It’s not that the lens fell out? When he barely spat out those words, the man snorted.
“Why don’t you do something about all that black stuff around your eyes? It makes you look mean.”
“Mind your own business.”
“Right, you don’t just look mean, you actually seem mean.”
The eyes that had been glaring at Kang Ikwon forcefully couldn’t last even a few seconds and narrowed with rising tears.
“And why are your eyes like that anyway?”
Kang Ikwon looked intently at the area around the man’s narrowing eyes. The cheeks from which the flush had disappeared were as pale as Kang Ikwon, who still hadn’t recovered from the shock.
“Can you even see me with those eyes?”
“I can see. In the shape of a person.”
“…That doesn’t count as seeing.”
“I can see… just in several layers.”
The man suddenly extended his hand and slowly touched around the eyes as Kang Ikwon had done earlier. When he grabbed the cheek and pulled, Kang Ikwon obediently tilted his face without resistance. Instead of the deathly pale cheeks and mouth that wouldn’t open well from the cold, still-wet eyes filled Kang Ikwon’s vision.
“Well, you seem handsome….”
The smell of alcohol became sweetly strong. When the breath that had regained some warmth touched his chin, even the sound of inhaling and exhaling with a gasp was sucked into Kang Ikwon’s lips instead of his ears.
“…You said you don’t look elsewhere when you have a lover.”
Kang Ikwon whispered. Did I say that to you? Ignoring the wordless question mixing into the eyes, Kang Ikwon squeezed the man’s cheek tightly.
“Seduction right after breaking up?”
“No.”
The man snickered.
“This? You don’t have much dating experience, do you?”
Kang Ikwon, hit right on the mark, glared at the man.
“So you stick to anyone anytime and act loose?”
“Loose… really.”
This time the man even turned his head to sneer. Kang Ikwon’s pride crumpled. The man said confidently.
“If I had seriously tried to seduce you, you wouldn’t even be standing like this.”
Again, he didn’t understand the man’s words, but Kang Ikwon didn’t ask back. The man, who read the curious inner thoughts in the cold and stubborn eyes, laughed lowly and wrapped his arms around Kang Ikwon’s neck, pressing his buttocks firmly. The moment the round curve wrapped in thin fabric lightly rubbed against his groin, the man put his lips to Kang Ikwon’s chin and whispered.
Your dick is getting hard.
The breath leaking from his mouth licked his neck long like a tongue. The man slowly pulled his lips away. The smell of alcohol, hot breath, and scent of dry grass moved away in order. The man felt the bottom that had hardened in an instant and smiled mischievously.
“This is seduction.”
Thump. The sound that shook the ground like an amp’s vibration fell onto his chest. This time it was clearly a beating shaking his body. Unlike the bottom where heat gathered, his ears became distant. Kang Ikwon slowly but fiercely pushed the man away with hands dulled from freezing. The man who rolled off his knee blinked eyes still with a trace of laughter.
“Did I joke too much? Are you angry?”
Without answering, Kang Ikwon turned around. Moving away quickly with large strides like someone trembling or running away, he suddenly changed direction, came back, and grabbed the man’s head.
“Stop acting like a drunk prostitute.”
When the large hand gripped the man’s cheek and chin at once, the upper lip protruded even more plumply. Crushing it with his fingers, Kang Ikwon spat out while chewing.
“The only ones who’d fall for this kind of loose behavior are trash like that who treats you as a third spare.”
The blinking eyelashes stopped. The man’s face had been deathly pale from earlier, making his complexion hard to read. Suddenly, over the silent man’s cheeks, tears began rolling down abundantly, incomparably more than just before. Kang Ikwon swallowed his breath.
“What fucking thing…”
The man knocked away Kang Ikwon’s hand. At the not particularly fierce touch, Kang Ikwon weakly retreated. Along with the man’s tears, his heart that had fallen beat anxiously like someone who had committed a crime.
“Pretending not to know Korean while picking up everything, calling someone a spare, you bastard.”
The man extended his hand and even in this situation firmly grasped Kang Ikwon’s hard cock. With eyes that looked pitiful rather than fierce because of tears, he glared.
“Who got hard from that loose behavior?”
As the flush deepened with anger, the tears beading over it were contrastingly vivid. When the man closed and opened his eyes, the pooled tears dropped and filled again faster. The wave-like eye shape that always seemed to be smiling became this sorrowful when crying. Kang Ikwon’s chest tightened as if responding to the tears.
Kang Ikwon, who had been glaring at the bowed man’s shoulders and still-bleeding foot, stood up. After standing stiffly like a jangseung pole, he picked up the fallen robe and wrapped it around the bare back. The skin touching his fingertips was frighteningly cold.
