# Chapter 81
“It suits you, so relax.”
In reality, with his fluffy padding jacket, he looked like a walking sweet marshmallow, which Dohyuk found utterly adorable. If he went out on the street, he’d attract countless stares. Well, it was only natural that he’d pull off a coat well too. With that face, he’d probably look like a model even if he were wearing a straw mat.
Dohyuk eventually unwound his own scarf and carefully wrapped it around Junseo’s neck. Was his desire to cover him up thoroughly too much? Buried in the thick scarf, Junseo rolled his large eyes. Those confused pupils were adorable. Dohyuk averted his gaze, afraid that this perceptive guy might notice something and start teasing him.
“Just. Because you said you were cold…”
“It’s suffocating.”
Perhaps because of the black scarf, his white skin appeared even paler.
“Is it? Just a moment.”
Dohyuk lowered the scarf a bit to free his nose, and Junseo’s eyes folded into half-moons. Dohyuk cleared his throat and pushed open the door.
“Shall we go home now?”
“We’ve eaten, so now we need to watch a movie.”
“What, are you trying to—”
If it had been Seungmin, he might have jokingly replied, “Are you asking me on a date or something?” But since it was Junseo, this kind of joke felt awkward. Maybe it was because of their ambiguous relationship that hadn’t been properly defined. Dohyuk closed his mouth awkwardly and pretended to look elsewhere. Junseo, still buried in the scarf, grabbed one of Dohyuk’s arms with an innocent face.
“What? Why did you stop talking? We’re going on a date.”
The ability most emphasized at the Esper Training Center is split-second judgment and drive. When hunting monsters, a moment’s hesitation could directly lead to death. There were even subjects where you would fail if you didn’t react within 0.5 seconds during simulation tests. Dohyuk always received the highest scores within his grade level at the training center. But relationships and hunting were clearly separate matters. Dohyuk couldn’t figure out how to express his feelings to Junseo at all.
Suddenly, Dohyuk’s gaze fell on a store in the distance. It was a jewelry shop selling precious metals.
Would it be too much to suddenly give him a ring and confess? But then again, Seah had said that material gifts were ultimately the best. Imagining a ring on that beautiful hand was quite appealing. No, let me correct myself. Not just appealing—very much so. Even though he was just imagining it, his lips were already curling up slightly.
But he was worried about whether he could choose well, having never bought accessories before. What if he bought something and Junseo didn’t like it? Judging from the walk-in closet at home, Junseo seemed like someone with very high standards.
Dohyuk kept pondering until his thoughts became even more complicated, and then looked down at Junseo, who was holding onto his arm with an expression of complete innocence.
Their eyes met. Those clear pupils always gave the impression that they could see through everything, making his tongue dry.
“…W-what movie do you want to watch?”
When Dohyuk tried to subtly pull his arm away, Junseo clung to it even more tightly, even resting his head on Dohyuk’s shoulder and giggling. Dohyuk sighed and relaxed his body, and only then did Junseo stand obediently by his side.
“Is there a movie you want to see?”
The screen of the phone Junseo held out showed a ticketing page. Dohyuk silently scrolled down, but it was unlikely that he would know any of the movies in the first place. He was about to choose something safe from the top-ranked films when a familiar poster caught his eye. This was exactly what Seah had recently bragged about seeing, sending him a picture. Without realizing it, Dohyuk poked that poster with his finger and turned to Junseo.
“I heard ‘The Void’ is good.”
***
He hadn’t known it was a horror movie.
No, come to think of it, Seah had definitely mentioned it was a horror film. Perhaps he’d forgotten because the poster didn’t feature a bloody ghost holding a knife. “The Void” had a poster with a stark black tree in the center—a truly void-looking design.
This is bad. Dohyuk stared blankly at the dark screen, ignoring the speakers emitting eerie sounds, and eventually glanced at Junseo. His tensed body had been looking pitiable for a while now. Finally, letting out a small breath, Dohyuk leaned close to Junseo’s ear and whispered.
“Should we leave? I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was a horror genre.”
At the same time, with a loud “thud!” the male protagonist who was running away fell down on the screen. Junseo’s shoulders simultaneously jerked upward. In the gloomy screen lighting, his darkened face had eyes that gleamed brightly.
