“What reason would there be to drive all the way there before it’s even midnight, to a meetup spot for twenty-year-olds?”
His voice, chewing out the words, was sunken lower than usual.
I blinked my eyes slowly.
Earlier, hyung-nim had seemed like he wasn’t angry at all, but now it was different. Though he was trying not to show it, he looked like he was suppressing something.
“The streets are full of taxis—were you worried I couldn’t get home alone?”
“That wouldn’t be it, would it…?”
Wait, but I’m the one who asked, so why…
I was curious about what circumstances brought hyung-nim to come pick me up, but instead the questions were flying back at me in reverse.
“Then what does Hajin think? Why do you think hyung did that?”
Actually, earlier I’d been so fixated on the fact that hyung-nim was looking for condoms that I hadn’t thought deeply about it. But afterward, one thought had occurred to me.
I scratched my head and said,
“I think, just, because I took your con, condoms…”
“……”
“I thought maybe you came because you were worried I’d use them…”
Ah, is that not it?
Earlier, whether it was the power of alcohol, all kinds of thoughts different from usual had been popping up randomly. But now that I’d said it out loud, I wasn’t confident.
You just came to pick me up because it was late and I was drunk. Hyung-nim is originally a caring person, after all.
Surely that’s not it. Just as I was about to quickly add more before hyung-nim found it absurd—
“I guess so.”
Hyung-nim’s lips twisted.
“I even threw my work aside and came because of that.”
The answer had passed by too quickly.
“…Huh?”
I blinked, frozen in place.
You came because you were worried I’d use the condoms? I couldn’t believe what hyung-nim was saying.
For some reason, those words felt like they had a different meaning—not as a guardian. However, I couldn’t figure out exactly what that meaning was.
Hyung-nim was gripping the steering wheel and staring straight ahead. His jawline was firmly set. I blinked my dazed eyes slowly.
A brief silence flowed. Hyung-nim let out a low utterance.
“You’re driving me crazy.”
At that moment, I held my breath. It was because of the weight contained in those short words that filled the car.
Until we arrived home, hyung-nim’s hands were gripping the steering wheel tight.
So tight that each knuckle had turned white.
***
You’re driving me crazy.
Hyung-nim had said it in a very small, yet clear voice.
What did “driving me crazy” mean? It didn’t seem to mean crazy from annoyance, but what did it mean…?
I seemed to have gotten drunk on the words hyung-nim had muttered, unable to collect my thoughts. So I kept chewing on them endlessly, and I only remember my eyes fluttering closed.
And when I opened my eyes, I was being carried on hyung-nim’s back. Even this felt like an unrealistic dream.
“Hyung-nim, I can walk… ugh, no I can’t.”
When I struggled and my feet lifted from the ground, the world spun in circles.
“You’ve really become a little rascal.”
After hoisting me up again, hyung-nim didn’t put me down even once. Even while pressing the door code, I grinned foolishly on hyung-nim’s back.
“Hehe.”
“Baby, what’s so fun?”
Even his voice was sweet. On hyung-nim’s back that I was being carried on after so long, I wanted to live there forever. It was a back that broad and warm.
“It’s not that, hyung-nim’s back is warm. It’s exactly the same as before.”
Compared to the last time hyung-nim carried me, I’d grown tremendously, but hyung-nim’s broad back seemed to be the same as ever.
When we arrived at my room, hyung-nim carefully laid me down on the bed. I didn’t want to be let down, so in that moment I felt like I might cry.
I’d definitely decided just days ago that I wouldn’t like hyung-nim. While going to school for the past few days, it had felt like the whole world was dyed in darkness.
Just from being carried on that warm back for a moment, my world that had become black and white was being dyed in all sorts of colorful hues, like paint dissolving in water.
It was becoming filled entirely with Yoo Jeongwoo again. I don’t want to be like this either, really.
“Wait, don’t move.”
Hyung-nim was taking off my blue jacket and unbuttoning my shirt one button at a time.
“Hyung-nim.”
“Mm.”
“Hyung-niim…”
“Mm-hm.”
Hyung-nim’s fingertips, answering affectionately, didn’t stop. His eyebrows were even slightly furrowed as if concentrating.
“…Hyuuung-nim.”
Every time his fingertips brushed against my skin, it tickled. After unbuttoning it all the way, hyung-nim parted my shirt. When my bare shoulders and chest were revealed, I unconsciously hunched my shoulders. Then a laugh that sounded exasperated rang out.
