Woonghee fumbled to open his lips. His mouth was so dry that his tongue kept slipping. Somehow, the moment he said this, he felt like he would immediately regret it.
“They say the dead become stars.”
Yet he couldn’t help but say it.
Immediately, a gaze pierced into his forehead. Woonghee embedded both his eyes into the blazing bonfire. Crackle crackle. Fire was something that annihilated everything. Looking at that, which was also the man’s pheromone scent, Woonghee was reminded of his parents.
Crackle crackle, sparks flew.
The day of his parents’ funeral procession was still vivid in his memory.
Young Woonghee had been staring blankly at the coffin burning dark red. Tears welled up like a dam in his large eyes, but he couldn’t bring himself to cry out loud.
…Is that the last? It disappears like that? It shouldn’t be like that, how can they go so futilely. Countless questions arose inside, but nothing came out of his mouth.
No tears, no crying. At the funeral hall with not a single adult to comfort him, Woonghee just sat still. Even though Woongju, who had fallen asleep curled up in the room, was pitiful, he couldn’t comfort her. Because he was too young to accept what death was.
A child who could neither cry nor laugh. It just felt like everything had stopped.
The first person to notice such a Woonghee and hold him in their arms was his grandmother. Grandmother silently patted the young grandson’s back with her wrinkled hands.
“My grandmother said that.”
It was a story he couldn’t tell anyone in his life. He hid weak words under his tongue, and hid his weak self in his chest.
He had to be strong. Since he had no money and no connections, he had to pretend to be tough and bark.
After all that, why suddenly spew weak words? Because it was a time when his heart weakened.
Because it was soon his parents’ memorial day. The reason he threw himself into repairing the lifeboat, swayed by Director Hwang’s words, was also in case Woongju had to spend that day alone. He felt rushed, worried that she might wait and wait for him while setting up a memorial table alone, and finally place an extra set of utensils next to it.
“I’ve also lost… family.”
Woonghee’s wet bare feet curled inward. Just like they were shrinking in the fire. Normally he would have been wearing workers that came up just below his calves, but now his ankles were swollen. They were shoes that were uncomfortable to wear on the island originally, but compared to now when they were swollen from snake venom, that was nothing.
So he had no choice but to walk barefoot on the grass.
“They say when you burn in fire and become smoke, you go up to the sky and become a star.”
Woonghee moved his tongue clumsily. Was he drunk? Both cheeks were reddened with the flush of alcohol. An ambiguous expression hung on his mouth corners, as if smiling or not. His words also stretched out limply like melting candle wax.
Just then, whoosh, a meteor shower fell above Woonghee’s crown. A star fell as if tearing through the night sky.
“Oh….”
At that sound, Woonghee’s head quickly turned. His large eyes sparkled. They glinted just like a cat’s eyes chasing a butterfly.
A silver ember crossed the night sky leaving a tail. It was a strangely beautiful sight. The dog-like island was immersed in an ecstatic purple dream, if only for a moment.
It felt like time had stopped just like this. The boundary between sea and sky blurred. Under his feet was soft sand, and above it, a breeze like gentle breathing rolled in.
Then suddenly, Woonghee felt a gaze. Enough to momentarily forget even the meteor shower, that gaze came to mind extremely vividly.
“…….”
“…….”
Ha-have I gotten drunk too?
The tips of his earlobes seemed to heat up hotly. Woonghee slightly lowered his head. The man was still silent. That was more bewildering.
Silence flowed between the two. Woonghee found it hard to endure this awkward atmosphere. He had to, had to turn his gaze.
Woonghee tore off a bite of meat as if nothing had happened. When he bit down with his molars, white steam rose up. He busily filled his stomach, tearing the meat along the grain and pushing it into his small cheeks.
‘Wow….’
Pure admiration flowed from inside. Normally, these mountain beasts would have a gamey smell. However the man had gotten rid of that smell, the man’s meat was cooked golden brown on the outside, crispy on the outside and moist on the inside.
“Huh…?”
Then he flinched, suddenly recognizing what meat this was. Woonghee slowly stopped chewing with the incompletely chewed meat held in his cheek.
This was wild boar meat. The meat that had made him decide to avoid this man.
…Since when?
Since when did he receive what the man gave without a single doubt? When did he sit comfortably holding a meat skewer in his grasp like this?
The sense of reality that rushed in was excessively strange. Woonghee was flustered.
“I-I’m just drunk so I was just talking nonsense.”
