When you watch dramas or movies, there are always scenes where emotions build up to an extreme. Such scenes are generally the highlight or climax of that work. It means there’s something about them that makes people’s hearts ache.
But what if this were reality?
‘…I’m screwed. What do I do.’
Reality wasn’t a creative work that was fragmentarily cut with exquisite scene transitions. It continued on continuously, so you had to accept the karma of what came before in full.
Saehyeon’s hands and eyes moved rapidly. His scraped hand rested on the gasping Taesol’s back, patting it. Meanwhile, his wide-open eyes rolled around frantically in all directions. It was to observe the behavior of the man standing behind them.
“……”
Curses, sarcasm, dirty jokes. By now, all three types of speech should have already been pouring down like concentrated fire. If it were the usual Gil Taeseo, that is—the 28-year-old Gil Taeseo.
But right now that smooth curved flesh was shut tight. Because it was late dawn and the surroundings were quiet, only small sniffles and breathing sounds occasionally echoed in the room.
Before, he’d been tense every time Gil Taeseo opened his mouth, wondering what kind of bomb would drop. But he could realize for the first time that it was actually scarier when he kept his mouth shut.
Saehyeon fidgeted with his lips several times, but each time it only ended as an attempt.
“…Lee Saehyeon.”
A low call pierced through the air that kept growing heavier. At those words, Saehyeon’s thin shoulders trembled as if he’d been waiting.
Gil Taeseo crossed his arms and leaned back. His gaze remained fixed. The rusty iron door touched his heated back. That cold temperature put some brakes on his burning back and head.
The man who had quietly swallowed his breath tilted his head. The bundle of father and son reflected in his tilted field of vision were really in a pitiful state.
“What, what.”
The adult side, flinching with wide eyes, looked no different from something that had just popped out of a dust pit. Not only his hair but even his t-shirt was covered in dirt and dust over the black base.
What’s more, those mottled black things were soaked with sweat and clung to the curves of his slender body. A flashing gaze flowed along that trajectory. From the delicate jawline and shoulders, all the way to his narrowly indented waist.
The man unconsciously raised his large hand to cover over his lips. Looking at the movement of his slightly attached index and middle fingers, it seemed he wanted to smoke a cigarette.
‘I must have been attached to it for too long.’
Even though it had disappeared from anywhere among his belongings over the past few months.
Habits were a scary thing. At first you reach out with choice and volition, but later they drag you around like inertia.
That’s why the man choosily selected what he put his hands on. It was the same even after he bent his stubbornness about living and dying freely without being attached to anything. In fact, he acted even more obsessively. Exceptions were just one thing, and things derived from it were enough.
‘Would you look at this.’
Even now, hadn’t he been dragged around in a trance for quite a while? When his thoughts reached that point, he let out a scoff.
The naturally thickening gaze was quickly refined because of the small face sticking out beside that body.
Sniffle.
Taesol, who pressed his plump cheek with baby fat firmly against the pointy protruding shoulder that didn’t have flesh—didn’t it hurt?—inhaled through his nose. Tear and snot marks remained clearly visible on skin so clean it looked almost transparent.
Even when he whined that he’d be okay if they took his dad away, it wasn’t this bad.
He even caught sight of droplets of blood beaded on Lee Saehyeon’s elbows and knees where the small hands were placed.
It was like suddenly pouring cold water on something that had been boiling like lava and rising to his throat. The man pulled his head back once and lightly struck it against the iron door.
Thunk. At that sound, the melodrama combo clutching each other trembled. He was trying to come to his senses, but it felt like he’d made some kind of threat.
“First, how about you do something about that state?”
The man who had roughly swept up his disheveled hair finally opened his mouth. It was a statement spat out after his Adam’s apple bobbed several times as if swallowing something down.
“Who wants to get washed first.”
To think that after building up the atmosphere for so long, what came out was just that. Releasing the tension from his shoulders that had been all tense, Saehyeon grumbled.
“Are you crazy? Wash what, our limbs are perfectly fine.”
That applied not only to himself but to Taesol as well. He couldn’t hand over to those vicious hands the child who was held in his arms sending an earnest twinkling gaze.
“I’ll wash myself and wash the kid too, so don’t even think about laying a hand on us.”
