell me.”
“Could we get ointment to apply to the bird? It doesn’t seem to be healing well…”
If he endlessly bestows generosity even on an inferior small bird, what would happen if the recipient was a human he’d at least exchanged words with?
Inside Lee Woonghee, a monster sleeps. It’s a victim consciousness that he is someone who ruined someone.
So he continues unconsciously trying to make amends. Protecting the weak, taking care of younger siblings. Even though his own body is being torn apart.
It’s a pathetically foolish form.
It was truly problematic that he kept his chest crudely packed full like that. After all, isn’t there no room for Lee Woonghee himself to squeeze in?
And the man too.
He wanted to steal that small bird right away, but the problem was Lee Woonghee’s complexion. It was turning pale at a rapid pace. Are you so worried you could go crazy? If he could, wouldn’t he look ready to tear off even his own wing joint and give it?
“It’s still young so it might die, or never be able to fly.”
Looking at it now, doesn’t that bird resemble Lee Woonghee so much it’s like Lee Woonghee conceived and gave birth to a chick?
No, he might have secretly cracked an egg and incubated it by warming it whenever he had time.
“Should we go out together?”
“What? Where to…?”
Lee Woonghee nestles deeply into the man as if afraid. It’s an instinctive movement. The man lifted Lee Woonghee while feeling the satisfaction tightly squeezing his chest.
“A date.”
He headed straight to the bird market with Lee Woonghee. Lee Woonghee, who had been following him with completely anxious eyes, relaxed his tension at the chirping bird sounds from all directions.
Ha, is this being among his friends? Weak things tend to feel safe when they’re huddled together with their own kind.
He bought ointment from among the stalls lined up on both sides and took a simple look around the vicinity.
One flower shop among them caught his eye. The man bought one luscious rose and tucked it behind that white ear. When the moisture-laden petals wrapped around the white skin, it looked incredibly bewitching.
“What a sight…”
It’s a face that would make swarms of bugs foam at the mouth and rush over, he was slowly smiling with amusement when suddenly someone firmly grabbed the man’s forearm.
‘Urk…!’
In an instant, goosebumps ran all over his body. It felt as if something like a snake had wrapped around the man’s entire body. His skin felt like it was tearing apart, crack, rising up like molted skin.
“Fuck…”
Grinding out a curse quietly and turning around, it was an old woman in shabby peddler’s attire. She was shoving something at the man.
Looking down, what was gripped in the old woman’s hands were colorful-looking fabrics.
‘Ah, that’s…’
Though the unpleasant feeling like his brain was splitting remained, the man slowly drew a smile on his lips. When he grabbed the end and spread it out fully, the slippery fabric fell down, swoosh. Holding it against the white skin, it was truly insanely beautiful.
“What is this?”
Lee Woonghee asked with lips as reddish as the fabric.
…Right, you wouldn’t know that this clothing is this country’s traditional wedding attire. The old woman, in other words, had mistaken Lee Woonghee for his wife.
[Here.]
The man grabbed a wad of bills from his wallet and handed them to the old woman. Even then, he was tensing his entire body in case their hands might brush. If even the tip of those long yellow fingernails had touched him, the man would have undoubtedly cut off that part from his body.
[Th-thank you, thank you!!]
The old woman opened her eyes wide, bowed several times in gratitude, then disappeared limping. Already all of the man’s nerves were focused on the reddish cloth clutched in his grasp.
Looking down at it where his fingers showed through mysteriously, the man laughed ominously.
…They say the end of romance is either separation or marriage.
Could we get married…? What would happen if he proposed? What should he use to threaten him? The man fell into his own thoughts with eyes damp and gloomy like a black swamp.
Over his pitch-black pupils with his face buried in the reddish cloth, Woonghee with white skin was reflected.
“A-are you okay?”
Lee Woonghee grabbed the man’s forearm. Asking if it was very unpleasant. The man licked his lower lip with his tongue.
“Wear this for me.”
“Yes, I will.”
Without knowing what kind of clothing it was or what it meant, Lee Woonghee obediently complied. He says he’ll truly become his, make a vow that he’ll become only his.
The man laughed with his lips buried in the reddish cloth at the thought of having made a lifelong pledge. As if making an eternal vow of marriage.
And on the night they returned to the cruise, the man’s heart that overheard that phone call plunged squelchily straight to the floor. It felt like blood was bursting out and soaking the floor.
“…Phew.”
He had just come out after obsessively washing. Especially the forearm that the peddler had grabbed, he scrubbed it obsessively several times as if he would cut it off. Only after his skin was dyed bright red could he stop.
And the first thing he discovered was his lovely lover hiding in the corner of the room. With his back turned, body curled up tightly. Whispering with one hand covering his mouth. He would always make phone calls like that, with his head buried in a corner so he wouldn’t be heard.
“Woongju-ya, did you eat dinner?”
He was on the phone with his younger sister. An eerie silence flowed through the room. Only rustling sounds were shaking the walls.
The man approached him with dead footsteps.
“Oppa will be back soon.”
– …Then is oppa going to marry that person?
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump… At one word that popped out from beyond the receiver, the man’s heart beat like crazy.
“Marriage, what do you suddenly mean by that?”
Glance, he felt Lee Woonghee side-eyeing the man.
– Oppa doesn’t even know about that? They say if you like your in-laws, you treat them well. Maybe he wants to marry oppa so he’s trying to look good to me?
With a younger sister spouting such un-childlike words so presumptuously, Lee Woonghee squirmed his hips.
– That’s crazy. Oppa, then don’t tell me you’re using that person? You’re going to suck all the sweet juice out and throw him away?
At the words chattering that I didn’t know our oppa was that kind of person, shouldn’t you obviously take responsibility, the man snorted lowly.
But at the sound that flowed out afterward, the man’s heart dropped with a thud helplessly.
“I should marry him, if I can…”
