“…How is it that even after several years, you’re still the same with your pointless stubbornness.”
It might have been fine if it weren’t for this damn body. It was always this body that was the problem.
The flaws clinging to this body were too numerous to count. If he tried listing them, all his fingers wouldn’t be enough. Low blood pressure that made morning wake-ups terrible, durability that immediately caused body aches with even slightly strenuous labor.
Lastly, the problem was the manifestation of being an omega, and this emaciated body that could go any day was too defenseless in all kinds of situations.
The arm that slipped in beside his body instantly wrapped around his back and knees and lifted him up. In the brief moment when an acrid scent rushed to his nose then receded, Saehyeon was already seated inside the car.
“…”
He whipped around in surprise, and the door immediately slammed shut. The moment he frantically grabbed the door handle, Gil Taeseo’s face suddenly appeared through the slightly open car window gap. The man who hooked his arm on the window frame and bent his body muttered ominously.
“If you get out now, know that you’ll be kidnapped to my house while unconscious.”
“Yes, sir.”
Saehyeon sat obediently in proper posture. This absolutely wasn’t defeat. Two steps back for one step forward. Something like that.
When Gil Taeseo, who had circled around, sat in the driver’s seat and closed the door, Saehyeon’s back flinched and trembled. As if he’d felt it, when he looked to the side and reached out his hand while leaning his body, the trembling changed to almost seizure level.
“A-again, what. Don’t come close…”
Just when he was preparing to wave his arms with his eyes squeezed shut. Click. A small sound of something connecting was heard. When he sneakily opened his eyes and looked down, a pitch-black seatbelt crossed his chest.
As he stared down at it blankly, a reprimand mixed with breathing flew from the side.
“You had another perverted delusion, didn’t you.”
“…”
There was absolutely nothing to say. By this point, even Saehyeon seriously worried. Whether perhaps the real pervert was actually me. The track record that had accumulated bit by bit was already a handful to deny.
As if proving that, until they were almost near his home, Gil Taeseo didn’t give this side even a glance, let alone a touch. The more that happened, the more Saehyeon wanted to crawl into a mouse hole, bite his tongue hard, and faint. The reason he’d kept his head pressed close to the car window pretending otherwise was precisely for that reason.
In the end, when Gil Taeseo turned his head, all he could see was that round back of the head.
‘Don’t call me. Don’t call me. Don’t touch me.’
It even seemed to be saying this.
Objectively, it was an unseemly sight with no fun to watch. The hair without a bit of luster, all frizzy and disheveled, was like a stray dog living a hard street life.
But for some reason, Gil Taeseo’s still gaze stuck to that back of the head from time to time.
Pale fingers seeing raw outdoor light for the first time in a while tapped the steering wheel. The sound that initially continued nervously fast and rough slowly changed to slow and regular. As if keeping pace with the small breathing sounds that wouldn’t be heard unless one listened carefully.
“Get out.”
When the car slowly stopped and permission to get out was given, Saehyeon unbuckled his belt and threw open the door as if he’d been waiting. Even in the midst of confusion, after closing the car door and stepping back a few steps, he could finally breathe a sigh of relief. Gil Taeseo, who had been staring at such a Saehyeon, opened his mouth.
“Think of it as being bitten by a dog. I’m that dog’s owner.”
“What?”
Startled by the unexpected words, when he turned around, he saw the man sitting at an angle through the car window that had come down at some point.
“Forget about that son of a bitch from earlier. I’ll take care of that myself.”
Catching the objects falling in front of his eyes was like a conditioned reflex. Looking down, it was his cell phone and a plastic bag he didn’t know when he’d dropped.
“Answer when I call. Unless you want to see me coming looking for you with my eyes rolled back like a crazy bastard.”
In front of Saehyeon, left alone, the car window quickly rose and closed. A man with a pale face was reflected in the darkly tinted window. With his mouth ambiguously open, it was truly a dazed face.
Saehyeon, who had been staring at it blankly for a moment, shook his head sharply, then turned his body and walked almost running.
‘This, I need to run away right now.’
Following the words whispered by an instinct with unknown reason or origin, Saehyeon frantically hastened his steps. Perhaps because of the sense of crisis, home approached much faster than before.
The unsteadily swaying back view quickly disappeared from sight. The man with his head tilted at an angle stared at that figure without blinking once.
