Not just five minutes but a full fifty minutes had passed.
Hongdan hurriedly got up from his seat to check if the biological alarm was alive or dead.
“No way…”
And what he faced was a sight he couldn’t believe even seeing with his own two eyes.
Seonha was standing in punishment in the exact same spot where Hongdan had placed him, in the same posture he’d seen earlier.
The cream beige knit collar area had clearly darkened—too much for him to have been slacking off the whole time only to hurriedly rush back into position upon hearing Hongdan’s approaching footsteps. It was one of the clothes Seonha had pestered Hongdan to choose for him this morning with an excited face.
While Hongdan was assessing the situation, their wandering gazes finally collided. Seonha’s face was truly a spectacle. It was pitiful, stained with sweat and tears he couldn’t fully wipe away.
In that shabby state, Seonha struggled to move his mouth.
“Hong… Hongdan, can I stop now…? My legs hurt so much…”
Before he even finished speaking, Hongdan immediately helped Seonha stand up. Then, perhaps because his center of gravity suddenly shifted and the strength drained from his legs, Seonha staggered greatly. Hongdan slipped his hands between his armpits to support the large body that was no different from a balloon doll, letting him lean against him.
His heart became uncomfortable for no reason, so he spat out words haphazardly.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you standing this long, I just took a na… No, but you kept standing the whole time? Are you really the Yeon Seonha I know? You’re not secretly a twin or something, right?”
“As if I’d have something like that…”
Seonha rubbed his slightly chafed eyes against Hongdan’s shoulder and whined. His voice was still tinged with moisture. Hongdan patted Seonha’s back, subtly indicating that he wouldn’t allow him to burrow any further into his embrace.
“I know it’s hard, but try walking first. How am I supposed to move a pig like you? If you can’t move, we’ll both have to sleep rough here today, man.”
Though in truth, Hongdan himself had just been sleeping rough—if not quite rough—until a moment ago. He hid that awkward truth completely as he spoke. No matter how much of an idiot he’d become, if Hongdan told him he’d forgotten all about making him stand at attention for over fifty minutes in this blazing sun and had just been passed out sleeping, there was no way his feelings wouldn’t be hurt.
Seonha did pull his body away a bit at Hongdan’s words, but pouted his lips as if very unwilling. But now he could easily ignore even that sulking. His heart was at peace even without imagining grabbing those lips.
Hongdan wrapped his arm around Seonha’s waist to support him more properly. For a moment, it seemed like his abs twitched and jumped. However, he didn’t pay much attention and lightly passed it off as him being ticklish. It was also true that Seonha was particularly sensitive to tickling.
Hongdan dragged Seonha along a few steps like that and sat side by side on the stone steps in front of a nearby building. Then he placed Seonha’s long legs on his lap. It was a weight he hadn’t felt in quite a while.
“I’ll massage them a bit for you.”
Without giving Seonha time to answer, Hongdan began massaging his thighs.
Seonha’s eyes widened at the completely unexpected skinship. Moreover, because of the location, he instinctively detected a danger signal. Seonha jerked his calves, trying to stop this dizzying act immediately.
“Wa-wait, Hongdan. I’m fin… ah!”
However, the innocent Hongdan just slapped the outside of his thigh to subdue the rebellion.
“Stay still, okay? You think I want to do this?”
The hands kneading his legs also became increasingly rough. As if trying to burst Seonha’s thighs completely, Hongdan was squeezing the quadriceps that didn’t even fully fit in his hands. But Hongdan originally had small hands for his height and was far from athletic. There was no way someone like him could suddenly become a professional masseuse with a grip strength of 60.
In other words, only ticklish stimulation was being transmitted to Seonha.
Seonha swallowed his dry saliva once and looked at the air, praying to God to protect his human rights. He also tried to reason with Hongdan in a quite serious voice.
“No, I can walk. Really.”
“Bullshit. Until just now you were standing there like a newborn calf.”
“…”
Would he have been able to avoid this bewitching massage by being carried away in an ambulance if he’d just fallen and broken his nose? Seonha cursed inwardly.
