# Chapter 26
As the tone filled with anger flew in, Yeo Dowoon rubbed his bright red ears with ice and felt wronged.
“It wasn’t addiction, it was suspected addiction. Did you catch some disease where you die if you don’t exaggerate?”
Recalling his memories from when he was twenty, being sent to a rehabilitation center after being diagnosed with suspected nicotine addiction, he threw off the hat Shim Woomin had put on him, as if he was suffocating.
At that, Kwon Jeonghoo grabbed his cigarette pack tightly and smiled strangely.
Though his eyes and mouth were clearly curved in a smile, the atmosphere he gave off was as stuffy as the humidity in the rainy season, making each word he uttered echo eerily.
“I wondered why you were wearing a hat…”
Kwon Jeonghoo’s eyes were still lingering around Yeo Dowoon’s lips.
But Yeo Dowoon, who wasn’t interested in why Shim Woomin had put a cap on him, continued speaking casually.
“If others see me, they’ll think I’m the Captain’s secret son. If you’re going to keep this up, you might as well add me to your family registry now.”
“……”
“From now on, I’ll be Kwon Dowoon instead of Yeo Dowoon.”
He smiled sarcastically, but when the expected reaction didn’t come, he felt confused instead.
By now, he should rightfully be hearing a scolding half-filled with sighs, but Kwon Jeonghoo was suffocating him with a silence so unfamiliar.
“…Captain?”
It was when Yeo Dowoon called out to him, seemingly tense.
Kwon Jeonghoo answered by throwing the cigarette pack on the floor, then immediately crushed it with his glossy shoe. Yeo Dowoon slowly backed away as he watched him approach.
As if delivering an ultimatum, Kwon Jeonghoo said,
“You’re twenty-seven now, Yeo Dowoon.”
“……”
“Not seventeen, twenty-seven.”
I know. Although he didn’t understand why he was explaining in detail a fact that could be immediately known just by looking at his ID, Yeo Dowoon hastily nodded anyway.
The thought of escaping from Kwon Jeonghoo, even now, began to take shape stealthily. But there was no visible escape route.
Fuck, there’s not even a rat’s tail of a chance of winning.
Therefore, Yeo Dowoon drastically revised his strategy to “no one spits on a smiling face,” and welcomed Kwon Jeonghoo with a bright smile.
Nevertheless, Kwon Jeonghoo just snarled like an emotionless cyborg.
“You’re past the age of offering your body to anyone just because you were rejected.”
Yeo Dowoon struggled to combine each word that entered his head. It was difficult to understand the meaning from the single sentence he had just heard.
Rejection, gaping, offering your body… What?
“Who’s offering their body to whom?”
No matter how distant his position was as his superior, there were clear boundaries and degrees in human relationships.
Regardless of whether Yeo Dowoon was glaring at him with fierce eyes, Kwon Jeonghoo took the last step indifferently, slowly lowered his head to meet his eyes, and asked,
“Is this Shim Woomin’s work?”
With Kwon Jeonghoo’s face pressed up close, leaving only a few centimeters between them, Yeo Dowoon was startled and turned his eyes elsewhere.
Although it was a face he had seen every day for 10 years, since becoming independent from him, there were times when his handsome features felt awkward.
That unique, sticky gaze that seemed to dig through all of a person’s internal organs also played a significant role. Kwon Jeonghoo repeated his question.
“I’m asking if this is Shim Woomin’s work, Dowoon.”
“What the freezing hell kind of work… If you want to ask if I kissed Woomin hyung, just ask directly. I didn’t.”
But Kwon Jeonghoo, as if not trusting Yeo Dowoon, asked back with a voice clearly showing futility.
“…Anyone will do?”
Yeo Dowoon finally faced him only after the heated breath slightly rippled near his ear. The man known as Delta’s core, the darling of the Esper base, was carefully touching his lips.
Rough fingers fumbled around his mouth, which had taken Cha Haseong’s violent kisses.
When Yeo Dowoon suddenly bit his finger hard as if showing dominance, Kwon Jeonghoo froze in place like a lie. Ptui, Yeo Dowoon spat out the finger and answered coldly, in a way that might seem impudent.
“If anyone would do, I would have already picked someone and done it until I got physically satisfied.”
“……”
“I don’t like that.”
Despite the clear-cut answer, Kwon Jeonghoo was still frozen. Watching him and wondering if the bitten finger was too painful, Yeo Dowoon lowered his gaze and asked,
“There’s not even a tooth mark… does it hurt?”
Kwon Jeonghoo’s hands were different from Cha Haseong’s slender fingers that fell gently at each joint.