At the moment the target disappeared, something that was either a small sigh or a curse leaked between his lips. Strength repeatedly rose and subsided in his tightly curled hands.
He had just released right before his eyes what he’d been searching for so desperately. There was no way his feelings could be fine. Emotions so severe they were terrible boiled inside.
But on the other hand, he also felt a very strange feeling.
“Should I say you’re still the same.”
The state was a mess, but that temper remained as it was. Even though everything on this side had changed to the complete opposite. As if nothing had happened.
At the rumbling vibration sound, Gil Taeseo reached out his hand. He rummaged through his coat a few times and found his cell phone.
“Yeah.”
The hand that was about to carelessly throw the outerwear as usual stopped in midair.
“Find out everything about Lee Saehyeon down to the last speck. You won’t give me the bullshit of not being able to find him again when the person appeared in the flesh, will you.”
[Yes.]
When he was young, he foolishly clung to useless things without knowing better and did stupid things. But only after ruining everything and losing what he wanted most could Gil Taeseo admit it.
That to have something, and to protect it, one must be willing to roll even in terrible mud and become less than human. Perhaps in the most dirty and ugly form.
“Ah. That trash bastard. Is he still breathing?”
He didn’t regret becoming this kind of person. The emotion called regret had long been concentrated on another person to the point it couldn’t be spent on such matters and was depleted.
That’s why when he met the person in question, his eyes almost rolled back. But when a reaction completely opposite to what he’d thought and an unexpected situation unfolded, he could barely grasp the thread of reason.
Gil Taeseo, who recalled that dazed face, subtly covered his mouth with his hand.
“The finishing is also my job, so keep him alive somehow.”
He wasn’t a child who just stubbornly insisted like before. He could have and swallow enough.
But he also declined hastily gobbling things up because he’d starved long and ruining it again.
Slowly cornering him, this time for sure.
“Attach people around him too. Yeah. If you let another trashy bastard like that approach him again…”
The hand with veins popping firmly gripped the outerwear on his lap.
***
He didn’t know with what state of mind he’d returned home. Saehyeon, who had frantically run home, staggered as he took off his shoes. Just as he was heading toward the blanket like that, Taesol happened to roll past that side muttering in his sleep.
Looking at the child’s fluffy, cleanly shining cheek even in the pitch-dark surroundings, Saehyeon sighed and changed direction. The destination was the bathroom.
“Right. Let’s wash, wash.”
It was a shower almost like a death struggle. Heading to bed with a haggard face, something got kicked by his foot. What fell over weakly and spilled its contents with a clatter was a familiar plastic bag.
‘Patches, ointment, bandages…’
Saehyeon stared down at it as if possessed, then shook his head sharply and threw his body into the blankets. Even while inside a house with no corner to hide and a ceiling, his heart pounded as if being chased by someone outside.
It was really strange. Nothing wasn’t strange. From his situation of being forced to face such a shabby life, to the unexpected reunion, the bizarre reaction of his body, and even Gil Taeseo.
However, unlike his complicated head, sleep came quickly. Perhaps he wanted to run away from complicated thoughts. Saehyeon, falling into such deep sleep like that, never imagined even in his dreams.
That a tremendous fuck-you bomb would drop in the dream he’d escaped into.
The first refreshing morning he’d greeted since waking up in a 28-year-old body.
“Ahhh! Aaaaah!”
Saehyeon wailed like a crow while frantically tearing at his hair. The reason was all the dream, all because of that damn dream.
Rustling sheets, a pure white upper body covered in all kinds of marks. And even his own hand that had hazily traced the face of the sleeping person. The day he learned that he had woken up in this body and made a child… with Gil Taeseo. A dream incomparably more vivid and erotic than the imagination he’d had that day.
The scene itself was the problem. No, actually everything was a problem, but it would be right to say the most serious thing was that it was a dream.
The face of the sleeping man in that scene was tremendously familiar. Well, of course, because the face of Gil Taeseo, the person who had been in that chaos with him until dawn, was there.
“What the hell is this! This hazy morning wake-up event scene facing each other the next morning after spending such an extremely passionate night!”
This shockingly contented dream was a fragment of lost memory that Saehyeon hadn’t been able to obtain no matter how desperately he tried.
