The door shook with another loud bang! and Wooyeon’s shoulders flinched. Cornered in this urgent situation, it felt like his brain had shut down. He couldn’t think properly.
Still sitting on the floor, Wooyeon trembled as he picked up his phone. Tears dripped down. The battery was dangerously low. He’d be lucky if he could make even one call. After hesitating between 112 and another number, Wooyeon ultimately dialed Jeonghan’s number. His heart raced uncontrollably at the door that continued to rattle. After a few ringtones, the call connected.
「Sunbae, what’s wrong…」
“Jeong, Jeonghan-ah! My house, please come to my house. Please…”
A loud bang! erupted beside his sobbing voice. Startled, Wooyeon looked to the side to see a desk chair leg piercing through the bathroom door. When the shocked Wooyeon dropped his phone, Jeonghan’s urgent voice flowed out from it.
“That son of a bitch has been giving me hell from the start, relying on his fucking face.”
Bang! Bang!
The desk chair leg pierced through the bathroom door a few more times with the force to break it. Before he knew it, the old wooden bathroom door had a hole large enough for a fist to fit through. As the furious Choi Seokwoo pressed his face against the gap in that hole, bloodshot eyes aimed at Wooyeon through the opening.
“Peek-a-boo.”
Keke keke, Choi Seokwoo laughed chillingly after pulling his face away. Through the gap where Choi Seokwoo’s eyes had disappeared, a rough hand soon thrust in. Unable to even scream, Wooyeon dropped tears.
It’s all over. After reaching around this way and that, unable to reach the doorknob, Choi Seokwoo spat out curses and pulled his hand back. The chair leg pierced through the hole again, gradually enlarging it. When Wooyeon looked at the phone that had fallen to the floor again, the power had turned off, either because the battery had died.
“If you open it now, I won’t hurt you, pretty boy. Hm?”
Bang! Bang!
At the eerie sound that continued to ring out, Wooyeon could do nothing but cry helplessly. What if Jeonghan thought it was a prank?
“Oppa’s not angry yet, really.”
A giggling voice. The hand that thrust in again easily opened the door this time.
After about ten minutes of struggling, when the completely tattered door opened, Choi Seokwoo threw the chair to the floor while catching his breath. There was a sound like something breaking.
“So why make me waste my energy for nothing?”
Choi Seokwoo entered the bathroom, grabbed Wooyeon by the hair, and slammed him straight to the floor. His body, so slender compared to Choi Seokwoo’s, was easily thrown down. Choi Seokwoo climbed on top of Wooyeon’s body, grabbed him by the collar, and slapped his cheek.
“So why do you needlessly piss oppa off? Huh? Wouldn’t it be better if you just gave it up without seeing any blood?”
When a large, rough hand like a pot lid struck his small cheek, his mouth and lips split open, and he tasted blood. When Choi Seokwoo struck Wooyeon’s cheek a couple more times, Wooyeon went limp, unable to even open his eyes properly.
It was when Choi Seokwoo grabbed the already open buckle and yanked to pull it down. Thud, along with the sound, Wooyeon opened his eyes narrowly at Choi Seokwoo’s body falling over.
“Ahhh! Fuck!”
The toppled Choi Seokwoo raised his palm to feel the back of his head. Seeing blood smeared on the inside of his palm, he ground out curses as he looked up. There stood Jeonghan, holding the chair that had been lying on the floor, looking down at him.
“Who the fuck are you, do you want to die? Fucking bastard.”
As Wooyeon tried to get up, Jeonghan wrapped one arm around him and said reassuringly.
“It’s okay.”
He remained calm even after seeing the short sword Choi Seokwoo had just pulled out.
“Ha, really fuck, all kinds of things happen?”
“If you’re confident you can handle the consequences, go ahead and stab.”
“Huh, does this bastard think I’m joking right now…”
Just then, Choi Seokwoo’s phone that had fallen to the floor began to ring.
“Answer it.”
Jeonghan, who had moved Wooyeon behind him, gestured toward the phone with his chin. After checking the caller ID, Choi Seokwoo hesitated, then glancing at Jeonghan, he finally answered the call. From the kneeling Choi Seokwoo’s ear, shouts and curses poured out. Choi Seokwoo dropped the phone and looked up at Jeonghan with his small eyes wide open.
“It was you…”
“You’re not confident you can handle the consequences, right?”
Wooyeon looked at Jeonghan’s back with shocked eyes. Jeonghan picked up the chair he had put down again.
“I pity bastards like you.”
“Huk, uhk…!”
“Vermin bastards who don’t know gratitude.”
