***
‘Even a worship service would be less quiet than this.’
Yeo Dowoon, who had been thinking absentmindedly, reproached Kwon Jeonghoo when a familiar sight appeared beyond the car window.
“It’s the Captain’s officetel. How disappointing.”
“What were you expecting that you’re disappointed?”
Kwon Jeonghoo asked back with a snicker.
Perhaps because it was a building with tight security and there was nothing to worry about, as soon as they arrived at the underground parking lot, he pushed Yeo Dowoon’s car seat way back. The seat reclined smoothly downward without any obstruction.
“It’d be troublesome if you’re already losing strength.”
Yeo Dowoon looked up at the figure covering him and tried to think with his brain that wasn’t working very quickly.
Why was this person climbing on top of him in the car acting crazy? Even when he tried to infer the reason, his train of thought kept breaking.
“…I won’t kiss the Captain.”
Because the answer was clear without needing to use his brain. Yeo Dowoon emphasized sequentially, just in case.
“I won’t do anything beyond kissing either.”
“What about below that?”
He suddenly felt self-loathing, wondering why he had to explain even this kind of thing.
“I obviously don’t want anything below that either.”
These days, Yeo Dowoon’s mental state showed quite a wholesome tendency, unlike his body which easily gave in and easily consented. If he were to narrow down the reasons, it might be thanks to Cha Haseong’s continuous sex education.
When he kept hearing “don’t come back with an STD,” his sexual desire would decrease rather than increase—if it rose any higher, he’d just be called a pervert, wouldn’t he?
In any case, he wasn’t moved at all by this immoral relationship with his superior. It wasn’t like he was extremely starved for human touch, and rather, when he was becoming a stone Buddha, he couldn’t just suddenly bump bellies with him.
If he did that, he’d obviously get pointed at by Cha Haseong’s finger, and that was also diligently worrisome.
“You’re getting more fastidious as you age, Yeo Dowoon.”
Kwon Jeonghoo lamented as he swept back Yeo Dowoon’s hair. Then his face, tinged with coldness, was clearly revealed. Even at that ice-cold expression that would dishearten anyone, Kwon Jeonghoo didn’t pull back his upper body.
He just fearlessly tapped the flawless forehead.
“When did you suddenly come to my house and pounce on me, and now you’re saying you don’t even want to kiss and keeping your mouth shut tight.”
“……”
“When did you date lovers and go around looking into marriage registration, and now you act like you’re sick of family… I need to be able to tell which side is your true feelings.”
Just as Yeo Dowoon had said, the time they had spent together was long enough for mountains and rivers to change and then some. It could never be reduced or abbreviated.
Kwon Jeonghoo was a person who had witnessed Yeo Dowoon’s changes, spending days together through the series of processes he had grown through. That’s why he could keenly grasp it.
“It’s hard if you try to handle everything alone.”
“……”
“If you share it, these things wouldn’t even be heavy.”
Yeo Dowoon was wavering.
“Is it because hyung isn’t trustworthy, because you’re scared to open up?”
He was staggering unseemly.
Although it couldn’t be definitively stated whether what was tormenting him was the storm of life or the trial of unrequited love, Kwon Jeonghoo was prepared for anything. If he came into his arms, he would embrace him without reproach.
He would hug him tightly and tell this Esper who hadn’t learned how to live in the world not to be sad.
The things that make you afraid.
“So you’re struggling alone, carrying it all by yourself?”
Those things are actually nothing.
There was a certain arrogant Esper who was full of pride in himself.
When that young kid ran wild here and there, Kwon Jeonghoo used to truly doubt his qualifications. He tilted his head, thinking wouldn’t it be safer for society to just lock that bastard up in a cell instead.
But as the years changed, his evaluation of him changed too. A pretty useful guy. A guy with potential.
‘I heard today is Teacher’s Day, would the Captain like to wear a carnation too?’
‘No thanks.’
‘I already bought one so you should wear it.’
‘You do it instead.’
‘Ah, what’s the harm in just putting it on?’
Sometimes a guy who acted cute uncharacteristically.
‘Stop grumbling and put it on quickly.’
A guy who ran around dungeons as if slaying monsters was his calling. Rude and disrespectful but a guy who brought results as much as he showed off.
A promising prospect who, if you just found the way to handle him, would become Delta’s backbone in the future.
‘We’re… definitely going to survive, so don’t close your eyes.’
It was the day of the operation when they were caught up in a dungeon collapse. At the moment when he thought he’d inevitably walk the road to the afterlife with the monsters, there was a tenacious Esper who didn’t leave even though he could have evacuated sufficiently and carried him on his back.
‘I won’t let you die here.’
That Esper, whose eyes were all swollen from repeated crying, crossed through the collapsing dungeon to save the injured person whose stomach had been ripped open by monsters.
That an Esper with incomparable abilities would risk his life to save his own. It was a memory that warmed his heart achingly no matter how many times he recalled it.
Kwon Jeonghoo pressed his forehead against Yeo Dowoon’s forehead. He spoke plainly.
“If it’s because hyung isn’t a trustworthy person.”
