A chill ran down his spine. Because of the atmosphere stretched taut like a yellow rubber band that could snap at any moment, Woonghee couldn’t move his feet. Rub rub, Woonghee rubbed his arms for no reason. Somehow goosebumps covered his entire body.
“…What the hell is this.”
The surrounding atmosphere was also gripped by shock. People were gathered in a circular formation like a transparent ring. As if they couldn’t take even one step closer beyond that.
And standing tall at the center was that man. Gi Junhyuk. A man with one large hand bright red as if bitten. He wondered if he was wearing work gloves on his hands…. Drip drip, what flowed from his fingertips was definitely blood. Bright red blood.
In front of him, a lump of meat covered in blood was sprawled out. His face was crushed like a meatball that couldn’t quite be cooked. He could tell what its identity was without having to look at that face.
[So much blood… like that, he’s crazy.]
Those around only murmured. Not a single one of them stepped forward to stop Gi Junhyuk or report him.
He pushed through that crowded mass. He had to check if he was dead. If he was still breathing, quickly to the hospital, hurry….
Then a fierce hand grabbed Woonghee’s wrist.
“What are you doing.”
He looked down at him with cold eyes. Eyes seething with the remnants of violence.
“Are you looking for some other bastard’s embrace in front of me right now?”
How utterly fearless, the man muttered lowly.
“He’s not dead, is he?”
The man let out a chuckle—snicker.
“Is that the side you wanted? Well. Shall we check?”
Saying that, he moved while gripping Woonghee. As he moved his feet, crushing bloodstains, sticky blood stained his black shoe heels.
Thud, thud.
At his movement, the foreign bodyguards standing around flinched in unison. Then the subordinates standing like walls guarding the man’s back also shook their shoulders, making cracking, cracking bone sounds.
In that standoff situation, the man grabbed the hair of the bastard sprawled in a spread-eagle position.
“Heu, huh, huk….”
Gorgeous blonde hair flowing like honey. Through it, bright red blood flowed steadily as if a glittering gold mine had split open. The man picked up a broken glass bottle rolling on the floor and aimed it at the bastard’s eye.
The glass shards like angry crocodile teeth were terrifying, as if they would bite into the bastard’s skull at any moment.
“These eyes, right?”
As the sharpest tip approached close to the eyeball, the bastard twisted his body—uuugh—even with his skull crushed. He wriggled exactly like a trampled grub.
A hair-trigger situation. An atmosphere where even a single breath couldn’t be carelessly exhaled.
Only that man alone was completely composed.
“I’m asking if you saw him with these eyes.”
“Don’t do it….”
“You said you were hurt, then it’s right to tear out your eyeballs.”
The man acted as if he were a fair judge. With just the single charge of offending his mood. Were those words he was saying now true…? Probably sincere. The man would definitely carry out judgment.
Woonghee anxiously scanned the surroundings hastily. Then he saw an employee secretly holding a phone in the back.
Co-could he be calling the police right now? The next moment, dirty scenes flashed quickly before Woonghee’s eyes.
The tracks the man had shown so far. Every single dirty and suspicious movement…. He must have been plotting something crude here too, right? He mustn’t be caught, absolutely mustn’t be arrested.
“…Th-that’s not okay though.”
He turned his wide-open eyes to the man.
“What? What part of this isn’t okay? Is smashing one piece of trash’s skull such a big deal? Enough to take another man’s side in front of me?”
Even in this situation, did he feel like spouting such ridiculous jealousy? Woonghee was about to go crazy and jump. Not knowing how he felt inside…!
“No, that’s not it!”
Pulling his firm forearm into his embrace, Woonghee approached him even closer and whispered. Whisper whisper, he murmured so others couldn’t hear.
“Gi Junhyuk-ssi, like this… what if you get caught by the police, you’ve done lots of trashy things.”
“What?”
His eyes widened as if he’d heard something completely unexpected.
“Let’s go, let’s go quickly.”
