***
“……”
Yeon Cheonguk’s heart beat harder. This was someone he shouldn’t be with anymore.
More than anything, he didn’t know the exact reason, but seeing him was painful in a way that was different from before.
It was strange too. Unlike before when he just disliked him and wanted him to get lost, facing him was painful, like being stabbed in the center of his chest.
Anger surged at the unfamiliar and uncomfortable emotion. Yeon Cheonguk answered in a voice filled with fury.
“Were you staking out in front of my house to collect the late fee?”
The voice that came from his vocal cords burned by toxic gas was hoarsely cracked. Hwang Jegu’s shadowed jaw twisted slightly.
“Your voice…”
Hwang Jegu’s face, which had stopped mid-sentence, began to lose its leisure and playfulness. He took something out of the bag slung over one shoulder and tossed it on the floor.
It was a single black slipper.
Hwang Jegu, who walked closer, bent at the waist. He bowed his head at Yeon Cheonguk’s feet and turned the slipper, pushing it next to Yeon Cheonguk’s left foot.
The size fit perfectly. Hwang Jegu looked up at Yeon Cheonguk with his chin resting on his clasped hands.
“Why did you do it?”
Even if he asked for a reason, he couldn’t answer. Yeon Cheonguk himself had moved, drawn by a force he didn’t understand.
Yeon Cheonguk also asked back, recalling the Kangwon Land incident he’d wanted to keep asking him about.
“Why did you do it?”
However, Hwang Jegu hadn’t come here to give Yeon Cheonguk the answer he wanted. He’d only come to get the answer he wanted, and didn’t seem to have any intention of explaining. Yeon Cheonguk’s urging and Hwang Jegu’s one-sided question headed toward each other simultaneously.
“Why did you do it?”
“Why did you do it?”
After the simultaneous questions, silence followed. Hwang Jegu, who stood up, took off his dripping bucket hat and stuffed it into his pants pocket.
Now he could see that the white short-sleeved shirt he wore clung to his wet body, revealing all the contours of his body to the point where flesh showed through. The rainwater flowing down his arms where scars were vivid looked sticky.
“Seeing how you cling so persistently even when I quietly let you go, it really seems like there’s no other reason besides you rubbing your asshole wanting me to fuck you once.”
To Hwang Jegu, who sneered in an indifferent voice, Yeon Cheonguk poured out all the words inside him.
“Please stop with that fucking disgusting misunderstanding. I just went to find the video and acted conscientiously. You’re the one who came looking for a boring guy who doesn’t know how to have fun. Slippers? Couldn’t you just throw them away?”
“I came because I have a purpose.”
“Look at this, it’s so fucking your way. Ha… You’re the one who wedged into my life first. Why are you shaking everything up as you please, doing this and that?”
When he argued with clear enunciation like a theatrical monologue, Hwang Jegu glanced at Yeon Cheonguk with interest.
“Ooh… you’re angry, our slacker.”
“I need to know what the hell happened in Kangwon Land. What kind of shock therapy did you use that Dad came back reformed. I have a right to know too. And, even if we’re cutting ties, I need to know this one thing before we cut ties.”
“Was there ever such a thing as a connection in the first place?”
“Why did you go that far? Why did you risk that danger for someone else’s father?”
“I won’t take that question. Because it’s not fucking important at all.”
“……”
“When you and I return to the world we didn’t know about each other, it’s over. That’s it.”
Hwang Jegu continued speaking while pushing Yeon Cheonguk’s chest with his fingertips, tap, tap.
“I came here today for two purposes. To say thank you. And to warn you it’s the last time.”
“Warning? What warning as you please?”
“Do as you want. If you want to experience Seolyun High where you have no allies and only enemies remain.”
That he could be so calm about saying he’d ruin Yeon Cheonguk’s school life. This was the power Hwang Jegu possessed. Yeon Cheonguk struggled persistently.
“You’ll be expelled before that.”
“Well, that’s fine too. I can step on you from where you can’t see.”
Yeon Cheonguk let out a hollow laugh and turned his head. Hwang Jegu was slowly circling around Yeon Cheonguk. An emotionless murmur fell on his ear.
“Why did you go that far? Well, when I saw that ahjussi who’d gone as far as he could go, he looked just like… me.”
“……”
“Instead, aren’t you curious what I was going to demand from you?”
Hwang Jegu, who sneered in a meaningful tone, continued.
“I was going to make you pull it out once with your throat. Since you’re a man, you could put it in that far, right?”
“…!”
