# Chapter 62
Junseo would even pretend not to hear things he didn’t want to answer. This childish behavior, as innocent as the scent of milk, was adorable. It seemed that a person could so easily be turned upside down, just like the swirling thoughts in his head.
The front door closed with a heavy sound. Dohyuk’s gaze, which had naturally been about to observe the interior, was suddenly filled with a pale white face. Two hands gently wrapped around Dohyuk’s shoulders.
A fresh scent had already reached his nostrils. A gaze that felt uncharacteristically urgent touched Dohyuk.
“I’ll give you a house tour after we do some guiding.”
Dohyuk thought blankly. He wasn’t sure when guiding had become synonymous with kissing.
Yet he obediently parted his lips, pretending not to know. Junseo’s habit was as soft as a cotton blanket wrapping around cold toes in winter. A kiss that began with the tip of his tongue stealthily licking the other’s lower lip between dry lips. In the end, it was Dohyuk who pulled Junseo close as his body heated up from the soft flesh moistening his lips.
He was confused whether the intoxicating feeling came from his guiding or from the kiss. Dohyuk panted slightly as he felt an invisible force kneading his mind into disarray.
It felt like the fatigue and headache that had been clinging to him all day were completely disappearing. While allowing the hands still gripping his shoulders to remain, he unconsciously pulled Junseo’s waist into an embrace. He wanted to drown in this comfortable moment.
The tip of his tongue was sucked. The sensation sent a cool shiver down his spine, and he might have unconsciously trembled. Dohyuk tried to push away all the violent thoughts rising in his mind. During one of their kisses in the break room, he had ended up biting down and leaving a small wound on Junseo’s lip. Though Junseo hadn’t mentioned anything about it, Dohyuk felt self-loathing every time he saw the wound. Yet part of him wanted to bite that spot again and see it turn even redder.
While clearly hoping not to leave any wounds on Junseo, the mere thought of his marks lingering on him for a long time made him excited. Despite receiving guiding, his mind was only growing more confused. The fierce imaginations he had suppressed even in his dreams were now boiling chaotically. It felt like something was broken.
Dohyuk barely separated their tightly pressed lips and exhaled in a small voice. That tiny voice was easily crushed by the other’s lips that attached themselves again through the gap.
“Junseo, you… need to press that.”
Again, the sound of flesh being explicitly sucked mingled softly. “Hmm, what?” His response echoed in Dohyuk’s mind rather than his ears, for reasons he couldn’t understand. Dohyuk blinked to clear his blurring vision and thought self-mockingly. Had he suddenly lost his endurance? His splitting headache had half subsided, but he felt like he was being suffocated by an abnormal drowsiness washing over him.
Just as Dohyuk was trying to regain his senses by biting his tongue hard, Junseo stopped him. The hand that had been gripping his shoulder had somehow moved down to wrap around Dohyuk’s waist. A whispering voice saying “It’s okay” blurred the line between imagination and reality. As the other hand cradled the back of Dohyuk’s head, he lost his balance and thudded against the front door. Thanks to the cradling hand, his head didn’t hurt. Burying his lips in the other’s neck as his body staggered, Dohyuk whispered words moistened with drowsiness.
“The controller. In case I ever…”
Harm you.
Before he could finish, everything went black before his eyes and his memory was cut off abruptly, like a snapped string. It was a blackout that now felt almost familiar.
# Chapter 62
His memories split like glass marbles, scattered everywhere, and eventually mixed together into a mess. In one memory, Dohyuk emerged from a shower with a normal face, changed into pajamas Junseo had prepared; in another memory, he was quietly nestled in someone’s arms. It seemed like they might have shared a couple of brief kisses. When the headache disappeared, drowsiness poured in; when drowsiness came, the headache returned. It was an unpredictable feeling. Dohyuk instinctively craved more contact with Junseo all day.
While trying to keep his distance for fear of what he might do when unconscious, he was also reassured by the warmth that never left him, and adjusted his grip on the hand he held. It was an instinct seeking comfort.
Dohyuk opened his eyes, finally crawling out of the ambiguous swamp of sleep he had fallen into. His sense of time, resulting from his always-regular lifestyle, was simple. When he opened his eyes, it was between 5:30 and 6:00 AM, and sleep came around midnight. A life pattern maintained for at least twenty years had helplessly collapsed under irregular changes that hadn’t even lasted a week.
