62.
#Crack
“Isn’t it too much? My mother was alone until she died. Yet he brought his mistress and child to his son’s birthday.”
Bringing a woman he was going to remarry and a child born from an affair on his son’s birthday… Even though it was his own father, he couldn’t understand it. Hayun was only twelve years old then. How must he have felt when his father, whom he believed was coming early to celebrate his birthday, returned with unexpected guests?
The image of his father, who had always shown him nothing but kindness and smiles, shattered with a loud crash. Unlike for Dawoon, for Hayun, his father was never a good person.
“Do you… resent me?”
Thinking about Hayun’s feelings at that time, it seemed more than enough reason to. What a terrible birthday it must have been. How much must he have hated him and his mother?
“Well… It was a feeling that can’t be defined by just the word ‘resentment’…”
Hayun’s trailing off scared him. Maybe everything had been a misconception. Maybe he had known nothing from the beginning.
The ground beneath his feet was slowly crumbling. The solid floor he thought he was standing on cracked and he began to fall endlessly.
“But how…”
His voice trembled. How could Hayun have smiled at him all this time? How could he have been consistently kind not only to him but also to his mother? Hayun was only twelve years old, how did he not cry and throw a tantrum saying he didn’t like his new stepmother, that he didn’t need a sibling?
All the thoughts that came to mind were too frightening. What his father did to Hayun was terrible, and he felt foolish for having relied on Hayun’s kindness without knowing any better. He had only received, never considering how Hayun might have felt.
At first, it was because he was too young, and later, because he had become too accustomed to his kindness.
Was that where the problem began?
“If I had known that father would die with your mother…”
Hayun trailed off and quietly stared at Dawoon. As the topic of his parents’ accident came up, his heart tightened.
It was his mother who had left Hayun’s mother to die alone. And it was he who had caused Hayun to lose his father completely. Now he understood. He could see why all the relatives, his aunt and grandfather, had looked at him with contempt.
Hayun’s protection was strange. He should have been the one to resent and blame him the most.
“I…”
“I’ve never resented father.”
Dawoon opened his mouth, feeling like he should apologize, but Hayun cut him off.
“I can’t say he was a good father, but I’ve never truly resented him.”
Dawoon looked at Hayun with trembling eyes. His voice sounded even colder because it was so calm. He saw Hayun’s hand reaching out, but he couldn’t push it away or avoid it like before. The guilt towards him filled his heart, rendering him immobile.
Hayun’s hand cupped one of his cheeks. The warmth of his palm felt so comforting that it created an even greater sense of dissonance.
“Because he left me with you as a gift.”
A faint smile appeared on Hayun’s lips as he looked at Dawoon.
“He brought you on my birthday, after all.”
His vision kept blurring. Without realizing it, tears had welled up in his eyes, swelling within his pupils. He couldn’t understand what Hayun was saying. The only thing he could clearly understand was that his existence was like a disaster for Jeong Hayun.
“I can’t give you to anyone else. You’ve been mine from the beginning.”
Under normal circumstances, he would have refuted this as nonsense. He might have dismissed it, asking what kind of rubbish he was talking about. But now, because of the tangled threads filling his mind, he couldn’t think of anything.
“Dawoon.”
The gentle voice that had always comforted him now felt like a heavy stone pressing on his heart. He could barely breathe, but he couldn’t even show it. He was only afraid, not knowing what Jeong Hayun was thinking.
Hayun leaned down and lightly kissed Dawoon’s lips.
“Nothing will change. I’ll still be by your side, and you should continue living just as you have until now.”
The statement that nothing would change made him dizzy. Jeong Dawoon’s world had collapsed, but Jeong Hayun was saying everything was the same as yesterday.
Hayun’s hand caressed his nape, and before he knew it, his body was pushed back onto the bed. He couldn’t feel Hayun’s hand stroking up his thigh and reaching inside his groin, or the hot breath touching and leaving his chest.