Befitting an Esper who ran through dungeons between life and death, the skin leather was full of scars that were no different from records of fierce battles. Yeo Dowoon’s hands were not much different.
As if suddenly buried in memories, Yeo Dowoon pulled Kwon Jeonghoo’s hand closer to examine it carefully and said with a long curve at the corners of his mouth,
“It’s almost like a diary, a diary. This scar is from suppressing the gate that broke out in Gangwon Province, right?”
It was around the time when he opened his palm and placed it next to Kwon Jeonghoo’s hand.
“I also got dozens of scars that day…”
“It’s a wound I got while trying to save you.”
Words that seemed to be pressing down on unspeakable emotions poured out abundantly like thick arrows of rain.
“You have a lot on your hands too. Wounds from trying to save me.”
“……”
“Even in the days when you didn’t know the ways of the world, you went around causing accidents and making people worry… I wonder how you can remain the same even after 10 years.”
“It’s because I couldn’t go to school. Because I haven’t learned anything.”
Feeling awkward in the unusual atmosphere, Yeo Dowoon deliberately made up a joking tone to respond. The surrounding air and noise were also approaching disturbingly, making him uncomfortable.
The smell of Kwon Jeonghoo’s fabric softener, no different from usual, was particularly pungent today.
The spicy tobacco fragrance that mixed in between also sensitively touched his senses.
When Yeo Dowoon, who hadn’t managed to erase the jumbled emotions, hastily put down his hand as if being chased by something, this time Kwon Jeonghoo rested his forehead on his shoulder and spat out what he wanted to say.
“If you’re willing to get physically satisfied, come to hyung.”
Naturally, the colorful marks that had been engraved while Cha Haseong was tormenting Yeo Dowoon’s nape also came into Kwon Jeonghoo’s view.
But Kwon Jeonghoo, still seeming to misunderstand it as Shim Woomin’s doing, added sarcastically,
“Don’t go around trying to stab innocent guides just because Cha Haseong won’t accept you.”
“……”
“You don’t want to be known for having a guide fetish, right?”
Even so, Yeo Dowoon, who hadn’t dreamed that an attack mentioning a fetish would follow, distorted his face strangely and refuted,
“Who would have such uncivilized thoughts unless they’re a pervert like Captain? Don’t worry, I’ll behave well on my own, so stop milking this. If someone sees, they’ll think I can’t sleep with Cha Haseong…”
But in the middle of speaking, another subject suddenly came to Yeo Dowoon’s mind, and he quickly changed the point.
“By the way, Captain, why didn’t you ask me?”
When Kwon Jeonghoo seemed to completely misunderstand his meaning, he asked more specifically.
“My location. If you had asked me directly, I would have told you I was in the guide break room, so I don’t understand why you were only pressuring other people.”
But Kwon Jeonghoo countered suspiciously.
“Didn’t you avoid answering because you didn’t want to?”
“It’s obvious I’d get disciplined for unauthorized departure, so why would I do that?”
“I called you.”
It was also at the same time that Kwon Jeonghoo’s hand painfully grabbed Yeo Dowoon’s chin.
“Your name. I probably called it dozens more times.”
“Uh…”
“Yeo Dowoon, you don’t mean…”
There are only three cases when a mental Esper’s mental response isn’t connected.
If that person is dead, unconscious, or an Esper with even greater abilities.
However, Yeo Dowoon was an Esper of the same grade as Kwon Jeonghoo, so for him to deflect mental responses, one more condition had to be fulfilled.
That is, receiving outstanding contact guiding from a high-matching guide.
So Kwon Jeonghoo could only murmur with a hollow laugh.
“…Don’t tell me you and that bastard.”
“Um, Captain.”
“Slept together?”
Yeo Dowoon confirmed without hiding the spreading ominousness.
“Who are you talking about now? …Shim Woomin?”
Wondering if he was really misunderstanding that he had rolled in bed with a man as pitiful and heartbreaking as Shim Woomin, a complicated feeling rushed in. Kwon Jeonghoo promptly answered.
“Is there another candidate besides him?”
…The fact that it sounds like a certainty that there couldn’t be anyone else leaves even more of a wound.
With his resolute tone that made it unsuitable for excuses, Yeo Dowoon just silently pointed to the building where the guide break room was located.
To be exact, it was toward the 5th floor where Cha Haseong’s personal rest space was arranged.
Kwon Jeonghoo, who had decidedly not placed the three characters of Cha Haseong on top of the list of candidates for Yeo Dowoon’s bed partners, finally let out an “Ah” exclamation.
“…Cha Haseong.”
