The blown light in Hwichan’s place turned out not to be a bulb issue. So they thought it might be the fuse — but it wasn’t that either. On a hunch, they checked the breaker box, and inside was an old bird’s nest, abandoned there for who knows how long.
When they asked the Village Chief about it, he said all they’d need to do was remove the nest, clean the breaker box thoroughly, and replace it. Haeshin offered to help, but Hwichan flatly refused, making it clear he found the whole thing tiresome — “Whether the lights work or not, I like it here just as little either way.”
And so Lee Haeshin returned home alone. With a heart full of turbulent feeling.
From the moment the boat entered the waters of Samsam Island, the sky had been pouring rain as if it had forgotten what season it was. The cause was obvious. Lee Haeshin.
He’d seen on the news the other day that somewhere in America called California suffered terrible droughts every summer — if the Sea Dragon King had truly wanted to do someone a favor, he should have kept him in California rather than Samsam Island. Just plant one good-looking, mild-tempered fellow beside him, and California would never run short of water again.
Haeshin lay down in the dark bedroom and pulled the blanket over his head. The only things humming in the room were the flickering of the TV turned all the way down to its lowest volume, and the grating buzz of the static it gave off.
“Unbelievable.”
A dull talk show was playing on the television. He’d turned it on on purpose.
He wasn’t sure who the word was aimed at. Haeshin kept squirming, clutching his own head. His mind had been rewinding the same scene over and over, like a broken video player.
What did it feel like when the lips touched.
A little cooler than hands from the cold air — those lips he found so unbearable, always spitting words he didn’t want to hear. But in that moment, nothing else registered, only the single impression that they were warm. His whole body had felt something like an electric current running through it.
He’d long known his conscience was worn out, but not to this extent. Haeshin found himself, for the first time, genuinely understanding his ancestors’ long history of doomed love.
His heart pounding this hard over a pair of lips barely grazing his forehead — surely something had shorted in his brain circuitry. At this point, a genetic defect seemed certain.
But a kiss on the forehead isn’t something you can just brush off as “barely.” Was it that someone from Seoul was so accustomed to kisses that it meant nothing?
Even as he thought it, he despised his own mind for trying to rationalize things with a hopeful maybe…… But the moment he stopped rationalizing, the sensation of Hwichan’s slightly cool lips pressing against his forehead played back in vivid detail. As if urging him to keep the rationalization going.
When the dark fringe fell like wisteria leaves and tickled his forehead. When the faintly cooled warmth of skin met his. When the large hand cupping his cheek tightened its grip, just a little.
Up close, those neat lashes were far calmer and more beautiful than they’d appeared from a distance. The fact that in those deep, strikingly dark irises, the only reflection was his own face — it made Haeshin feel something almost overwhelming.
I’m losing my mind. Overwhelming for what.
No reason to feel overwhelmed, and yet here we are. Haeshin muttered self-deprecatingly to himself and pressed his forehead straight into the blanket. He wanted to rub the warmth away — but it wouldn’t come off. Lightning still flashed outside the window.
What if it hadn’t been his forehead, but somewhere else.
Would your breath have been as cool as your lips? Or as warm as the hand that held my cheek.
In his imagination, Hwichan smiled softly and pressed his lips against Haeshin’s forehead, bridge of his nose, cheek, and mouth, again and again. And finally, tapping his lips with the tip of his tongue, he asked — “Want to kiss?”
“God, he’s insane.”
This is exactly why someone who falls fast and has never dated in his life shouldn’t be allowed near romantic feelings. Give them just the slightest opening and they’ll run away with it completely on their own — not just sipping from the kimchi jar but picking the whole crock up and chugging it.
“He’s genuinely insane!”
Haeshin squeezed his eyes shut, then slowly let his gaze drift downward. When he caught sight of the slightly more pronounced outline beneath his shorts compared to usual, something cold went through him. He’d always found that part of himself annoying, but it had been a long time since he’d found his own body this unbearable.
He retrieved the remote he’d flung aside and pressed the volume button, letting sound fill the room. The dry voices of elderly commentators came through. He jabbed the channel button at random and stopped on a movie channel. He had no idea what the title was, but hearing something human-sounding made him feel marginally better.
Haeshin took a steadying breath, like a person about to catch a mouse that had gotten into the yard, and carefully tugged his waistband down. It wasn’t quite a full erection. Just a slight stirring — barely half-risen. That was something to be grateful for, at least.
A cold shower would have taken care of it. And yet.
