Yugeon screamed for his younger brother and struggled desperately. He even swung his legs to kick Lee Jaeyeong away, but even while being hit, Lee Jaeyeong calmly grabbed Yugeon’s legs, folded them up onto his chest, aligned the tip of his member with the exposed hole, and thrust his entire body weight to penetrate deeply.
Thanks to being soaked with blood and semen, the member slid in easily, but the pain like being cut with a knife remained.
Yugeon covered his face with his arms and cried horribly.
Lee Jaeyeong giggled watching the crying Yugeon and began to roughly thrust upward into his insides. Each time he did, it felt like his breath was being choked off. Yugeon cried, cursed, and pleaded as he tried to push Lee Jaeyeong away. But Lee Jaeyeong’s actions didn’t stop. As time passed, sounds of breath bubbling up from Yugeon’s throat began, and wheezing sounds like air leaking started.
“Stop it, stop… please…. Hng, Geon-ah… Migeon-ah….”
As Yugeon continuously cried out for his younger brother, begging for help, begging to be saved, Lee Jaeyeong began to strangle Yugeon’s neck again.
—I told you not to call that bastard’s name!
“Ge… Geon… kkk!”
—I should have killed him back then!
Yugeon’s consciousness was growing hazy from being strangled, but at Lee Jaeyeong’s words, something occurred to him and his eyes shot wide open. Last time, the incident when Lee Jaeyeong had wielded a knife at his younger brother. Lee Jaeyeong—no, the hangi—had truly been trying to kill his younger brother. Yugeon gripped Lee Jaeyeong’s hand as if tearing at it. Because of that, his lifted fingernail was completely bent back and hurt like he was dying, but thanks to that, his mind became clearer instead.
“Don’t… touch… my brother… don’t touch him… I’ll kill you….”
When he forced out his voice that wouldn’t come and warned him, the hangi twisted his face and fell silent, then began to laugh. It was laughter filled with rage.
—I guess I’ll have to devour you first after all. I’ll leave you with just one eye. Then I’ll show you the sight of killing that bastard Migeon horribly.
Along with the words, he felt a bone-chilling energy extending deep into his body. Yugeon gasped and arched his back. The cold energy that had extended in while groping around inside his body rose up to around his solar plexus. And as if extending fingers, it touched something. It felt like it was touching something fundamental that had been inside his body.
At that moment Yugeon realized. Ah, this is what the hangi is after. This unidentifiable something lodged around the solar plexus. The cold energy that had been extending like fingers soon spread as if diffusing and completely wrapped around it.
Along with the feeling of something being stolen, his vision was devoured by blackness.
He felt his breath fading away.
It wasn’t painful. Rather, it felt peaceful.
Yugeon, who had been exhaling his weakening breath, realized that he had exactly one breath left. If he let out this breath, everything would end. He wasn’t afraid.
Just as he was about to exhale his last deeply drawn breath without regret, suddenly his vision flashed white and expanded. As his vision that had been devoured by blackness returned, an ear-splitting scream rang out.
—Keeaaaaaaah!
He saw a tall man standing upright behind Lee Jaeyeong before his eyes. A naked body with long, disheveled hair.
“I… mu…”
It was Imugi.
The hangi that had been touching his solar plexus withdrew in an instant. With exactly one breath remaining, the hangi retreated.
—There was only a little left—!
The hangi cried out as if frustrated. But the voice came from above his head, not before his eyes. Yugeon slowly moved his eyes to look above his head. He saw two blackish-blue, gaunt legs.
—Why now of all times!
The blackish-blue legs that had been shrieking stepped back hesitantly and disappeared just like that. Yugeon, who had been rolling his eyes this way and that looking for the disappeared hangi, lowered his gaze to see Imugi again.
But Lee Jaeyeong’s face entered his vision before Imugi’s.
When their eyes met, confusion began to fill Lee Jaeyeong’s dazed eyes.
“Lee Yugeon…?”
Lee Jaeyeong, who had blinked and called out to Yugeon questioningly, began to look left and right with a bewildered face. To confirm where this was, why he was here. Then as he lowered his gaze at the strange sense of discomfort he felt in his lower body, he let out a shrill scream.
“Hiiik!”
Yugeon was lying there naked, and he himself was positioned between Yugeon’s legs, with his member inserted into Yugeon.
Lee Jaeyeong recoiled in horror as if falling backward. As his limp member withdrew from inside Yugeon, blood-mixed semen flowed out together. Of course, his own member was also glistening with blood and semen.
“Aaaah!”
