‘I’m done applying it. Your clothes… wait a bit before putting them on. After it dries.’
‘…Okay.’
As soon as the treatment ended, Ido grabbed Wookyung’s thick wrist trying to put on his clothes to stop him. He somehow couldn’t take his eyes off the small hand that seemed like it would be completely buried in his own hand. Yet the body temperature coming from it was incredibly hot.
His head spun at the illusion that he might get burned. It felt like his fingertips were pounding along with his wildly beating pulse.
‘Why do you… look like you’re about to cry?’
Trying hard to hide his shaken heart, Wookyung deliberately smiled. The face of Ido standing in front of him, quietly looking down at the affected area, looked more fragile than ever. Without realizing it, he reached out his hand and stroked Ido’s face.
‘…Ah… sorry.’
He awkwardly withdrew his hand. Unable to resist the momentary impulse, he had ended up touching him. However, Ido grabbed Wookyung’s wrist as it was about to fall helplessly.
‘…Don’t get hurt.’
‘……’
‘I’m… worried.’
Though he bowed his head and trailed off hesitantly, Wookyung could clearly hear it. The end of the words Ido uttered. The sincerity contained in that voice.
‘You don’t need… to worry.’
‘……’
‘Since I originally do physical work… I get hurt often. But I heal quickly so it’s fine.’
Saying that, he smiled as if to reassure him. And he deliberately playfully messed up Ido’s hair. If he didn’t do this, it felt like the pulse beating at his fingertips touching him would be discovered. Deliberately treating Ido more like a younger brother and smiling boldly, Wookyung stopped stroking his hand without realizing it at Ido’s next words.
‘Team Leader-nim also… always when I get hurt….’
‘Huh?’
‘…When I’m bruised and hurt, Team Leader-nim hated it too, didn’t you?’
Was that so? Was it so obvious that this child would mention it? Wookyung, who momentarily stopped breathing, frowned and retraced his memories. Certainly, on days when Ido came back messed up by President Park, his mood wasn’t good.
No, to be precise, it really fucking sucked.
‘…Yeah… that’s right.’
‘So… don’t get hurt.’
Hot hands carefully wrapped around Wookyung’s face. The rose scent wafted strongly from his wrist. At the unexpected contact, Wookyung threw a dazed gaze at Ido. His small lips were trembling.
‘If Team Leader-nim gets hurt, who will… buy me bean sprout soup?’
With those words, tears rolled down from Ido’s eyes. Wookyung, who had been quietly watching him, gradually lost his smile. A corner of his heart stung and ached as if cut. But to hide such feelings, Wookyung forced his lips to contort and smiled bleakly.
‘Right. I have to buy you bean sprout soup….’
‘…Yes.’
‘I won’t get hurt. So… don’t cry.’
‘Yes. It’s a promise.’
His rough fingers clumsily wiped Ido’s tear-soaked cheeks. Warm teardrops seeped into his extremely dry palm. He quietly, quietly stroked the face crying while sniffling with a reddened nose. Like a hand carefully touching a flower bud, worried the petals might fall off.
‘You like bean sprout soup that much? Enough to cry like this?’
At Wookyung’s joking words, the tear-soaked eyelashes slowly lowered. Wookyung’s hand, which had once again stroked away the teardrops that fell making paths on his cheeks, carefully wrapped around Ido’s head.
‘…Not the bean sprout soup… I like… the person who buys it for me.’
The heated voice left a helpless burn in a corner of his heart. It was a heat like fire he’d never felt before. Slowly taking in with his eyes the small flame burning a corner of his heart, Wookyung ended up pulling Ido’s body toward him.
You, who give off an enchanting rose scent, why do you cry for me?
And why do I… when I should just smell your scent wafting thickly from afar, knowing my hands touching you will become covered in wounds, still want to touch you and have you in the end?
He quietly took into his mouth the lips that tasted salty from tears. The tear-soaked eyelashes blinked long and tangled with Wookyung’s eyelids. Breathing in the rose scent that had grown breathlessly thick, Wookyung slowly wrapped the frail body in his embrace. Though sharp thorns dug mercilessly into his skin, his heart fallen into a hazy, illusion-like love didn’t even know it hurt anyway.
*
After the extremely careful kiss, the feelings toward each other spread rapidly like setting fire to a dry field.
There was no knowing when or what the emotion that must have been secretly hidden inside had fed on to grow so large. Once he reached out his hand to Ido, the desperation and desire for that child grew frightfully in volume in his heart day by day.
