# Chapter 26
Having realized a fact he didn’t want to know, Jihun’s pupils did a popping dance. He quickly threw a glance at Dohyuk. It was a plea for him to somehow salvage the situation. Dohyuk didn’t even have the presence of mind to see that imploring gaze, but instinctively began to appease Junseo.
“Guide Yu Junseo-nim, there’s a misunderstanding right now…”
“Even using formal speech when you’ve done something wrong. Is this some kind of distancing? Am I a virus?”
“…No, Guide-nim. At headquarters, I can’t openly speak informally to you…”
Dohyuk tried to hold the strange situation together with his composed tone, but Junseo didn’t help at all. Dohyuk too, in his confusion, was using a mess of formal and informal speech. As if Junseo couldn’t even see Dohyuk’s perplexed expression, he opened his mouth distinctly, and his voice was loud enough to echo through the corridor.
“Don’t make excuses, I heard everything. It was even a ‘summoning,’ you said. I trusted you, but how could hyung, how could you summon someone else instead of me? I’m an S-class Guide with an 88% matching rate who only waits for you.”
For a moment, Jihun fell into the misconception that “summoning” was an obscene word used in the underground. He felt a surge of indignation. He wanted to interject between them and vehemently refute to defend his honor. But thinking that resisting unnecessarily here would only make the picture stranger, Jihun, who had kept his mouth shut the whole time, trembled with renewed indignation at the fierce glare directed at him.
“Everyone’s staring.”
After drawing attention from people trying to go home by making strange noises that could put weekend dramas to shame, the person who had actually caused the scene whispered to Dohyuk as if he was embarrassed.
“Let’s go inside and take it slow. Let’s have time for just the two of us, focusing on each other. Misunderstandings are better cleared up quickly, right?”
Junseo, still firmly grasping Dohyuk’s wrist, went back into the guiding room where he had just been with Jihun.
Bang!
With the sound of the door closing forcefully, Jihun, who came to his senses belatedly in the space that had just experienced a storm, looked at the firmly closed door and thought:
‘What the hell was that?’
***
As soon as the door closed, Dohyuk inhaled sharply at the face that suddenly pushed up close to his.
“Junseo.”
The call came reflexively. It was meant to restrain Junseo.
But at the sight of those eyes that began to pour out tears upon hearing his voice, the person who was actually restrained was Dohyuk.
He was speechless. The sight of tears falling one after another without even sobbing seemed poignant, like someone who might dissolve and disappear into the air at any moment.
How could a person cry like that without making a sound? Making it look even more pitiful. At that sight, Dohyuk got confused between inhaling and exhaling and ended up stopping his breathing altogether. He was at a loss for what to do.
Since neither of them thought to turn on the lights in the guiding room, the color of the evening glow that faintly pushed in as the sun dimmed was the only illumination there.
The sunset light, half-mixed with darkness, colored Junseo’s face. Maybe that was why. His teardrops seemed like miserably shattered fragments of the sunset.
When those eyes full of moisture stared at Dohyuk, he, who had been looking blankly at that face, shrank back with a start like a child burned by fire. Had the crimson sky grown a bit darker? Everything sank quietly.
It was strange. There was only the fragile Yu Junseo in front of him, dropping tears, yet he wanted to run away. It felt as if every nerve cell in his body was screaming that this would be the last time. That if he wanted to leave, he should sprint away now.
When Dohyuk unconsciously took a step back from Junseo, Junseo took one and a half steps forward. It was an intense gaze that seemed unwilling to be separated from the body heat of another person for even a moment. Dohyuk felt a chill run down his back as if he had become prey. He keenly noticed the sharp gaze scanning his neck.
He’s going to bite.
His body stiffened rigidly, perhaps unconsciously tensing up. He could just raise his hand and push hard, but why couldn’t he do that?
Looking at the approaching face, Dohyuk was confused yet half-sensed it.
The reason was…
“My heart hurts so much.”
…perhaps because of that faint voice that seemed about to fade away.
It was a fierce presence that wouldn’t be strange if it showed its teeth soon. But as if everything was just Dohyuk’s imagination, the weight that settled on his shoulder with a light “thud” was light. The floral scent coloring his surroundings remained. It felt like his whole body was becoming numb, starting from the tip of his nose. Though nothing had happened, Dohyuk’s body went limp from exhaustion. The voice whispering with his right cheek against the shirt where the shoulder and neck met sounded like a child’s whining. Dohyuk’s collar became damply soaked with tears.
