Huiseo? On my hand? A kiss?
Such a thing was only possible in dreams. Ah, then was he dreaming right now? Or was his fever so high that he was seeing things?
“…Hui, Huiseo-ya?”
A squeaky voice, whether from pain or surprise, called out like that. Then Huiseo subtly raised his eyes and looked at Hwan. The funny thing was that despite being the one who’d done such an incredible thing first, it was Huiseo’s face that turned red like a brightly burning bonfire.
“…So you won’t have nightmares.”
Seeing him mutter that afterward, it seemed to be a kind of spell.
However, far from calming down, Hwan was in a state where he could barely clutch his pounding chest and only gaped his lips.
‘Where did he learn such a bewitching thing?’
Though he couldn’t ask out loud, Hwan’s face was just as flushed. Because he’d witnessed that incredible scene, Hwan completely forgot what he’d been whining about until just moments ago. No, it was supposed to be a spell for sleeping well, but conversely, it had tremendous destructive power enough to chase sleep completely away.
Because of that, only awkward silence settled between the two.
“……”
“……”
“…So.”
“Don’t say useless things and sleep.”
“Yes.”
At Huiseo’s firm words, Hwan obediently lay back down.
He was so distracted by the sound of his own pounding heart that there was nothing else he could do but meekly obey. Somehow his fingertips were tingling, so Hwan became suspicious whether his hand, where Huiseo’s lips had touched, might have been paralyzed from the shock.
It passed quickly, but it was vivid without missing a single thing.
The soft breath touching the back of his hand, the warm and moist sensation of lips.
As he kept dwelling on it, the area that had been touched somehow felt ticklish and hot, and Hwan didn’t know what to do. Would it be too perverted if he touched it once? Hwan’s fingers kept twitching as he tried hard to endure.
Worried it might show, Hwan spoke loudly for no reason.
“If you thought I’d be placated by something like this, you’re mistaken. Huh?”
Starting with his languid expression, it was clearly visible he was already completely placated—it was nonsense.
However, Huiseo showed a smile instead of scolding.
“Who said what? I said it was to help you sleep well.”
“…Ahem, really?”
Then it was clearly visible that Hwan was scheming for a moment. It was perfectly obvious without even seeing how much he’d come looking starting from today, claiming to have nightmares from now on. As expected, not disappointing, Hwan immediately asked.
“But wouldn’t it be more effective if you did it one more time or in other places too?”
“Seeing you talk nonsense, you seem all better, so may I leave now?”
“No, no!”
At Huiseo’s firm question, Hwan grabbed Huiseo’s hand in alarm.
“…Don’t go. Stay by my side.”
Looking at the hand that held him so desperately like that, Huiseo couldn’t help but make a clouded expression for a moment.
***
Nothing had changed, but still, after getting severely ill, Hwan seemed to have found a bit of composure. At least he didn’t guard against Yuwon with a bristling attitude like before. Perhaps it was thanks to the “radical spell” Huiseo had given him that day. No, it was certain.
Because Hwan was subtly waving the back of his hand in front of Yuwon.
It was really strange behavior even though naturally he couldn’t notice since it wasn’t a visible mark.
‘You don’t have this at your house, do you?’
Like a girl bragging about potatoes, or actually, with a slightly meaner heart than that, it was teasing like ‘You’ve never received something like this, right?’ Though it was a temporary measure, it seemed to have comforted Hwan’s heart quite a bit.
As time passed and it soon became exam period, the kids’ attention naturally focused on studying. In other words, no one was interested in Hwan’s story anymore, which was now out of season. The fuss they’d made felt quite futile.
So now Hwan was slowly becoming a problem again.
Every morning, Hwan looked at Huiseo with a face like a puppy expecting treats and applied silent pressure asking, ‘Don’t we not have to go around with him anymore?’ He seemed to firmly believe what Huiseo had set as a deadline of “until the rumors die down” to appease Hwan.
However, contrary to Hwan’s expectations, it was difficult for Huiseo to coldly reject Yuwon now. In fact, even this was a “friend” position they’d barely compromised on because he kept insisting he didn’t want anything else.
So he was already worried about what to do, and when Yuwon’s side also started pestering him out of the blue, Huiseo’s head throbbed. No, actually, Yuwon’s recent behavior might be better described as unilaterally pressing in rather than pestering.
No matter how many times he swatted away hands that reached out at any time, he didn’t give up.
It was even more blatant when the two were alone.
After that incident, according to the imperial family’s view that protection and surveillance were necessary, Hwan had to be accompanied by security guards for the time being. It wasn’t that they came into the classroom during class, but everywhere else they had to be together. That meant, in other words, Huiseo didn’t have to follow around so doggedly like before.
