The man hastily tore off his mask and pulled Woonghee into an even deeper embrace. He could no longer afford leisure, or any of that shit. He had been mercilessly defeated. As if surrendering to Woonghee, he collapsed on top of that pale body as if he would crush it completely.
“Ah…”
Lee Woonghee sighed and collapsed backward. His legs hooked over the dining table as his slender body crumbled on top of it. And then he reached out his hands toward him. Toward him—a palm as large as a bird’s wing was placed on his face.
“Why are you sweating so much?”
Lee Woonghee’s cheeks shone white. His crimson lips whispered like a blooming rosy rose. Like a waltz of the night.
You don’t seem like someone who lives breathing in reality. You seemed as if your bones were molded from gathered white clouds, and your blood was filled by splitting apart the reddish sunset and pouring it in abundantly. You were exactly like a transcendent phantom that bloomed from within a man’s unconsciousness. Incredibly dreamlike. It felt as though if he closed his eyes and opened them again, you would disappear like smoke, poof.
“Did you have another nightmare?”
“Only you make me afraid.”
Even when he watched that movie that was said to make you piss yourself after showing you the most rock-bottom fear at the age of thirteen, even when he watched that commercial film famous for making tears burst forth without fail—he had never squeezed out a single tear.
That’s why he slammed his head against the wall several times. Because his mother was moved only when he shed tears like chicken droppings. My child, finally, shed tears after watching a sad movie…!
Nothing could shake him. But.
“…Only you, Woonghee-ssi, break me down.”
“Did you take your medicine? What did the doctor say?”
The man had once summoned a psychiatrist to the cruise. Something about obsessive-compulsive disorder. A type of anxiety disorder, they said.
…Well, what does the diagnosis matter. In the end, it stems from anxiety. Right, Lee Woonghee, the fear of losing you.
“Just a moment…”
A white hand gently pushed him away. Although irritation shot up like a fountain from within, the man obediently followed his touch.
In Gi Junhyuk’s world, he had always been the center. He could possess someone, manipulate them, make them love him.
‘I’ll stay by your side…’
However, Lee Woonghee simply cannot be controlled. In this uncontrollable swamp of a relationship, he became increasingly obsessive. On nights filled with deathly silence, a heart-tearing emptiness would visit.
When he was diagnosed with anxiety disorder, he was actually relieved. Yes, he was grateful that at least it had a name. In the world he created, the fear of losing the one and only existence trying to escape. This was an illness. It wasn’t that he himself had gone mad, it wasn’t that he had become frenzied because of Lee Woonghee.
“We need to blow out the candles.”
Click, Lee Woonghee stretched his arm long behind him. The surroundings were dyed in darkness, and now in this pitch-black darkness, there were only Lee Woonghee and him. Then Lee Woonghee extended his hand to the man.
“Do you have a lighter?”
The man pulled out a lighter from the pocket inside his robe and handed it over. Lee Woonghee lit the candle with the lighter he had made with his name engraved on it. As the thick candle was lit, the darkness receded and a white face came into view.
“Try blowing out the candle. And make sure to make a wish too.”
Flicker, flicker, flicker. As those fresh lips spoke, the fox-tail-like reddish candlelight swayed gently.
“A wish…”
The man had never made a wish in his entire life. He had always lived grasping everything he wanted in his hands.
However.
Beyond the still-flickering, wavering candlelight, eyelashes fluttered like wings.
“Hurry up.”
Once, I thought about tearing Lee Woonghee’s wings. If that wasn’t possible, I suffered from the obsession of wanting to burn away even those eyelashes.
“……”
The man reached out impulsively. He could grab Lee Woonghee’s pale face and kiss him roughly as if he would pull out his tongue, or spread his legs and ruthlessly shove his cock between them.
However, all he did was gently caress those eyelashes with his thumb. The eyelashes moved slowly, tenderly soothing the man’s weakly torn heart.
“…A wish.”
Soon, whoosh, the man blew out the candle. Poof, in the white smoke that was extinguishing, the wish the man made was something like this.