Kang Ikwon knelt in front of the man again, hugged his waist and lifted him as is. The man who was suddenly floating in the air twisted his body, but Kang Ikwon didn’t release his strength even while getting his shin stamped on by heels. After firmly adjusting the draped body once, he started walking with long strides while carrying him like a sack.
“What are you doing, fuck, put me down. I don’t need your help anymore.”
The man flailed and hit his arms and shoulders. As he’d guessed when he beat Joffrey, it was a seriously fierce fist. However, that strength soon subsided and instead the shoulder quietly began to get wet. Kang Ikwon’s back stiffened harder than when being hit. The man rubbed his forehead against the shoulder as if stamping it.
Thud thud. As if that was a signal, the walking speed became faster and faster. The area where the shoulder got wet spread wider and wider, hot and stinging like fire spreading. The stride kept getting wider and bigger each time, finally changing to almost running. Quickly throw this man down, no, put him down, wrap him warmly in something warm and cozy and melt him. No, first that damn tears…
Kang Ikwon ran like a horse kicked in the stomach.
When the shower room’s glass door came into view, he prepared to kick it, but the automatic door fulfilled its duty unlike before. Kang Ikwon jumped up the stairs in one go and set the man down on the sink. Sitting in a posture with no strength at all, barely threading only the sleeves of the almost stripped robe, the man cried steadily.
Every time his eyes squeezed shut and opened, tears flowed soundlessly in drops. It was the most pitiful sight Kang Ikwon had ever seen in his life.
He turned on the warm water first without warning. After glaring at the water splashing up like a fountain onto the man’s foot with crossed arms, he hesitantly washed the foot with awkward hands. When he rubbed the sole, blood mixed with water and spread. Fortunately, the wound didn’t seem severe as the water color quickly lightened.
After washing until no more blood seeped out, Kang Ikwon hesitated a bit then brought his hand to the man’s face. When the large finger roughly but carefully rubbed below the eyes, the tender skin was pushed.
Kang Ikwon wetted his palm with water again and this time gently wiped the cheeks and nose. Tears and water droplets formed together on the eyelashes and the flush that had become light like blood water. After clumsily washing even the face, Kang Ikwon stepped back one pace. And then he bluntly spat out as if he didn’t know what more to do now.
“Don’t cry.”
However, upon hearing those words, the tears that had been subsiding rose again instead. Kang Ikwon contorted his face with difficulty.
“Why do you keep crying?”
“I’m just annoyed and sad.”
“I….”
Kang Ikwon hesitated and added.
“My words were harsh.”
For Kang Ikwon, those were very unfamiliar and awkward words. Not knowing what he had ventured in a short time to say these words, the man very easily shook his head.
“It’s not your fault.”
The man said in a voice that was slightly submerged but calmed down.
“I’m just sick and tired of various things… My boyfriend turned out to be cheating with three people and married, and he ran away before I could properly beat him up.”
No, you beat him properly.
“My foot’s bleeding. Because of me, even an innocent person got involved. After jumping in the water, now even my dick feels like it’ll freeze….”
Are you still cold? The inside of the shower room was damp and warm, but Kang Ikwon reflexively approached, grabbed the shoulders and arms and rubbed them. Even after wetting them with water, Kang Ikwon’s fingertips were still cold. Realizing that, he looked displeased and rinsed them in the hot water to raise the body temperature.
When the much warmer large hands rubbed a few times, heat rose instantly over a wide area. The man quietly looked at Kang Ikwon then rested his forehead on the shoulder.
“Don’t be too nice to me right now. I’m drunk, sad, can’t see, so I’m extremely weak.”
“If just this is being too nice, I don’t know what kind of trash you’ve only met.”
In fact, this kind of thing Kang Ikwon was talking about was the greatest kindness he’d ever shown in his life. But Kang Ikwon was annoyed without even thinking about himself.
“Right. I like affectionate people.”
The man muttered blankly.
“If you think about it, you have nothing to do with me either. You’re being extremely nice.”
“Because I’m affectionate.”
Kang Ikwon said without changing his expression at all.
“So much I can’t pass by even people I’m not involved with. That’s all.”
“Liar.”
The man laughed loudly enough to resound in Kang Ikwon’s chest. He raised his head and said.
“Where in the world is there kindness without a price?”
Kang Ikwon with his arms on the sink and the man with his feet in the basin looked at each other for a long time. Kang Ikwon raised his hand and slowly touched the man’s wet eyelashes, cleared eyes, and cheeks changing to a light pink color as if tracing them.
Eventually, the hand that reached the lips stayed there for a long time. Silence-mixed moisture drifted around the interior like fog. From somewhere, the sound of a water droplet falling and hitting was heard.
Kang Ikwon suddenly turned his head and kissed. The tongue that opened the lips and dug in without difficulty quickly licked inside the man’s mouth and withdrew. Kang Ikwon took that tongue into his own mouth and scanned it as if checking the texture.
“Right.”
