When Yugeon opened his eyes in the morning, he looked to the side because he didn’t feel the weight that should have felt familiar. The spot where his younger brother should have been was completely empty.
“?”
As Yugeon looked around for his younger brother and raised his body, he stopped his actions when he discovered his younger brother leaning against the wall next to the door, face buried in his knees.
“Geon-ah? What are you doing there?”
At Yugeon’s voice, Migeon suddenly raised his head and quickly approached Yugeon’s side on his knees.
“You’re awake?”
Yugeon answered “Yeah…” and peered at his younger brother’s face as he approached.
“What were you doing there? Didn’t you sleep?”
There were plenty of shadows under his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept all night. Migeon turned his head as if avoiding his gaze, hesitated for a moment, then opened his mouth.
“In case the ghost came to find hyung again…”
“…What?”
Migeon hung his head low while kneeling.
“If it’s Lee Jaeyeong, I can stop him… but I don’t know what to do about a ghost…”
Yugeon hurriedly sat up. A sharp pain rose from between his buttocks, but there was no time to show it.
“Don’t, don’t do that! What if something big happens to you?”
“?”
“It said it would kill you! Back then, when it swung the knife on the boat, it did that to try to kill you! Don’t even face it! If you meet it, run away! You can’t do anything about it anyway!”
“Why can’t I do anything… If hyung gets sleep paralysis, I can wake you up, and if it possesses someone else and comes, I can drive it away.”
“I don’t want you to! What if something happens to you while doing that!”
“But it already happened to hyung… So how can I just run away alone? I, I said I would protect you…”
Migeon couldn’t finish his words and squeezed both eyes shut. It was devastating that he couldn’t do anything. If only grandmother had been alive… Yeah, if only grandmother had been alive.
“I wish grandmother were alive…”
At his younger brother’s muttering, Yugeon also silently hung his head.
If grandmother had been alive… Really, that would have been…
The brothers were silent for a moment. Then Yugeon looked down at his body and opened his mouth.
“Come to think of it, my clothes and body…?”
“Huh? Oh, I roughly did it yesterday… Sorry for touching you without permission.”
“…No… It’s, okay. But I want to wash… I want to wash cleanly with water…”
Migeon slightly narrowed his brow, then pointed at Yugeon’s hand with a troubled face.
“Ah, um… I don’t think it would be good if water touches the wounds…”
Of course, other places were also a problem, but he didn’t want to deliberately remind him.
Yugeon looked at his fingers covered with bandaids.
“What if I cover them with bags or something? It would be inconvenient, but…”
After hesitating for a moment, Migeon asked carefully.
“Rather… should I help you? If hyung is okay with it…”
Yugeon, who had been standing completely naked in the bathroom, turned his head at the sound of knocking on the door.
“Hyung, can I come in?”
“U-uh…”
When Yugeon gave permission, the bathroom door opened and Migeon, who had rolled his pants up to his knees, came in. Yugeon covered his body with one arm and avoided his gaze. Belated regret washed over him—why did he say he’d accept help?
Migeon hung the towel he’d brought on the towel rack without looking at Yugeon, who was standing awkwardly, and said.
“If you don’t like me looking, you can crouch down.”
Yugeon silently nodded and seemed to lower his body, then let out a low moan and raised his body again. Only then did Migeon look at his hyung with a face asking what was wrong. Yugeon touched his lower back in an awkward posture and made a tearful face.
“I don’t think I can sit… When I bend my body, it hurts too much…”
Migeon quickly turned his head. From his movements, he seemed to know where it hurt.
“Ah… Then I’ll wash you while trying not to look as much as possible. Sorry.”
“What do you have to be sorry for…”
Migeon picked up the showerhead and stood behind Yugeon’s back, turning on the water.
“Let’s apply medicine again after washing.”
“…Yeah.”
When Yugeon obediently nodded, Migeon began carefully spraying water starting from Yugeon’s shoulders. After spraying water in order from shoulders to back to waist, Migeon skipped the buttocks and sprayed water on the thighs and legs, then hesitated for a moment before wetting his hands with water and beginning to rub the buttocks as if stroking them.
Yugeon, who had been constantly hanging his head in embarrassment, was startled by his younger brother’s touch and turned around, but when their eyes met, he quickly lowered his head again.
“…Is it okay?”
Migeon asked. It was a question with a clear intention to stop immediately if he didn’t like it. Yugeon shrank his body and was silent, then blushed and shook his head slightly. Relieved by that small gesture, Migeon swallowed and carefully moved his hand again, and each time his younger brother’s touch reached him, Yugeon’s body visibly flinched.
