“Scared, my ass.”
Taeju carried Iseo and strode into the deep sea. The sea submerged up to his waist. Iseo clenched his arms and legs even tighter. The water depth was rapidly increasing.
“Stop going in! It’s deep!”
“It’s not that deep.”
“It is, I’m smaller than you!”
Grinning, he swayed his body left and right.
“Eu, hey! Don’t…!”
“Are you scared?”
“I’m not scared.”
“Then why?”
As the water level rose from Taeju’s waist to his chest, more than half of Iseo’s body was also submerged. Iseo floated his body slightly in the cold water and anxiously surveyed the sea.
“I told you I can’t swim…!”
Suddenly Taeju threw his body into the water. Iseo crashed into the sea with a splash. He unexpectedly lost hold of Taeju and flailed his arms and legs, struggling. As he hurriedly tried to step on the bottom with his feet, cold sweat broke out.
Salt water entered his nose and mouth and his eyes stung. The moment his throat burned sharply, Iseo pushed off the bottom and shot up out of the water.
“Heu, ah, really! Yeon Taeju!”
“Keuhak, hahahaha! Does it burn?”
As he bounced around in the water hurriedly wiping his face, he heard an infuriatingly cheerful voice. The sound of laughter was so refreshing it was almost pleasant.
“Hey!”
Heat rushed to the top of Iseo’s head and he immediately reached out his hand, but Taeju annoyingly dodged by a hair’s breadth. Unlike himself who was waddling through the water, Taeju was oddly faster. He wasn’t even swimming, just walking with his feet.
Even with a burning, bitter throat and blurred vision, Iseo chased Taeju. He repeatedly swept his face to wipe away the salt.
“Ah, Yeon Taeju!”
“Why, what are you gonna do if you catch me?”
Laughing cheerfully, he went into deeper water. He bit his lower lip hard in frustration and was shocked at how salty it was. Bouncing along the bottom, Iseo followed Taeju into deeper water. Now if he stayed still, the water came up to his chin.
“Yeon Taeju, stop going in! It’s too deep!”
Taeju, who had been running away, looked back at Iseo’s shout. He was still smiling brightly. He was cute. For the first time, Iseo thought Yeon Taeju was cute while looking at him. His face splashed with water droplets, the deeply creased wrinkles around his eyes and mouth from smiling broadly, even his eyes that held no ulterior motives or calculations.
Young Yeon Taeju came to mind. Yeon Taeju who had excitedly said that he had two older brothers and she had two older sisters.
“Already? We can still go deeper though?”
“No! I’m scared now!”
Iseo shouted toward Taeju and looked back where they’d come from. It was incredibly far away. He had no idea when they’d come this deep.
Iseo was momentarily captivated by that sight. He’d always looked at the sea from there. The pure white sandy beach and breaking waves, the thin horizon. It was a familiar but beautiful scene.
But the opposite view from inside it was even more spectacular. The pure white sandy beach spanning a long width, the cliff creating a slope at a moderate incline, and his house perched on top of it. It was a completely different perspective and a life he’d never even dreamed of.
He’d thought he could never enter the picture. But he’d entered it. And his life had receded into the distance.
Iseo felt like his chest would burst. He wanted to tell Taeju about this right now. About this overwhelming, stifling feeling. When he urgently turned his blank gaze beyond the sea, Taeju was gone.
“Taeju-ya… Yeon Taeju!”
His heart dropped. Yeon Taeju had suddenly disappeared. Iseo knew it too. That there was nowhere for Taeju to suddenly disappear to and no way he’d be swept away by the waves. But anxiety was helpless. As Iseo tried to take a step into deeper water, something slippery wrapped around his legs.
“Euak!”
Iseo truly screamed. He was vividly experiencing what Taeju had said about it feeling good in the water because you don’t sweat. Of course, it was cold sweat.
“Yeo, Yeon Taeju!”
He had no idea when he’d gone into the water and burrowed between his legs. The moment he felt Taeju firmly gripping his legs, his body slowly rose.
He straightened his body while giving him a piggyback ride underwater. Iseo unknowingly bent his waist and tightly wrapped both arms around Taeju’s head.
“Hey, don’t! Ah!”
The water surface that had been nearly at his chin rapidly receded. As his body shot up out of the water, water fell with a patter. Because of the slippery skin, it felt like his legs would fall from his shoulders at any moment.
“Uuk, let go of my arms a bit. I can’t breathe.”
“Ah…!”
Iseo hurriedly released the arms that had been tightly wrapped around his face. Only then did Taeju urgently inhale. Taeju, whose face and hair were soaking wet, firmly gripped Iseo’s thighs.
Iseo also tightly gripped on top of his hands. He was bent over to the point his waist hurt, but he didn’t dare have the courage to straighten up. All Iseo could see was the deep blue seawater and Taeju’s crown.
“That’s why I said don’t play pranks like that…”
Taeju twisted his head slightly and only raised his eyes to look at Iseo. Seeing Iseo’s face, he shook his body and laughed.
“Hey, it’s shaking… don’t laugh…!”
“What, are you scared?”
“No.”
“Then why does your face look like that?”
Taeju deliberately moved his body crookedly. Iseo immediately turned pale and screamed.
“I’m scared! Don’t do it!”
“You’re scared of a lot of things.”
“Put me down now…!”
Taeju didn’t even pretend to listen and walked forward. Now the seawater was that far away, barely wetting his ankles. Iseo glanced back and forth between Taeju and the sea.
“You’re heavy, I said put me down!”
“You’re not heavy.”
“You’re trying to drop me again, aren’t you?”
“I wasn’t thinking that, but if you want, I’ll do it for you.”
Like before, Taeju twisted his head and looked at Iseo. His expression must have been quite funny because Taeju couldn’t hold back and burst into laughter.
“Straighten your back. The water only comes up to your legs now.”
Ah, Iseo let out a weak sigh and released the strength from his stiffly tensed body. When he straightened his back and looked ahead, the sunlight sparkling on the waves was excessively dazzling.
Seeing it from far away, he could clearly see the sunlight flowing as it hit the sea surface.
“What were you looking at?”
“Hm?”
“What were you looking at that you didn’t even notice I was gone?”
Iseo turned his head to look toward the villa. Taeju noticed Iseo’s movement and turned his back to face that direction.
“There.”
“The villa?”
“Yeah, I looked at this place from there every day. Looking from here, it’s new.”
“You’ve never gone into the sea even once?”
Taeju asked in a voice that was beyond puzzled, almost amazed.
“Yeah.”
His answering voice was nonchalant.
“Why? Then why do you live here?”
“Just, because I like looking at it.”
“Just looking?”
Iseo naturally swept back Taeju’s hair that had fallen down. He wiped the water flowing along his forehead and rubbed his cheek teasingly.
“Yeah, when you’re just looking, you think that’s the best. Because you don’t know what’s better.”
Like you.
Iseo swallowed those words. When he watched him from afar, that was enough. His life was interesting. He lived nonchalantly in a daily life he couldn’t enter. His feelings of affection were sufficiently soothed by watching. Then an opportunity and excuse to meet him arose. When he actually met him, he wanted to touch his body, and then he thought it would be good to have his feelings too.
Iseo swept back Taeju’s hair several times.
Taeju looked up. His upside-down face was new again.
“Well, that can happen.”
“Taeju-ya.”
“Hm?”
His lips moved as if trying to say something difficult. Actually, that wasn’t it. Iseo didn’t know what to say.
“Let’s go to shallow water.”
