Was it some kind of trophy concept? When Shim Woomin snickered indecently, Yeo Dowoon asked quietly.
“…Hyung, are you sleepy?”
“Hm?”
“You always act crazy whenever you’re sleepy. To me.”
Yeo Dowoon began kneading Shim Woomin’s shoulders firmly, making no effort to hide his annoyance.
When a grip strength incomparable to an ordinary human’s mercilessly squeezed his muscles, Shim Woomin wobbled side to side, going “Ow, ow, ow.” Ahhh! Shim Woomin then let out a scream and begged desperately.
“It hurts, Dowoon-ah…, ugh! My shoulder’s going to dislocate…”
“It’s supposed to hurt.”
“But it hurts too, hng, much!”
“You’ll get used to it if you endure.”
“Aahhh…!”
Yeo Dowoon didn’t care whether Shim Woomin writhed under his hands or not, and persistently massaged his shoulders. Even when he cried and begged like a child, Yeo Dowoon didn’t bat an eye.
“Hup, uuugh…”
He only released his hands when Shim Woomin started sniffling. At least it would have helped with blood circulation, so that was something. Shim Woomin, rotating his seemingly dislocated shoulder, muttered.
“Since you gave me a massage, I’m grateful… haa. Let me give you some advice too.”
He didn’t need any damn advice or whatever.
Just as he was about to pass by without any intention of listening, Shim Woomin threw out a shocking statement that seriously shook Yeo Dowoon’s heart.
“Instead of just you being the second, make Cha Haseong-ssi your second too.”
“……”
“It’s the concept of being each other’s seconds. Hmm… polyamory? Something like that.”
“…What’s that?”
Shim Woomin had momentarily forgotten that Yeo Dowoon possessed a pristine brain that didn’t know things he should know, and also didn’t know things he shouldn’t know.
With a troubled smile, he beckoned Yeo Dowoon to come closer. Yeo Dowoon, who had been eyeing him suspiciously, soon leaned his upper body forward with the mindset of letting himself be fooled.
That’s when it happened. Shim Woomin planted a *smack*, a stolen kiss on his cheek. An innocent eye-smile met Yeo Dowoon’s face head-on as it turned ferocious.
“You fucking…”
Even after getting a mouthful of curses, Shim Woomin laughed heartily and added more explanation. He seemed to have gone crazy from having too much fun.
“This is polyamory. Whether you’re dating someone or not, it’s a relationship where it doesn’t matter if I kiss you like this. It’s commonly called multi-partner dating, so you should consider it too. If Haseong-ssi has a lover, why can’t you?”
“If it’s advice you can give with words, why do you have to rub your mouth on me? Do you want to die?”
When Yeo Dowoon asked back coldly, Shim Woomin answered while pulling his hoodie cap down low.
“I did it because I thought you’d be disgusted, and you’re even more disgusted than I expected, so I’m really satisfied.”
“If you’re sleepy, go to sleep. Stop taking out your frustrations on others.”
“Oh, isn’t that what you’re best at?”
*Smack!* Yeo Dowoon struck Shim Woomin’s forehead hard enough to make a sound, then slid open the hospital room door. He’d chosen to do this because he felt his irritation would only rise if he kept talking with Shim Woomin, whose temper had soured from sleepiness. Regardless of the screams erupting behind him, Yeo Dowoon entered the hospital room without a care.
“…Did Woomin bully you?”
Kwon Jeonghoo, looking much tidier than before, gestured toward behind Yeo Dowoon and asked. Yeo Dowoon hesitated slightly at the sight of him undressing his upper body, then averted his gaze as he answered.
“I wasn’t bullied, I was the one being bullied.”
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
Kwon Jeonghoo refuted in a relaxed voice. Perhaps because he had just received guiding, his atmosphere seemed more drowsy and relaxed than usual. Yeo Dowoon suddenly became curious.
Was it non-contact guiding, or contact guiding? If it was contact guiding, did they do mucous membrane guiding too?
He knew asking about the scope of guiding was quite a rude question, but once he started wondering, Yeo Dowoon’s lips began to itch even as he pulled out a chair and sat next to Kwon Jeonghoo. His expression also twitched strangely.
“Say it.”
Finally, Kwon Jeonghoo gestured at him with his chin. His tone suggested he could see right through the likes of him, so stop acting naive and spit it out already.
Yeo Dowoon, his facial muscles twitching, fiddled with the fruit basket on top of the drawer for no reason. Seeing that there was even melon in it, it seemed Baek Seonwoo had unusually spent some money.
“Would you like a smoothie? I’ll make one for you.”
“What’s with the random nonsense?”
“Have you tried melon smoothie?”
Well, a smoothie was just a drink that required freezing the fruit with his ability and then finely crushing it with craftsman spirit, so it wasn’t a particularly difficult menu.
In fact, every summer Kwon Jeonghoo would throw tropical fruits at him and demand he make drinks, throwing a fit about it. But he declined, saying it was fine. A weighty voice followed along with a faint sigh.
