14.
A dog without a leash.
Cheon Jaerim left me alone, almost like neglect. If you want to take a walk, you can do it in the yard. If you want to eat something, tell me.
The country house I came to live in with Cheon Jaerim gave the feeling of a sealed room. Even encountering the helper who came once a week felt repulsive. It seemed like she would monitor my every move and report everything to Cheon Jaerim in detail. So I started looking for my own space. In doing so, I discovered a pretty good place. It was a narrow attic with a slanted ceiling—the kind of room I’d only seen in American movies. On rainy days, sitting on the windowsill and watching the raindrops pouring into the yard became my favorite thing to do.
“Did you eat?”
Between the time I saw the car entering the garden and closed my tired eyes briefly then opened them, Cheon Jaerim had opened the door and was standing there. Just as I was about to get down from the windowsill after seeing the bastard trying to approach me, the floor spun.
“You didn’t eat.”
Cheon Jaerim grabbed my elbow. My body bent halfway like that as I went down the stairs. Cheon Jaerim definitely thought of me like a pet dog. A dog that sticks out its tongue when returning home, wags its tail, and clings to him. I should show my face when he comes, eat meals together, and go to sleep on time. Thinking that I was a pet dog at home waiting desperately for Cheon Jaerim to come, of course I had no appetite.
“I told you not to take medicine on an empty stomach.”
“……”
“It’s about time you stop taking it anyway.”
“……”
Even the doctor at the hospital didn’t interfere whether I took the medicine or not.
I let Cheon Jaerim’s words go in one ear and out the other as I mashed the rice grains.
***
‘I wish hyung wasn’t sick.’
‘……’
Cheon Jaerim’s voice, which he spoke in the car after the sunlight had faded, floats around. At the time, I was swept up in great shock from learning that the protagonist of the egg ghost was Cheon Jaerim, so I couldn’t deeply consider the meaning of those words, but Cheon Jaerim seemed to think my “sickness” originated from the sexual relationship with him. Is it sincere? Because since entering this house saying we’d make a fresh start, he hasn’t laid a single finger on me. But the “sickness” I felt didn’t originate from my relationship with Cheon Jaerim.
My life ran backwards like a clock missing a part. Important things had already been lost, and doing this now was meaningless. I couldn’t find the value of my existence anywhere. The life of an ordinary office worker would no longer be realized. Opening sleepy eyes on the subway, barely avoiding being late. Ordinary daily life like working overtime due to excessive work and ordering late-night snacks had disappeared far away. Such things are no longer needed by me, nor will they need me.
Was my wish to live like ordinary people this difficult? I hoped that if the start was different from others, the end would be sweet. But now it felt hopeless day by day, as if I’d fallen into a dark abyss. This wasn’t the kind of thing that would come back to life just because Cheon Jaerim gave up one thing called sex for me.
Looking to the side, Cheon Jaerim was sleeping soundly. I spread my hand over that face and covered his features. A hazy image like fog came to mind. Why didn’t I even doubt this familiar feeling? Anyway, since those two were the same person, I was convinced that the egg ghost would disappear now that I’d met Cheon Jaerim again.
But I shouldn’t let my guard down. Because a few days ago, the egg ghost that I thought had retreated reappeared. The circumstances after that were the same. I didn’t want to show Cheon Jaerim that I had wet dreams about him and hand-washed my underwear at dawn. Imagining myself clutching wet underwear and taking refuge in the bathroom was a terrible thing. So at night I pinched my thighs to resist the desire to sleep and only slept frantically during the day.
Then my life pattern naturally reversed. I became a nocturnal person. The time I spent not sleeping at night but wrapping myself in a blanket and watching television increased. Especially taking medicine containing sleeping pills and being awake alone at the time when everyone sleeps is a very cruel thing, like putting cookies on puppies’ noses and telling them to hold back. So in the evening, I deliberately didn’t take the medicine. Dawn made people uncomfortable. Uncomfortable thoughts followed one after another, tormenting me. That wasn’t all. Because I didn’t sleep on time, my nerves sharpened so that even trivial matters felt like major incidents.
There were many days when I would startle awake if I happened to fall asleep. I was afraid that the words I whispered to my partner in dreams would also come out in reality. When I had a fit and sat up like someone who woke from sleep paralysis and looked at Cheon Jaerim, the bastard was sleeping quietly. Bloodshot veins began appearing in the whites of my eyes again, like the first day the egg ghost revealed itself to me.
The other person didn’t discriminate by time. When I didn’t send an invitation on a dark night, he came in the early afternoon, and if he didn’t come in the early afternoon, he came in the early evening. That man invited to a new place opened a new bedroom door instead of the hospital room door. And we always had relations on the bed where I lay. The egg ghost’s face gradually became clearer, and now it had Cheon Jaerim’s distinct face. The Cheon Jaerim in my dreams was sometimes affectionate and sometimes fierce. It seemed to be entirely swayed by my mood.
