Day and Night (18)
Jaehee couldn’t think that what touched his lips was Jeongwoo’s lips.
Because it was too soft and sweet. When he felt the warm body heat through their touching lips and caught Jeongwoo’s scent, his vision became dizzy. Was this really happening right now?
Even though he was sitting still, his heart pounded loudly as if he had been running. He felt like his heart would jump out if he didn’t hold his chest with his hand. He couldn’t say any words. He couldn’t hear any sound. All he could hear was the loud thumping of his heart.
And this time, Jeongwoo’s tongue touched Jaehee’s lips. The shock from just before was nothing. It felt like lightning was striking in his head.
“Ah…”
Something soft pushed through between his slightly parted lips. He didn’t have time to think about what it was. It knocked on his teeth as if lightly knocking. During all of this, Jaehee couldn’t move a single finger, as if he was tied up somewhere. He felt like he had become an idiot. His mind stopped and all his nerves concentrated in one place.
When it traced along his gums and went deeper inside, he unconsciously let out a rough breath. He couldn’t even think of pushing Jeongwoo away. All he could do was cling to Jeongwoo and pant for breath.
And at some point, his body tingled as if he had been electrocuted. It seemed hot and also seemed cold. It felt like someone had put their hand inside his head and stirred it up messily.
Jaehee gasped for breath like someone who had done intense exercise.
“Haah…”
Jaehee stayed still without moving until Jeongwoo let him go. How much time had passed? It seemed like a very long time had passed, and also seemed like just a fleeting moment had gone by.
The moment their touching lips separated, a deep sigh came with a feeling of regret. Only then did he become aware of this situation. And what he had done with Jeongwoo.
“Ah…”
“Jaehee.”
The husky voice tickled his ear. Goosebumps rose from head to toe. He didn’t know what to say. Jaehee turned his head with a bright red face.
His fingertips were cold, but his stomach was hot.
How should he express something like this?
“W-wait…, whoo…”
“If you don’t wake up like this, I’ll have to wake you up this way from now on.”
When the handsome guy lowered his voice and looked at him with deep eyes, he felt flustered. He wanted to run away and at the same time wanted to stay with Jeongwoo.
Jeongwoo carefully brushed Jaehee’s hair back. Due to the difference in their builds, he was literally embraced in Jeongwoo’s arms. When Jaehee quietly lifted his head to look at Jeongwoo, Jeongwoo was smiling with a soft expression as if he would melt. Seeing Jeongwoo overflowing with leisure unlike his flustered self, he suddenly felt angry. But somehow this Jeongwoo felt difficult, so he couldn’t speak as lightly as before. He felt more nervous than when he was first sucked into the tutorial or when he met Cheonsan-jiju.
“S-stop it. I’m so nervous right now that I feel like I can’t even breathe properly.”
“Then should we do the next kiss a little later?”
“…What?”
“Then were you planning to do it just once?”
“Hey, I said stop it.”
As soon as Jaehee finished speaking, Jeongwoo kissed him again with a quick peck.
Jaehee hid his bright red face against Jeongwoo’s chest and quietly let out a breath. From Jeongwoo’s embrace came a somehow fresh scent.
“Jaehee.”
“…Yeah.”
“Thank you for saving me.”
“…Yeah.”
He could hear the thumping heartbeat from Jeongwoo’s chest. Hearing that loudly pounding sound, he felt strangely calm. Right, I wasn’t the only one this nervous. You, who seemed so nonchalant, were actually having your heart pound crazily like this too.
Jaehee stayed embraced like that in Jeongwoo’s arms for a long time.
The early summer breeze that cooled the faint heat tickled his head.
The quiet and peaceful night that they were experiencing after a long time was flowing by slowly.
***
Jaehee must have been tired, because after returning home, he had collapsed and fallen asleep just like that.
But Jeongwoo couldn’t bring himself to sleep next to Jaehee tonight, so he quietly went outside and paced around the yard.
“How could such a thing happen?”
[Constellation, Blazing Flame says they’re not certain either, but since you made an enemy of a constellation, isn’t it your own doing? You take constellations too lightly.]
Jeongwoo’s face twisted frighteningly at Blazing Flame’s words.
“Ha! You already know who did it. The problem is how he found out about this ‘fact.’ That I can’t use this body if my connection with you is severed.”
Inside the subway, something had layered a barrier on him to create a dungeon. By the time he noticed it, he had already lost consciousness. Even now, his teeth ground when he thought of that helplessness.
It was the first time he had been this powerless since ‘that time.’ He had sworn never to end things like this again, but at the thought that those times were being reproduced, he almost truly exploded.
Someone had created an instant dungeon and forcibly severed his connection with the constellation. For other Zeros, being disconnected from their constellation would just mean their power was limited, but Jeongwoo’s case was completely different.
“Haa… This damn useless body.”
Due to the shock of being forcibly disconnected from the constellation, he lost consciousness for the first while. But soon after regaining consciousness, Jeongwoo realized that he was not only separated from the constellation, but also separated from his body. In other words, Jeongwoo’s consciousness was alive, but he couldn’t move his body or speak. Jeongwoo had to just watch like a ghost, unable to do anything while Jaehee conquered the dungeon. He couldn’t convey what he had figured out to Jaehee, nor could he save Jaehee in moments of crisis. He truly thought his blood would dry up during that time.
This dungeon had been designed from the beginning to buy time. There wasn’t anything particularly dangerous, but it was the type of dungeon that took quite a bit of time to figure out the reality and solve it. It was the type that deliberately twisted the path to prevent access to the real problem. If Jaehee hadn’t moved aggressively at the end, he might have disappeared.
To think he had almost ended so absurdly in a place he had returned to at such a cost. Even now, thinking about it was ridiculous.
Looking at how this plan was devised, it clearly meant the opponent knew that his physical body would disappear if time passed while disconnected from the constellation. The contract between himself and Blazing Flame had been conducted most secretly, so how had this information leaked?
[Constellation, Blazing Flame answers that nothing in the world is certain. Among the countless constellations, one of them might have known about this matter.]
“That doesn’t mean such things should be allowed to happen. Blazing Flame. You bear responsibility for this too. You must find out how this was possible and ensure such things never happen again. That’s our contract, isn’t it?”
[Constellation, Blazing Flame clicks their tongue, saying they’re already looking into it, so calm down and wait.]
Being unable to do anything and only watching the moments of crisis that befell Jaehee was torture.
Actually, Jeongwoo himself knew well that Jaehee was superior to other Awakened Ones, if not at least equal to them. An Awakened One’s abilities couldn’t be discussed simply in terms of force. Quick wit and reflexes when facing unexpected situations, the control to manage one’s emotions, and leadership to command a team – all of these were important. From that perspective, Jaehee objectively had quite high abilities.
But separate from that, watching Jaehee suffer was difficult for him. Hadn’t all of this been started for Jaehee’s sake in the first place? The thought that Jaehee could go wrong trying to save him was dizzying just to think about.
Looking up at the sky, stars that weren’t clearly visible in Seoul were densely covering the sky. It was a change that occurred after the Great Awakening.
Among those would be his constellation, Blazing Flame, and probably Dawn of Whispers, the mastermind behind this incident. If it was a constellation that harbored enough resentment against him to do something like this, it would be Dawn of Whispers.
Dawn of Whispers itself was originally a troublesome constellation to deal with, but it was surprising that they could exercise their abilities like this even after losing their puppet Kim Shin. Dawn of Whispers seemed to be more deeply involved in the human world than expected.