It seemed no ordinary lie would work. The heat he couldn’t possibly ignore was starting to make his head creak, and it was also hard to come up with more excuses.
To put it bluntly, his sexual preferences could by no means be called mild. But he absolutely, really absolutely! wasn’t so promiscuous as to get a hard-on at school in broad daylight.
Seonha tried closing his eyes tightly to turn his senses elsewhere. The national flag and hibiscus had already been fluttering in his head several times. Hongdan wouldn’t know how much he’d praised the beautiful rivers and mountains of our country. Seonha’s hands hidden tightly behind him were clearly carving nail marks into each other’s backs.
However.
“Ah, wai…”
“Oh, sorry… What.”
Hongdan’s innocent fingertips ended up grazing where his genitals were stored. In that moment, Seonha’s human rights crumbled like a sandcastle swept away by waves.
“…Fuck.”
Even a can of cola shaken dozens of times would be more well-behaved than Seonha’s thing right now.
His face, which had rarely reddened, burned as if it would burst at any moment. Seonha’s small ego grew in size at an uncontrollably rapid pace. The left groin area of his well-pressed slacks swelled stiffly. It was an embarrassingly vivid shape.
“…”
There was no way Hongdan would miss that. No, because it was Hongdan who saw that sight, it was even harder to pass over—a uselessly familiar thing.
Unspeakable shame pressed down heavily on Seonha’s head.
“Is that… hard, by any chance?”
Hongdan asked in a slightly trembling voice. Beyond bewilderment, the impact was greater because he could feel a disgust close to contempt. Seonha’s following voice naturally crawled into a tunnel.
“That’s why I said I was fine…”
“Fuck, what kind of horny bastard gets a hard-on just from having his thighs massaged!”
Smack!
Just like before, Hongdan hit the outside of Seonha’s thigh once more. It was similar force to before, but now it felt particularly stinging.
Seonha also had his own grievances. Hadn’t he refused once, anticipating this result? Nevertheless, the one who didn’t stop the massage was none other than Hongdan. The person who was involuntarily molested wasn’t Hongdan but himself.
Tears began to well up again in his deep gray eyes. This time it was mixed with much more sincerity than usual.
“You too… are a man, so you know, Hongdan. It’s not something I can control…”
“I’ve never gotten hard just from receiving a massage!”
“That’s because you’re not heal—”
“You really want to get washed in bleach, you slut?”
But at the fierce threat flowing through his clenched teeth, Seonha had to firmly close his mouth. Even if it was unfair, he had no choice because Hongdan’s words and the area where he’d been hit stung.
When had he even put it on his lap talking about massage—now Hongdan frowned heavily and barely held the hem of his pants with his index finger like pincers, tossing Seonha’s legs to the ground with thuds. He would have been more careful touching a cockroach corpse than this. It was truly terrible treatment.
Each time his shabby feet touched the ground one by one, Seonha also dropped a couple of tears. But Hongdan just clicked his tongue.
Tap tap— Hongdan brushed off his hands somewhat irritably and stood up from his seat.
“Seeing how healthy your lower body is, I think you can probably walk, so just get up, hurry. If you need some time separately, go to that corner and rub one out. You’re a bit unseemly to take around, hey.”
A dark shadow fell over Seonha’s head as he still sat upright on the stone steps. Seonha’s protruding lower lip looked more sulky than usual. Somehow his cheeks seemed more puffed up than before too.
“…I don’t want to.”
“Then what, you’re going to put on a jerk-off show in broad daylight? Fuck, don’t you think about my eyes?”
“You’ve seen mine plenty of times…”
“Ah, why does that suddenly come up!”
Because of the absurd remark that slipped out from his drooping lips, in the end Hongdan’s face also had to turn red. Unlike Seonha who was desperate to play with his cock every single day, he had no tolerance for such explicit conversations. Thanks to that, even during their married life he was always busy being teased by Seonha. Of course, it was also because Seonha liked Hongdan’s embarrassed face.
But the person who’d actually spat out obscenities at their sacred alma mater had returned to a shameless expression.
