When he responded with silence, Yoon Minoh checked with a voice mixed with curiosity. Yeo Dowoon pressed his hand onto the heating pad once. It felt like his palm was sizzling and cooking in the high temperature heat.
“Hyung.”
Yoon Minoh realized he was intentionally avoiding answering. Yeo Dowoon couldn’t stop the laugh from leaking out of his mouth for a moment.
He murmured as if dejected.
“Man… I can’t do this.”
Even thinking about it a hundred times, he seemed to have no talent for psychological warfare. Right now he wasn’t even engaged in high-level psychological warfare, but his energy was being sucked dry.
Yeo Dowoon, who raised a white flag easily, advised as if being generous.
“You stop pretending you don’t remember either. Since it’ll be exposed anyway, there’s no reason for us to waste energy between ourselves.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I said stop it, you bastard.”
Even in the atmosphere that was gradually getting tense, Yoon Minoh stubbornly didn’t stop playing dumb.
“I should at least know what to stop before I can stop or whatever.”
“I’m saying to stop being so damn irritating since it seems your cognitive-type Esper-ssi carelessly bungled the operation. Still don’t understand? Want me to explain in more detail?”
Yeo Dowoon just wanted to go outside and smoke cigarettes. It seemed fine to chug soju too, or to shut himself in a PC room and immerse himself in games all day.
He wanted to find anything he could immerse himself in and forget reality entirely.
“…Fuck. Nothing got erased at all?”
Yoon Minoh opened his mouth after a long while. He was very flustered at the unexpected result.
He thought at least half could be erased, but looking at his attitude, it seemed he couldn’t touch even a bit of the memory.
Yeo Dowoon vividly remembered everything from being dragged to the school unable to resist Yoon Minoh’s pestering, to the process of freezing his ankle together with the rooftop floor.
“That doesn’t make sense? …You really remember everything?”
“Judge for yourself whether it makes sense or not, and let me ask one thing. Where do you belong?”
Even though it was a question he’d been persistently asking since last time, Yoon Minoh kept dodging the answer this way and that.
“Yoon Minoh.”
Today he was sitting right there asking, so he wouldn’t be able to play dumb.
Yoon Minoh irritably ruffled his hair. It seemed like he was muttering curses, but that didn’t catch Yeo Dowoon’s attention. Yoon Minoh, who covered his face with both hands, confessed.
“It’s embarrassing so I don’t want to say.”
“What?”
“I said it’s embarrassing so I don’t want to say…”
His earlobes were dyed a pink color reminiscent of hydrangeas. When Yeo Dowoon was dumbfounded, Yoon Minoh cut to the chase and concluded.
“It’s the place hyung is thinking of.”
“Where is that place?”
“Ah shit…! Why are you doing this to me? I said it’s right, didn’t I?”
They say the one who farted gets angry—it was exactly that.
When Yoon Minoh huffed while covering his burning ears, Yeo Dowoon flicked his forehead with a thwack.
“Aagh!”
“Where’s a kid still wet behind the ears venting anger?”
“It’s because hyung is knowingly harassing me to embarrass me! What if I get a scar on my forehead? Are you going to keep me for life?”
Yoon Minoh threatened while showing his reddened forehead.
Actually, to call it threatening, the volume of his voice was far too small and timid. Yeo Dowoon, who’d been staring at the forehead clearly marked where his finger had struck and passed, unconsciously blurted out.
“Your forehead looks as disobedient as you.”
“…What do you mean?”
“I mean it looks like I want to hit it one more time.”
And then he flicked another one.
“Aaaagh! Fuck, hyung, are you crazy? Want to get hit the same way? If you have any conscience, bare your ass and lie down?”
He got hit on the forehead yet was threatening him to bare his ass, so Yeo Dowoon was gradually becoming more and more dumbfounded.
However, even seeing his rotting face, Yoon Minoh seemed to feel nothing as he pestered him day and night.
“I got hit twice, so hyung should at least offer your butt to be fair. Hurry up and lie down.”
“No.”
“Well, I don’t like your ‘no.’ Stick out your butt.”
“You just got rid of your virgin label and why is your head only filled with thoughts of doing that?”
At that moment, Yoon Minoh grinned as if caught perfectly. His pierced eyes curved bewitchingly.
“Doing that?”
His bleached hair swooshed toward Yeo Dowoon. Yoon Minoh thrust his pretty face forward.
“What is ‘that’?”
He asked back in an innocent tone. While fluttering his eyelashes as if showing them off.
“Hm…? What kind of thing?”
Yeo Dowoon struggled to resist the urge to smack Yoon Minoh’s head.
Not as an empty phrase, but sincerely—he wished this son of a bitch who should freeze to death would disappear from the world. There was also the rational basis that he’d lived long enough by now.
“Why no answer… Don’t tell me you’re imagining this thing and that thing…”
“You’re not my type.”
