# Chapter 81
The harmony of sausage and seafood added to the beef stew with castella wasn’t exactly bad, but it wasn’t particularly good either. Since the base flavor of the stew was different from gumbo, it was impossible to find that specific point that pleased the palate. Still, since the person who bought it had put in such sincere effort, Mo Eunje tried his best to enjoy it.
“It’s different from gumbo.”
“Yeah. But it’s still delicious.”
“…I don’t think so.”
“Of course Grandmother’s gumbo tastes much better. But we’re going to eat it when we visit Grandmother during summer vacation, so I can be satisfied with this for now. Thank you.”
Tae Igyeol crossed his arms with a displeased expression. The stew had seemed like a large portion, but eating it with castella, they soon saw the bottom of the container. After finishing the empty bread mold, Mo Eunje’s stomach suddenly felt very full, and he stopped eating.
“Thank you for the meal.”
When Mo Eunje finished eating, Tae Igyeol naturally started cleaning up. Since Mo Eunje was being pampered so much because he was sick, he felt guilty just sitting there doing nothing.
“Don’t make that face and go sit down. I’ll bring you your medicine.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Though he desperately wanted to help, his physical condition wouldn’t allow it, so he obediently got up as instructed. When he sat down on the living room sofa, the muscle pain that he’d momentarily forgotten while eating became more noticeable. His arms and legs felt numb, and his shoulders, back—there wasn’t a single part of him that didn’t ache.
Mo Eunje leaned back against the sofa and alternately massaged his shoulders, arms, and legs. Massaging felt refreshing, but his hands became numb and painful, so he couldn’t continue for long. Just as he was wondering if a massage might help ease the dull pain, Tae Igyeol came over, sat on the sofa, placed Mo Eunje’s legs across his thighs, and began massaging his calves.
“This service is no joke.”
“Judging by your revived talking, I guess you’re feeling a bit better now?”
“Yeah. Just after you left, when I was talking with Minho, I felt like I was dying. But after hearing Grandmother’s voice and eating the stew and castella you brought, I feel almost completely better.”
The way Tae Igyeol massaged his calves felt incredibly soothing. His hands were large, so he could massage a wide area at once, and even the tingling sensation in his feet seemed to be improving.
“And the muscle pain?”
“Still there. I must have a proper case of body aches. I want to throw away this body and replace it with a new one.”
Apart from the throbbing pain throughout his body, he was noticeably better. The scratchy throat symptoms had somewhat subsided, and even his fever seemed to have gone down now. He didn’t know when the fever might rise again, but he was so exhausted that he hoped he would just continue to get better like this.
“Ah. You need to take your medicine.”
After massaging Mo Eunje’s arms, legs, and shoulders for about 20 minutes, Tae Igyeol suddenly remembered and got up to fetch the medicine. Mo Eunje himself had forgotten too, so if Tae Igyeol hadn’t mentioned it, he might have just fallen back asleep. The more attentive care he received, the more his heart felt ticklish and emotional deep inside.
Tae Igyeol soon returned with water, fever reducer, and medicine for body aches. Mo Eunje accepted the pills handed to him one by one without complaint and swallowed them. Sitting quietly and just receiving what was given made him feel both grateful and sorry, but honestly, he liked it. He was satisfied with their perfect friendship that lacked absolutely nothing.
Friend…
Could they really be called friends?
‘What kind of friends are like you two? If you’re friends, then I don’t have any friends.’
Somehow, he could almost hear Ban Hajun’s voice. Even thinking about Ban Hajun or Gye Minho made it clear that their current situation wasn’t normal, yet Mo Eunje tried to rationalize it by using his illness as an excuse.
No.
He needed to recover quickly. Thoughts that he would never entertain in a rational state were lurking, seeking opportunities to take over his mind. It had been that way since the moment he misunderstood that he might be the person Tae Igyeol had a crush on.
It was fortunate that he had firmly denied it, but even if it were true, nothing should change. Mo Eunje cleared away these unnecessary and pointless thoughts as he lay down. Thinking that it had been a long time since he’d used Tae Igyeol’s thigh as a pillow, he closed his eyes.
“Igyeol.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you hate it when I’m sick?”
“I do.”
“I hate it when I’m sick too.”
He wanted to talk about what he’d heard during the call with Grandmother, and he wanted to express his gratitude for Tae Igyeol’s tender care and consideration when he was sick—both then and now. But his tongue felt heavy and wouldn’t move as he wanted. Instead, another thought that had been stuck in his throat like a thorn forced its way out.
“Grandmother asked if we’re getting along well. Out of nowhere.”