Dohyuk unconsciously brushed Junseo’s eye corners with his finger. Is he crying? That might have been the look in his eyes. As Dohyuk anxiously stared at Junseo, completely losing interest in whether the male protagonist escaped from the ghost or not, Junseo pressed his lips against Dohyuk’s earlobe. This time, it was Dohyuk’s shoulders that jerked upward.
“Since it’s awkward to leave now, can I hold your hand? I’m scared.”
Even though this level of contact wasn’t a first, being asked like this so ticklishly made things strangely awkward. Dohyuk felt blood rushing to his face and was grateful for the dim lighting in the theater as he nodded slightly. When he extended his hand, the hand that interlocked fingers with his was as soft as ever. Only then did Junseo, half-leaning on Dohyuk’s shoulder and watching the movie, seem to be at ease, and Dohyuk thought that he must have been really scared.
Especially when they reached the climax where the female protagonist, possessed, intimidated the male protagonist, Junseo was practically half-buried in Dohyuk’s arms, which deepened Dohyuk’s feeling of guilt. He even felt like trash for being distracted by thoughts about ring sizes while measuring the thickness of their intertwined fingers, especially while this timid person was so frightened.
But when had the armrest been moved up? It had definitely been down before.
# Chapter 81
The blank space of just one day fluttered away quickly with a single light gesture. Dohyuk was so caught up in the flood of schedules rushing toward him that he didn’t even have time to regret the swift passage of time.
“Junseo, we’ve arrived.”
The bumpy sound of running across the dirt ground soon ceased and became quiet. Due to their early morning departure, the outside of the window was still tinged with dim light as dawn had not yet broken.
The journey from Seoul to Sokcho must have been exhausting. Despite the bustling sounds of people moving around that should have been enough to rouse him, Junseo only rubbed his eyes drowsily after Dohyuk shook him a couple of times. The delicate skin around his eyes easily turned red with even slight friction. Dohyuk hesitantly and carefully grasped Junseo’s wrist, and his drowsy eyes blinked. After quite some time, Junseo seemed to emerge from sleep and raised his body that had been leaning against Dohyuk.
“Are you feeling more awake now?”
When Dohyuk whispered in a voice soaked with faint traces of a smile, Junseo nodded slowly like a child. He didn’t seem to have fully regained his senses. He was still swaying, half-intoxicated with drowsiness. Seeing him struggle so much was touching. If there hadn’t been anyone watching, Dohyuk could have just carried Junseo in his arms. Dohyuk thought this with a composed face, like an overly doting parent.
Something Dohyuk had learned while living with Junseo was that he slept more than expected. Despite having a face so delicate that he could supposedly feel the texture of a pea under a mattress, it was amazing how he could sleep like the dead without stirring at the slightest household noise. Yet he had a habit of waking up immediately when Dohyuk got up from bed and left the room, which lent credibility to Junseo’s peculiar logic.
‘Can’t I sleep with you? I feel safe only when you’re next to me, hyung.’
Dohyuk firmly rejected Junseo’s pleading with his pretty face for the first time. Of course, they had slept in the same bed a few times before due to the unavoidable reason of guiding. But back then, Dohyuk had been unconscious. Sharing a bed with Junseo while fully conscious? He would rather be dispatched alone on an A-class dungeon stabilization mission than try to sleep soundly while sharing a bed with Junseo in his right mind.
Even now, he was barely hanging on due to the side effects of the antidepressants prescribed for Espers at the institute—Espers regularly take antidepressants and sedatives. To be blunt, despite his desire being diminished as much as possible by drug side effects, he was like a volcano about to explode with excitement every time he saw Junseo’s face.
Of course, it was common for Espers and Guides to form deep relationships. Even the headquarters didn’t interfere with mutually consensual relationships as long as they weren’t coercive crimes, and there was even an atmosphere that subtly encouraged such relationships for the mental stability of Espers. But Dohyuk didn’t want to somehow drift into that kind of relationship with Junseo. It wasn’t a matter of having fantasies about the first time. He had already buttoned the first button wrongly on the day he first met Junseo, and he didn’t want to repeat such a mistake. He wanted to properly confess his feelings and progress step by step. To do that, first a ring… Ah, fuck. I don’t know.