Startled by the wet sensation, Dohyuk hastily made excuses.
“It’s a misunderstanding. It’s not that there’s a problem with your guiding…”
More precisely, he tried to make excuses.
Until Junseo removed his cheek from Dohyuk’s nape and met his eyes again.
The eyelashes, wet with tears, stuck together even more each time he blinked. The color, which had turned even blacker from getting moistly wet, noticeably fluttered.
“Then why didn’t you summon me?”
It was a composed tone that didn’t seem like it could come from someone who was still dropping tears steadily. With bewilderment, as soon as he met his eyes again, an expression so forlorn it had no equal entranced him. Perhaps because of that, the unfamiliarity Dohyuk had briefly felt toward Junseo outside the guiding room had already vanished without a trace.
“How could an A-class summon an S-class? It’s not like there weren’t Guides of the same rank.”
While uttering this excuse, Dohyuk raised his hand to wipe Junseo’s cheek, which had become terribly soaked from the tears streaming down.
Simultaneously, Junseo shook his head as if in rejection. The tears that flowed once more along the corner of his eyes drew a long path over his cheek. Dohyuk stopped abruptly like a broken machine.
“We had made plans too. You’re just avoiding me, so why are you lying?”
Dohyuk realized it was the first time Junseo had refused his hand. It was essentially nothing. But the feeling that something he had taken for granted was suddenly twisted made him sick. A subtle rippling that he couldn’t understand himself filled his entire mind.
“It’s strange, isn’t it?”
Looking at the hand that had been prevented from touching his face, Junseo spoke quietly. Those two eyes staring intently seemed like they were trying to knead Dohyuk’s mind.
“Why do you have such wounded eyes?”
Dohyuk hurriedly lowered the hand he had been holding up stupidly. The moment Dohyuk hesitated, moving his feet to step back further, the body that had been acting childish pressed against him.
As Junseo gripped his wrist just like before entering the guiding room, Dohyuk shook his head and removed his hand. Junseo thoroughly licked Dohyuk’s face, full of bewilderment, with his eyes. It was sweet. What would it feel like to actually lick it? Clear eyes thought greedily.
Delicate fingers, untiringly, held Dohyuk’s hand again. It was to remove his glove. The entangled breaths were moist up close. Dohyuk, who had closed his eyes tightly and then opened them, tilted his head halfway back. Surprised by the other’s fingertips touching the inside of his wrist at will, he flinched but couldn’t use much force for fear of hurting Junseo. Of course, the winner was Junseo. One of Dohyuk’s gloves fell to the floor with a thud.
It was the moment Junseo showed his greed to remove the glove from the opposite hand as well. Dohyuk sighed and moved as if raising his previously hunched body. His bare hand and gloved hand each grabbed Junseo’s hands and blocked movement.
Thump!
Pinned down while entangled with Dohyuk, Junseo’s hand hit the door of the guiding room, making quite a loud noise. Startled by that sound instead, Dohyuk was about to release the pressure from the hand he was pressing.
“Won’t you teach me all about what you’re thinking?”
The guiding began.
Junseo’s guiding was different from usual. I don’t know if it was due to his inexperience or his emotional state. It was a much more blatant energy than recent times when he had received simple guiding, to the point where they couldn’t even be compared.
Dohyuk panted thinly and put strength in his shins. He was afraid he might stagger disgracefully. As his tightly closed lips parted, air leaked through his teeth. Dohyuk trembled slightly, unable to even regulate his breathing due to the rising ecstasy. Dohyuk’s strangely wet pupils were filled with and focused on the pretty face. Something that had been completely captured and imprisoned leaked through the gaps.
If only I had that, everything would be fine from now on.
Helplessness twists into desire, depression into longing, revealing another identity. The hunter’s nature, suppressed and neglected, crept up stealthily.
I wanted to have that.
If I crushed it with force, put it in my arms, and then bit the nape of its neck, it surely wouldn’t even think of escaping. It was when the veins on the back of Dohyuk’s hands bulged.
“Hyung, I’m hurt.”
A thin voice distinctly penetrates the mind soaked wet with nectar. Dohyuk realized that he had unconsciously been squeezing Junseo’s hand and applying pressure, and hastily withdrew his body. Confusion created a fracture across the face of the one who had been intensely focused.
“S-sorry. I…”
Just as the two hands were about to separate, Junseo entangled Dohyuk’s hands again. He was confused whether his method of choosing to readjust his grip rather than letting go was a wise choice or a foolish one.
