Cha Haseong spread out the thick blanket wide and made Yeo Dowoon lie down next to him again, then hugged his helplessly collapsed body as if crushing it. Unable to budge, Yeo Dowoon asked as if embarrassed.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
It would be fortunate if his heart didn’t burst pathetically with a bang and vomit blood. Before all kinds of improper greed could capture his reason, Yeo Dowoon barely suppressed the heat inside him and continued speaking.
“If there’s any food you want to eat.”
“I’ll make it later, so sleep a bit…….”
As if no matter how much he slept the fatigue wouldn’t disappear, Cha Haseong looked even more weary than before. Yeo Dowoon noticed the strength gradually building in the arms that pulled him close.
When he softly called out “Guide-nim,” Cha Haseong pressed their bodies together tightly as if wanting to cool his warm skin. He even entangled their thighs and added weight.
Before he knew it, Yeo Dowoon was tightly wrapped up all over like a grass insect bound in sticky spider webs. Only after recognizing that Yeo Dowoon was staying still and caught by him did Cha Haseong open his mouth intermittently.
“Cold medicine…….”
“What?”
“Cold medicine, do you have any?”
Thud—Yeo Dowoon, who pushed him away and got up in one motion, frantically touched his forehead and interrogated him.
“Are you sick? Do you have a fever?”
“……You’re running away again.”
“Since when have you been sick?”
“Not for long.”
Cha Haseong pulled up the corners of his mouth with his eyes closed. His snow-white cheeks rose in round curves. His physical condition had indeed fallen considerably because he’d had to be overworked like a guiding machine.
A slight chill would have quickly settled if he just took a few pills and slept well, but since he wasn’t given such leisure, he had no choice but to repeatedly neglect it even while feeling warning signs.
“Hurry and lie down again. You’ll catch it from me, Dowoon-ssi.”
“What…, ah. The cold?”
“Yeah.”
Cha Haseong, who shook off his disheveled hair, finally made eye contact with Yeo Dowoon.
Having just woken up, he was much gentler and more docile than usual. He grinned while gripping Yeo Dowoon’s hem.
“You don’t hate sleeping with me, right?”
How could that be? He didn’t know how happy and blessed he was to be able to sleep together. But to reveal his true feelings without packaging, even to himself he seemed to have many perverted aspects.
Yeo Dowoon stroked Cha Haseong’s forehead again. At the mutter “You have such a high fever…,” Cha Haseong snuggled closer as if pleased.
At the feverish movements burrowing into his chest, Yeo Dowoon unconsciously spread his arms wide. He was too precious to carelessly squeeze. Cha Haseong remained in his embrace. He closed his eyes while being held.
In the end, Yeo Dowoon poured out all the surging affection.
“I’ll protect you.”
“…….”
“From now on, so you absolutely won’t encounter anything bad, I will.”
“…….”
“I will truly protect you with my life.”
He realized right after spitting it out. I acted too rashly. Cha Haseong only kept silent without answering. He’d lost his mind to a moment’s warmth and ended up making a foolish idea.
Cha Haseong disliked male bastards who smelled of sweat. And that included himself too.
Being kind and affectionate was his unavoidable nature, but hearing a passionate confession from a bastard he disliked would only bring up dry heaves, wouldn’t it?
“Just take good care of yourself, Dowoon-ssi.”
However, Cha Haseong patted Yeo Dowoon’s back as if telling him not to be nervous. Once spilled water couldn’t be gathered back up no matter what method was used.
So he should have restrained and controlled himself, but damn it, he couldn’t do that and seemed to have received such a painful rejection.
When Yeo Dowoon tried to bite his own lips, Cha Haseong naturally offered his pale fingers to bite.
“Don’t make yourself responsible for an Esper’s life for no reason.”
The calloused finger slowly felt around the hard palate.
“I’m tired of that now.”
The voice that followed was only peaceful as if submerged in a lake.
***
He’d completely shattered with his own hands the peaceful atmosphere with Cha Haseong that had come after a long time. Cha Haseong himself didn’t seem to care much, so only Yeo Dowoon’s insides ached more sourly.
When he started his second sleep snoring away, Yeo Dowoon went out to the neighborhood to buy cold medicine and abalone porridge, also to shake off his gloomy mood. Searching online said it was good to feed him ion drinks too, so he swept up all kinds.
But arriving at the officetel without even a single table, he couldn’t help but feel annoyed.
“I should have bought a dining table.”
Pinching his past self was a bonus. At the empty sight, it felt like cold wind was fiercely blowing into his heart too. Swoooosh, the sound of water from the bathroom was refreshing and pleasant.