Lee Jaeyeong, his face drained of color, picked up clothes scattered randomly on the floor and hurriedly wiped his member. Then he hastily pulled up his fallen pants and retreated on his knees.
“I, I don’t know anything about this…! I, I didn’t do this!”
With clattering sounds, Lee Jaeyeong hurriedly rushed out of the bookstore. Yugeon stared blankly at Lee Jaeyeong like that, then struggled to sit up. Imugi still stood upright in front of the door.
Yugeon began to pull over his scattered clothes with trembling hands and put them on. When he tried to put on his t-shirt, his palm became sticky. When he checked, it was a mess of blood and semen. It seemed the t-shirt was what Lee Jaeyeong had used to wipe his member. In the end, Yugeon stopped putting on the t-shirt halfway and burst into tears.
Yugeon, who had been lying on the floor sobbing and letting out suppressed cries, sat up again and was putting on the remaining clothes when he looked at Imugi.
“Thank you… for helping me….”
Yugeon bowed his head in gratitude. What would have happened if Imugi hadn’t come? He had surely been at death’s door. At the time he hadn’t been afraid, but thinking about it afterward, he was terrified. He was sincerely grateful to Imugi.
“…Watching over you, it seemed you had little breath left.”
At the slowly following answer, Yugeon raised his head.
“You were watching over me?”
“……”
“Since when…?”
“……”
“Don’t tell me from the beginning…?”
“……”
“You… you were watching everything? But why didn’t you help me…?”
Imugi tilted his head.
“Did you want help?”
When Yugeon looked at him as if to say what kind of obvious question was that, Imugi chuckled.
“Then you should have called me. Not your younger brother.”
Yugeon’s eyes narrowed greatly.
“Just, just for something like that…?”
“Why should I help you when you didn’t even call me?”
Yugeon had a dazed expression. Why should he help me…? I, I called you….
“I… I called you a dragon, didn’t I?”
Imugi laughed.
“Yes. You called me a dragon.”
And he added, twisting his mouth viciously.
“Hatefully so.”
“?”
“If you had called me a snake like the others, I could have hated and cursed you with peace of mind and killed you.”
Imugi was sincere. He sincerely hated him. He couldn’t understand.
“I called you… a dragon…. Why…?”
Imugi only looked at Yugeon without saying anything. The thickly clinging gaze was chillingly cold and heavy. He felt crushed. His already trembling arms gave out.
“Did I… really call you a dragon? You’re not mistaken?”
“No.”
At the firm denial, Yugeon’s eyes widened as he glared at Imugi.
“Then why! I don’t remember any of it, so why am I like this because of that…!”
Because he called him a dragon, he hates him, and because he called him a dragon, he couldn’t kill him with peace of mind? Because he called him a dragon, he just watched while such a thing happened to him?
Along with his sense of injustice, something surged up from his throat. Yugeon hurriedly covered his mouth and coughed.
“Cough, cough!”
Each time his chest heaved from coughing, his lungs especially hurt. His palm also felt damp. When he removed his hand, his palm was completely soaked with blood. Yugeon, who had been silently staring at his palm, asked “Is it enough if I die?” as he slowly raised his head to look at Imugi.
“If I die… if I die, you can end it all with that? Then, just kill me…! Just kill me!”
Yugeon raged with a heart-wrenching cry.
Because if he had died that day, back then, he wouldn’t be suffering this now.
Yugeon, who had been shouting and raging, seemed to have exhausted his energy as his eyes rolled back and he collapsed just like that.
Imugi stood there like a stone statue and only watched the collapsed Yugeon. After standing like that for a while, Imugi disappeared, leaving Yugeon behind.
A short while later, a mint-colored boat docked at Imokdo’s pier. It was Migeon’s boat. The people at the pier expressed bewilderment seeing Migeon return early, but Migeon left the pier quickly with an expressionless face without any response. He had crescent-moon shaped pupils with bright yellow eyes.
After a while, Migeon, who had arrived in front of the bookstore, slowly closed and opened his eyes. The bright yellow irises set and pitch-black pupils rose.
“…?”
Migeon blinked a couple times with a bewildered expression, then looked around.
“Why am I…?”
Migeon, who had been muttering questioningly while tilting his head, slowly furrowed his brow and made a serious face, then soon raised his head and looked inside the bookstore. Yugeon’s figure couldn’t be seen. Migeon checked the time on his wristwatch and opened the bookstore door. The time was just past 2 o’clock.
“…Hyung?”
Migeon, who had been calling for Yugeon as he entered the bookstore, unconsciously stopped in his tracks. A strange atmosphere was permeating inside.