It was a voice that began like reciting an old poem. Emotions were thoroughly restrained.
“Go to someone you can trust and ask them to hold you.”
“……”
“Instead of stubbornly enduring and suppressing it as you’ve been doing. If you’re in their arms…, you’ll feel much better.”
Kwon Jeonghoo knew.
That if there was a person who could help the immature and stubborn Yeo Dowoon regain the emotions he had forcibly swallowed, he too would ultimately have to accept and let this child go.
If there was an embrace where he could truly rest at ease, even if he pushed him away from here and ran to them, he shouldn’t hold him back.
Kwon Jeonghoo replaced his inexpressible sincerity with a desolate smile. It was a conclusion he could reach because he had lived more and experienced more.
You shouldn’t just confine someone. Because he wasn’t a child who would become happy that way.
“…You know there isn’t anyone.”
Yeo Dowoon answered with a trembling voice. He resented Kwon Jeonghoo. He wanted to unconditionally hold him back from deviating beyond the boundaries they’d had until now, toward a direction where even he had no way to handle it.
“You know there’s only the Captain for me like that. You’re the only person who would hold me if I asked to be held, so fuck…”
Kwon Jeonghoo didn’t go along with Yeo Dowoon’s attitude that seemed to be surging with excitement.
“Can’t you just continue being hyung?”
He wasn’t swayed even when he pleaded.
“I can hold you even if not as hyung.”
“Hold me as hyung. What the hell do you want to do with me, hyung? Dating?”
“……”
“Sleep with me?”
A chilling energy hung around Yeo Dowoon’s lips. If he was merely an object of lust, the solution would be easy.
“If we can end it in one time, then sure. Let’s do it.”
He grabbed Kwon Jeonghoo’s shirt collar. Perhaps because his touch was rough, the fabric crumpled instantly. When Kwon Jeonghoo looked displeased, Yeo Dowoon felt the urge to cut him down.
“Let’s do it. Isn’t this what you wanted when you parked in the parking lot and reclined the seat?”
“…Yeo Dowoon.”
“If you provoke me and then act noble now, the situation just gets tedious.”
“Dowoon-ah.”
In the car, at a hotel, at home. Everyone has their own preferences, so it wasn’t something he couldn’t respect.
“Or do you prefer it when the other person is desperate?”
Yeo Dowoon wanted to cleanly cut away his relationship with Kwon Jeonghoo. He wished they could return to their previous relationship. Even if it was a self-centered choice, it couldn’t be helped.
“Can you do it like that?”
Kwon Jeonghoo’s affection had no foundation either, so they were the same. But when he quietly stared at him, frustration welled up. Yeo Dowoon muttered as if enlightened.
“Even when I say I’ll do it, why are you like this…”
Kwon Jeonghoo readily let himself be pushed away as he pushed him. Even though the grip wasn’t that strong, he fell away easily.
“Don’t get into the habit of testing people with your body.”
He added with a bitter smile, as if he too had no intention of making contact.
“What would you have done if I was a really shameless bastard acting like this?”
Yeo Dowoon couldn’t understand at all why he was making such a hurt face. He wished those sly lips that had turned his insides upside down would say anything more.
“It’s too late to talk about shame.”
“If I lay you down and satisfy my greed because it’s too late.”
“……”
“Then, do you think you’ll be satisfied?”
“……”
“You think I’ll give up my feelings?”
That’s why he seemed to blurt out sentences he’d frequently regret. Even when looking back at himself, he wondered what had made him so twisted to this degree.
“…Regardless of my satisfaction, you have to give up your feelings, hyung.”
Yeo Dowoon self-deprecatingly rubbed his face. It seemed like even if he didn’t go far, just after an hour he’d want to strangle himself.
“I couldn’t give up so I became pathetic.”
“You did become pathetic.”
At that moment he realized. He had been overlapping them. Kwon Jeonghoo and himself.
Now he could figure out who he had been having this nerve battle with. Yeo Dowoon felt the competitive spirit that had been heating his solar plexus evaporate.
When he thought he had been feeling self-hatred, his mouth went dry. His failure to control his emotions would have been exposed too, so naturally the credibility of the statements he’d burst out with until now would disappear.
The suggestion to do it once and be done with it was one of the few sincere remarks among them, but he probably didn’t believe it anyway.
It was when only silence was lengthening. Kwon Jeonghoo suddenly roughly grabbed Yeo Dowoon’s nape and pulled him in. Not only that, he wrapped around his waist and sat him in the driver’s seat. To be exact, on top of his thighs.
“Me too, Dowoon-ah.”
Yeo Dowoon was thrust directly into his chest with a thud. As befitting Espers who trained their bodies, both their bodies were on the hard side, so there was no feeling of being embraced.
He hit his nose and without a word of a lie, he really thought his bone was being ground down.
“I became pathetic and wretched thanks to you too.”
Kwon Jeonghoo said, sneering at his reddened nose. What heartbreak.
“Want to date, us pathetic people?”
The driver’s seat was cramped. Kwon Jeonghoo wasn’t heartbroken. Yeo Dowoon found his body heat stinging.
“With sleeping together as a lower priority.”