This isn’t the time, we need to run away right now. Woonghee grabbed his thick forearm and pulled. He frantically stepped forward. Somewhere, please somewhere, he felt like hiding.
So no one could find him….
Woonghee hastily got on the elevator. Press press, he pushed the close button several times. Close, please close, why was that moment when the door’s mouth closed so nerve-wracking? Tremble tremble, his fingertips all trembled nervously.
And the moment the door closed, some restless movement was visible beyond the glass window. It was the police who arrived a step late.
Someone was shouting, someone else was running breathlessly. One of them turned their head this way….
“……!”
Woonghee flinched in surprise and quickly grabbed the man’s face with both hands and pulled him in.
“…Shh.”
He quickly pressed his lips firmly with his index finger. He was anxiously checking outside, but the man didn’t seem interested in such things at all. He was only staring at him with a face soaked in interest.
He was so anxious and nervous he could die! Woonghee hastily pulled down his shirt sleeve and rubbed his cheek roughly. Blood had splattered here too, and his clothes were also covered in blood.
Moreover, those hands were also covered in blood…. As he brought those hands and rubbed them roughly with his shirt, anger suddenly surged.
“Gi Junhyuk-ssi, are you really crazy?!”
Woonghee grabbed Gi Junhyuk’s collar only after the cops had completely disappeared from view.
“You almost got caught by those cops….”
Thud, his back touched the elevator and swayed slowly. But the man was just laughing leisurely. At that slick face, anger felt like it would explode inside.
“Is it funny? Is this situation amusing? As if to prove who’s the crazy one….”
Losing one’s mind for a day or two was one thing, but because of this man, it felt like his lifespan was being cut in half bit by bit.
“Woonghee-ssi, did you forget? What kind of bastard I am?”
Ah, Woonghee remembered then. The police who had been chasing him. This man, the man whose background was so rotten it made him anxious. He was a man so corrupt he even colluded with cops using dirty money.
“Ha….”
A feeling of futility suddenly washed over him. Belatedly realizing he had overreacted too much, Woonghee flushed bright red. There was no need to make him run away like this. Woonghee slowly released the hand gripping his collar. Smoothly.
His luxurious shirt that had been gripped tightly was already wretchedly wrinkled. The man’s arm brushed past Woonghee’s shoulder. He pressed the button that he himself hadn’t been able to press.
Soon—vroom, a mechanical sound rang out. The elevator that had been sinking in the deep sea rose against gravity. It began to slowly rise upward. Whoosh, a floating sensation came. When the horizon gradually became visible beyond the glass window.
The man approached Woonghee. Pheromones exploded from him as he growled lowly in his throat, letting out a moan like “Mm.” Ah, it seemed his cycle was about to start soon.
“Is it your rut soon…?”
“Yeah, why? Looking forward to it?”
The man whispered. The area under his eyes flushed reddish, and his exhaled breath was incredibly rough. Whoosh, bright blue veins stood out prominently on the side of his thick nape.
“Were you that worried? Because you love me?”
And even while panting like this, he was talking about love. He asked with a face thick with laughter. Woonghee pressed his face against the elevator’s glass window.
“Don’t, don’t look….”
Woonghee’s eyes were turned inside out with tears. Red rabbit eyes. Blood vessels burst as if shattering, and the tears dripping from within glistened transparently in the sunlight.
“Don’t look, please go… away.”
“Woonghee-ssi always says don’t look like that.”
Lee Woonghee slowly raised his head. His gaze toward the man flowed like water. Woonghee stared at him in a daze.
Because the man’s thick body was rising, piercing through the horizon. He who always seemed trapped in the deep sea. The current him was like a creature rising above the horizon. Like light rising through darkness.
“…….”
Their bodies were floating up—whoosh—as if buoyant, and a bright light began to swirl in the world. It felt exactly like dreaming.
And both simultaneously rushed toward each other.
Colliding, sliding, their lips met. Breath, tears, the sounds of the world—everything was buried in that moment.
