But Cha Haseong’s wheat-colored eyes grew heavy as if looking at some pervert bastard waiting in a deserted alley. It also seemed like he was observing, wondering how such a deficient bastard could exist.
Yeo Dowoon felt wronged and asked back.
“Didn’t you come to do guiding?”
Even if his foot had been torn off by a monster and was dangling about to fall off, with just a little of his touch it could recover without difficulty, so this level of pain was far too insufficient to even be called pain.
As if impressed by that brazen argument, Cha Haseong answered while folding his cleanly open eyes in half.
“I came to tell you to clean up.”
“……”
“Is there one person who eats and another who cleans up? Is Dowoon-ssi the one who eats?”
Yeo Dowoon believed there must definitely be a highly lethal bazooka attached to Cha Haseong’s palate. An illegal weapon useful for making bang bang sounds while firing bullets and splitting people apart.
Yeo Dowoon stated his position.
“I was just about to go out and help. I’ll take charge of the dishes.”
“What for when there’s a dishwasher?”
“Then I’ll go wipe the table at least.”
“I already wiped it. If I left it without cleaning until Dowoon-ssi came, I’d be a funny bastard.”
“……”
“Calling someone over because I can’t clean up one thing—that’s ridiculous and pathetic. Don’t you think?”
Cha Haseong possessed eloquence that would surely make him succeed and gain fame if he jumped into the legal field.
Because he had great talent for finding fault and attacking, and exceptional talent for pouring out only correct words and making people burn up inside.
“I’m sorry for leaving you alone among crazy bastards. I should have stayed with you until the end.”
Yeo Dowoon said, having already completely forgotten even the pain rising from his toes.
It was a desperate voice as if devoting his heart and soul to soothing a sulking lover. Sweet yet cautious. He subtly wrapped and held Cha Haseong’s hand.
“So you won’t have any troublesome situations…, I’ll guard the seat next to you well from now on. If anyone bothers you or anything, please tell me right away. I’ll scold them for you.”
You can do it, Yeo Dowoon.
He put on a gloomy expression like he had done in front of his ex-lovers. It was because he recalled the voice of his short-haired ex-girlfriend who advised him that if he couldn’t think of decent comfort, to just shut up and use his decent-looking face.
But Cha Haseong answered coldly as if he’d become an ice statue standing tall in the Alaskan snowfield.
“Did you get indigestion, Dowoon-ssi?”
“……”
“I’ll bring digestive medicine if you need it.”
“…I’m fine.”
“I asked because you don’t look fine. It’s fortunate if you are.”
Soon he boldly threw open the door that had been ambiguously ajar. The striding steps made Yeo Dowoon step back.
As the hand that had confidently grasped his own hand slid smoothly down, Cha Haseong again haphazardly clutched Yeo Dowoon’s hand. He lowered his decibels and murmured.
“If you’re going to hold it, hold it.”
But soon, regrettably, he released it.
“If you’re going to let go, let go.”
Realizing that Cha Haseong had come to find him still wearing the outfit he wore while cooking, Yeo Dowoon felt all the blood in his body circulating in a commotion.
He immediately tried pressing his brow, but it was useless. The moment when a man with a well-sculpted body without any excess wore an apron while cooking and sent him an eye-smile flashed before his eyes.
Hadn’t he been burning up and growing impatient from holding back the desire to run over and embrace his lower back?
Since the prey that rolled in seemed to be acting coquettishly saying please eat me up, Yeo Dowoon’s vision became hazily tinted as if drunk on alcohol.
Damn it. He himself keenly felt his patience disappearing.
Cha Haseong asked in a much softer tone.
“Can I wash up in Dowoon-ssi’s room?”
“…In my room?”
“I came right after finishing cleaning…, so I haven’t showered yet.”
Yeo Dowoon felt the cold current flowing between him and the other change into a puzzling form. Impulsive greed immediately raised its head.
“I’ll wash up and come out quickly.”
From experience, at times like this the answer was to turn his head and overlap lips, but hesitation grew as he felt that if he did that, he might really earn his contempt.
Ah, but this… Can I hold back?
It was the moment Yeo Dowoon’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Cha Haseong pressed Yeo Dowoon’s dry lips with his finger with a tap, then murmured.
“I wonder where you learned the habit of just staring at people’s lips…”
It was a calm tone, but the impact was considerable.