With an expressionless face, Jeonghan swung the chair at Choi Seokwoo, and blood splattered with a thud. The sound of police sirens grew closer—someone must have reported it.
“Ah… don’t! Jeonghan-ah, stop. Please stop!”
Having seen blood, Wooyeon was trembling in fear. When Wooyeon clung to Jeonghan as he mercilessly swung the chair, only then did Jeonghan throw the chair to the floor. The chair legs were stained with blood.
Unable to even look at Choi Seokwoo, Wooyeon trembled just from looking at the chair. What if Jeonghan ended up getting arrested because of this? Because I called Jeonghan for no reason…
Tears poured out profusely. And seeing Wooyeon like that, Jeonghan gently stroked both of Wooyeon’s cheeks. Even with their gazes meeting, Wooyeon’s eyes continued to shake. As if there were still tears left to shed, the tears didn’t stop flowing from Wooyeon’s eyes.
“It’s okay.”
Several police officers poured into Wooyeon’s semi-basement room. In the pandemonium, Jeonghan naturally led Wooyeon out between the police officers, as if he had expected this. Strangely enough, no one stopped them.
Having come outside the gate, Wooyeon looked up at Jeonghan with a bewildered face. Behind Jeonghan, a bright full moon hung closer than on other days. Jeonghan let out a sigh and pulled Wooyeon into his arms. Pitifully, his slender body was still trembling.
“Sunbae, live with me from now on. I can’t do this because I’m worried.”
“That’s…”
Wooyeon hesitated. Even in this moment, his girlfriend came to mind.
“You… have a girlfriend.”
“What does that have to do with anything right now?”
Jeonghan’s answer was plain.
“Then, I’ll use my wish voucher.”
The wish voucher he had obtained by being Wooyeon’s black knight during the MT.
The police cars parked in the alley were still emitting red and blue lights while sounding their sirens. His head was a jumbled mess.
Eventually, when Wooyeon, who had been trembling in Jeonghan’s arms, nodded his head, a smile spread across Jeonghan’s blood-splattered face.
* * *
That night, Wooyeon immediately moved his residence to Jeonghan’s villa. Jeonghan said he could send people to do it and didn’t let him go back into that room again.
As he said, people brought all of Wooyeon’s belongings to Jeonghan’s villa, and even more than half of those were disposed of by Jeonghan, saying he could just buy new ones.
Wooyeon worried about what would happen if Jeonghan ended up in jail because of what happened at the studio apartment that night, but no such thing occurred. Wooyeon also didn’t have to go in and out of the police station. Even when asked how it was resolved, Jeonghan just smiled faintly without much explanation, saying “It was resolved well.”
And so, cohabitation with Jeonghan began.
The sound of cicadas poured down beneath the blue-tinted leaves. Wooyeon walked across campus while thinking about his remaining exam schedule. Occasionally, the image of Jeonghan and Seonyoung from the MT came to mind and clawed at his heart, but even that gradually became more bearable as time passed. In any case, it was definitely a memory he wanted to turn away from.
Even after that, nothing changed in his relationship with Jeonghan except that they now lived together. Wooyeon had just given up on more emotions.
“Sunbae!”
At the sensation of someone grabbing his shoulder to stop him, Wooyeon stopped walking and turned around. Even with just that common address of “sunbae,” Wooyeon’s heart would beat fast and his fingertips would tremble. The irises faintly revealed by light reflecting in his delicately drawn eyes captured the afterimage of the man standing before him.
“Ah, hello.”
The one who had stopped Wooyeon was his junior Kim Sunwoo, whom he had met at the Sanggyeong College integrated MT. His shoulders, which had stiffened with tension, relaxed.
“Are you done with exams?”
“No, I still have a few left. What about you?”
“I still have quite a lot left too.”
Ah right, he said he was double majoring. His exam schedule must be even busier than that. Wooyeon nodded his head as he started walking again. The scent of summer grass flew on the wind.
“What about today?”
“Ah, I’m all done for today.”
“Oh, me too.”
Kim Sunwoo smiled at Wooyeon. This kid smiles so hard his eyes disappear. Suddenly, Jeonghan’s smiling face came to mind again, and Wooyeon habitually bit his lower lip slightly.
It’s an illness. Doing this all the time. The small pebble kicked by Wooyeon’s toes rolled away into the distance.
“Have you had lunch?”
“No, not yet.”
“Then let’s eat lunch together. Want to go to the cafeteria? Today’s the day they have sausage curry.”
“Huh?”
Flustered, Wooyeon looked up at Sunwoo. He couldn’t bring himself to say he wasn’t interested in such a genuinely happy face. Ah, come to think of it, he owed Sunwoo something too.