I wish you could be mine forever…
However, the ticking sound within the man’s watch could still be heard. Probably, it would ring for a lifetime. Time continues to flow even now. One month—about one month remained until the promised time.
If he wanted, he could buy up entire islands, bring all the precious jewels in the world into his arms—but just one thing. He couldn’t stop time. Drip, sweat flowed down the man’s handsome forehead. Lee Woonghee’s hand carefully swept back his bangs.
“You’re really, really sweating a lot.”
Whispering like that, he blew on it with his mouth, whoosh. His forehead tickled from the tickling breeze. Lee Woonghee laughed with a light trembling of his chest, giggling. Then, with the fork placed beside him, he scooped up a corner of the cake and held it right in front of the man’s nose. It was in a clumsy shape beyond measure, covered in cream.
“Say ah.”
When the man opened his mouth as if entranced, Lee Woonghee carefully pushed it into his mouth. Even though it was just harmless, fluffy bread. It was sweet enough to make the roof of his mouth ache. A tingling sweetness spread across his tongue, and a subtle cinnamon scent pricked his nose.
“How is it?”
Woonghee sucked on the whipped cream on his finger. As he smiled with the corners of his eyes folding, for a moment, the man forgot what he had just swallowed. One thing was certain. He was collapsing. Incredibly quickly and miserably.
“It’s incredibly sweet, did you sprinkle poison on it or something?”
“No, it’s just that my bread-making skills are fucking terrible.”
Lee Woonghee laughs. Dizzily. As if to drain his mind completely.
“We’re going back together, to that land of South Korea.”
He whispers like a devil. While fastening the hem of the man’s robe, which had become vulgarly disheveled from losing his mind and chasing after him.
“All of us together.”
Then he patted the man’s chest as if soothing him. As if to calm the heart that must be beating heavily beneath it.
“The other people too.”
“……”
He could see those large eyes rolling around brightly in the darkness. Gauging the man’s mood, and also subtly inquiring about their safety.
“They’re all doing well, right? You always told me that.”
“Of course.”
They’re all alive and well, and I’m feeding them too. The man muttered quietly.
“Where they are… I shouldn’t ask about that either, right?”
The man ground his teeth, crack. Please don’t bring up other people in front of me, today is my birthday, and didn’t you also make this shitty bread for me with your own hands?
At that, poof, an ominous emotion like poison spread through his chest. It was a familiar anxiety, displeasure, uneasiness. Didn’t you betray me every time by holding another’s hand in front of me? So why are you looking for them again in front of me, why exactly. Even on a day like today that you prepared for me.
My obsessive-compulsive disorder feeds on your existence and grows from its remnants. Now it fills my mind completely, pitch-black and packed tight. If you leave me, what will become of me? Such questions continue to circle round and round in my mind without answers.
Because you might leave me, turn your back without a word to me, and disappear so coldly like that—I collapse several times a day.
In the end, after somehow calming me down, you’ll try to quietly run away, won’t you? This time, you’ll really make up your mind to escape properly, won’t you?
So that I can’t chase after you. So that I can’t find you.
…But you know what’s funny? Because I’m so afraid that will happen, because I’m so scared of that, I chase you more, I cling more. Even though I know that in the end, the frenzied me will go insane.
“Do you love me?”
“…Yes, I love you.”
He could no longer tell what was truth anymore. The man wanted to dig into that truth. However, he couldn’t cut open that white skin to examine the inner thoughts. So he would have to test it. Woonghee-ssi, the man called Lee Woonghee.
Lee Woonghee looked at him with eyes mixed with anxiety and anticipation. With white whipped cream dotted on his round nose tip, giving off a sweet scent. After receiving that unwavering gaze for a while, the man’s lips opened slowly.
“I always asked. Where did the other people go…”
A strange light appeared in Lee Woonghee’s eyes. Right, Lee Woonghee remains the same. What moves you is always guilt. Then the man wanted to ask. How much has his own existence grown within you, how much guilt can he evoke?
“Don’t you want to see them?”
Will you hold their hands again in front of me?
With my necklace around your neck, will you betray me and leave again? The man wanted to ask.
