Whew….
In the dimly lit room. His breath settled in the languid silence. Crackle crackle, small candlelight burned the wood wick. A soft and fresh scent spread throughout the room. At the scent resembling Woonghee’s pheromone, the man wrinkled his nose bridge.
“……”
The back wearing nothing was thick and filled with muscle like a sensual shark’s torso. A thick naked body where not an inch of weakness could be found.
Woonghee carefully covered him with a soft blanket. So he wouldn’t be cold at all.
A bird flew in from the wide-open window. It circled small above Woonghee’s head, then settled on his forearm. It rubbed its small head against the back of Woonghee’s hand as if acting cute.
Flutter flutter flutter, this time it flew to the man. Telling him to wake up already, it bit his thick forearm lightly with its small beak.
“Don’t.”
Woonghee cupped his palms and lifted the bird. He picked up rice grains from the feed bowl placed on the table and put them on his palm, and it pecked at them with its beak. Thoroughly, even between his fingers.
“You mustn’t wake him, understand? Good bird.”
Since he couldn’t sleep for long, he would clearly wake up after sleeping at most 2 hours. He’d decided to watch over him, but what should he do to pass the time?
Woonghee’s eyes, slowly looking around the room, fixed on somewhere. It was the bookshelf filling one side of the wall. He slowly moved his fingers while scanning the book spines one by one.
‘Human Psychology, Criminal Psychology, 600 Days Tracking a Psycho….’
Woonghee’s finger scanning the book spines stopped in front of one script. It was [Fabulous]. A fucking movie that made him shudder just looking at the title. If not for that, the situation wouldn’t have come to this point.
Woonghee laughed “ha” and took it out.
“……”
Rustle rustle, he turned the pages. Next to them were various comments written. That handwriting was truly Gi Junhyuk itself. It was written intensely and roughly with a fountain pen.
[Breathtaking eye acting, no exaggeration. Leave only a dense afterimage.]
He wasn’t just casually reading through it. He seemed to have looked quite deeply into each scene. Honestly speaking, when he first saw him, he just thought he was a gloomy pervert bastard. At this unexpected side, Woonghee became absorbed without knowing it.
Then as he turned the next page, rustle, something fell. They were photos. It was Woonghee wearing a sleek leather jacket, firing a gun on a motorcycle.
Ah, did he collect still cuts? With that thought, he picked up another photo.
“…Ha.”
This photo too, that photo too, all that was embedded everywhere was his own face. And looking at it, the quality was strangely poor, so it seemed he’d taken them directly with his phone.
Moreover, among them were even traces of semen clumped together ominously. Woonghee was dumbfounded and looked back at him. A man who extremely hated dirty things, yet he had deliberately hidden this in his bookshelf.
“…Ha.”
Dumbfounded, he looked back at the bed again. He who was hiding perverted habits was sound asleep. There’s no obsessive fan like this.
How could he hide such a gloomy otaku-like hobby with that elegant and aristocratic face? Unable to believe it, he looked back and forth between the photos and that face. Ha, a hollow laugh burst out again. Even though it gave him chills, seeing laughter burst out like this, he must not be in his right mind either.
Woonghee settled down and sat next to him. Very comfortably, he slowly read through the Fabulous script.
How many pages had passed?
“…Gasp.”
At that moment, the man’s back seemed to sink deeply, then he suddenly opened both eyes wide. As if someone had pulled him out from being deeply submerged in seawater, he seemed to have been momentarily dragged into reality.
“Are you awake?”
He frantically grabbed Woonghee’s cheeks before his eyes. Emotions tangled like a whirlpool in his deep pupils.
In those black hole-like pupils, it felt like he would be sucked in and die.
“How long was I asleep?”
It was less than 2 hours at most. Woonghee looked at his wristwatch placed on the nightstand.
“About 1 hour and 43 minutes….”
“I told you I don’t like that scent, I sleep too deeply.”
