At the remark brimming with a meaningful feeling, my brain momentarily stopped. I wondered if it was because he was a 19+ gay novel character that he spouted words like this.
Regardless, Baek Sahyun shamelessly continued his work again.
The round buttons came undone helplessly. Even I couldn’t clearly explain why I just watched the bastard without resisting. Was it because I felt futile at the way he handled me like a toy doll?
“I’ll go, I said I’ll go! Where’s the pool?”
Just before more than half the buttons came undone, I stopped the bastard’s hands. As if he didn’t expect me to grab his hands, Baek Sahyun widened his straight eyes into circles. Then after a moment, he opened his mouth.
“Ah. You’ll go?”
The bastard, whose expression crumbled blankly as if receiving an unexpected gift, burst out laughing consecutively. His delicate features distorted as “pfft,” deflating sounds filled the air.
Soon, roaring laughter wrapped around the hotel room completely.
“Really, really you’ll go? Really?”
Baek Sahyun asked me back in a voice that went up and down from laughing too much. When I nodded, the bastard roared with laughter once more in a voice that was unclear whether crying or laughing. Cold sweat flowed consistently at the bizarre scene.
The Baek Sahyun I encountered after possessing seemed to laugh excessively, severely excessively. At this level, there seemed to be a problem with control… if I looked it up, there might be a separate medical name for this.
The bastard who had been laughing exhaustedly suddenly caught his breath. A reddish tinge appeared sparsely on his pale skin, and his eyes were red as if bloodshot. I unconsciously asked.
“…Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
Lie. He didn’t look okay at all. He was still intermittently shaking his shoulders, and transparent tears were even pooling in his eyes, enough to give me chills.
As I moved my body to pull out a tissue for him, Baek Sahyun suddenly thrust his face close. The masculine perfume smell hit me strongly, making my vision dizzy for a moment.
“Nam Heejae was originally a boring bastard.”
It was when I was captivated by the thick fragrance seeping into my nostrils.
“Today especially you’re killing me with laughter. I like it.”
“Smack,” a sharp friction sound struck both cheeks. A large hand had slapped my cheek. I lost my balance and tumbled onto the cold marble floor. Even though I hadn’t lost consciousness, my vision was hazy due to the tingling pain and tinnitus.
It took several seconds just to properly realize I’d been hit.
I hurriedly collected myself and barely raised my head. No, my head was raised. Because Baek Sahyun roughly grabbed my hair and forced eye contact.
“What are you doing, Heejae-ya. Hurry and go into the bathroom.”
“……”
“You said you’d swim for me again. Don’t tell me you were lying?”
“……”
“Since it’s come to this… let’s have fun playing.”
❖ ❖ ❖
Once, there was a time when I devoted myself to working part-time at a water park.
I raised my hourly wage by taking on various roles from the info desk to lifeguard, and the best part was being able to use the facilities during free time. For me, who could swim quite well, there was no better advantage.
I enjoyed the romance of roaming the vast pool alone on quiet nights when the crowds disappeared. I probably liked water that much. Enough to think it would be good to be a swimmer if I was reborn.
“Gasp, haah…! You, bastard…!”
“Why do you have so little grit?”
But now I severely hated water. Swimmer my ass. At this moment of being waterboarded, I thought there might as well be a beer bottle.
“Kheup…!”
As soon as firm hands lifted my hair, “cough, cough!” sporadic coughing poured out. As the blocked breathing burst open, tears trickled out.
“That’s 30 seconds now. Come on, endure it. Fighting.”
“You crazy bastard…, this is attempted murder!”
“You’re the one who said you’d do it.”
I pleaded while briefly borrowing a moment to touch air, but Baek Sahyun only repeated.
“Start.”
“…Haah!”
When my face went back into the water filled in the bathtub, fierce currents constricted my airways as if they’d been waiting. The water play Baek Sahyun mentioned wasn’t, damn it, cutting through waves in a pool but struggling in a bathtub.
❖ ❖ ❖
About 7 hours ago. Right after getting my cheek slapped by Baek Sahyun.
“Heejae-ya. Kneel and sit, and fill the bathtub with water. You can do that, right?”
Without time to appeal my pain, I was caught by Baek Sahyun’s hands and dragged to the bathtub. Up to this point, it somehow felt similar to just before. Except the object in front changed from a toilet to a bathtub.
“You said you wanted to play in water.”
What fucking water play.
Thinking of the waterboarding that would start again made my vision go dark. Fear gradually turned into anger. The result of accommodating his wishes as desired was this kind of abuse. Torture!
“Hey, what the fuck are you? Even screws coming loose has a limit!”
I didn’t obediently comply and raised my head. I even raised my voice loudly in protest.
My limbs trembled so much I could barely stand, but the self-respect remaining the size of a rat turd wouldn’t allow me to raise a white flag here.
“Screws?”
“Yeah. You’re not in your right mind. Do you know that?”
“Well.”
