‘……’
What was that bastard trying to do now?
He could smell shampoo and soap from beside him. It smelled like cotton candy or something. What kind of product did he use to smell like this?
Dowon restrained himself from furrowing his brow and waited calmly. If the bastard crossed the line with some stunt—for example, trying to stick his hand into his pants while he was asleep—he planned to end this unclear playing house whose origins he couldn’t even pinpoint, right here and now. He would never set foot in this bedroom again.
But even after a long while, nothing happened.
It seemed like he was just quietly staring from a distance where their breaths could almost touch.
Once he became conscious of it, he could feel a burning gaze sweeping from his forehead, down the bridge of his nose, to his lips.
‘…Just looking.’
Of course. What would Seong Yeohwi do?
Dowon tried to scatter his consciousness and go back to sleep. He figured if he just left him alone, he’d look at his face for a bit and stop.
Right then, the blanket covering Dowon was lifted very carefully. Swoosh. The edge of the blanket flowed down from his shoulder to below his waist. It was caught around his pelvis.
‘This bastard…?’
His nerves stood on end again. It seemed he was determined to cause trouble after all.
He was timing when to catch him in the act, but once again there was no movement for a long while. He thought maybe this time too, he was just planning to look.
Then really, barely—a slow, hesitant touch pulled at Dowon’s hand. His left hand.
For a moment he thought he was trying to touch his hand, but that wasn’t it.
An unfamiliar texture touching his fingertip.
The feeling of something like soft, thin fabric wrapping around his ring finger…
Dowon’s eyes flew open.
When he turned his head back to look, in his vision now adjusted to the darkness, Seong Yeohwi’s face was the first thing that came into view.
With his mouth firmly shut, Yeohwi was tying a vivid red ribbon—clearly visible even in the pitch-black darkness—around Dowon’s left ring finger in a circle.
“……”
“……!”
Their gazes met directly in mid-air. Yeohwi gasped and froze.
Dowon stared down at the red ribbon tied around his finger.
A ridiculous sight, as if it had been gift-wrapped. He was using the ribbon to measure the circumference of his finger. To find out the ring size.
Dowon slowly raised his black eyes and glared at the pale Yeohwi.
“So this is what you were sneaking around doing.”
“Ah, that’s… Dowon-ssi……”
At the low voice, Yeohwi, flustered with his own feet tingling, hurriedly tried to retrieve the ribbon. But Dowon didn’t give him his hand. Instead, he clenched his fist to hide the ribbon and grabbed Yeohwi’s wrist.
“J-just a moment! Give that back!”
Yeohwi struggled desperately to open Dowon’s fist. Naturally, Dowon wasn’t so accommodating. He wrapped his arm around the lunging Yeohwi’s waist and pressed him down onto the bed.
“Ugh!”
In an instant, offense and defense were reversed.
Dowon climbed on top of Yeohwi and subdued his arms, pressing them up above his head. The end of the red ribbon that had been wrapped around his hand dangled down over Yeohwi’s white bandaged hands. The red and white were conspicuous enough to look sensual even in the pitch darkness.
“Your hands hurt, you said?”
Dowon growled, looking down at Yeohwi.
Disheveled black hair fell from his forehead like a curtain, blocking Yeohwi’s view.
“You complained you couldn’t even eat. But you have the skill left over to pull this kind of stunt?”
“No… It’s not like that……”
Yeohwi fidgeted, averting his gaze.
“How did you tie it?”
Dowon interrogated him.
“Someone who can’t move a single finger—how did you tie the knot?”
“Well……”
“What.”
As their breaths came close enough to touch, Yeohwi eventually squeezed his eyes shut and confessed truthfully.
“With… my mouth.”
“……”
“I held it in my mouth… and tied it in a circle……”
At those words, Dowon’s expression became strange.
Thinking of Seong Yeohwi struggling to tie a red ribbon with his mouth just to find out a ring size—even the imagination alone was absurd.
“…You, change your mind.”
Tsk. Dowon, who had clicked his tongue in displeasure, warned languidly.
“A ring is excessive.”
“What?”
“It’s too much, I’m saying. For playing house.”
Dowon muttered as he released Yeohwi’s arms. The sight of him sitting up was as cold as always. What was reflected in his black eyes was nothing but cool rationality. It was as if he was declaring that nothing more would change just because they shared the same bed.
In contrast, Yeohwi’s pale eyes were visibly shaking.