Yeo Dowoon, who closed the distance in an instant, spread his palm wide to fix Cha Haseong’s cheek. Black eyes that shone as if not in his right mind captured Cha Haseong within them.
“Shall I help you wash?”
Yeo Dowoon spouted dim desire in a half-dilated state. The saying about not being able to break old habits couldn’t be more fitting.
“I’ll wash you.”
If it had truly been a purely intended purpose to help with showering, his body wouldn’t have been tense like a bird of prey constantly watching for hunting opportunities.
Then, Cha Haseong pulled the string of Yeo Dowoon’s shower gown and asked.
“Are you only going to wash me?”
“……”
“If not, tell me now. So I can go in prepared.”
His attitude had a sense of being both calm and resolute. The gown string gradually came undone.
But before putting his greed into action, Yeo Dowoon still had something left to ask.
“Here, Guide-nim’s opinion is more important than anything, so I’d appreciate it if you’d answer honestly. Absolutely don’t read the room, and don’t lie either…, please tell me without holding back.”
One might wonder what great statement he was going to make by dragging it out like this. When Cha Haseong answered “okay,” Yeo Dowoon stroked his cheek ticklishly, then asked composedly.
“…Are you saving yourself for marriage, and are you trying to push yourself because of me?”
***
Cha Haseong was twenty-nine this year. An age approaching thirty. An age where one loses innocence appropriately while being beaten down by life and time, and gets appropriately stained with dark marks.
Moreover, he was even a promising young man who combined outstanding appearance with excellent conditions.
Before being held back by awakening as a Guide, wasn’t he a piano major at a university counted among Korea’s first-class institutions, and a young pianist who received a proposal to study in Germany under the full support of a corporate foundation?
So romance and sleeping together were elements that had been with Cha Haseong while maintaining a distance that would become familiar if anything, never unfamiliar.
“In Dowoon-ssi’s eyes…, do I look like someone saving themselves for marriage?”
Therefore, Cha Haseong asked with genuine puzzlement. It wasn’t because he had nasty prejudices about premarital chastity, or thought negatively of the definition itself.
He wasn’t antisocial enough to live while distancing himself from respect and acknowledgment of each person’s beliefs and preferences. But hearing the question from Yeo Dowoon about whether he was saving himself for marriage made him keep asking back.
“If I’m saving myself for marriage, would I kiss and roll around with Dowoon-ssi like we’re about to undress?”
Thorns borrowing the form of language concentrated their attack on Yeo Dowoon. Yeo Dowoon drew in an empty breath.
“Would Dowoon-ssi make moves saying you’ll wash someone who seems like they’re saving themselves for marriage?”
The gown string that had been cleanly untied was being knotted again in Cha Haseong’s hands.
Was it because he was skilled with his hands? Cha Haseong tied ribbons quite cutely well too. The symmetry of the curves was perfect and delicate like a decalcomania.
“…Lecher.”
At the sound like a bolt from the blue, Yeo Dowoon had no choice but to let him go in stunned disappointment. Cha Haseong moved his steps steadily to the bathroom, leaving behind only an aura that seemed to extend from frost.
Crash, the bathroom door closed mercilessly like the shattered atmosphere.
Yeo Dowoon relied on the sound of running water and banged his forehead against the flat wall. It was on that white wall surface where Cha Haseong had just been leaning his back and shoulders.
But as his forehead swelled red and throbbed, gradually another worry came calling.
…Then are we doing it today? In my room?
“Ah, let’s not do this.”
Yeo Dowoon punished his forehead with thwack thwack sounds again. It was a masochistic act, but it was an unavoidable decision as it seemed only this way could he think like a sensible person.
“…I don’t have condoms.”
However, to find sensibility now, thoughts seemed to have followed one after another and gone too far.
Damn it. Hadn’t he stocked things like ultra-thin condoms or lube in other officetels, not this house?
He became suddenly worried that starting things in a state where nothing was prepared might plant bad memories in Cha Haseong.
Hongdae, Gwanghwamun, Nonhyeon….
Yeo Dowoon, who was searching through addresses in the back of his head and estimating the officetel at the closest distance, could only make a truly sensible judgment after the sound of pouring water completely cut off.
“This won’t do.”
Right. It really won’t do.