“Just tell me what you’re thinking right now.”
Yeo Dowoon deliberated. He thought about just asking bluntly since he wanted to know so badly, but when it came to actually asking, he hesitated because it was obvious Kwon Jeonghoo would look troubled.
But when Kwon Jeonghoo tapped the mattress as if urging him, Yeo Dowoon blurted out quickly.
“Do you also receive contact guiding, Captain?”
“……”
“And if you do, I’m also curious whether you receive mucous membrane guiding.”
When he finished saying he didn’t have to answer if he didn’t want to, Kwon Jeonghoo sighed more deeply than before.
Seeing his brow furrow tightly, it felt like he was annoyed, but either way, Yeo Dowoon just kept his mouth shut.
Silence bloomed fully within the hospital room. Yeo Dowoon even felt ticklish from Kwon Jeonghoo just staring at him intently. He felt heat rising in various parts of his skin.
In an instant, Kwon Jeonghoo grabbed Yeo Dowoon’s chin with one hand. His eyes curved slightly as if finding the rolling eyes trying to avoid him cute. “Dowoon-ah,” the voice calling him was particularly gentle today.
“I don’t feel like kissing anyone but you anymore, hyung doesn’t.”
“Other people don’t receive guiding because they want to kiss eith—”
“Stupid bastard.”
Yeo Dowoon felt something soft pressing against his lips. Kwon Jeonghoo’s face was excessively close. The bittersweet scent emanating from him and the rough texture unique to hospital gowns paralyzed his hearing and touch at once.
Yeo Dowoon held his breath, and Kwon Jeonghoo breathed into him. His kiss was short and light.
Kwon Jeonghoo’s eyes were sorrowful. He whispered.
“I’m glad you’re alive.”
In a voice full of faith and affection that was hard for Yeo Dowoon to bear.
So Yeo Dowoon found the emotions he was pouring onto him suspicious and grating. The question “Why?” floated around, and eventually led to the conclusion “It can’t be.”
“I’ve told you repeatedly… I have no intention of crossing the line with Captain.”
When Yeo Dowoon pushed against his chest firmly, Kwon Jeonghoo answered while fiddling with his hair. He had pushed so hard that his pectoral muscles ached. But he wasn’t offended.
“You didn’t cross the line. I did.”
Even if Yeo Dowoon had slapped his cheek with full force, he would have smirked like a sly snake.
At that moment, Shim Woomin’s mischievous voice saying to make Cha Haseong his second too passed through Yeo Dowoon’s head like thunder and lightning.
But that was wrong from the premise itself. Just this morning, Cha Haseong had confessed that he didn’t have a lover. Yeo Dowoon recalled his pale white face as they lay facing each other on the bed, whispering.
Kwon Jeonghoo spoke as if he’d expected this, pressing firmly on Yeo Dowoon’s cheek.
“You’re thinking about someone else again.”
Kwon Jeonghoo looked anxious.
“When you’re with hyung, think only about hyung, Dowoon-ah.”
Like a beast of the fields left empty, unable to hold onto the departing flock of birds. Like a field that anxiously closes its eyes when the fresh green meadow is dyed in colors resembling fallen leaves, and white snow piled up softly freezes the ground.
“I only look at you too.”
He looked heartsick.
***
The hospital room was noisy from early morning. It was because the research team and medical team visited like they were in a rush, as if they had coordinated, exactly at 8 AM.
Yeo Dowoon, who had been crumpled up sleeping on a cot much smaller than his height, was chased out of the hospital room after roughly finishing washing his face and brushing his teeth.
“Please wait outside for a moment!”
Plopping down in the white, linear corridor, he lowered his drowsy face and tried loosening his shoulders and massaging his nape to regain his senses.
But perhaps because he had spent the night curled up on an uncomfortable bed, his waist, arms, legs—everything ached, and his condition seemed to plummet vertically.
Damn it, even his butt was sore and stinging.
*’If it’s hard, come up.’*
Kwon Jeonghoo had suggested several times that it would naturally be better to cuddle together on his bed. But every time, Yeo Dowoon had flatly refused.
*’No thanks.’*
The darkened hospital room and the sharp smell of disinfectant.
The voluminous chest openly exposed with several buttons of his patient gown undone… it was because Kwon Jeonghoo was definitely up to no good.
Yeo Dowoon had engraved into his bones that he was very short on patience and weak to impulses and desires. He was a tree that would fall very easily if pushed.
That’s why after he took Cha Haseong into his heart, hadn’t he completely blocked off any possibility of going outside so that even the “yeon” of “yeonae” (dating) wouldn’t come up?
*’Even if you strip and seduce me, I won’t fall for it, so give up and go to sleep.’*
But now that he had actually rolled around through dawn on such an uncomfortable bed, he was filled with regret. His physical condition was the worst of the worst, to the point where it didn’t feel like he had slept at all.