“Crazy bastard.”
Once the dam broke, curses leaked out ceaselessly. I strained my neck with veins bulging, containing all the pent-up resentment.
“You should at least tell me the reason before making me drink water, fuck. Is your head filled with only udon noodles? Do you know how to communicate? Your parents who raised you so preciously must be heartbroken to death. Damn! You stupid bastard.”
From the middle, it didn’t go through my brain. It was a situation where I desperately wanted revenge enough to not think about future troubles at all. Baek Sahyun sat with his butt against the bathroom threshold, listening to the curses directed at him, then threw exactly one remark at the timing when I was panting with indignation.
“I’m sorry.”
I was so flustered I almost fell over like “thud” in a cartoon. Standing blankly at a loss for words, my gaze collided with the bastard’s in midair.
“I’m stupid. You know that, right?”
I couldn’t believe the sound that came out of Baek Sahyun’s mouth. I couldn’t help but be flustered. What? Did he just call himself stupid with his own mouth?
“If my parents saw, they’d certainly be heartbroken. Heejae, just like you said.”
“…Huh?”
“I suddenly miss Mom and Dad. Though they’re in a place I can’t see them now.”
Baek Sahyun continued in a gentle tone. The atmosphere instantly changed to one where the bastard was repenting toward me. Seeing the bastard confess his family situation with a bitter face, I felt perplexed enough to lose my mind. Because it seemed I’d unintentionally touched the bastard’s trauma.
I harbored doubts about whether they might still be alive after this, but thinking about the original setting, it really seemed Baek Sahyun’s parents had never been mentioned even once. Damn.
“Hey, that, what I just said.”
I hesitated and approached the threshold. Even though I was the one unilaterally assaulted, shouldn’t I still repent for my wrongdoing? Dragging family into a chaotic argument.
As I reached out my hand to apologize, Baek Sahyun happened to raise his face.
“Still, aren’t we both equally screwed in the head? What do you think, Heejae?”
I should have noticed right then that was the point when his attitude started changing. But I made the mistake of sitting down facing the bastard in a defenseless state due to sympathy reaching its peak.
“If, if we’re both screwed in the head, how about making up?”
“Haha. Funny. You only make up with people you fought with.”
Therefore, even when Baek Sahyun grabbed my neck painlessly, I could only convulse without any response.
“What…”
“You’re very unfamiliar today, Nam Heejae.”
“Huh, haah.”
“I think your head might be sick… You keep talking nonsense too.”
“Hey, hey, Baek Sahyun.”
“I wonder if you’re possessed. Don’t you think?”
“Urk…!”
Momentarily, a force so strong and firm it dented my skin was briefly transmitted. Even though we’re males of the same age, how could I not put up any resistance? I wondered where such tremendous strength surged from.
But before I could respond, the grip annoyingly loosened. After barely containing my fear and mechanically shaking my limbs, the bastard patted my nape again.
While adjusting the pace ungratefully, Baek Sahyun continued saying what he wanted to say.
“Look just now. I have no idea why you’re angry.”
It was proof that my judgment that Baek Sahyun was sad while recalling his parents was completely off. I shouldn’t have expected humanity from this bastard.
“Heejae, you said with your own mouth that time was fun. I’m trying to let you play in water the same way, so why are you throwing a tantrum?”
White fingers tapped my uvula.
“It can’t be helped. Nam Heejae, you seem to need an exorcism.”
“…Bullshit. Are you a shaman?”
“No? I’m your childhood friend Sahyun.”
The moderately low and sly voice had already become uneven in volume, hovering around my ears. Baek Sahyun acted recklessly enough to seem like he’d lost control. Everything he spouted was like that.
“Childhood friends can do this. Heejae, you and I are childhood friends. Memorize it. You and I are childhood friends. Did you memorize it?”
“Please, just.”
“You won’t memorize it?”
Only then did I realize.
The fact that Baek Sahyun who lost his reason was far more frightening than Baek Sahyun who schemed and hid his intentions.
But even in the midst of being out of it, I wanted to rebuke the bastard. You, don’t tell me you committed such acts even when you went to the pension? Were you and Nam Heejae really truly friends?
Once started, the doubts grew in volume uncontrollably.
Childhood playmates, childhood friends, best friends. Did the relationship between the two people that only seemed ideal actually turn out to be the complete opposite? I wanted to grab him by the collar and ask, but I didn’t have the ability. Baek Sahyun muttered.
“I’ll help you until you come to your senses. So you can return to being the Nam Heejae I know.”
“Do it in moderation, bastard!”
“So stop yapping. Got it? My friend Heejae isn’t this noisy.”
Nevertheless, I who didn’t stop struggling ended up confined in the bedroom with my whole body tied with rope. Apparently it was rope he’d prepared while I’d traveled thirty thousand li to find Chae Eunwoo.
Baek Sahyun, who bound me to his heart’s content, left the room that way and didn’t return for about half a day.
