He bolted upright, and Woonghee was lying on a hospital room bed. Moreover, wasn’t he sleeping with his cheek buried in the man’s chest? He was definitely supposed to have a shattered shoulder.
“Y-you…!”
His heart raced frantically. Are you hurt anywhere? Just how smashed is your shoulder blade, your arm, can you move your arm? Why are you putting me on your body even though you’re injured…!
Woonghee felt suffocated. Because of these IV lines holding him down. He immediately grabbed them and yanked hard. Swish, the IV line whipped like a snake’s tail from his thin wrist. Blood splattered bright red.
“You woke up and couldn’t help yourself, starting your bullshit again?”
He let out a low laugh as if exasperated. The man’s thick ribcage lowered, then swelled up again. He took the wrist dripping with blood.
“Really, you’re impossible.”
He opened his reddish lips. Then he slowly licked up Woonghee’s cheek with his tongue.
“Wh-what….”
Blood streaks had splattered wildly on Woonghee’s pale cheek. Like strawberry syrup sprinkled on whipped cream.
“Mm, sweet.”
His voice, briefly exhaled, cracked sensually low. Like someone slowly savoring something very expensive and sweet with their tongue, he rolled that taste around for a long time. His thick eyebrows furrowed and one side twisted subtly. Even that expression felt incredibly sweet.
Woonghee shivered down his spine.
…I wanted to ask if your body was okay. But a terrible pain like dying felt through his throat.
Ah, right, I swallowed poison. But why am I completely fine? Why am I still alive and well like this? It exploded deep inside my mouth. Shouldn’t the poison have already spread and I should be dead…?!
It felt very unpleasant, like moss had grown in his throat. Woonghee grabbed his nape and kept scratching his throat, kek, kek. I have to get this poison out…!
The man’s large hand gently gripped Woonghee’s nape. As if telling him to stop, he softly caressed it.
“I, I have to scratch this out….”
“Shh, the doctor already turned Woonghee-ssi’s body inside out. He said it was an aphrodisiac.”
What? An aphrodisiac? Woonghee frowned. Tula definitely said that if I swallowed even a little, my eyes would roll back immediately and I’d go to the underworld….
“Cheap pig aphrodisiac.”
It was fucking absurd. It was only that kind of thing…! I wanted to tell you I’d come back to you, but I couldn’t express my true feelings at all. That’s why your shoulder ended up broken like this.
“Tu-Tula said what’s in my body was poison, if I spoke, the medicine would break and I’d die….”
“And yet you still yelled at me like that?”
“Uh….”
Uh, I did. Woonghee unconsciously lowered his voice. Shh, shh, he continued speaking as if exhaling. A voice so small that only the man could hear. Words that would barely be heard if you didn’t listen carefully.
Because I thought you, you who I left, would be heartbroken. Thinking of the man, Woonghee had no time to care about his own safety.
“I, I was a coward….”
Meeting the man’s eyes, now that the drug’s effects weren’t working at all, he confessed his innermost feelings to him, pressing them down firmly. While Woonghee carefully uttered each word.
“…….”
The man pressed his lips firmly to the back of Woonghee’s hand. He left a very long kiss and pulled away. His closed eyes opened, and his quietly sunken eyes looked at him.
“Tell me more.”
The man whispering like that had all his nerves directed toward him.
Lest his breath disturb Woonghee, lest Woonghee hide from his gaze, he didn’t dare move his lips even once. His oxygen tank-like ribcage had also almost stopped moving. Holding his breath as quietly as a mouse, he was listening to Woonghee’s words.
“I ran away because I was afraid of being abandoned.”
“For that, you seemed to be running away pretty sincerely.”
Sea breeze blew in through the window open on one side. The salty smell of this tiresome Southeast Asian sea rolled in like a tide. It rippled in the man’s eyes. Silvery fragments of moonlight flickered and sank in his eyes. It was a quiet night where even the sound of breathing spread into the salty smell.
“Yes, I did. I was that afraid of being abandoned by you.”
…It was already night.
