Content warning: This chapter contains intense psychological manipulation, obsessive behavior, and non-consensual physical contact
Why is Hayoung still remaining by our side?
‘Well, because me and Cha Woodan have sufficient food and water…’
If there’s no food and water? Will Hayoung try to leave us?
‘…No matter how much we search, it would be hard to find survivors stronger than us.’
Right, because we’re protecting Hayoung. Not only that, until now we’ve moved as Hayoung wanted and even saved people on his behalf.
Then if, just if, a survivor stronger than us appeared and reached out a hand to Hayoung?
‘…If such a thing happens.’
“No… is it closer to fear?”
Cha Jeoh’s gaze that had been wandering through the air moved slowly. Soon his pitch-black eyes reached Seong Taehyeon, but his pupils that had already blurred without focus seemed unable to recognize him. Precisely, lost in thoughts disturbing his head, he lacked the leisure to examine what was right before his eyes.
“I think it could also be seen as madness.”
A languid voice gently scratching at others unpleasantly echoed by his ear. If he could, he wanted to tear out all the eardrums inside his ears, but for some reason, he didn’t have the strength to move even one finger.
What had been piled up layer by layer inside seemed to surge up suddenly. The things he’d suppressed and hidden for fear you’d dislike it, for fear you’d be wary and run away, began to desperately try to escape.
It was the sensation of the entrance of the dam he’d tightly blocked being recklessly pried open by an unknown force.
He vaguely felt something urgently tapping his shoulder, but Cha Jeoh couldn’t turn his attention there. If he carelessly scattered his concentration, it felt like both his body and head would all be encroached by an unfamiliar force.
Come to think of it, he’d felt a sensation similar to now several times before. Before meeting Kim Hayoung, when he’d made the third-floor art room his residence and taken charge of monster extermination within Hanul High while going between lower floors. Even then, he’d occasionally experienced something unpleasant poking at him.
But that at the time wasn’t this terrible or threatening. It just swept around once as if exploring from head to toe, brushed past as if tickling what was trapped inside, then disappeared without a trace.
So Cha Jeoh dismissed that unidentifiable sensation as just hasty déjà vu. In a world dominated by monsters, enduring the present not knowing when or how an accident might occur while keeping nerves on edge every moment, he’d thought it might be something like a side effect.
‘…It’s okay.’
I have to protect Hayoung.
‘If I just don’t lose my mind like this…’
I have to protect him, but.
“Sunbae, don’t you see Hayoung sunbae trembling right now?”
Seong Taehyeon’s voice roughly dug into his eardrums.
Hayoung is trembling? Why? Did his body temperature drop, or is he sick somewhere? Or perhaps…
“He’s scared to death, held in sunbae’s embrace.”
With his mocking voice as the end, reason snapped briefly. Sharp tinnitus covered his ears and dyed the inside of his head dully. Then when he came to his senses again, Cha Jeoh belatedly recognized the posture that had changed in an instant and Kim Hayoung’s face that had come close enough to be right before his nose, pinned beneath him.
He could no longer feel the presence of Seong Taehyeon and other survivors nearby. The formless power that had been annoyingly flailing all over his body had also disappeared at some point. However, the fragments of emotions pouring down through the gap opened from being forcibly torn didn’t know how to calm down.
“…Hayoung-ah.”
Cha Jeoh couldn’t even tell whether he’d voiced that call aloud or not.
Black and white hair scattered on the rough brick floor, his body frozen as if flustered unlike his usual indifference and his bright red lips moving. Even Kim Hayoung’s slender legs lifted and supported on thighs twice as thick—all of it took away Cha Jeoh’s five senses.
He shouldn’t lay Hayoung on such ground, even while thinking that, his body didn’t follow his will. No, precisely, his head already biased toward something else couldn’t follow priorities and was just recklessly pushing forward impulsive desires and instincts.
‘…Perhaps.’
Perhaps now might be an opportunity. The last chance to bind within two grips what he might lose forever once this moment passed.
He didn’t want to tremble in anxiety and hold his breath forever. There was no way Cha Jeoh could endure such a terrible future.
From the beginning, Cha Jeoh was someone without patience or anything. He did what he wanted to do without hesitation, first spoke what he wanted to say, and if there was anything that dared to displease him, he just confronted it recklessly.
But when with Kim Hayoung was the exception. That was closer to terrible compulsion rather than obligatory will. He hadn’t endured and persisted because he wanted to. Knowing that if he didn’t endure and persist even this much, Kim Hayoung would leave without regret, he desperately clung like one shabby earthworm struggling to survive.
