Kang Ikwon held out the lighter he was holding with slightly stiff movements. The small plastic lighter held in his hand felt hot like a heated engine. In the darkness where distance sense had disappeared, tok, when it bumped into what was presumed to be a cigarette, the man finally turned his gaze toward Kang Ikwon. A flame that jumped up cutting through the moisture divided between the man and Kang Ikwon. Kang Ikwon watched the slender light that threw main light on the white face ignite into a defiant, clear point.
“Thank you.”
The man nodded the cigarette as if greeting. Kang Ikwon silently brought the slender light to the man’s face. Sliding from the ear along the contour, passing the smooth bridge of his nose and eye shape like a carved ridge, it reached his lush eyes. Like someone piecing together scattered fragments, he confirmed the dim fragments of features one by one with the light. The wandering light stopped in front of his lips. His plump lips lifted slightly and the teeth pressing the cigarette between them were glimpsed. The small, faint light stuck around that area and didn’t leave for a long time.
“……”
Unlike the sense of distance that had been clear even from afar, the man he faced right in front was vaguely unrealistic. Only then did Kang Ikwon realize he didn’t even know his name.
The gaze of the man staring intently at Kang Ikwon briefly slipped over his shoulder and returned.
“That foreigner from before?”
Flicking cigarette ash, he squinted his eyes.
“Is it you? I thought surely….”
The man chuckled.
“You were seducing people like this.”
“……”
Not a foreigner, and can speak Korean too.
The rebuttal that was about to come out went back in. Seduction. The back of his neck flushed with shame. His lips moved, but all the words that came to mind felt like petty tricks to draw the man’s attention, to win his favor, so he closed them again. Kang Ikwon returned the lighter as if throwing it.
“Cigarette?”
The man who lightly caught it asked. When Kang Ikwon neither shook nor nodded his head, he tapped it against the sink and suddenly spoke as if remembering.
“If you go down the stairs, there’s a door that leads outside.”
When he slightly lifted his chin to point downward, his white neck stood out. The man who rubbed it for a moment thinking briefly added shortly.
“Door.”
It was still simple, broken English. And it felt more like an eviction order than help.
Kang Ikwon’s cheek hardened as if hit. Kang Ikwon, who had been frozen for a moment, slowly turned his back. He went down the short staircase of only three steps as slowly as if someone were holding him back and pressed the automatic door button, but the door didn’t budge. Even when he pressed firmly again, it just stayed stubbornly still. Bang! Kang Ikwon struck the button with his fist. Buzz, it only trembled slightly and the door was still solid like a coy fortress.
“Don’t broke door.”
A leisurely voice came over. Kang Ikwon glared at the solid glass door. Over his own blurred image reflected on the smooth, still glass, the outline of the man half-sitting on the sink overlapped.
“If you hit it so violently like that, you’ll break the door.”
A faint laugh tinged the calm voice.
…It’s already broken.
Kang Ikwon turned around with the same glaring gaze and spat lowly. The man rested his chin on one folded knee and stared down at Kang Ikwon as if teasing him. The leg hanging down didn’t serve as support and swayed languidly. The man muttered as if sighing.
“I’m really not in the mood to be nice to foreigners today.”
Kang Ikwon’s expression contorted. The man sucked the cigarette deeply and sweetly like the last breath of life. After pressing it out carelessly on the robe and leaving the mark stamped like a brand without even closing the hem, he came down the stairs. It was a tempo dragging half a beat behind, as if walking through water. The man who stood next to Kang Ikwon raised his arm. His slender but solid-looking wrist pressed somewhere above the door with a click. When he pushed sideways, the glass door opened with a clatter.
Pop. At the same time, light came on, scattering the darkness like dust. The opportune coincidence felt like magic the man had performed. The man tapped the glass as if boasting.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“……”
Without a response, Kang Ikwon stared at the man with fierce eyes.
“What a temper.”
The man chuckled and muttered without lowering his voice. His gaze returned to the outside, to the air that remained hazy and murkily dark even with the light back. From outside the half-open door, moonlight seeped in, embracing the remnants of crude lighting. Though it was a secluded place with few people, faint music and vibration sounds reached even here. He could feel the man’s interest quickly leaving Kang Ikwon again and becoming distantly far away. Silence pooled in the humid air. Kang Ikwon glared at the cheek white as moonlight. It would feel satisfying if that unattached gaze reached me directly and contorted, Kang Ikwon thought. Or, if he looked directly at me and smiled.
At that moment, the man who had been leaning diagonally against the door suddenly leaned toward Kang Ikwon. His body, practically naked, dug into his chest as if diving in. The warmth of still-wet skin struck him distinctly as if embodied. Kang Ikwon stiffened like someone stabbed with a knife.
What are you doing now—
“Just a moment.”