“Ugh…”
A sharp pain shot from his tailbone to his brain as he felt the heavy pressure invading him again. He couldn’t even let out a moan. When he tightly closed his eyes, only pitch-black darkness remained. Cracks began to form one by one in his freezing heart. Then finally, it shattered with a crashing sound.
***
Dawoon woke up but remained motionless for a long time. He didn’t want to open his eyes and confirm where he was, to face reality.
Knock knock. He heard a knock on the door. He tried to ignore it, but the knocking persisted. With no choice, he lifted his eyelids. The ceiling that filled his vision was familiar. It wasn’t Hayun’s room, but his own.
When had he been moved? Glancing down, he saw that he was fully dressed as well.
“Young Master Dawoon, are you awake?” The butler’s voice was heard.
“Yes…”
He tried to answer, but his voice came out terribly hoarse. He frowned and raised a hand to grasp his throat. The memories of last night were hazy. He didn’t want to remember how many times Hayun had embraced him, how many times he had moaned beneath him.
His whole body ached as if he had been beaten. Moreover, he felt weak. He wondered if he had really caught a cold.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
At the butler’s words, he quickly pulled the blanket over himself. He was dressed, but just in case.
“I’ve prepared some porridge. I’ll leave it here, so please try to eat at least a little. You need to fill your stomach to take medicine.”
Medicine? Wondering what medicine he was talking about, Dawoon peeked out from under the blanket with just his eyes, looking at the butler. The man approached and placed a hand on Dawoon’s forehead.
“Fortunately, you don’t have a fever. The young master said to just rest well today.”
Piecing together the butler’s words, Dawoon realized that Hayun must have made an excuse that he was sick. He nodded slightly, barely noticeable, and the butler smiled kindly, urging him to eat the porridge before it got cold, then left.
After confirming that the door had closed, he sat up. Every joint in his body seemed to rattle with movement, but he couldn’t just lie there forever. Carefully, he got out of bed and put his feet on the floor, letting out a gasp. He didn’t know a person could be in this much pain just from sex.
Gritting his teeth, he took one step at a time towards the bathroom. As the automatic sensor light in the powder room came on, he saw his reflection in the mirror.
“Ha…”
A sigh escaped him, too dumbfounded. His neck was a mess. The previous kiss marks had just begun to fade, but now it couldn’t even be called kiss marks. There were bruises all over, mottled from how much he had been bitten.
He must be crazy.
He muttered self-deprecatingly, but he wasn’t sure if he was referring to himself or to Hayun. Despite not wanting to, memories of last night kept coming back one by one. Even though he had gritted his teeth, not wanting to respond, his body betrayed his will every time Hayun stimulated him. He had repeatedly climaxed, moaning beneath him until his head went blank. He couldn’t even tell when he had completely lost consciousness.
The more he tried to shake off the memories, the more vividly he seemed to feel the pleasure Hayun had imprinted on his body. That drove him even crazier.
Ugh.
Suddenly, a wave of nausea hit him. He hurried into the bathroom, crouched in front of the toilet, and dry heaved repeatedly. Since he hadn’t eaten properly, there was nothing to come out. After a while of retching, only yellow bile came up. Perhaps because he had forcibly tried to vomit something, his head felt like it was being squeezed and throbbed painfully.
How long had he been like this? Now not even bile was coming out. Completely exhausted, Dawoon slumped down on the bathroom floor. As he clutched his aching head and panted, the headache slowly began to subside.
As the pain lessened, his nose started to sting. Why am I like this? This simple question made his heart crumble. As tears threatened to fall, his head started to throb again.
After wiping away the tears that had formed in his eyes with the back of his hand, he pushed himself up to stand. He wanted to go outside. It wasn’t simply about wanting to get some fresh air. He wanted to leave this house. He didn’t have the confidence to keep facing Hayun.
As he returned to his room and was changing clothes, there was a knock at the door. Thinking it might be the butler returning, he turned around, but the door opened slightly and Haram peeked in.
“Big brother, are you sick?”
The moment he saw the child’s face looking up at him with eyes full of worry, his chest felt heavy.
He couldn’t leave. As long as Haram was here, Dawoon couldn’t go anywhere.
