When he came out fully dressed, Hyun-woong was gone. Water sounds were heard from inside a shower booth, and Hyun-woong’s black workout clothes were hanging on the handle outside the booth. Jae-min briefly placed his gaze on the workout clothes.
‘There wasn’t any gauze or pads on his nipples earlier. Are they attached inside there?’
He’d been working hard on chest exercises, so he was curious if being stimulated like that didn’t make milk flow. Jae-min, who had been staring at the workout clothes while touching his not-quite-dry hair, moved to the area with mirrors and lockers. Jae-min, who found a hair dryer, dried his hair. While doing so, he kept glancing toward the shower booth Hyun-woong had entered.
‘He’s just washing, right?’
He recalled Hyun-woong running to the cafe bathroom. Thinking no one was there, carelessly making sounds while dripping milk.
His lips were parched. He didn’t know if it was because of the hot hair dryer wind or because of lewd imagination. Jae-min stuck out his tongue and licked his lower lip. It was when Jae-min, confirming that the moisture had left his hair, put down the hair dryer and was touching his hair.
The shower booth door burst open. He unconsciously turned at the presence, and happened to make direct eye contact with Hyun-woong. Jae-min turned his head as naturally as possible, but witnessed his own eyes reflected in the mirror shaking here and there.
Hyun-woong had only put on underwear and pants, his upper body bare. With his t-shirt draped over his arm, he walked this way shaking his hair with a towel. His eyes naturally went to his robust chest muscles and distinct abs.
Perhaps because he’d just trained and his body was fully swollen, the muscle definition looked even more distinct than when seen at the clinic.
“What are you looking at?”
Hyun-woong asked Jae-min, who was staring intently. Because he’d been having improper reminiscences until just before, Jae-min, feeling unnecessarily guilty, swallowed dry saliva and shook his head.
Hyun-woong passed by the stiffly frozen Jae-min. Standing in front of a locker in the corner, he opened the door.
He put the sweat-soaked black top into his bag and took out a white t-shirt from inside. He raised his thick arms and put on the t-shirt. In that brief moment when his eyes were covered by the t-shirt, Jae-min stared intently at Hyun-woong’s chest.
At the tip of the chest swollen full, the nipples that had definitely been inverted earlier were now protruding outward. Although he couldn’t confirm properly because they were instantly covered by clothes, it also seemed like whitish water droplets were faintly beaded at the tips.
‘I’ll be seeing him again soon.’
Both the fact that milk flowed just from touching his chest a bit at the cafe, and his current chest condition. He thought Hyun-woong would probably call to make a clinic appointment sometime today.
‘Do other patients also come to express milk this often?’
Since he hadn’t yet handled patients other than Hyun-woong, Jae-min just tilted his head.
While Hyun-woong pulled his head out of the t-shirt and pulled down the clothes that had ridden up, Jae-min naturally turned his gaze to empty space. Although he’d finished fixing his hair long ago, he pretended to fiddle with his sideburns while watching Hyun-woong through the mirror.
Both the protruding nipples and the state where milk might flow, he thought maybe he’d discreetly get some gauze and go into the bathroom to attach it before coming out. But Hyun-woong didn’t leave the locker area as if he still had things to do. He reached out and took out something, and its color was so vivid it was visible even from the side.
A bright pink bottle painful to look at. It was definitely something Jae-min had seen before.
“You work out. This is supposed to be so good for building your body!”
Jae-min, who remembered when and where he’d seen it, opened his mouth in a circle. It was the muscle enhancement supplement Hyun-woong had received as a gift in the lecture hall. Hyun-woong seemed to be steadily consuming that thing covered in flashy colors and design.
Hyun-woong, who took out one pill from the container, walked toward where Jae-min was. Looking to the side, there was a water purifier near where the hair dryer and combs were placed.
When Jae-min slightly moved aside, Hyun-woong approached and filled a paper cup with water. Gulp, the moment he put the pill in his mouth and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbed.
Jae-min, who had been unnecessarily glancing at him taking medicine from the corner of his eye, was about to leave the spot.
“You, are you fixing it well? The team project.”
Jae-min’s eyes widened because of Hyun-woong suddenly talking to him when he thought he’d keep treating him like an invisible person.
