Siwon was absolutely dumbfounded.
“Who exactly is telling who to leave right now?”
Even though it was a bedroom he’d practically neglected since his wife’s death, it was still unmistakably Siwon’s room. Having come all the way inside for the first time in ages, Siwon looked around.
Blackout curtains hung over the floor-to-ceiling window across from the opaque sliding door. To the right of the bed was a door leading to the bathroom his wife had used, and to the left was an arched entrance leading to the dressing room.
“Lee Seongyeom, wake up.”
Siwon gently shook the deeply sleeping Seongyeom.
***
“It’s hot….”
When he opened his eyes, he saw a familiar space. Seongyeom lifted his prone body to sit up and took off his winter jumper.
Jumper…? Wasn’t it summer right now?
Suddenly confused about the date, he looked around for a calendar.
It’s a familiar shop. When did I come here?
Seeing the wallpaper with its familiar pattern, Seongyeom tilted his head in even more confusion. On the floor table lay an open workbook he’d been solving partway through, and from outside the room came the sound of his mother’s voice talking with customers and the TV. He could even smell the beef bone soup he’d been sick of since childhood.
“Mom!”
With only a paper door separating him from the outside, there was no way she couldn’t hear him. Yet Ms. Na ignored her son’s cry and walked past to the kitchen.
“Mom?”
Seongyeom sensed something was wrong and called out again. Come to think of it, he hadn’t visited his mother’s shop even once since the accident.
Just thinking about this place makes me nauseous, there’s no way I’d have walked in here on my own. An ominous feeling gradually welled up. Seongyeom urgently grabbed the door handle.
Rattle, rattle!
“Why won’t this open…!”
It was a door that looked flimsy enough to break if he pushed hard. But no matter how much Seongyeom shook it or pounded it with his fist, it wouldn’t budge.
“Excuse me! There’s someone in here, please help me….”
-Hey.
Gasp.
Seongyeom, who had been rattling the door roughly, froze at the voice coming from behind him.
-Hey.
Let’s not turn around.
Don’t turn around.
That’s what he wants.
Seongyeom took a deep breath and then gently shook the door again. Through the gap in the door, he could see someone had latched it shut.
-You see it now?
“Hk!”
A voice whispered right next to his ear. Seongyeom jumped in shock and fell sideways, scrambling backward while still sitting.
“Seo Jinho. You, your face…”
After the accident, he’d once blacked out Jinho’s photo with a ballpoint pen because he didn’t want to think about him. As if that graffiti had been carved directly onto him, Jinho’s entire face was grotesquely distorted and mottled, his eyes bloodshot as he smiled.
-It’s okay, I can understand everything. Seongyeom.
“I’m sorry.”
Seongyeom bowed his head as if truly repentant.
“I really didn’t know you’d suffer that much.”
-Right, you never know.
“Huh…?”
The flames that had spread out in a circle behind Jinho grew enormous. The table in the room, the picture frames, and even the display cabinet were engulfed in flames and burning.
“Aaah!”
As the heat grazed his face, Seongyeom hurriedly curled his entire body into a small ball. Demonic laughter poured down from above his head.
-Just die, Lee Seongyeom! It only ends when you die. Die, die! I said die!
Amid the eerie noise and burning smell, Seongyeom let out a terrified exhale. The hot heat made his skin sting, and for some reason his shoulder blade was burning. His ankle also throbbed—perhaps he’d twisted it when he fell earlier.
“It’s hot….”
***
The joy that Seongyeom hadn’t left was brief. The fact that he’d trespassed into a space that was practically a sanctuary in this house couldn’t just be overlooked.
“I said get up.”
When he pulled back the blanket that covered him from head to toe, clammy heat whooshed out.
“What the.”
Siwon pulled his hand back with a slightly startled face. He’d heard the shoulder had been sutured—his eyes caught sight of the back with a large piece of gauze attached.
“Mm….”
As the cold air in the room touched his bare skin, Seongyeom began to tremble faintly.
“Lee Seongyeom?”
Only then noticing that Seongyeom’s condition wasn’t good, Siwon approached closer to examine his complexion. His face had always been pale, but now there wasn’t a trace of color to be found.
“Hey, Teacher.”
His pupils were moving around beneath his closed eyelids. Siwon tried hard to wake Seongyeom.
“Open your eyes. Hm?”
“Huu….”
“Lee Seongyeom.”
Even as he peeled away the hair stuck to his forehead and called his name, Seongyeom only wrinkled his brow in distress, unable to lift his eyelids.
“Excuse me.”