Dohyuk opened his bleary eyes but couldn’t tell what time it was. If this had been his bedroom with the window at the head of his bed without even curtains, he could have estimated the time by looking at the sunlight pouring in or the situation outside. Dohyuk just blinked at the unfamiliar beige curtains.
The equally unfamiliar bed was amazingly comfortable. Even the feeling of the blanket against his skin was incomparably soft. As Dohyuk shifted his body slightly with a blank expression, trying to enjoy the fluffy sensation a bit more, he froze upon sensing someone else’s presence behind him.
Only then did he remember where he was.
Having already established a “record of inappropriate behavior in a vulnerable state,” Dohyuk doubted himself and unconsciously checked his own attire first. Thankfully, he was wearing something, even if it was clothes he’d never seen before. The navy pajamas were so meticulously buttoned up to the first button that even conservatives would have repeatedly expressed admiration. Relieved for now, Dohyuk held his breath and turned his head very slowly, hiding his presence more carefully than he would in front of a monster, to check the state of dress of the person beside him.
When his head was halfway turned, Dohyuk flinched dramatically at the faint breath touching his nape, making his previous careful movements seem pointless. He held his breath again. Biting his lip once, he poured all his superior Esper physical abilities into successfully turning his head stealthily, ensuring that not even another Esper would sense his presence.
The face he expected was there, and his state of dress was excellent. That was a relief.
Whoever said that humans are treacherous animals had spoken a truth worth nodding to at any time. In the midst of all this, Dohyuk was thrown off by Junseo’s attire.
Pink pajamas, really?
Even in this embarrassing situation of waking up in the same bed as Junseo, Dohyuk was captivated by that combination. He had always known that light pastel or pure white colors matched perfectly with his bright skin tone, but wasn’t it too much for a man in his twenties to look so good in cherry blossom pink?
His face, deeply immersed in sleep, was even more docile than usual. Though Dohyuk had always thought his face showed youthfulness, seeing him sleeping so peacefully with plump lips closed made Dohyuk feel like a real bastard for trying to check their state of dress first.
Dohyuk breathed carefully, afraid of waking Junseo. He had clearly meant to find his phone and check the time, but somehow he had completely forgotten about it and was busy tracing Junseo’s eyelashes one by one. His unusually pale face today looked like a cold doll carved from ice. Does he guide with his face too? Just looking at him seemed to relieve fatigue. Despite having a personality that made him restless when still for even a short time, the thought arose that it wouldn’t be so bad to just lie here and let time flow idly like this.
When Junseo, who had been sleeping without moving, shifted his head slightly, his bangs—which had grown about a knuckle’s length since they first met—became disheveled over his white forehead.
Just as Dohyuk was about to reach out his hand like a flower following the sun, entranced:
“If you don’t wake me up now, I’ll be late.”
“…!”
Hadn’t he been sleeping with that beautiful face without even stirring until just now? Dohyuk felt somewhat cheated. He just opened his eyes wide in shock, his heart feeling crushed. His question opened belatedly with an ambiguous resonance.
“…When did you wake up?”
“I’m not up yet. Wake me up.”
The monotonous voice, completely lacking any trace of sleepiness, demanded so matter-of-factly that Dohyuk was dumbfounded.
“You already seem perfectly awake.”
A firm hand arranged the disheveled hair on Junseo’s smooth forehead. It was a delicate touch, as if handling a precious orchid that could easily be damaged. Junseo felt laughter rising whenever Dohyuk acted as carefully as possible, hiding his claws. It was visible that Dohyuk had what you might call an Esper’s typical superiority complex. Despite this, it was most evident in how he controlled his strength in everything, treating Junseo—who was at least half a finger joint taller than himself—like a cotton ball that would collapse and die if he tapped him.
Of course, Junseo didn’t miss the opportunity.
“Junseo is too sleepy, I can’t get up on my own until hyung wakes me up.”
What’s wrong with exploiting and taking advantage of weaknesses the other person blatantly reveals? Whining in a fluttering voice, Junseo stubbornly kept his eyes closed.
