The atmosphere tensed up sharply in an instant. Kwon Jeonghoo’s fingers touching his skin were excessively cold. Yeo Dowoon felt goosebumps rising along his spine.
“Dowoon.”
Kwon Jeonghoo muttered, full of cold laughter.
“If you come at me like this, hyung is in big trouble.”
“……”
“Even though I try to endure, try to endure……”
Yeo Dowoon hastily grabbed his forearm as if to stop him, but the steel-like body remained unmoved as ever. Kwon Jeonghoo leaned his upper body until he could properly meet his gaze.
When even their breaths became close enough to collide hotly, his eyes curved.
A space like a closed room where only the two of them existed. Yeo Dowoon newly recognized Kwon Jeonghoo’s scent. He absolutely couldn’t suppress the stirring memories. Kwon Jeonghoo was approaching. The one who had always stayed by his side.
“…Get some sleep. I’ll wake you up at the right time.”
That Kwon Jeonghoo who had always been consistent with him.
The hand that fell away stroked Yeo Dowoon’s hair soothingly. When Kwon Jeonghoo, leaning his back against the fleshy wall, lowered his eyelids, Yeo Dowoon was troubled, noticing his racing heart.
***
‘Damn Kwon Jeonghoo. Is he joking, really……’
If you finish saying everything you want to say and then suddenly force someone to sleep soundly, even someone who had been drowsy would end up wide awake instead. Yeo Dowoon was exactly in that situation right now.
With a mind that had become incredibly clear and lucid, he tried to fathom Kwon Jeonghoo’s inner thoughts.
What on earth was he thinking and living with that great head of his—if he could dissect and dig into it thoroughly like a famous doctor, it seemed he’d feel completely refreshed.
“Can’t sleep? You’ve been fidgeting since earlier.”
Kwon Jeonghoo, who had been taking off his wet clothes to wring out the water, asked as if puzzled. Yeo Dowoon glanced at his back, which was positioned right before his eyes.
He deliberately paid no attention to the cringeworthy word “fidgeting.” Because he wasn’t unaware that it was a word deliberately chosen to mock him.
“What’s so boring that Captain keeps squirming around?”
When he asked back with a similar-sounding word, as expected, Kwon Jeonghoo burst into laughter as if absurd. After spreading out his clothes flat and shaking them out vigorously like a clothes dryer, he extended his hand to Yeo Dowoon as well.
“You take yours off too. I’ll drain the water for you.”
“……No thanks.”
“They’re wet.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“If you don’t wring it out and stay like that….”
“You’re doing that on purpose right now, aren’t you?”
Only then did Kwon Jeonghoo shrug his shoulders.
Yeo Dowoon was now at the point of feeling resentful. He couldn’t grasp at which point the relationship had twisted and headed toward this shitty situation.
Why did it have to be Kwon Jeonghoo?
“…Are you still in contact with Jinseo noona?”
If it had been Baek Seonwoo or Ko Ijae, he would have beaten them to death to make them give up, but why, of all people.
“You two were once close to sending out wedding invitations.”
Why did it have to be you?
Now Yeo Dowoon was experiencing it so nakedly that he couldn’t even feign ignorance. Kwon Jeonghoo’s affection.
Whenever his eyes looking at him boiled intensely, even when he tried not to, the center of his chest would feel hollow. It was probably because he couldn’t shake off the feelings filled with guilt.
“Just because I bring up my ex…, I don’t think I’d develop ill feelings toward you.”
Kwon Jeonghoo answered with an indifferent face. Soon he shot back annoyingly.
“Are you still in contact with Sujin?”
“……”
“Ah, there was Minhye too. What about Minhye?”
“I exchange greetings from time to time.”
Actually, it wasn’t greetings but just mobile game invitations. Anyway, he could convey greetings through that, so it wasn’t exactly a lie. Kwon Jeonghoo praised him in an exaggerated tone.
“Nice to have such a wide network, Dowoon.”
“……”
“Hyung has a narrow network so I can’t do that.”
Every time Kwon Jeonghoo referred to himself as ‘hyung,’ Yeo Dowoon’s palms itched. He tried clenching his fist and then spreading it wide, but the elation similar to the sound of a heartbeat still remained.
One word rising up his throat.
But for some reason, hesitation arose in the process of uttering it. Yeo Dowoon slowly rubbed his face. It was a sluggish movement. It was natural since he was hesitating, wasn’t it?
“Since when……”
His voice was very low and hoarse.
“Since when have you liked men too?”
Kwon Jeonghoo raised the corners of his mouth as if he’d heard a trivial question. He calmly defended himself.
“Well. I don’t know exactly.”
“Have you dated one before?”
“Why that again.”
“If you have, I was going to tell you to meet that person again.”
Even after driving in the wedge, his solar plexus felt stiff as if a heavy stone pouch had been placed on it. So Yeo Dowoon thought he was rather fortunate not to be able to see Kwon Jeonghoo’s expression.
