“Mmm…”
While I wasn’t particularly feverish, the cool temperature broadly enveloping my forehead made me feel quite good. The firm touch tracing my mouth corners drew a subtle arc upward.
Lifting my blurry gaze, my eyes met the light eyes looking down at me. Was this an illusion created by my foggy mind?
“Sleep more.”
No matter how few people could come to my house, this was an absurd dream. A gentle Woo Tae-seon? Woo Tae-seon looking at me with warm eyes couldn’t exist outside of a dream.
If it were really Woo Tae-seon, wouldn’t he have checked my lower body before my face? This thought made me chuckle. I must have been feeling lonely and desolate. Having no one to lean on, so to Woo Tae-seon… It’s funny. No, it’s not even funny… Yes, that’s right.
After closing my drowsy eyelids, I heard mumbling sounds for a while, but they weren’t clear, as if I had dived into deep water. I fell back asleep.
My body, which had been sinking to an endless bottom in deep slumber, was barely rescued. This was because I felt a suspiciously peaceful warmth.
Then I realized that some sounds were tickling my ears, not being properly transmitted as if blocked somewhere. Turning my half-closed eyes toward the suspicious sound in a state between sleep and wakefulness, I saw a tightly closed door. Had I closed the door? As I was thinking this, I definitely heard someone outside the door.
Could it be my aunt or Hae-jin? Thinking it was strange since I’d planned to spend today alone, I half-raised my body from where I was lying, and the lukewarm, moist washcloth fell onto the blanket with a thud. My stuffy forehead felt cooler.
‘Sleep more.’
One of the many shattered pieces of the dream I had dismissed as impossible pricked my finger. Only then did my mind fully awaken.
From the bed to the door, despite not being a long distance in the small room, my steps slowed as if deliberately procrastinating. It was because a feeling of “it can’t be, it can’t be” was clinging to my pant leg.
As the house was old, the quite worn door would make a loud noise whenever it was opened or closed. So I usually had the habit of keeping it open rather than closing it.
“…”
The moment I recognized the back figure stirring a pot at the gas stove, all thought stopped.
Each time the upper body, not wearing even a thin t-shirt, moved, the mountain-like back muscles moved elegantly. Centered on the waistline that cleanly divided the spine, the muscles on both sides were firmly attached across the broad back, symmetrically, as if something identical had been precisely halved. It was like watching a meticulously carved sculpture, crafted with utmost attention to every vein, come to life.
So, a person with such a back, as far as I knew, there was only one.
“You woke up right on time.”
Woo Tae-seon turned off the gas stove without looking back. Even as he appropriately scooped the savory porridge from the pot into a concave ceramic bowl and brought it to the table, I remained standing at the threshold, unable to move.
Of course, Woo Tae-seon could easily move me with just a tilt toward the empty sofa seat.
Woo Tae-seon’s long legs, which extended beyond the sofa as he lay across it using his arm as a pillow, twitched. What he was closely watching was me, glued to the small table, spooning the porridge.
“How’s the taste?”
“…It’s edible.”
The warm porridge stimulated my appetite like a drop of water falling on a sandy, rough tongue, but I didn’t say the truth. I didn’t want to make a fuss, nor did I feel like complimenting him.
Of course, Woo Tae-seon didn’t seem to mind either. That fact made me feel a rush of heat instead. The clinking sound of the spoon scraping the bowl continued slowly but surely.
“But why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”
“I changed your clothes earlier.”
“…Huh?”
“You suddenly threw up earlier. I even gave you a shower, but I guess you don’t remember.”
Ah. Only then did I realize that the pattern of the pajamas I was wearing was different from before I fell asleep, and that my clothes and body were dry and fresh, when they should have been damp from all the cold sweat I had shed since last night. It was embarrassing.
“They say taking medicine on an empty stomach can cause that.”
I looked up at Woo Tae-seon. Empty stomach? How do you know that? As if reading my sulky gaze, Woo Tae-seon smiled, tilting one of his crossed feet toward the kitchen.
“There wasn’t any food at all.”
Somehow feeling like my entire life had been exposed to him, I quickly lowered my head and silently ate the porridge. While repeatedly promising myself that from now on, I’d stock up on plenty of instant porridges in the cupboard.
“Were you crying because you were sick?”
“…I didn’t cry.”
“Your eyes are red and swollen.”
His thumb gently stroked along my eyes, tickling my eyelashes. It was as cautious a touch as if something would change if he stroked gently.