For example, places like the bathroom or faculty office.
Whether it was the aftermath of the previous incident, there were many cases where the faculty office called for Hwan, so unexpectedly there were many cases where Huiseo and Yuwon were left alone together. Every time that happened, Yuwon would touch Huiseo’s hair, stroke his cheek, try to hold his hand, or stick close to him.
Huiseo honestly found it excessive and burdensome.
“I didn’t say I was dating you, did I?”
When Huiseo, unable to bear it anymore, asked that, Yuwon tilted his head as if he couldn’t understand.
“It’s not something you can only do if you’re dating, right? You do this much with that Lee Hwan guy all the time.”
Then Huiseo’s eyes widened as if a bit surprised. The way he only moved his lips without speaking seemed to have difficulty refuting Yuwon’s words. Honestly speaking, Yuwon was more surprised by Huiseo’s surprised face.
Had they been touching each other like that without even being conscious of it? Thinking about it was outrageous. Yuwon found it difficult to gauge whether he should be relieved or rather nervous about this.
It was really consistently irritating. That Lee Hwan guy.
Even though he was the one who brought up his story, annoyed for no reason, Yuwon pressed Huiseo a bit more.
“I want to do things I don’t do with that Lee Hwan guy. For example, something like this?”
Then he arbitrarily kissed the back of Huiseo’s hand with a smooch again. He did it quite resolutely even though he clearly knew he’d be scolded for it.
Yuwon seemed to want to see Huiseo conscious of him and shaken like before. He hoped those clear eyes would tremble fragilely and look at him again, and watching such a Huiseo, he wanted to feel once more that pleasant and satisfying emotion rising from his toes.
But contrary to Yuwon’s expectations, Huiseo showed a completely different reaction than before. Far from being flustered, he suddenly burst into laughter whose meaning couldn’t be understood.
Huiseo seemed to have recalled what happened with Hwan a while ago.
‘What?’
However, as Yuwon stood bewildered for a moment not knowing the reason, Huiseo took advantage of that gap to push away Yuwon’s chest, which had been close to him, and escaped.
“Stop smooching and fooling around. You might get your lips torn off.”
At the fierce warning that followed, Yuwon, left behind, was simply dumbfounded.
He’d left such a warning, but yeah, if gentle talking worked, he wouldn’t be Choi Yuwon. With unnecessarily good recovery, despite Huiseo’s reproach, he soon pressed close again, which was exhausting after all.
Unable to bear it, Huiseo had recently started reading books of a slightly different genre.
For a while, Huiseo had been absorbed in reading books in fields he was interested in like economics, management, accounting, and marketing. In contrast, the titles of books in his hands these days had words like “poisoning,” “vital points,” “self-defense techniques”… such words blatantly included.
Yuwon found that very amusing.
I mean, it’s not like the book would really have methods of poisoning someone written in it. The way he expressed his anger like that was indeed trivial and cute.
“Is there someone you want to kill?”
“Ah, did it show a bit? Yeah. Slightly.”
“Who is it? Should I beat them up for you?”
“No. It’s okay. Unlike someone, I’m not going to annoyingly beat them up, I’m going straight to killing.”
“Aha.”
Fierce conversation went back and forth with affectionately smiling faces. But the problem was that, depending on how you looked at it from the side, they also looked quite friendly without reserve. Of course, if Huiseo heard this, he’d be shocked and surprised.
Because of that, Hwan was secretly making a slightly dejected expression from the side.
***
Hwan felt very strange these days.
Among them, the strangest thing was that he was subtly on the outside, and there were too many times he was separated from Huiseo. Well, he could accept the former since he and Yuwon had such an uncomfortable relationship.
However, it was still strange that not only the homeroom teacher but other teachers too kept calling for him without any particular big reason. And they specifically called only him. Without Huiseo. At first, he thought it was consideration for himself who’d caused big trouble and returned to school after a while.
“How are things these days? Nothing particularly difficult?”
They’d ask after him like that, and as exams gradually approached, teachers would put non-commercial practice books they used into his hands. Of course, those went straight to Huiseo.
But after going back and forth a few times, perhaps they were gradually running out of repertoire, because the reasons for calling him became uniformly poor. So Hwan finally reached certainty.
‘Ah. They’re calling me on purpose.’
But why?
Hwan couldn’t understand at all. Even if they made him go in and out of the faculty office frequently, the only effect would be that Huiseo and himself would be briefly separated, so the person who would benefit from that would be….
‘Ah, there is someone. Choi Yuwon.’
Only then could Hwan fit together all the puzzles of this strange situation.
The only person worth doing such a tiresome thing, and the only person the teachers would help while even breaking a sweat like that, was indeed that guy. If not him, it couldn’t be explained.