“…”
“Is she worried we might fight? We don’t even have anything to fight about… We’re the closest friends in the world…”
Mo Eunje’s voice slowed down and soon became so quiet it was almost inaudible. He had just taken medicine, but his fever seemed to be rising again as his face and neck felt hot and his forehead throbbed. Being sick made him tired even when he was just breathing and doing nothing else. Mo Eunje took Tae Igyeol’s cool hand and placed it on his forehead. Feeling a comfort even greater than when he’d been lying in bed, he slipped into the abyss of sleep.
“Haah…”
Mo Eunje exhaled a hot breath and struggled to lift his eyelids. He recalled falling asleep on the sofa with his head on Tae Igyeol’s thigh, but when he opened his eyes, he found himself lying in bed. Confirming that the space next to him was empty, he checked the time. More than 30 minutes remained until midnight.
He was in much more extreme pain than before, and his whole body was burning with fever. His wet hair clung to his face, and his body, wearing only underwear under the blanket, was slippery with sweat. Come to think of it, he had been wearing Tae Igyeol’s robe until he lay down with his head on Tae Igyeol’s thigh in the late evening. It seemed that when Tae Igyeol moved him to the bed, he had removed the robe, worried about the fever rising.
Without enough strength to call for Tae Igyeol, he barely managed to half-raise himself and reach for the side table. He noticed the robe carelessly thrown at the foot of the bed. There was no way Tae Igyeol would have left it like that. If it had been Tae Igyeol, he would have put it directly in the laundry basket or folded it neatly and hung it on a chair. It was likely that Mo Eunje himself had taken it off and thrown it away in his sleep.
Anyway, that aside, he first grabbed the medicine on the table, as he felt like he was dying. He unwrapped two body ache pills and two fever reducers, put them all in his mouth at once, and swallowed them with water.
Only after lying down again did he realize that it hadn’t even been three hours since he’d taken medicine. He briefly worried about taking medicine without proper time intervals, but then lost consciousness as if fainting.
“…”
Tae Igyeol appeared in his dream after a long time. Perhaps being physically ill had made his heart weaker and his mind more vulnerable. This was the first time he had dreamed of him since his brief first love when he was eighteen. Even though he had seen Tae Igyeol’s face until he fell asleep, he was still happy to see him again in his dream.
Tae Igyeol was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at Mo Eunje. As if it were the most natural thing, Mo Eunje reached out his arms toward him, just as he had done in his dreams long ago. But his arm felt unusually heavy and uncomfortable to be part of his body. Nevertheless, he wrapped his arms around Tae Igyeol’s neck, and Tae Igyeol bent his upper body, gradually coming closer.
“…”
“…”
They were so close that their breaths touched, at a dangerously narrow distance. Mo Eunje smiled awkwardly as he completely closed the gap, closed his eyes, and pressed their lips together. After holding his breath for a moment, he stuck out his tongue and licked Tae Igyeol’s lower lip. Despite being a dream, the sensation of the soft, plump lips felt remarkably vivid. Perhaps his heightened sensitivity due to his illness was affecting his dream as well. Not only the lips he was kissing, but also the feeling of the nape of the neck against his arms and the dizzying breath—everything was crystal clear.
“Mmph…!”
Tae Igyeol’s tongue, which had been as docile as a gentle lamb, suddenly parted Mo Eunje’s lips and invaded aggressively. As Tae Igyeol moved on top of him, their bodies overlapped, and Mo Eunje’s arms tightened around Tae Igyeol’s neck. Tae Igyeol’s actions—careful yet uninhibited—felt unfamiliar, as Mo Eunje had always been the one to lead in those old dreams. The moment he realized this, his body instantly heated up, and warmth pooled in his lower abdomen.
With reason gone and only instinct remaining, Mo Eunje was about to remove his hands from around Tae Igyeol’s neck and slip them under his t-shirt when suddenly their lips and bodies separated, and his wrist was firmly grabbed with strong force.
“Haa, Eunje…”
It was a suppressed voice, as if holding something back forcefully. After briefly lowering his head, Tae Igyeol soon met his gaze.
“If you stimulate me now, I’ve been holding back for so long that I don’t think I can stop.”
The ash-gray eyes were boiling with undisguisable desire.
“…”
Mo Eunje wanted to say that he didn’t have to stop, that he too had accumulated much desire, but perhaps because it was a dream, he couldn’t make his voice work as he wished. In fact, his mind was in such chaos, alternating between a complete mess and moments of blankness, that normal thinking was impossible.
“Let’s not do something we’ll regret. Just… let’s stop here…”
A gentle hand arranged the wet hair stuck to Mo Eunje’s forehead. It was an extremely gentle and sorrowful movement. But Mo Eunje, with his hazy and clouded mind, still couldn’t understand why they needed to stop. Ignoring Tae Igyeol’s words, he struggled to move his captured hand under the t-shirt, but both wrists were bound and fixed above his head. The lips that had separated returned urgently. The more their hot tongues intertwined, the more his breathing quickened.