“Ha……”
Haeshin reached down with a smooth hand and touched himself between his legs. He couldn’t bring himself to simply grab his cock and stroke it shamelessly all at once — and so he timidly dragged his fingertips along the soft inner skin of his thighs before curling them around the shaft with an unsteady grip.
When was the first time I ever did this. A completely useless thought for the situation floated up.
A long time ago — probably back when he still had feelings for Yoo Sihyeon. The village grandmother’s grandson, who had been a year younger than him. He was also the only person, apart from his dead family, who knew Haeshin wasn’t human.
What was his expression the first time he saw my tail. He remembered vaguely that Sihyeon had reacted as if he’d seen something horrifying and repulsive. He remembered it clearly — because it was the day the one-sided love he’d thought might become something mutual came to an end.
“Mmh……”
He tightened his hand and stroked in an effort to drive out the unwanted thoughts, and a small, involuntary sound escaped him. His work-roughened palm rubbing along the shaft made it feel almost like something foreign — some other hand — was touching him there.
— Say, are you excited?
He’d liked that low, teasing voice asking if he was excited.
Yeah, I am. He regretted not being able to say it. If I’d answered honestly, what face would you have made? He wanted to know — and yet he felt certain that the moment it actually came, he would turn away from it.
As he stroked slowly, dragging a clipped fingernail down the edge of the glans, a bead of clear, thin fluid welled up and trickled out.
In his fantasy, Shin Hwichan had the pale, solid body from that first day — pressing down on Haeshin. Blue veins stood out along his forearms, and a large, white hand gripped the shaft and stroked it slowly, rubbing the slick, glistening head with a gentle kind of deliberateness.
He squeezed the swollen, taut sac with mean firmness — and when Haeshin whimpered at it, he said “Ah, sorry,” perfunctory and completely without remorse, and went right back to grinding against the head.
What exactly does sex between men involve? He wasn’t going to get to find out anyway, so he might as well at least imagine it.
Just once, a few years ago, he’d seen a film on television that dealt with love between men. The acting had been remarkable, but it hadn’t shown how they came together, how it worked — and so Haeshin had folded that curiosity away and kept it folded.
The only place with internet on this island was the Village Chief’s house. He wasn’t brave enough to walk all the way over there and search for gay pornography, or how sex between men worked.
Haeshin’s knuckle-prominent hand gripped the shaft and stroked it with intention. His lean lower abdomen shifted and rocked. If it works the same way as between a man and a woman — taking it inside — would you still try to press me flat beneath you? Your body’s bigger than mine, and you probably know more than I do — so yes, I think you would.
The one he was imagining had no idea any of this was happening — and yet Haeshin’s body burned and strained with want entirely on its own. Breath carrying warmth and moisture began to heat the room around him. It was the dead of winter, but it felt like summer — hot, burning.
“Ah, ah——!”
Is it normal for someone to use a person they’ve known barely over two weeks as material for this? Is that a sign that these feelings are wrong? I’m not normal to begin with — does that mean I can’t be held to any normal standard? Can’t I feel excited in an ordinary way, like everyone else?
A self-questioning introspection that did nothing for the pleasure churning through him turned one corner of his mind upside down.
To break through this neither-good-nor-bad state, Haeshin quickly conjured the image of Hwichan’s well-formed body. When he imagined that person flushed with arousal and coming — his stomach curled with want almost involuntarily.
Then Haeshin’s hips arched up and shuddered. His lightly pigmented hair scattered weakly across the worn, pilled bedding. Like a handful of sand thrown all at once.
Do you touch yourself too, when it’s not just in my imagination? Probably. There are almost no men past twenty who don’t.
“Ah, yes——!”
White-clouded fluid surged and spattered up to Haeshin’s solar plexus. He set aside the one-sided exchange and caught his breath. Having just finished, the firm shaft was now soft and pliant in his hand.
After a brief rest, he started again. This time with less hesitation. He stroked and pressed along the shaft, and now even thinner, clearer fluid dripped and fell onto the bedding.
The slick fluid traced down the shaft and tickled the round, full weight beneath. Far hotter than seawater, more concentrated, carrying a private and intimate scent.
He had fallen into fruitless love many times before. Every time someone came to this island from outside and caught his eye even a little — without fail, it happened.
Haeshin didn’t call it one-sided love. He called it hollow love. Because it was the same kind of heart-stirring as when your eyes are drawn to something beautiful or unusual.
But once — just once in his life — there had been a moment of something truly felt. A moment when, though it had been a mistake, his lips had met someone else’s.