It was a relationship that would do no good if discovered by people around them. Especially since Ido was President Park’s property, if discovered, both could possibly die like dogs.
However, to the two people whose eyes met, whose lips met, whose hearts even matched, things other than their feelings for each other were already invisible.
The emotion called love, ticklish even to speak of, perfectly blinded the two people.
‘Team Leader-nim.’
The beautiful voice calling Wookyung melted sweetly into the air in the room that was beginning to dimly brighten.
It was after embracing Ido who had secretly slipped into his room as always.
At first, he was careful even about touching Ido for fear of being discovered by President Park. However, the emotion that had grown uncontrollably blinded them like moths jumping into light. It was too hard to just look at the person you love before you. The two, who touched each other with increasingly dense caresses, eventually mixed their bodies.
Once was difficult, but after that both rushed toward each other as if they’d been waiting. The two, deeply fallen into each other’s bodies, secretly slipped into each other’s rooms and overlapped their bodies, and when circumstances didn’t allow, they were desperate to see each other’s faces even once in passing.
He had no intention of necessarily taking Ido’s body after he’d been tormented by President Park all night. As always, when he carried the exhausted Ido sprawled in President Park’s room to Ido’s room and laid him down, stroking his head, the drooping body soon wriggled and wrapped around Wookyung. Then Wookyung gently embraced him as if comforting Ido’s body that had been abused all night.
After that, they had to repeatedly wash their bodies several times in case each other’s pheromones remained. Anyway, the time the two spent together was mainly dawn or morning, and President Park looked for Ido late at night. Since Wookyung’s pheromone remaining on Ido’s body during the day gradually faded, fortunately President Park seemed unable to find traces of Wookyung on Ido.
After sex, Ido liked to lie side by side in Wookyung’s bed and touch Wookyung’s firm naked body. His slender fingers teasingly groped Wookyung’s chest. At the ticklish sensation sliding down, Wookyung smiled with one eyebrow scrunched and grabbed Ido’s hand. The laughter flowing from Ido’s lips grew a bit thicker.
‘I’m not your Team Leader. Change that title.’
‘Then what should I call you?’
Every time Ido looked at him and smiled with his eyes curved beautifully, a corner of his chest tickled. This child’s low laughter constantly raised his heart rate, pounding on Wookyung’s chest. While giving off an extremely splendid rose scent, Ido’s white skin, neat hair, and jet-black eyes were as clear and pure as the sky reflected directly on a lake.
‘Well. What would be good to call me?’
‘Hmm…’
The black eyes rolled around playfully, then eventually curled his lips and grinned. At the mischievous child-like expression, Wookyung chuckled.
‘Why? What are you going to call me? Are you going to call me by name, Wookyung-ah?’
‘Hey, you’re so much older than me, how can I call you like that?’
‘Then what do you want to call me that makes you smile like a prankster?’
‘…Mm.’
Soon after, his red lips touched his cheek with a smacking sound and fell away.
‘Jagiya?’
Wookyung’s thick fingers pinched Ido’s cheek without hurting him. But it seemed to hurt even with the grip without strength, as Ido scrunched his eyes slightly. Wookyung grumbled but quickly let go.
‘Are you going to keep tempting me?’
‘Why? I really wanted to…’
Ido continued speaking with his cheeks blushing.
‘…Once I had someone I love… I wanted to try calling them like this.’
Unable to resist, Wookyung let out a low laugh and changed his position from lying face-to-face to pin Ido underneath.
‘…You’re heavy.’
‘Bear with it. You brought this on yourself.’
Wookyung’s lips descended on Ido’s neck. Twisting his body ticklishly, he tried to push away the shoulder pressing down on him, but the rock-like body didn’t budge. Large hands gently held and pressed down his arms. Giggling, Ido extended his arms and wrapped them around Wookyung’s neck. Looking at Ido’s legs wrapping around his waist without stopping there, Wookyung laughed as if dumbfounded.
‘It tickles, jagiya.’
‘This is really…’
The rose scent spread strongly. Wookyung’s pheromone, dry and warm like wild grass, mixed in. The air already densely tangled fluctuated. Every time the two bodies moved, creaking sounds from the bed echoed through the room.
‘I’m… tired. I just want to lie down.’
‘Then don’t tempt me.’
At Ido’s voice mixed with laughter, Wookyung grumbled but stopped his lips that had been fussing against Ido’s chest. He flopped down beside him and hugged Ido’s slender torso. He could feel the pounding heartbeat directly through the body. At the small vibration transmitted pleasantly, Wookyung closed his eyes.