He rambled like an excuse, but no words came from the man. Only then did Woonghee raise his gaze. As if waiting, his eyes met the man’s.
It was an expression he’d never seen before. The man’s real face, not leaving even a trace of a mask.
Various emotions were jumbled together messily. …Confusion, displeasure, rejection, unfamiliarity. He seemed to be feeling an indescribable eruption of emotions.
The man had completely stopped his tongue. It was all just an act to lure Lee Woonghee out. It was just nonsense he’d spouted to break down that wariness….
To think he would reap such a huge harvest. Hadn’t he even heard about the past that he hadn’t expected?
In the past, it would have been information that could only be excavated by tailing Lee Woonghee. But now, by himself, he was unraveling it so docilely and innocently.
Moreover, that wild boar meat. Previously he had been afraid and wouldn’t even touch it with his fingertips, but now he was savoring the taste of the meat, rolling it in his plumply swollen cheeks.
He had crawled between the man’s legs to receive food and be protected, so now he had the sense of security that he could eat even this meat without a single doubt. Without Lee Woonghee knowing, his heart had moved this much.
“If I believe that way, I feel a bit more at ease.”
So Lee Woonghee was, however clumsily, comforting the man. He muttered softly with his plump lips.
The sight of him carefully watching his reactions while rolling his large eyes around was awkward like a child. Perhaps embarrassed, he twitched his plump cheeks and oddly furrowed his soft brows.
Ah, the man sighed deeply inside. Woonghee’s eyelashes shone smoothly in the bonfire. The man imagined entangling his fingers between those eyelashes and roughly pulling them out.
“Why, why are you doing that.”
The white body timidly folded its shoulders. Not knowing the man’s insides.
“…Ah.”
Finally, the swan has fallen into my hands. What he had wanted to get into his grasp so badly that he’d laid traps and waited for it, had fallen into his embrace.
The moment he realized this, a great thrill and shock rushed in. When the man didn’t continue speaking, Lee Woonghee bent his neck as if embarrassed. Stars were embedded in the large eyes that watched the man’s mood.
Naturally, a necklace embedded with jewels came to mind.
Mermaid’s Tears.
That necklace with a red crystal embedded in the center selected its owner. Because the neckline was thin, the wearer’s neckline was fully revealed.
He would retrieve it. And hang it on this nape.
Lee Woonghee wearing the Mermaid’s Tears would crumble and rub his nose against his palm while acting cute. Then he would lift his eyes to take the man’s face into his vision, and call his name with reddish lips.
‘…… -ssi.’
It was an instant. Just briefly imagining that sight, the man’s heart plummeted with a thud inside his ribcage.
What was that just now? The man frowned. His heart thump-thumped, beginning to thrash faster than usual. With the rapidly circulating blood flow, a warm energy spread throughout his entire body.
Right, he would be terribly beautiful, being an omega. A creature made to be so. But why on earth was he showing this much agitation?
Of course, it was natural to feel an unavoidable strong attraction. Because they had mixed bodies with compatible traits.
Omegas want alphas to stay by their side. Alphas were bound to feel strong possessiveness toward omegas who extremely ignited sexual urges. That obsession continues until they make them carry their seed.
It was a desire that all trait-bearers would instinctively harbor.
However, it felt unsettling to dismiss it as merely that. He felt something spreading inside his chest like sticky moss.
Crack. A sound of something breaking somewhere was heard. It was the sound of a small crack forming. Something seemed to be flowing in through that gap. Something extremely sticky and unpleasantly sinister.
What emotion that was exactly, he couldn’t know yet because that target hadn’t come into his grasp. The man clenched his fist once and then released it. For the first time in a long while, his emotions were uncontrolled.
“…Excuse me, Managing Director Gi.”
Lee Woonghee’s eyes carefully came toward him. His small, plump, reddish lips glistened wetly with oil.
And it happened in an instant. The man’s large hand snatched the slender nape like hunting.
“Why, why are you doing this, what on earth!”
The white body was dragged along while struggling. The man greedily devoured his lips as if plundering breath.
“Ugh, mmm…!”
He pulled as if to extract his tongue, and rubbed as if crushing the tender flesh. The man who had rarely failed to control his emotions until now couldn’t do so this time. The excitement that surged up without the owner knowing wouldn’t calm down. It was closer to fury.
He sucked on the bird-beak-like lips and chewed them with his molars. Yet the inexplicable thirst wouldn’t subside.
What on earth was it?
What change had overtaken him?
The man exhaled a rough breath. Glass-shard-like breathing scattered.