After thoroughly wetting his whole body with water while avoiding the wounds, Migeon lathered up a shower towel and began rubbing and wiping starting from Yugeon’s arms. Migeon’s touch, which had been going up from the wrist to the shoulder, stopped for a moment at the neck. Migeon stared at Yugeon’s neck intently and asked.
“Your neck… doesn’t it hurt?”
Yugeon, who had been keeping his head down the whole time, raised his head with a puzzled face at his younger brother’s question. Then he checked the mirror and made a face of realization. Yugeon stroked around his neck with his other hand.
“It seems okay as long as I don’t touch it.”
“…I should buy medicine for bruises too.”
Yugeon only nodded silently, and Migeon also nodded silently and began moving his hands again. When the hands that had passed over the shoulders and arms touched his chest, Yugeon unconsciously curled his back.
Migeon began wiping his back without saying anything special, and Yugeon slowly released his tension and uncurled his back. But when he began wiping his abdomen, he tensed again and flinched, tensing his stomach each time the towel touched him, and each time Migeon didn’t rush or force it, but stopped his hands briefly and waited.
Having finished wiping his upper body, Migeon lathered the towel again and bent down to sit in front of Yugeon. Yugeon unconsciously stepped back in surprise, and Migeon looked up at Yugeon as if asking what was wrong.
His eyes were innocent. Yugeon felt awkwardly embarrassed and avoided his gaze, shaking his head.
“N-no, it’s nothing…”
Migeon tilted his head, then said “It’s slippery because of the foam, so don’t move, hyung,” and began wiping starting from Yugeon’s toes. From ankles to calves, he felt nothing. But when the touch rose above his knees, his face flushed for no reason. Moreover, when it rose above the knees, the touch strangely slowed down. It seemed like he was trying to be more careful, but that rather evoked a strange sensation.
When the hand stroking his thighs pushed into the intimate place on the inner thighs, Yugeon, not knowing what to do, touched his younger brother’s shoulder and exclaimed in a suppressed voice.
“Th-that, ah, it hurts…!”
It hadn’t even touched the wounded area. There was no way it could hurt, but in his embarrassment, anything just blurted out. Migeon also seemed surprised and quickly withdrew his hand in confusion.
“S-sorry…”
“No… Th-there, I think this is enough…”
“Ah… Okay, then I’ll rinse.”
Migeon seemed to hesitate for a moment, then soon agreed and stood up to turn on the showerhead. There were places he hadn’t fully soaped, but it seemed like a little rubbing with the soapy water rinsing down would do.
Migeon turned off the showerhead and covered Yugeon’s shoulders with the large towel he’d brought in, then went outside the bathroom. And standing Yugeon there steaming with vapor, he meticulously dried the water from his body with another towel.
He could have refused, saying he could dry the water himself, but Yugeon just silently accepted his younger brother’s touch. After drying all the water, Migeon handed over Yugeon’s clothes that he’d prepared in advance and left in front of the bathroom door. Yugeon tried to put on the clothes he received and made a puzzled face.
“…Underwear?”
“…W-well, I thought it would be better not to wear them until the wound heals.”
Yugeon looked at his younger brother with a dumbfounded face. Me, going commando?
Come to think of it, even before showering, when he took off his clothes, he had been surprised that there were no underwear.
“Or should I buy you some trunks?”
“…No. It’s fine.”
Yugeon sighed as if giving up and put his legs through the loose-fitting shorts.
When Yugeon finished putting on his clothes, Migeon sat him on the wooden floor, brought the first aid kit, and sat across from him. Then he began removing the bandaids wrapped around his hands one by one. Each time a bandaid was removed, the precariously attached fingernails also lifted together, so Yugeon had to squeeze his eyes shut and swallow his screams.
After finishing treatment on his hands and neck, Migeon held the ointment and quietly looked at Yugeon.
“If I said I’d do there too… you’d refuse, right?”
“Of course.”
Yugeon held out his hand as if asking for the ointment, and Migeon obediently handed over the ointment and added.
“You have to apply it thoroughly inside too.”
Yugeon, who received the ointment with a complicated face, raised his body awkwardly, then went to his room and closed the door. Migeon, who had been staring blankly at the closed door, approached in front of Yugeon’s room and sat down leaning against the door.
“I’ll be… outside.”
It meant to call him if he needed help.