The man whispered very quietly and urgently. Shh, when the sigh-like word leaking from his lips touched him, his Adam’s apple hardened. In that gap, the man stretched his arm to embrace Kang Ikwon’s back and fumbled at the wall. Tak. With a small sound, the light went out. The shower room became pitch dark again like during the power outage. Even Kang Ikwon’s arm that had been pushing the man away melted into that darkness.
Thump.
At first, Kang Ikwon thought it was the vibration of an amp ringing from far away. The noise amplified by the silence submerged in darkness was so loud that he was briefly intimidated by that vivid reverberation. What is this? As he panicked, the beating became even louder and faster. Kang Ikwon soon realized it was his own heartbeat. Kang Ikwon, who had been about to push the man away to check his body’s abnormal signs, stopped his hand. This might be the man’s heartbeat. No, that’s all it could be. Because right now, the two bodies were completely pressed together.
All around was quiet and the two people were in close contact. It was a silence that gave the illusion of hearing the man’s breathing, pulse, even the sound of his eyelashes moving when he closed and opened his eyes.
“Jin!”
Within that, Kang Ikwon detected the noise that joined a bit late. A voice calling someone rang from a distance hard to gauge. Perhaps the man had known from the start, as he held his breath when the sound gradually approached. The man’s body, with all his nerves focused outside, leaned a bit more toward Kang Ikwon. The man didn’t seem to notice, but Kang Ikwon also held his breath. As vision closed, the skin clinging to the sensitively heightened sense of touch was more vivid than nakedness. It was a relief so clearly protruding it was unpleasant—the elasticity of thighs, the smooth texture of cheeks, even the man’s small nipples pressed below the chest.
“Jin!”
“Don’t just suddenly search… wait for him… Wait.”
There wasn’t just one voice. Someone stopped the person shouting as if advising.
“…Let his anger… subside… You need to give him some time.”
“Why? I need to declare my love and clear up the misunderstanding first!”
“Misunderstanding… but you having a wife… and other… lovers… are all facts….”
Unlike the calm voice heard intermittently, the voice crying out for Jin was vigorous and clear like a comedy actor.
“What’s important isn’t the truth but sincerity. If Jin is convinced, we can continue to be happy.”
For a moment, the man muttered something lowly that sounded like a curse. The murmuring voices became clear as if they’d approached right next to them, then gradually faded with the sound of dragging shoes. Even after the presence completely disappeared, the man didn’t pull away his body buried in Kang Ikwon. Kang Ikwon felt like he’d go deaf from the beating pounding his body beyond the touching chest.
The man suddenly sighed. The man who slowly pulled away his body glared outside.
“Fuck… I was trying to end it quietly.”
The man rummaged through his pocket with slightly irritated hands and took out a cigarette. He put it in his mouth, then changed his mind and spat it out again. The man endured something, tightly closing and opening his eyes. He broke the back of the new cigarette without even lighting it, threw it, and slipped out swiftly without a glance. Without looking back, the hem of his robe moved away with long strides. The back view rippled like burning white flames. Only after a long while did Kang Ikwon slowly pull away his leaning body and stand straight. His heart was still beating painfully fast.
***
Finding the man was very easy this time.
“Jin, calm down and listen to me first!!”
Not far away, a round group of people was visible. Unlike the hotel where light had returned, the outdoors was still pitch dark. Everyone had gone inside, and not many people were watching with excited faces. Among the surrounding spectators, a sound of fierce oratory was heard.
“I’m not meeting three people in order, just meeting them simultaneously, it’s just a difference in thinking.”
The appeal close to a cry was quite shameless in content unlike the romantic tone. The one making noise was clearly a perfect blonde foreigner, but his Korean was fluent without any awkwardness from accent to pronunciation. The man who had rushed out of the shower room stood silently with his arms crossed looking at the ground, unlike his momentum from that time.
“So my love can actually deepen threefold, Jin.”
The blonde suddenly whispered sweetly and approached the man. He wasn’t tall but was a man with quite a good build. When he extended his two large hands toward the shoulders, the man’s back view instantly became pitiful. Kang Ikwon unknowingly stepped forward to block in front of the man.
“Who are you?”
The blonde looked at Kang Ikwon bewilderedly. He seemed a bit flustered by the height and build that was much larger than himself. He gestured with his chin with a displeased face.
“People who aren’t involved should get lost.”
Instead of backing away, Kang Ikwon looked down at the blonde intently.
Since you’re saying that, it makes me not want to leave.
What?
I’m not involved, but I have business.
And it’s not sticky like your business. As Kang Ikwon’s words fell, the atmosphere between the two instantly became hostile.
…You bastard, it looks like you’re trying to quickly muscle in between us just because Jin is a bit angry,
It was the moment when the glaring blonde stepped forward threateningly.
“Right, people who aren’t involved shouldn’t butt in, move aside.”
It wasn’t the blonde who pushed Kang Ikwon, but the man he’d been looking for. The man’s face when he raised his head was far from pitiful.
“If you came to stop me, fuck off.”