No matter what, he hadn’t known that the meaning of ‘fucking disgusting and dirty acts’ was aimed directly at Yeon Cheonguk. Yeon Cheonguk, who had been soaked in shock, opened his mouth only after a while.
“……But then. Why didn’t you make me do it and just ignored it?”
“Your throat is a protected natural monument, after all.”
“……”
When Yeon Cheonguk, who he’d expected would flee in shock, held his ground, Hwang Jegu turned his body first. Yeon Cheonguk raised his voice toward the back of his head as he shouldered his backpack and headed for the entrance.
“Even so, you could have forced me if you wanted to. The fact that you just passed by… is it like some conscience you can’t explain? That must be why. Yeah, I jumped into the fire for a similar reason too.”
Hwang Jegu stopped. A bleak voice returned.
“There’s no such thing as kindness without a reason in this world.”
“There is. I didn’t know either, but.”
“Yeon Cheonguk. You jumped into the fire and saved my grandfather’s fly-like life because of conscience without reason?”
Hwang Jegu, who turned his body while sneering, began to be filled with a murderous energy.
“You must have wanted something from me.”
“That’s not it!”
“Then. If not that, answer why you did it.”
“I don’t know either. I don’t know either, I just…!”
It was frustrating but he couldn’t explain it in words. How could he explain where such courage came from, why Hwang Jegu’s words and face came to mind at that moment?
“There’s no reason.”
Why had he thought it would be good if nothing worse happened to Hwang Jegu? How his thoughts reached that far in that urgent moment… he truly didn’t know.
“I just didn’t want you to be sad. That’s all.”
“……”
“I just hoped you wouldn’t be any sadder. That’s the only thought I had, that’s all.”
Hwang Jegu’s two pupils, which had been blazing fiercely in the darkness, stopped abruptly. He was calming the darkness that had surged up from deep within.
“Something like kindness without reason. I said there’s no such thing.”
Hwang Jegu’s voice grew closer and closer to a growl. His agitation, which even during the Migliore war hadn’t been seen, brought him sharply to his senses. Uncontrollable anger rippled across Hwang Jegu’s face.
“If it were up to me, I’d want to get rid of you so I can’t see you. Because it’s so irritating I’m going crazy. It keeps interfering with how I used to live. My head keeps getting all fucked up here and there!”
Hwang Jegu’s rough hand grabbed Yeon Cheonguk’s shoulder. Even the rain and wind that whipped around as if to shatter the window weren’t as fierce as his grip strength.
“Don’t act smart. Get out of my world. This is the last warning.”
“……”
“Disappear from in front of me right now. Because I’m one step away from doing something fucking disgusting.”
What dominated Yeon Cheonguk was fear. A resonance and trembling that started from deep within spread throughout his entire body.
There’s no one here. An empty house where only the light from the playing video flashed in the darkness. Even if he was assaulted and violated in this place with no watching eyes, no one would know.
He was seized by fear as if left with a starving beast in an enclosed space. It was a fear that threatened his life.
Yeon Cheonguk stepped back and slipped out of Hwang Jegu’s grip. However, Yeon Cheonguk, who had passed him and was heading for the entrance, hesitated and stopped.
If asked why, he would answer it was because of ridiculous sympathy. Because he was concerned about Hwang Jegu being left alone. There were no other words to explain his unconscious action.
Yeon Cheonguk, who had turned around, shot back.
“This is my house. If you’re going to leave, you should leave.”
From beyond Hwang Jegu’s back, a very low voice rang out.
“You won’t leave?”
“I don’t have an umbrella, fuck. I’ll leave when it stops.”
“This is the last time. Won’t you disappear?”
“I won’t leave.”
“That’s your final answer?”
“I said I don’t have an umbrella.”
The last thing Yeon Cheonguk properly saw was Hwang Jegu’s shadowed face as he turned his body.
“Alright… Then this also has no reason.”
At the end of the murmuring voice getting closer, darkness descended before his eyes.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this either.”
Because warm body heat came down over his mouth, Yeon Cheonguk squeezed his eyes shut. Without realizing it, his lips parted. Through the faintly opened lips, wet heat poured in.
Instead of his vision going dark, other senses came alive.
Sound. The summer typhoon pounding the window and the movie dialogue flowing from the TV behind.
Smell. The smell of humid rain and his body odor.
Sensation. Palm sticky in the humid air. Hot breath covering his face.
A hand that grabbed around his shoulder blades supported Yeon Cheonguk’s body. When he entrusted his body, breath like flames rushed into his mouth. Warmth smoothly enveloped the inside. It was a heat he’d never experienced before.
– PAUSE (1) End