If he had to witness him getting hurt before his eyes, even knowing he had to give a clear rejection, he would have pretended not to know and dragged out the time. Kwon Jeonghoo spoke nonchalantly as if he’d anticipated it.
“You meet him.”
“……”
“Why are you trying to push it off on someone else? That’s hurtful.”
He stretched his legs out long to get comfortable.
It was ridiculous that they had to have this conversation while trapped inside a monster’s stomach, but since the opportunity had come anyway, it seemed he should bring it up. Yeo Dowoon said while massaging his legs.
“I like you too, hyung.”
Kwon Jeonghoo was a person with various significant meanings to him. He was the only man who had charged into his purposeless life without any hint, standing behind him without a single complaint and pushing his back.
A person he was grateful to. A person beyond his station.
A person with a foul temper. A person he respected.
When Teacher’s Day came around, he would occasionally buy carnations and toss them to him. For some reason, his throat felt scratchy. He just wanted to gulp down cold water to relieve this frustrating thirst.
“When Captain meets a good person and gets married, I want to give the biggest wedding gift money….”
“……”
“If you have a child, I want to take responsibility for college tuition and even study abroad expenses. There’s a lot I want to give you.”
Feeling like his words were getting tangled more and more, Yeo Dowoon messed up his hair in all directions.
“But since none of that seems to be what Captain wants, please give up.”
“……”
“This is the maximum for me.”
It was the best answer he could give to Kwon Jeonghoo.
Because Yeo Dowoon simply wished he would be his brother. He wished he would be a teacher who showed him the right path, and a comrade who had shared the days when he showed bravado.
As silence rippled, regret crept in stealthily, wondering if he shouldn’t have said it.
But Yeo Dowoon firmly maintained his position. Rather than look at Kwon Jeonghoo with such-and-such eyes…, it was better to live his whole life as an asexual.
Just then, the monster’s body tilted lopsidedly and his center of gravity became disturbed along with it.
“Ah……!”
Kwon Jeonghoo, who had snatched Yeo Dowoon and pulled him into his generous embrace, went “shh” and gestured upward with his eyes.
“Not here—kick me away once we get out alive.”
A faint ray of sunlight was revealing its outline.
“First, you need to be alive to be able to give up or not.”
***
Was this how frogs looking up beyond a well felt? Encountering the hole pierced in the middle above the monster, Yeo Dowoon began preparing to actively pour out attacks.
He concentrated attention on his palms to gather strength, and roughly floated the shape of the glacier in his mind. Since he had to protect Kwon Jeonghoo from getting hurt, he needed to be even more careful today.
“Just as Captain taught me, I’ll complete the mission perfectly.”
The spreading light couldn’t be more welcome.
“Watch carefully and spread the word. Got it?”
Yeo Dowoon requested in a voice that could sound arrogant. Above his cold eyes that had quite the talent for making people read the room, a genial smile was already overlapping.
Though it was said like a joke, Kwon Jeonghoo clicked his tongue and answered.
“Impudent bastard.”
But as if he too couldn’t help it, he ended up smiling in the end.
Even if the plan succeeded safely, it was hard to guarantee whether they could resurface from the beach near Incheon Yeongjong-do where they had sunk together.
Perhaps they might end up isolated somewhere in the Atlantic, said to be connected to this coastal gate. But Kwon Jeonghoo was calm. Because he believed in the abilities of the Esper he had raised.
“Give me your hand, hyung!”
At the same time as a kwaang, the sound of discharge resonated, Yeo Dowoon stretched out his arm with all his might.
“Hurry!”
The pure white mass of light stung his eyes sharply. After the glacier stem that shot up at an angle penetrated the whale’s blowhole, it heaved dynamically as if it were a living creature.
Kwon Jeonghoo quickly ran over and grasped Yeo Dowoon’s palm. The moment they shared each other’s body heat, coincidentally, Yeo Dowoon smiled innocently. A voice with a pleasant resonance came out—haha.
Kwon Jeonghoo had accumulated long years facing this sight of him curving his eyes so brightly hundreds, thousands more times. Whoosh, the rising ice stem led the two people into the air.
Was that why? He inadvertently recalled it.
‘Yeo Dowoon’s crying face compared to….’
That time when this skilled and perceptive Esper had shed tears for the first time since meeting him. Back then, he himself had been dying, bleeding profusely from his abdomen.
‘His smiling face.’
Beyond the darkened vision, a voice wailing in agony had shaken his consciousness.
He could notice even while his breath was being cut off that the person embracing him was convulsing in even greater pain instead.
Captain, Captain! Yeo Dowoon, who had shouted until his throat burst, had eventually carried him on his back and run out, and that unfamiliar sensation of being carried on another’s back still remained like a scar, proudly showing its traces.
‘Is much prettier.’
Only then did the tension completely release, and Kwon Jeonghoo’s unconsciousness devoured his sober mind to the fullest.