He must have woken up. For a moment Yeo Dowoon hesitated.
“……Towel.”
Is there a towel?
He hadn’t stopped by this officetel since breaking up with his ex-girlfriend, so his memory was hazy. Still, thinking there surely couldn’t be no towel, Yeo Dowoon soon changed his mind and turned his steps.
Knocking on the bathroom door and asking could be a method, but somehow he couldn’t face it.
It was natural since after grandly declaring he’d protect him, he received the answer to just take care of himself. When Yeo Dowoon was moving his feet with big strides, a creaking door sound echoed.
“……Did you go out?”
Yeo Dowoon stood still, unable to turn around.
Drip, drip. The noise of water droplets falling approached vividly. It was about when anxiety intensified at the vibration as if wet, splashing soles soaked with moisture were stepping across the marble floor.
“I’m fully dressed though.”
Cha Haseong, who smoothly extended his arm from behind Yeo Dowoon and snatched the bag he was holding, whispered mischievously. The cool energy characteristic of someone who’d just finished showering spread out sharply.
“Is that so?”
Yeo Dowoon turned his face as if relieved. He’d worried in advance thinking he’d be at least half-naked, but since he said he wasn’t, he felt embarrassed to keep just staring at the ground.
“Why did you buy ion drinks?”
Cha Haseong really was properly wearing both a top and bottom. Looking at his damp hair, it seemed he’d carelessly put on clothes on his undried body and come out. Yeo Dowoon explained confidently.
“Because they say it helps when you have a cold.”
“Ion drinks?”
“Yes. It’s information I found on a blog run by a doctor.”
“There’s milk too….”
To be precise, it was coffee milk.
Yeo Dowoon clearly remembered Cha Haseong saying he liked coffee mixed with milk. There were no cafes open until late hours around here, so regrettably he brought coffee milk at least.
“Looking closely, you seem really delicate, Dowoon-ssi.”
Cha Haseong praised gently. Yeo Dowoon became quite awkward and subtly averted his gaze. The answer “only toward you” surged up to the tip of his throat but he held it back.
“I hear that often.”
When he deliberately presented a sentence different from his true feelings, Cha Haseong responded as if disappointed.
“It would be good if you just had a bit more sense.”
“……How can someone be meticulous yet lack sense?”
At the fervent rebuttal, he laughed resonantly. Perhaps because he slept refreshingly, his condition looked better than usual. It was as if fluffy pink fog was spreading around Cha Haseong.
He lightly embraced Yeo Dowoon.
“Dowoon-ssi who has good sense and is even meticulous.”
He felt the solid chest. That he wanted to express his kindness as cruelty would all be due to his own pathetic greed. The shampoo scent rippling at the tip of his nose was only too sweet, and Yeo Dowoon became dejected.
“Thank you.”
Could I ever stop loving this person? It felt frustrating because it seemed impossible.
***
Around 11 PM, Kwon Jeonghoo regained consciousness.
The Espers who rushed over like angry bulls as soon as they heard the news decided the order to enter the hospital room with back-and-forth jostling. There were countless times they gossiped calling him a stubborn superior, but for better or worse, he was Delta’s Captain.
“Seonwoo, you go to the bathroom. Didn’t you whine about a stomachache earlier?”
“You went to Jeju Island and came back saying such hurtful things. When did I whine…?”
“Did you eat foreign food and come back? You’re all soft, hey.”
It was impossible to give a compressed explanation of what kind of meaning he held to be able to control and tame Espers who were treated as superhumans.
Because he was a man who was in himself a model for Espers.
“Um, is something wrong?”
If a passing nurse hadn’t explained that they could all go in, they would have been wasting more time with even more intense rock-paper-scissors.
Even facing subordinates rushing in like a swarm of moths, Kwon Jeonghoo wasn’t proud. Rather, he only asked as if displeased.
“……Are you guys allowed to come in here?”
Though it was a question with nuances of not to come in oozing out, nobody noticed.
Actually, Cha Uihyeon was puzzled wondering if it meant to leave, but riding on Baek Seonwoo’s “Captaaaain!” sound, he played dumb.
“Has your berserk possibility subsided?”
“So they say.”
“And you’re not hurt anywhere?”
“I’m getting anesthesia.”
“Should I bring water…….”
“I drank earlier.”
In order, it was Baek Seonwoo, Ko Ijae, Cha Uihyeon. Kwon Jeonghoo, who gave answers to each and every one of them, rolled up his hospital gown sleeves as if hot. With large-built Espers barging into the narrow space and clustering tightly together, the air temperature also rose even more.
“Where’s Yeo Dowoon?”