Saehyeon, who spoke resolutely, sprang to his feet. It was just the right pretext. With washing as the purpose, he’d escape this uncomfortable situation too, and run away from the humiliation of being bathed. That’s how he moved his body vigorously, determined to take the initiative.
“Uh oh…”
As soon as Saehyeon stood up, he flopped down limply like a deflated balloon. It was a body that had needed support on the way home. On top of that, after returning home, he’d lifted and comforted Taesol who had become quite heavy—so it was perhaps a natural progression.
In case he might drop him, Taesol just blinked his eyes blankly in the arms that held him tight. A shadow slowly cast over the two of them.
When a dark look of resignation appeared on Saehyeon’s face.
“I… I’ll! Wash first!”
Taesol, who had quickly turned his head to assess the situation, shouted energetically. Though it gradually faded compared to the first syllable that had power in it, it was quite a spirited momentum.
Standing firmly on the ground—rendering futile how he’d been stuck like he’d been coated with paste—his tightly shut eyes received two pairs of gazes. That sight, contrary to his own resolute heart, had quite a cute and funny aspect to it. There was no filial son other than Shim Bongsa throwing himself into Indangsu.
“Alright, then.”
The man who had been gauging something lightly accepted and then suddenly grabbed the child.
“Uwaaah!”
The child tucked under his arm like a bundle reflexively flailed his limbs. He always thought this, but the man lifted humans too easily. It was to the point where he wondered if there was some magic that turned everything into a stuffed doll once it entered Gil Taeseo’s hands. Despite the fact that he himself was clearly an adult with a Beta’s skeletal structure, and Taesol had grown noticeably over the past few months.
Saehyeon glanced down at his own legs. He’d been enduring it because it was awkward to detach the clinging Taesol, but he had been feeling like blood wasn’t circulating well since earlier. Electricity tingled in the place where the quite heavy sensation had disappeared.
“Put me down! Put me down!”
“Down?”
“…Put me down please…”
Meanwhile, Taesol and Gil Taeseo quickly disappeared behind the old bathroom door. His blank gaze turned to the door that had shut mercilessly. Noisy sounds were leaking out from inside. The sound of water rushing on, the child making a fuss, and Gil Taeseo’s voice casually batting it away.
“What a crybaby, really. You cried and then laughed earlier. Make sure to properly check tomorrow whether your butt becomes a cactus or not, okay?”
“Eek!”
It looked less like batting away and more like teasing with a grin.
Saehyeon listened to the commotion without even thinking of getting up from his spot.
It was a similar composition to when he’d been lying alone on the street collecting the sounds of insects. In that he was listening intently while utterly exhausted to sounds that came one-sidedly.
But surely one corner of his heart was different.
While kneading his still tingling thighs, Saehyeon suddenly had such a thought.
‘If Taesol hadn’t been here, and… hadn’t been here either.’
It would have been really, really hard. He would have definitely kept dwelling and digging in, becoming eroded while leaving deep scars.
While listening to the sounds of a series of commotions happening, he folded up his complicated feelings neatly. When he aligned the corners and folded, a clumsy but smaller square shape emerged. Saehyeon decided to push it into a corner of his heart and defer it. With the intention of slowly digesting it and taking it out to look at.
“Get away! Get away!”
“Stay still while I’m being nice. Does it make sense to wash without bubbles?”
The scuffle between the child and Gil Taeseo didn’t seem limited to the beginning. Listening to Taesol’s continued protests and cries, a small scoff also escaped.
“…He was never like that when washing with me.”
To Saehyeon, Taesol had always been only a well-behaved child. Except for just that morning when he woke up in the 28-year-old body, he’d always smiled brightly and acted cutely. Because of that, learning these aspects one by one was really… unfamiliar and felt strange.
‘Did I get heat exhaustion?’
As he lightly pressed on his churning chest, the door burst open. The set of original and sample that popped out through the hot steam had similar yet contrasting appearances.
Taesol wrapped up in a towel and tucked under an arm like a bundle. And next to him…
“You, why are you…”
“What.”
A man with a bare body stood tall. Saehyeon, who had been blankly looking at the openly exposed pale skin, trembled with a start. The words came out stuttering on their own at the sudden exposure show.
“Why, why are you so naked?!”
The man who was suddenly pointed at tilted his head askew. A water droplet that flowed down along his face line formed at the tip of his sharp jaw and then fell to the floor.