Siwon muttered out of habit and raised his hand to touch near Seongyeom’s neck. His neck, which had cooled, was so slippery-wet with moisture it was drenched.
“Why are you sweating so much?”
Siwon, who had withdrawn his hand, stood up. He was pulling the blanket back over him and wondering where in the room the first aid kit might be when he was startled by the hand that grabbed the towel wrapped around his waist and looked back at Seongyeom.
“…Save me….”
“…You really do all sorts of things.”
Knowing it was something done in his sleep, Siwon gently brushed off the touch.
“Stay put. The fever reducer was somewhere….”
Just as he was about to leave the bedroom, Seongyeom, who had been groaning behind him, murmured.
“Don’t go. Don’t leave me alone, please….”
Siwon flinched and turned around at the pitiful voice. A single tear that had formed at the corner of Seongyeom’s eye trickled down.
“Haa, really….”
In the end, he came back to the bed, scratching the back of his head roughly. Siwon decided to keep watch by sitting in the vanity chair his wife had used for the time being.
“Huuk….”
Just what kind of nightmare is he having?
Siwon, who had been staring down at Seongyeom, crossed his arms and one leg. The sight of Seongyeom sweating so much his skin was glistening made him feel uncomfortable somehow.
“Haa….”
Seongyeom kept squirming his entire body as if in distress. He kept twisting his head outside the blanket as well. The nape of his neck, revealed in the darkness, stood out especially white.
“……”
Siwon quietly swallowed and furrowed his thick eyebrows at the heaviness below.
Seeing his own thing bulging up over the towel, he swallowed the sigh that was about to burst out.
Honestly, it’s not like I haven’t had any impure thoughts looking at that face.
From the first time he saw him, he’d thought he wasn’t a tutor for the kids but rather a male escort called in broad daylight by some deranged subordinate.
A small face, slender without any baby fat. A body line so smooth that it made him doubt whether he was even a man—it was more than enough to catch everyone’s attention.
Right, that was the extent of my thoughts….
When he peeled away the hair stuck to the nape, he noticed a distinctive mole on the earlobe that looked like a piercing.
Siwon, who had been stroking the mole on the ear as if fascinated, unconsciously touching it, smiled slightly when he felt warmth at his fingertips.
The night Lee Seongyeom entered the house, they’d had an all-out war with the Dogang Faction. He could have been frightened seeing his subordinates return covered in blood, but it had been admirable how he took care of the subordinates’ meals and mingled with them.
“Your fever seems quite high.”
When he swept back the damp hair, he could see a scar on the side of the forehead that seemed to have been torn and healed long ago.
Looking so gentle, I guess you were wild from childhood.
He lowered the hand that had been moving the hair to stroke the scarred forehead, and also rubbed the slightly drooping outer corner of the eye with his thumb.
Even though he kept kneading the face for a while, Seongyeom only breathed regularly with soft snores, not moving at all. He moved his hand from stroking the eye area and this time stroked the bridge of the nose with his index finger.
The index finger that came down along the philtrum touched the upper lip. Siwon touched him with focus, as if he’d become an artisan carefully molding Seongyeom’s face.
He persistently kneaded the soft lips. Not noticing that water was dripping from his wet hair, he gently stroked them so it wouldn’t hurt and fiddled with them until color returned.
“Mmm….”
Finally, when he pulled down the lower lip, Seongyeom grimaced sharply.
“Haha.”
Siwon burst into laughter like a mischievous boy, and stood up looking at Seongyeom and approached closer.
Smooch-
Unable to resist the luscious-looking lips, he kissed them. He blinked slowly as if savoring the texture of lips he was feeling after a long time and Lee Seongyeom’s characteristic warm scent.
This could be dangerous.
Siwon gently pulled away from the touching lips and looked down at Seongyeom with lustful eyes. Somewhere in his head, two egos were colliding.
I want to touch more.
You’re not in your right mind. No, the other person is a patient.
Before I want to touch more, let’s find the fever reducer first.
Looking at Seongyeom who was now even starting to pant a little, he stood up abruptly. Asking permission from his wife in his heart, he entered the bathroom next to the bedroom to prepare a wet towel and was about to leave when the Siwon in the mirror asked.
Are you going to go to him like that?
Discovering his grotesquely bulging lower half, he felt self-loathing. He put down the plastic bowl containing the wet towel and held his forehead.
“…I’m really going crazy.”
Siwon could only leave the bathroom after hurriedly calming himself down.
He could see Seongyeom shaking his head with an even more distressed face. He looked like he was about to have a seizure. Startled, Siwon ran over and tried to wake Seongyeom.
“Lee Seongyeom!”