I didn’t want to admit it, but I had to.
It was me myself who yearned for another person’s body heat.
***
In the middle of bringing medicine with scratchy eyes, I was intercepted by Cheon Jaerim. He snatched it after seeing me looking for medicine as soon as I opened my eyes. There was no way I, who couldn’t even open my eyes properly, had the grip strength to get that medicine.
“Just sleep. You look obviously sleepy, so you don’t need to take medicine.”
“Give it.”
“……”
Ignoring Cheon Jaerim’s words, I quietly held out my hand. The medicine bag being torn was a matter of an instant. Cheon Jaerim tore the bundle of medicine with ripping sounds without any change in expression. The thin plastic split miserably and the pills fell to the floor with a clatter.
“What are you doing!”
Cheon Jaerim threw the one medicine that survived safely onto the bed. The medicine wrapper that landed lightly on the thick blanket covering my knees was shining transparently. But that safely surviving medicine was already of no concern. I can’t go back to the hospital… Those weren’t things that could be prescribed at a regular pharmacy.
I hurriedly came down to the floor. Pills were scattered everywhere. Pills were also stepped on under my feet. I pressed my body to the floor and carefully gathered the pills scattered around. Several had also rolled under the bed. I picked them up indiscriminately. Later, I swept the floor with my palm, gathered them, and put them in my palm. They all looked almost similar, so I couldn’t distinguish which to take when. I was on the verge of bursting with anger and resentment. Cheon Jaerim watched me gather all the pills, then grabbed my wrist as it was and went outside.
“Please throw away all the pills that fell in the room without missing any.”
Cheon Jaerim, who earnestly asked the ajumma, opened the front door and went out as it was. Both of us weren’t wearing shoes. Where Cheon Jaerim headed was a corner space set aside for recycling. It was divided by type, and garbage bags were inside clean containers that looked like drums. Cheon Jaerim chose one of them and put my fist inside the container.
“It already fell on the floor.”
“No, it’s mine.”
“Where is there yours and mine? How hurtful.”
When I didn’t open my fist, Cheon Jaerim grabbed my waist and pulled me to stand in front of him. Then he pulled my body close from behind. A railing was positioned in front, and behind was blocked by Cheon Jaerim. The hand that bound my upper body gradually descended and slipped into my pants. I pushed my buttocks back and struggled.
“You said you wouldn’t!”
“Don’t worry.”
I struggled alone in front of the endlessly calm Cheon Jaerim. Even in the midst of that, I defended my clenched fist to my bosom. However, Cheon Jaerim grabbed my arm and put it back inside the container to fix it. And when the hand that entered my pants gently stroked up my cock, my knees began to lose strength. I barely grabbed the railing in front and put strength in my hand so my fist wouldn’t open. I almost sat astride the bastard’s thigh, which he’d inserted between my legs to keep my knees from buckling. Cheon Jaerim gently stroked my cock like combing hair, then started pressing the urethral opening with his fingertip. Strength entered my calf muscles. When Cheon Jaerim started forcefully turning the tip of the urethra with his thumb, all the nerves in my body began to melt.
“…Ah, ngh… hng!”
“Who taught you to wiggle your butt?”
“Hng, aah…!”
It felt like a thin, soft brush was tickling the tip of my cock. When I stubbornly refused to throw away the medicine, I felt Cheon Jaerim put strength in his grip. Having just woken from a light sleep, when his hand touched me in a state where blood had gathered to some extent, it felt twice as sensitive as usual.
“Ngh, ah! Pull, pull out, ngh!”
“Shh… they’ll hear all the way inside.”
Cheon Jaerim supported my collapsing lower body and started crushing my cock as if crumpling them with his palm. In Cheon Jaerim’s hand, I began to be crushed like a squishy toy sold at the neighborhood stationery store.
“Ahh! Ah! Hngh!”
When a loud sound leaked out without me knowing, I naturally covered my mouth. If the ajumma heard, I wouldn’t be able to hold my head up. In my dazed state, I hadn’t noticed that the pills had already left my hand. Only after Cheon Jaerim withdrew his hand from my pants did I realize my hand was utterly empty.
Cheon Jaerim, unlike someone who had just been toying with my cock, ruthlessly withdrew his hand. When the support that had been holding me up was removed, I had no choice but to clutch my soaked crotch and sink to the floor. It was humiliating. I resented my body for not being able to endure even a brief moment and suffering a crushing defeat to Cheon Jaerim. Cheon Jaerim pretended not to see me sitting there and tied the bag tightly.
