#87
“Ugh, hng…”
Suppressed sobs emerged pitifully. Eunsol blinked to regain control of his vision, which was becoming blurry with tears.
Once the tears started at the familiar sight of Hyun-oh’s back, they drenched his pale face like a lost child, heartbreakingly.
But Hyun-oh, who had seemed about to leave the hospital room, turned around and approached Eunsol. Unable to believe this, Eunsol’s tear-soaked eyes stared blankly at Hyun-oh’s face.
His unique scent suddenly enveloped him from nearby. The moment he recognized the scent—a mix of indigo-tinged pheromones and a heavy aroma—his fingertips involuntarily curled inward.
But he couldn’t just remain still. Eunsol recalled his determination as he had looked down at his still-flat stomach.
“Ugh…”
Even just moving his hand was difficult. Fortunately, Hyun-oh didn’t leave, so Eunsol slowly but steadily reached his hand toward him.
Hyun-oh silently watched as Eunsol approached him. Though he had turned back at the sound of Eunsol’s crying, his usual stance of just watching made Eunsol’s vision, which had cleared, become cloudy again.
This time too, he… seemed to be trying to turn away from him.
It had always been like this. Whenever the distance between them seemed to narrow even slightly, Hyun-oh would step back even further than the distance that had been closed.
The same happened when Eunsol gathered courage to approach him. Occasionally, there were times when Hyun-oh approached Eunsol, but those moments quickly faded away like the ebb tide.
There had always been an uncrossable line drawn between him and Hyun-oh.
Was it wrong to have taken courage from the seemingly sincere voice saying “I’m sorry” by his bedside while he slept?
The courage he had mustered with difficulty quickly faded away. Just as Eunsol was about to turn his head weakly.
His dark eyes trembled uncontrollably at the pheromones that warmly enveloped his body.
It was questionable why Hyun-oh wouldn’t hold his hand yet freely released his pheromones.
But it was a scent he had missed and longed for. There was a clear difference between the pheromones that had subtly surrounded him when he woke up and the ones Hyun-oh was directly releasing now.
Before he could stop it, Eunsol’s pheromones began to flow out in response to him. Compared to Hyun-oh’s, Eunsol’s were only faint.
Like the bright sunlight shining in the middle of the day and the faint sunlight dimly illuminating the ground as dawn breaks.
“May I… hold your hand?”
That’s when the unusual thing happened. Hyun-oh was asking for Eunsol’s permission. Eunsol froze with his gaze fixed on Hyun-oh’s lips.
Not only had he asked as if making a request, but he was even smiling.
Although the smile was so slight—just a tiny upward curve of the corners of his mouth—that one might question if it was really a smile, to Eunsol it was the first expression he had ever shown him.
Hyun-oh did sometimes put on formal smiles for the people he met on business, depending on the situation.
But when alone with Eunsol, he had always shown either an expressionless face or one that seemed angry about something. If not that, then a face consumed by heat when their bodies intertwined.
This image so different from the Hyun-oh he knew made the gap feel strange and unfamiliar.
As Eunsol, his thoughts frozen, was just staring endlessly at Hyun-oh, the latter bowed his head deeply.
The face that had seeped into Eunsol’s eyes like a vision moments ago was now out of sight.
That was upsetting too. He wanted to check if he had seen wrong, if this was really reality and not a dream, but he didn’t even have time to confirm.
Squeezing out nonexistent strength, he lightly tapped the back of Hyun-oh’s hand. Only then did Hyun-oh raise his head to look at Eunsol’s face.
“Ah…”
He wanted to call him “Mr. Hyun-oh.”
But the voice emerging through his lips couldn’t even complete just three syllables and only made animal-like groans.
His eyes crumpled with sorrow. His lips, which had let out the pathetic groan, moved crookedly like a child who had lost a candy.
Hyun-oh, looking somewhat flustered with slightly widened eyes, grabbed Eunsol’s hand. It was such a sudden contact that it was enough to make the tears disappear.
It wasn’t just a light touch of the hand. Eunsol bit his lip hard as a different warmth penetrated between his fingers, causing emotions different from before to well up.
“…Do you have something you want to say to me?”
It felt as if his heart was beating even in his palm. He wanted to briefly pull his hand back from the sweaty palm, but on the other hand, he also wanted to continue holding hands with him like this.
Instead of removing his hand, Eunsol nodded slightly. Hyun-oh brought the tablet PC to Eunsol.