“Honestly, this is mostly your fault too.”
What he said was also utterly brazen.
“What bullshit is it now?”
Hongdan stood with his weight on one leg, openly displaying his dissatisfaction.
“No, I said not to but you kept touching me roughly… and I even said earlier that I like you, that I like you.”
Seonha subtly revealed his feelings again.
“Isn’t the bathroom behind the gym always open? Go there and take care of that, hey. You’re unseemly to take around, really.”
Hongdan lightly ignored it.
He wondered if maybe he’d missed it because his voice was small, but Hongdan’s subtly averted gaze was saying it. ‘I heard you well, and now it’s nothing to do with me so read the room and shut up.’
A faint sigh flowed from Seonha’s mouth. He also had his own frustrations.
Setting aside rejection, why was he even trying to deny the fact that he liked him?
“…Hongdan, is the fact that I like you that upsetting?”
And why was he getting so angry even at feelings held alone?
“Or what, should I hit that and break it for you? Then you might never be able to get it up again, but is that okay?”
Even at the more direct words, Hongdan’s reaction was still ignoring. But Seonha was resolute. He asked once more in an unwavering voice.
“Hongdan, just tell me. Why do you hate so much that I like you?”
“…I think I asked you this before too.”
Should he call it fortunate? Hongdan wasn’t the kind of person who could ignore the same words three times.
Hongdan’s head slowly turned toward Seonha. Thinking he was finally facing his feelings directly, Seonha’s lips rose high, then
“Why did you come looking for me of all people?”
Plummeted again. Seeing what was submerged in his eyes.
No, in fact Seonha couldn’t guess what Hongdan had buried in those depths. The black eyes he faced felt like a distant deep sea.
Seonha felt like he wanted to avoid Hongdan’s current appearance.
It was as if he’d fallen into too deep a sea. His feet didn’t touch bottom. Even if he flailed and flailed again, it seemed like no one would come to rescue him. He didn’t want to sink into it. Even if he was already submerged, he wanted to turn away from that reality. Just as Hongdan had turned away from Seonha’s heart until now.
But Hongdan rather bent his waist slightly, closing the distance.
This time, Hongdan was forcing his emotions on Seonha.
“Why did you come looking for me? Out of all those many friends of yours.”
Right now, Hongdan wasn’t sneering bitterly, nor were his lips drooping gloomily. It was an indifferent face that even looked peaceful at a glance.
To Seonha, that ‘nothingness’ was more unfamiliar and chilling than anything.
He couldn’t easily respond. He couldn’t stop Hongdan’s words either.
“Do you really want to start over with me?”
Hongdan tilted his head.
Then Hongdan’s ashen hair that Seonha loved glittered mysteriously in the sunlight and tickled his clear forehead. Seonha wanted to make excuses to himself that he couldn’t answer because he was rather entranced by that scene.
“Now that you’ve lost your memories, you just want to pretend not to know and live lovey-dovey with me again?”
But in reality.
“If that’s it, fuck off.”
He’d just gotten scared in advance. Knowing he’d hear the words he most wanted to avoid.
Hearing the rejection that didn’t deviate from expectations at all, an answer he wanted to give back also came to mind in Seonha’s head. Though it was sulking no different from a child’s tantrum.
Seonha lowered his gaze, feeling like that childish heart would jump out any moment.
But Hongdan grabbed Seonha’s chin and lifted it.
Just like about an hour ago, when Seonha had conveyed his one-sided confession to him. Hongdan was also trying to commit tyranny now.
Of course, the words that would come from Hongdan’s dainty lips would absolutely not be sweet.
“Even if I was an idiot, you know…”
They would be bitter like freshly picked lettuce.
“I haven’t fallen so low in intelligence as to go back to sucking the cock of the bastard who made me lose my child.”
No, they would clearly be painful enough to give up even swallowing. Enough that even breathing would feel like inhaling grains of sand.
“Even if I died and came back to life a hundred times, I would never love you again, Yeon Seonha.”
The chin gripped so tightly hurt so much.