“You need to restrain yourself from drinking from now on.”
“……”
“No one’s going to put up with this level of troublemaking.”
“You’re here though, hyung-nim.”
I looked up at hyung-nim through my drooping eyelids.
“See. This is why I go to pick you up.”
Hyung-nim’s eyes looked very complicated.
“In case you act like this somewhere else too.”
He was looking down at me with displeasure, as if dissatisfied with everything from one to ten.
“I raised you so prettily without a single scratch, so why on earth are you like this?”
“…Am I pretty?”
“No, not pretty at all.”
That’s too much. To hear from Jeongwoo hyung-nim’s mouth that I’m not pretty at all.
It was the moment my mood was about to become terribly gloomy again. My eyes prepared to be dyed with my dark inner self again.
“Today.”
Wouldn’t it be okay for the dark inner self to come back out starting tomorrow?
“Hyung-nim, the reason you came to get me today…”
Hyung-nim’s hand paused for a moment.
One arm still remained before the shirt would be completely removed. While hyung-nim was taking off my clothes again, I smiled slowly.
“Is it because the kid going to a meetup packed condoms?”
Thud, the shirt I’d been wearing fell onto the mattress.
“Hyung-nim… do you hate the idea of me using condoms with someone else?”
Hyung-nim said nothing. But I didn’t stop talking and muttered again.
“You told me to meet people my age…”
“Well, maybe I was worried you’d use them wrong.”
Then hyung-nim spoke. Before I knew it, my top had been removed, and hyung-nim was looking down at me.
“Huh? Use them wrong?”
“Honestly, you look like you wouldn’t even know how to put one on. So how could I just leave it alone?”
Does this make sense?
While I was bewildered, the next turn was already decided. Hyung-nim was already looking at my belt. Having taken off the top, now it was time to take off the bottom.
Somehow, I wanted to take my pants off in front of hyung-nim. Without thinking about what would come next.
“How’s your head?”
“I don’t know. I think I’m too drunk to take my clothes off by myself…”
“Still, take them off after hyung leaves.”
Why is he suddenly saying something like that? Because hyung-nim is an alpha? Why now of all times…
Hyung-nim doesn’t even see me as an omega anyway. When my mom and dad sent me to Jeongwoo hyung-nim’s house, they didn’t even give vigorous me any pheromone suppressants.
“I don’t want to. It’s stuffy. …I have no strength in my hands.”
It wasn’t a lie, it was real. Even now, hyung-nim’s face looked like two faces in my eyes. Come to think of it, two handsome faces—I stared at hyung-nim’s face curiously for a moment.
“Hyung-nim, then teach me, how to use condoms.”
This time hyung-nim’s sigh sounded very loud. Perhaps because I did seem drunk, hyung-nim’s hand eventually reached my pants buckle.
“Such a troublemaker, Lee Hajin.”
“Ah…!”
When hyung-nim’s hand touched the sensitive waistband of my pants, I reflexively closed my legs. Hyung-nim’s eyebrows twitched.
In this moment, I was suddenly recalling Choi Jihwan’s words.
I looked at hyung-nim’s eyes, then relaxed my legs again. A moment later, clink—the sound of the belt being undone rang out.
In hyung-nim’s hands, my pants were smoothly removed. After that, it was time for the hand that touched my ankles to remove my socks.
“Hyung-nim, you know what? My friend told me…”
My hand grabbed hyung-nim’s shirt collar on its own.
“One day, he saw a very small opening in his teacher.”
“……”
“He thought it could absolutely, absolutely never happen, but the teacher is also human, and seemed to waver a little…”
I don’t know the basis. But it felt like that moment was now.
With my eyelids half-closed, I moved my body little by little. The hand gripping hyung-nim’s shirt gradually gained strength.
It was the moment I pulled hard just like that.
“At that moment, he seduced him like this.”
I pressed my lips to hyung-nim’s lips.
Our touching breaths stopped. I could feel hyung-nim’s body stiffening even through his suit jacket.
Hyung-nim wasn’t even closing his eyes. He was frozen as if in shock.
Then he caught my squirming lips. Lightly. But definitely.
The gently touching sensation felt good, so I instinctively sucked on his lips.
Our lips separated, and hyung-nim’s gaze was firmly hardened.
I want to do it again. I already missed the sensation of our briefly touching lips.
I looked at hyung-nim and slowly wet my lips with my tongue. At that moment, hyung-nim’s eyes wavered.
In his firmly hardened expression, a fine crack appeared.