The man blew out the candle with a “whew.” As white smoke flew away, he bit down hard on the back of Woonghee’s hand as if being sulky. He was imitating the bird. Watching the back of his head acting spoiled, saying he couldn’t control his sleep, he quietly smiled.
“You need to sleep more.”
He said he needed to sleep more. He knew why he acted as if desperately chased, as if pursued by every minute and second, but Woonghee didn’t say it was okay, that everything would be okay.
Instead, he cupped his cheeks and kissed the corner of his mouth.
“I opened my eyes and Woonghee-ssi was there, so I thought it was still a dream.”
After scattering photos containing Woonghee all around, the man who had subtly revealed that controlling and perverted hobby to Woonghee was babbling romantic words. The man looked at one of those photos and kissed it gently.
It was a peaceful and utterly serene night. Woonghee was also feeling fulfilled while looking at him.
Then from somewhere, thump thump, the sound of knocking on the window was heard. Did the bird play a prank? He sharply turned his head, but the white bird was playing pranks pecking the man’s fingers with its beak. The man let out a hollow laugh as if dumbfounded.
“The cheeky thing resembles someone.”
He didn’t seem to notice anything.
What is it, just my imagination, right? Somehow it felt like a third party’s gaze…. The room was windows on all sides. Maybe eyes met with some flying bird or something….
***
Before long, the rainy season had ended too.
The clear white clouds were leisurely embroidering the sky like that. But on the man’s face, increasingly thick dark clouds cast shadows.
Now just one week. Just one week remained to end this lover act.
During that time, the man’s cruise hadn’t moved even a single step from the island.
If we leave for that sea, does he think there will be some change in our relationship?
As time passed, depression clung to him like a black shadow. Woonghee reached out his hand instead of saying it was okay.
“Let’s go out together, now.”
The rainy season had stopped too.
So let’s go outside now, he said. Instead of being trapped in this depression, let’s go out to that sea. Just then, outside, the morning glow was rising above the horizon. Like a rose in full bloom, it was rising to illuminate the whole world.
Soon the man raised his head and met eyes through his disheveled black hair. Woonghee first grabbed the hand slowly reaching out.
“Follow me, there’s something we need to do.”
Thud, thud, thud, crushing the sandy beach, they ran along the beach together, tumbling over each other.
“Ahhh…!”
Even though he was 14 centimeters shorter than that person, even though his rib cage was thinner, even though his limbs had much less muscle so his body line was slimmer, even though he was incomparably poorer and uneducated, there was just one thing he could never lose at.
That was running. Woonghee gritted his teeth and ran like crazy.
“I won…!”
Finally, Woonghee’s palm touched the cruise first. Puhaha, laughing, Woonghee fell backward. He giggled holding his stomach. The taste of blood surged from inside his throat, but with the sense of victory, he didn’t care about such things.
The man who followed after covered his gasping mouth with the back of his hand while catching his breath.
“You really run like a dog in heat, Woonghee-ssi.”
Really, he’d never seen such a crazy guy before, the man was also smiling. The ray of morning glow shattered across his face with deep contours. The madder red light rippling in his pupils was indescribably beautiful.
“……”
Woonghee even forgot to laugh. As if blankly entranced, he looked at his face for a long time. If only he had a camera, he thought he wanted to preserve that photo and keep it forever.
Even if he couldn’t love him forever, couldn’t he keep it alone forever? Woonghee was gasping for breath when he suddenly jumped up. Whoosh, springing his body like a spring, he stretched his arms to his nape.
Sand grains rose white. His solid body swayed from the tremendous force rushing at him. Woonghee kissed his lips that were shattering like waves, spilling laughter.
The golden sunset illuminated the two people kissing. The sound of waves was heard in their ears, and gasping breaths tangled. The two people rolled around the sandy beach and kissed.
Instead of consolation that it was okay, instead of the lie that nothing would happen, to confirm that they were together now, they extorted each other’s gasping breaths.