“Of course.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“What about you…”
Jae-min had intended to ask Hyun-woong if he was writing the report well. But when Hyun-woong slowly turned his body toward him, his gaze stopped at one place. Two bulging protrusions standing out over the white t-shirt.
Automatically in Jae-min’s head, streams of milk pouring from those reddish, soft protrusions came to mind. Gulp, Jae-min, who swallowed saliva, continued with a blank expression.
“Your chest…”
“Chest?”
At Hyun-woong’s questioning back, Jae-min unconsciously gulped air. Without realizing it, the words in his head came out. He hurriedly removed his gaze from his chest and looked at his eyes. Hyun-woong was looking at him with eyes wide open and a rigidly hardened face. He clearly looked severely flustered.
Jae-min barely pulled up the corners of his mouth.
“No, I was asking if you did chest exercises well today. I saw you working out when I passed by earlier. I didn’t know it was you then.”
“Ah…”
“You’re already big, but you’re trying to make it bigger?”
Even Jae-min himself thought there were too many unnecessary words. Because he was flustered, words flowed more smoothly than usual. But fortunately, Hyun-woong didn’t seem to find that part strange. His eyes, which had widened in surprise, narrowed again.
“Muscles you’ve built shrink again if you rest without exercising. It’s important to be consistent.”
“Really? I can’t imagine you with a smaller build.”
“Why?”
At the words thrown with a chuckle, Hyun-woong stared at Jae-min. Relieved that he’d safely passed over the topic, Jae-min continued speaking, pretending to be cheerful.
“You’re big everywhere. Tall, big chest. Ah, I saw today and that place was big too.”
Jae-min, who spoke while snapping his finger, froze for a moment. The last words were the most unnecessary among all the unnecessary words thrown so far. As evidence, Hyun-woong closed his mouth firmly and became quiet. His face seemed to have hardened rigidly. A stream of cold sweat flowed down Jae-min’s back.
Feeling self-loathing wanting to hit his mouth that moved on its own, it was when Jae-min was slowly lowering his head.
“…That place was bigger on you though.”
In a very low voice, Hyun-woong muttered as if talking to himself. Jae-min, who had been directing his gaze to the floor, stopped.
‘What did I just hear?’
Jae-min raised his head in bewilderment. Hyun-woong had his head turned to the side. His ears and cheeks were red. It was an expression similar to when Jae-min touched his chest at the cafe.
Wondering when exactly he’d seen his crotch to say such things, dumbfounded Jae-min was moving his lips when he gasped. When he’d encountered the naked Hyun-woong earlier, Jae-min had also been naked. With half his body inside the booth, though he’d roughly covered himself with a towel.
“You saw that in that brief moment?”
When Jae-min asked accusingly, Hyun-woong suddenly walked thump-thump toward the locker. After quickly gathering his bag and closing the locker, Jae-min chased after Hyun-woong, who was trying to leave the gym.
“Hey, when did you see? Earlier? Why aren’t you answering?”
“Hey, Lim Jae-min.”
Hyun-woong, who had grabbed the locker room door handle leading to the lobby, whipped around with an annoyed expression.
“Fuck off.”
Then he murmured in an ominously low voice. Jae-min’s eyes widened. In the meantime, Hyun-woong opened the door and went outside. In front of the closed door, Jae-min opened and closed his mouth.
“What’s with that bastard?”
Not even properly answering questions asked. Anyway, he was a strange person. Jae-min turned around while scratching the back of his head, then suddenly looked in the mirror.
The corners of his mouth were lifted up. All he’d done was exchange unnecessary small talk with Hyun-woong, but he looked happier than ever. Startled by his own unconscious expression, Jae-min immediately put on a serious face and grabbed his mouth corners with his fingers, forcibly pulling them down.
⁕⁕⁕
“You’re here? Patient Kang Hyun-woong has a 6:30 PM appointment.”
The next day, Cheol-hui, the desk employee, spoke to Jae-min who had come to work at the clinic. Jae-min nodded and walked to enter the changing room. Cheol-hui, who had been silently watching him, added one more thing.
“Next time you come to work, you’ll have to do massages for a new patient too.”
“What.”
At the unexpected words, Jae-min stopped walking abruptly. Jae-min, with a distorted expression, creakily turned to look at Cheol-hui.