Yeo Dowoon said in a grave voice.
“And I already have someone.”
He thought that if only Yoon Minoh disappeared from Earth, the air floating in the void could become several times cleaner.
“Even if we died and woke up, it won’t happen between you and me.”
“Isn’t it too early to be certain? Hyung liked kissing me while touching my chest.”
Yoon Minoh was truly… like industrial wastewater ruining the ocean.
“Don’t distort it, bastard. When did I kiss you while touching your chest?”
“You’re going to play innocent after doing everything?”
Yeo Dowoon answered while removing Yoon Minoh’s white fingers gripping his forearm one by one.
“Your chest isn’t my type either.”
“Then whose chest is your type? Cha Haseong?”
Then Yoon Minoh struck back with yellow prospects. Yeo Dowoon sternly scolded him at the title that seemed like he’d eaten his manners with rice. His expression immediately hardened.
“Call him Guide-nim. It’s not like you’re calling your friend’s name.”
“Geez…, fine. What did he do so well to deserve the -nim? Everyone gets bossed around while receiving a salary.”
“A guy who barely survived keeps crossing the line? If it weren’t for Guide-nim, you wouldn’t even be alive, you bastard.”
Nevertheless, Yoon Minoh was arrogant.
“Yes yes, I’ll make sure to go tell him thank you for saving me, so hyung don’t mention that bastard’s name. When you’re with me, only call my name. Don’t keep hurting my feelings saying ‘this bastard’ and ‘that bastard.'”
“I’d rather tear my mouth than call your name.”
“Oh, then leave that to me. I’m confident I can tear it well with something thick and hot.”
“This fucking bastard…”
“Ah! He said bastard again!”
He flopped onto the bed, saying he was tired from bickering with Yeo Dowoon.
“I don’t want to talk to hyung anymore. Why the hell is your manner of speaking like that?”
When he fumbled to pull the blanket up to his head, Yeo Dowoon immediately pulled it down. Yoon Minoh laughed with a “huh” and pulled the blanket up again, and it was when Yeo Dowoon was repeating pulling it down that Yoon Minoh whispered.
“So fucking childish, really… You know?”
“You’re fucking arrogant.”
Then Yoon Minoh suddenly grabbed Yeo Dowoon’s collar and pulled. Yeo Dowoon firmly gripped the mattress to avoid being dragged by him. When he put strength in his arms and held firm, Yoon Minoh smiled faintly.
Because the hospital room lights were off, his bare face was painted entirely in colors like darkness.
“If even cognitive-type Espers don’t work… I can’t rashly say what level hyung’s ability has been enhanced to. Don’t hide it and answer me.”
Yoon Minoh continued without being hasty.
“Did you receive the experiment knowing, or not knowing?”
“……”
“I think it’s the latter… but just in case.”
The gaze looking up at Yeo Dowoon was unfamiliar. It even looked somewhat hollow. Yoon Minoh sometimes acted like a young child running around an empty playground alone.
He believed it wasn’t to stimulate sympathy. It might be his true nature he couldn’t quite hide. Yeo Dowoon confessed calmly.
“There’s not enough information to answer just hearing that.”
Yoon Minoh wet his parched lips with saliva.
“What is this experiment you’re talking about?”
He had some idea, but hoped his prediction would miss the mark.
Yoon Minoh smiled bitterly as if understanding his heart. He pulled Yeo Dowoon’s nape into an embrace. Yeo Dowoon stopped breathing for a moment looking at Yoon Minoh trapped beneath his two arms.
“Hermaphrodite chimera experiment.”
“……”
“So… to put it simply, it means hyung is in the process of becoming a chimera capable of reproducing alone. If successful, you’ll even lay eggs and stuff.”
“Is that even realistically possible?”
“If proteins successfully merge, it’s not impossible. The probability of success is just slim.”
People hearing it for the first time generally showed rejection.
Hearing that monster cells or whatever were being mixed into their body, and moreover that they might lay eggs if things went wrong—it would be more suspicious if they weren’t flustered.
But Yeo Dowoon didn’t act as predicted.
“Let go.”
He dropped Yoon Minoh as if annoyed and turned to sit perched at the bedside. Yoon Minoh lightly placed his palm on the wide back. As expected, human skin was warmer than a heating pad.
“Is it okay to just tell me like this?”
Yeo Dowoon asked while roughly dragging his hand down his face.
At the nausea that felt like his vision was spinning around and around, he repeatedly squeezed his eyes shut then opened them. He worried whether he might be visiting Yoon Minoh in a dream to have this conversation.
It meant the situation was that unrealistic. Yeo Dowoon added as if concerned.
“Won’t you get caught by clauses like confidentiality breach or something? You usually write contracts when joining guilds.”
“Tartaros doesn’t do that.”
For the first time, Yoon Minoh voiced the name of his guild aloud. His cheeks were already tinged with a light blush at how embarrassing the guild name was.