But since I had no memory of crying, I lightly thought, as always, that Woo Tae-seon was just teasing me, that he was just finding another unnecessary fault. But then.
“I thought it was strange that your face was flushed from yesterday.”
“…”
“I thought you were getting turned on meeting me.”
It was yesterday morning. During the break after the second period had just ended, I remembered Woo Tae-seon grabbing my chin and turning it this way and that in the corridor as I was returning to the teachers’ office.
‘…This, this is the hallway.’
‘I know that.’
Thinking it was just him being mischievous again, I firmly bit my lip and twisted my head to pull away. Even though I couldn’t put up much resistance, I needlessly tightened my grip on the books I was holding, but surprisingly, I felt belated relief when I saw his back just walking away.
But when I lifted my head with a sigh of relief, my face reflected in the window wasn’t red at all; rather, it was deathly pale.
“When you’re pretending not to be sick, your fever gets worse.”
“No, it’s not like that.”
It felt as if a hand had pierced my left chest and gripped my heart tightly. It was as if my crushed heart had escaped his grasp and fallen to the floor with a plop.
‘Because I’m always watching you. When you love someone, you can recognize that much.’
How did he know? What no one else noticed, only Woo Tae-seon had seen. No. There’s no way he could know. Why you, why you, Woo Tae-seon…? Amid the confusion, I remembered pleading with Woo Tae-seon a few days ago, saying I really couldn’t do it today. Maybe that’s how he noticed, that’s probably why.
As if mocking me for desperately denying and creating an escape route, Woo Tae-seon’s index finger lightly tapped the jawline just below my earlobe, where the firm, smooth jawline began.
“Teacher, you clench your molars when you’re sick.”
“What…?”
“You do it when I thrust deeply into you. Here, you bite down until it gets hard.”
Woo Tae-seon, at least Woo Tae-seon, shouldn’t have known. Why do you know? How did you know that? Why did you, of all people, notice? Why do you keep confusing me?
“If you’re sick, say so. It’s not like you’re protesting for attention.”
“…”
“When I’m fucking you, you say things like ‘put it in gently,’ ‘thrust slowly,’ so well.”
Me, sitting collapsed on the floor, and Woo Tae-seon, standing fully upright looking down at me. Even with his steady gaze continuing, I couldn’t come to my senses. Even breathing in and out was stuttering.
“These photos, did you take them every year?”
My thoughts, chaotically mixing confusion and bewilderment, were cut cleanly. The question Woo Tae-seon suddenly threw at me as he prowled around the living room was pointing to the frames neatly arranged on one side of the display cabinet.
While I was foolishly blinking slowly, Woo Tae-seon asked something else. As if he already knew what I would answer to his first question.
“They all seem to be from the same place. Where is it?”
“…Sokcho.”
I opened my mouth as calmly and nonchalantly as possible. Or at least, I thought I did.
“You look young. How old were you?”
Woo Tae-seon was already closely examining the inside of the frame without waiting for my answer. I could guess what he was looking at. He was probably looking at the date of that day written in neat handwriting in one corner of the photo.
I checked the newly created empty space in the display cabinet. What Woo Tae-seon was holding was the frame that had been on the far right.
Sokcho had somehow become a solidified vacation spot like a family promise. Going to Sokcho every year. In summer, the goal was the beach, and when the weather turned cold, the emotional winter sea became the purpose. Following the successive frames, you could see various outfits and faces and heights that changed little by little.
“Hmm. Ten years ago, so you were seventeen?”
“…Fine.”
“You looked pretty in high school too, Teacher.”
I wanted to avoid this conversation. Especially with Woo Tae-seon. I was afraid of what he might ask. I feared that, not content with discovering my condition, he would dig into my private matters as well.
The memories after that photo were abruptly cut off. Being on the far right meant exactly that. It was natural. I didn’t want to go anywhere alone, nor did I think about taking photos.
I stood up with the bowl that still had more than half of the porridge left and practically threw it into the sink. The sound of my unstable heartbeat seemed louder than the clattering noise of the bowl rolling in the sink.
“…I’m going to bed. I’m feeling worse. You can leave too if you want.”
I hurriedly entered the bedroom as if someone was chasing me. I got into bed and pulled the covers over myself. I couldn’t stand the quiet silence anymore. Wrapped tightly in the blanket, I buried my face in the pillow and covered my ears with my hands. Please, just go. Please leave. Let me be alone.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