Yet even so, even though he tried so hard and tenaciously held on, Kim Hayoung couldn’t be grasped. Rather, at every opportunity, he acted as if he would move away from the twins and suddenly disappear.
Then what more should he endure and persist through?
‘If I tie Hayoung down, will this fucking anxiety subside a bit?’
Will he stay obediently by our side just because I tie him down?
‘Then rather, if I confine him… no.’
No matter what he did, this anxiety didn’t seem like it would clear. No matter which direction he thought, it seemed his whole body had stiffened, pressed by the groundless certainty that the conclusion ultimately reached would be only one.
It was like the pain of someone gripping tightly all at once the lungs, ribs, and flesh. It wasn’t easy to breathe in or breathe out.
It was different from simply having the leash tightened enough to block breathing and entrusting the handle of that string to someone else’s grip. It felt like his life and existence were being pushed around by Kim Hayoung until breaking and shattering into pieces.
‘What should I, do…’
It wasn’t that he dared harbor such base desire to possess Kim Hayoung. He just wanted to be by his side. If only that was permitted, even if an absurd order was uttered to bring the whole world under his feet, Cha Jeoh could willingly throw himself away for Kim Hayoung.
However, Kim Hayoung had no intention at all of letting anyone else into his world. Even if that someone else was the twins maintaining a relatively close relationship, he absolutely wouldn’t allow it.
Did we know anything about Kim Hayoung in the first place? Name, age, affiliated school…
‘That he’s extremely slow at eating things, that until a few weeks ago he was always sitting in the school library, and also…’
Family? Preferences? Even if it became meaningless now, in a world that had still been fine, he must have had something like hobbies, and at least wouldn’t have had no preferred color or song.
Kim Hayoung didn’t open his mouth about anything. Of course, the twins had never inquired in detail either, but it was a bit different.
As if he lived alone in a different world, and therefore consciously pushed away us who live in this world.
‘…Until now, every time.’
He didn’t want to try to block what surged up from inside.
“That’s too much…”
At the words muttered unconsciously, he could feel Kim Hayoung’s body stiffen. Cha Jeoh’s two eyes reflecting him like that sank into an even deeper light.
Cha Jeoh lowered his body. The distance that had already been excessively close interlocked without even a gap. He couldn’t tell at what speed and intensity the hearts touching each other’s chests were racing. At least Cha Jeoh’s own heart seemed to tighten coolly as if it would burst at any moment, but because it was covered by that excessive noise, Kim Hayoung’s heartbeat wasn’t conveyed.
Cha Jeoh, who had been chewing his lips discontentedly, impulsively reached out his hand. He lightly gripped the end of the cloth piece sprawled on the floor. He wanted to remove this and face Kim Hayoung’s two eyes. He wanted to directly confirm that he was wavering and shaking even a little, that what was contained inside was a deeper form different from weightless confusion or doubt.
Soon, just as Cha Jeoh was about to pull the white cloth with strength, urgent hands restrained Cha Jeoh. That thing, endlessly small and pale compared to Cha Jeoh’s, resolutely blocked him.
“…Why.”
His throat choked. Cha Jeoh, who had been muttering low, wrapped around Kim Hayoung’s waist and lowered his head. Cha Jeoh’s face buried into his straight nape.
His lips swollen from chewing so much were crushed against the white skin. Through those gaps, hot breath squeezed out and scattered. Kim Hayoung’s body flinching at the ticklish sensation fanned Cha Jeoh even more.
Cha Jeoh, who inhaled softly, soon opened his mouth. Then he embedded his teeth into Kim Hayoung’s nape without a single scar.
Swallow him.
That thought floated around inside his head like a compulsion.
That was the only way. To prevent Kim Hayoung from leaving our side, that was the only way…
The force of teeth digging into soft skin gradually strengthened. Kim Hayoung, who had been startled and roughly hitting Cha Jeoh’s shoulder just when the teeth touched, only trembled while freezing his movement.
A fishy taste seemed to spread on the tip of his tongue. Originally, he would have reacted convulsively and shuddered at Kim Hayoung’s wound, at a single drop of blood, but right now Cha Jeoh didn’t have that much reason left.
“…Ngh, hey. Cha Jeoh!”
So even at the sound of Kim Hayoung’s shout bursting out unable to endure, Cha Jeoh couldn’t react.