With each blink of the cursor, Eunsol’s eyelashes fluttered at the same speed. He needed to write what he wanted to say to him, but now that such a moment had arrived, he hesitated.
Unconsciously, he glanced at Hyun-oh. Somehow sensing tension in Hyun-oh’s gaze, he quickly shifted his eyes back to the tablet PC.
[hynosi]
Now even his fingers were acting up. Whether due to lack of strength, it was difficult to type a message with proper spelling.
Even without looking in a mirror, he could feel heat rising to his earlobes. Eunsol moved his index finger to the backspace key. He wanted to erase the pathetic letters that resembled himself and properly write “Hyun-oh sir.”
“It’s okay. Say anything you want…”
But Hyun-oh, as if he had seen into Eunsol’s inner thoughts, told him it was okay. It was strange.
The Hyun-oh who approached him while he was asleep was strange, but the Hyun-oh he faced after waking up also felt quite different from his former self.
[can you stay heer]
A sentence with still incorrect spelling appeared on the tablet PC screen. He had spoken the words that had been circling in his mind all along.
Eunsol exhaled a long breath, as if a blocked dam had burst. It was what he had wanted to say enough to hold back the departing Hyun-oh.
Although he couldn’t say it with his mouth, it was fortunate to be able to convey his intentions to him even in this way.
Actually, before bringing it up, he strongly believed that Hyun-oh wouldn’t grant his request, but today’s Hyun-oh seemed like he might not ignore Eunsol’s plea.
Eunsol carefully examined Hyun-oh’s face. His mouth dried at the thoughtful expression.
The handsome lips didn’t seem inclined to give the answer Eunsol wanted. His heart, which had inflated like a balloon, deflated like it had been pricked by a needle.
Was it an unreasonable request after all? He had been greedy with the hope that the baby would be happy. Had he been too presumptuous?
“Is it really okay… for me to stay by your side continuously?”
A low voice resonated in his ear, as if rescuing his endlessly sinking thoughts. Eunsol hurriedly wrote what he wanted to say on the tablet PC.
[yes id like tht]
It was still at a slow pace, but compared to before, it was almost twice as fast.
The hand holding his tightened. It didn’t hurt. It was holding his hand with just the right pressure, and Eunsol felt the sleepiness he had postponed washing over him.
“I will.”
As the words he had longed to hear finally knocked at his ears, the strength drained from Eunsol’s hand. A smile, even deeper than before, settled on Hyun-oh’s lips.
Unable to believe it, he wanted to keep looking, but his eyelids grew heavier and heavier.
Hyun-oh’s pheromones, which were already abundant around him, intensified even more. It felt like being covered with a cozy blanket made of pheromones.
Sleep came over him. Usually, a faint fear would come first before falling asleep, but now he just wanted to rush into the dream world.
“Sleep well… Eunsol.”
The unusual events continued until the moment Eunsol closed his eyes. The space between his eyebrows twitched as if his eyes might open again.
The muscles at the tips of his fingers, intertwined with Hyun-oh’s, also responded. Perhaps due to the warmth felt in his hand and the pheromones perceived even without conscious awareness.
Eunsol was able to fall into a more comfortable sleep than usual.
* * *
“…Ah.”
It seemed like he had just closed his eyes for a moment, but his body felt refreshed. His mind was clear as Eunsol opened his eyes in a good mood for once.
“Are you awake?”
Before his vision could return, Eunsol rolled his eyes toward the direction of the voice tapping at his ears like raindrops.
Hyun-oh was stroking Eunsol’s hair with an affectionate touch. Upon recognizing this fact, Eunsol’s face stiffened.
Hyun-oh, who had been waiting for Eunsol to wake up, also stiffened in response.
“Ah, ugh…”
Soon after, Eunsol slightly turned his head to the side as if avoiding Hyun-oh’s touch. Even so, it wasn’t a swift movement of his head, so the large hand was still almost covering Eunsol’s forehead.
But it was clearly a rejecting response that anyone could see, causing Hyun-oh to forcibly move his stiff body and remove his hand.
“…I didn’t intend to startle you.”
He had merely stroked his head whenever his eyebrows furrowed slightly, hoping that he would sleep comfortably.
Even after falling asleep, Eunsol had held onto Hyun-oh’s hand tightly for a while, as if it were a lifeline.
Because of that, he had touched his body without hesitation, as if they were affectionate lovers.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