Two nights had passed. We were no longer trapped on an island, nor were we the only Omega and Alpha to each other anymore.
It meant that you and I were no longer lovers.
What would come next for us…?
I was scared to face the truth. I desperately wanted to run away. From this frightening emotion. Even now, it would be a lie to say I wasn’t scared.
However, after almost losing you once, I understand. How important and precious this moment is, just being with you in this moment became everything to Woonghee.
“I, I ran away from my own heart….”
I was desperate to run away from my heart that was directed toward you.
But in the end, I was held in the man’s arms. He didn’t let me go.
His gently rippling eyes were lovely. In his eyes that met mine, there wasn’t a speck of falsehood. The suffocating stillness like the deep sea, the quietness, none of it was sleeping there.
One side of my chest swelled up hotly. Woonghee’s breathing grew rough. The emotions I’d been holding back surged up to the tip of my throat. It felt like I couldn’t endure anymore. Because I wanted to hug him right now. I quickly buried my nose in his cheek.
His skin was no longer cold. That time when it had cooled like before had disappeared. Now, this hot skin was touching my fingertips. Smoothly, Woonghee’s anxiety melted away. My head went blank. Hot warmth spread deep in my chest.
The air between him and Woonghee swelled up hotly. The world became quiet. In that moment, there were only him and Woonghee, just the two of them.
“Kiss me.”
Kiss me as much as you love me, the man burrowed into Woonghee as if being coquettish. Gladly, as much as you want, Woonghee gently pressed his lips while holding the man’s cheeks.
Passionately to him who says he’d follow to the ends of hell, so that the man could feel every single one of his breaths.
***
Is this what they call land sickness? The land I returned to really didn’t feel familiar. Only exactly one finger’s worth, just one year’s time had passed.
The eight people, no, nine people who had been trapped on the island returned to the land where they originally belonged. Now it was all over.
The sweltering land of Cebu. Humid heat no different from a steamer, like boiling sundae. The locals whose work had ended sought out cool local beer houses to escape the tropical night.
[Wow…!]
On the large screen, Korea’s hottest drama these days was airing. It couldn’t help but draw attention, as the cast had all gone missing together and returned just two weeks ago. Moreover, dopamine was boiling over in every episode, so you couldn’t help but watch despite the relatively crude scenario. And the actors’ visuals were each splendid.
[Two more beers!]
It was a climax scene. In the exciting atmosphere, everyone’s faces were focused on the screen.
“Geez, I said no cilantro and they put it in again.”
Only one person in the most secluded spot had completely cut off their interest and was concentrating on eating. Dressed in a shirt with tropical palm trees printed on it and elephant pants, with dragonfly sunglasses covering their eyes, they had a strange appearance.
“Why doesn’t a Filipino baby eat cilantro?”
Woonghee was picking out the cilantro one by one from the fragrant rice noodle bowl with chopsticks. The baby sitting on his lap looked up at him. It was Jjokko, with round eyes taking up half of her small face.
[Mamma.]
At the fern-like hand stroking her belly saying she was hungry, Woonghee became anxious. He rolled the rice noodles around the chopsticks and blew on them. When he popped it into that small mouth that was fidgeting and whining for it quickly, the baby smiled with puffed cheeks.
“Is it good, baby?”
“Kim…chi.”
“Kimchi?”
There’s no kimchi here. I’ll give you some when we get home, he muttered. A fly landed on Jjokko’s small forearm, so he tapped it gently with a fan so it wouldn’t hurt.
“Beer, please.”
When Woonghee spoke, the part-timer brought out a beer. White beer foam flowed down the surface. As Woonghee stuck out his tongue and lapped it up, lush eyelashes were glimpsed beyond the yellow sunglasses.
The part-timer was staring at that face as if entranced. I feel like I’ve seen them somewhere, where did I see them? Then after looking at the screen, they exclaimed “Ah!” and returned to their spot, but.
That mysterious customer from earlier had already disappeared. Under the cleanly emptied bowl, a wad of bills far too much for the price of rice noodles was placed. Only the foam flowing on the beer glass seemed to say that the customer had really been there.