“What’s excessive about it? It’s not excessive at all……”
Yeohwi twisted his body and grabbed Dowon’s arm. Dowon shook off Yeohwi and swept back his fallen hair.
“This is playing, right?”
“That’s right. Playing married couple. Even if it’s fake, shouldn’t we have the proper trappings?”
“Really? If you were so confident, you would have acted boldly too. Not sneaking around fondling my hand like a thief.”
“Dowon-ssi! It’s not like that!”
“You’re loud.”
Dowon picked up his wristwatch that he had left on the nightstand beside the bed. The model he had matched with Yeohwi. The same size and same product as the broken one.
“If you miss it that much, use this.”
Muttering that, Dowon tossed the watch onto Yeohwi’s chest.
Yeohwi stared blankly down at the watch placed on him.
“…Dowon-ssi?”
“Wear that, and don’t bring up rings again.”
“Th-then what about you, Dowon-ssi?”
Yeohwi grabbed Dowon’s arm once more.
And this time, throwing his whole body, he pushed Dowon down onto the bed.
“Ugh……!”
He was caught off guard. With a thud, Dowon’s back hit the bed. Yeohwi quickly climbed on top of him.
The king-size mattress heaved greatly due to his heavy weight. From that recoil, Yeohwi’s chest poured down over Dowon’s face.
“What about you, Dowon-ssi?”
Yeohwi’s voice cracked.
“Don’t.”
Dowon warned in a low voice.
“You’ll get hurt. Move.”
But Yeohwi didn’t listen. With his hands wrapped tightly in bandages from his nails coming off, he forcibly pressed down on Dowon’s shoulders.
Even though throbbing pain traveled up from his fingertips just from touching, he didn’t stop. Yeohwi, whose brow was furrowed in pain, looked down at Dowon seriously with no sign of backing down.
“Don’t take off that watch.”
“……”
“Don’t take it off, I said.”
Yeohwi was unreasonable. His eyes stared into Dowon’s as if to pierce through them. In his blazing gaze, something sticky seemed to flow and coagulate like a crystal, glimpsed for a moment.
“You, your hand.”
Dowon’s gaze turned to Yeohwi’s hand.
A vivid bloodstain was spreading over the white gauze like a red flower blooming. Because he had forced himself to use strength, the wound that had been healing had torn open.
“You wear it, Dowon-ssi.”
Even though his fingers must hurt unbearably. Even though the throbbing pain must ring through his wrist all the way to his heart. Yeohwi didn’t care. Instead, he gripped Dowon’s shoulders even harder. As if hoping his blood would soak the bandages and seep onto Dowon’s pajamas.
“Let go of this. You’re bleeding.”
Yeohwi ignored Dowon’s words and stubbornly insisted.
“Promise me. Say you won’t take it off.”
“Ha……”
“It’s just a watch. Say you’ll wear it all the time.”
Dowon grimaced and grabbed Yeohwi’s wrist to try to remove it. First, he had to stop the wound from opening further.
“Seong Yeohwi, your hands are rags anyway, so you can’t wear a ring. It’ll just get in the way of treatment.”
“I don’t care. The injury is at the fingertips, and rings go deep inside the finger.”
“Just wear the watch yourself. That’s rational.”
“I don’t want to. It makes me feel bad.”
Yeohwi shook off Dowon’s hand and pressed down on his shoulders again. Their entangled legs crumpled the bed sheets into a mess. Their firmly pressed thighs were felt nakedly.
“We matched them together. It connects you and me, so why are you giving it back to me? It feels like being rejected.”
“Hey… Do you have to take everything like this?”
Dowon asked. Yeohwi’s eyes clouded as he frowned.
Instead of answering, he picked up the watch that had rolled onto the bed and held it out to Dowon.
Dowon didn’t take the offered watch.
“Wear it.”
“I said no.”
“You were the one who said to match watches, and you were the one who said not to take it off. But the one whose wrist is actually empty is yours.”
“So what? Am I the only one who misses it? Is that it?”
“That’s right.”
Dowon retorted eerily. His low, cool voice seemed to bore into his ears and constrict all the way to his heart.
“Wear it, I’m telling you.”
“……”
“Wear it.”
Dowon ordered firmly.
Yeohwi looked down endlessly at Dowon while still mounted on top of him.
Flushed cheeks revealed between disheveled brown hair, a sweat-beaded forehead, and stubborn eyes. In the center of the bloodshot whites, pale-colored irises emitted a brilliant light.
