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The man took a step back but didn’t give any particular answer.
It was when Taein, who was already angry, hit the man’s shoulder once more.
“In your eyes, I’m…”
“Would you believe it?”
It was a statement without context. Taein frowned deeply around his eyes and asked the man back.
“What?”
“No, you asked if it looked like a joke. If I answer that, would you believe me?”
“……”
A more unpleasant air settled on Taein’s face. He hadn’t thrown those words because he was curious about the man’s opinion. He had spoken aggressively out of anger, there was no way he’d be curious about such a thing.
“I don’t see it.”
“……”
“I don’t see it like that. Your life as a joke.”
“…Who said such a thing,”
“Fuck, look at this. He doesn’t believe it. He doesn’t believe it, so why ask?”
At the man’s attitude of questioning him while even pointing at him with his index finger, Taein was rather left speechless. His expression of absurdity and displeasure remained the same, but he had no words to retort. More precisely, it was closer to not wanting to deal with him.
“……”
“You come to all the conclusions by yourself and then ask why you’re asking when you’re going to believe that anyway.”
“…Ha.”
“Life isn’t a joke or anything like that.”
Donghwan stuck his head forward and looked at Taein’s eyes from close up.
“It’s efficiency, efficiency. If you ask me like that when you’re not going to believe it anyway, the efficiency drops, doesn’t it?”
At the suddenly close distance, Taein pulled his face back. The man also had a strong body scent. Originally he wasn’t sensitive to others’ body scents and was often indifferent even to the pheromones that Jang Ihwan deliberately released. The man seemed to be more developed in that area than ordinary Alphas. He even felt a tingling in his skull, so Taein covered his mouth and nose with his hand. At that action, the man opened just one eye small and stepped back.
“You don’t want to answer.”
“That’s not it.”
He muttered with his mouth half-covered, but it would be fine if he understood it that way. Taein stopped talking on his own and scattered his gaze. He turned his eyes toward the wall where the man’s shoulder had been brushing.
“Ah. You won’t look elsewhere?”
At those words, his gaze turned back to the man. It was a way of slowly raising just his pupils to look at the man.
“……”
“When having a conversation, like this.”
The man raised three fingers and moved them back and forth in front of his own eyes. It meant that gazes should come and go like this. Taein just had a slightly crumpled expression at the man’s repeated lecturing words. He seemed to not want to respond or react anymore. Taein opened his mouth when the man was about to say something more. The man who had started talking about eye contact was babbling without knowing limits.
“You have to look at each other’s eyes to know what the other person is trying to say,”
“Stop saying weird things.”
Irritation appeared on Taein’s face. Was he originally this talkative? If you just counted the amount of words, he wasn’t particularly talkative, but he was definitely more talkative than usual. He was usually the type to throw out words occasionally, not the type to stress people out by saying even useless things like this. Taein looked at the man’s eyes.
“Just finish what you were saying earlier. Why am I in your house?”
“The situation kind of became like that, why.”
“What?”
“Like water flowing. Naturally.”
“I really want to die.”
Taein, who finally gritted his teeth, clenched his fist and brought his face close to the man. His anger had cooled down a bit because he kept spouting bullshit, but it flared up again at the man’s another nonsensical remark. Having a habit of fighting, his other hand immediately grabbed the man’s collar. The man just stepped back at the suddenly pushing force. One step, two steps. Then his back touched the door.
“Your temper is really quick.”
“If you spout bullshit one more time.”
The man didn’t speak but made a laughing sound through his nose. It was almost like breathing.
“Ah, I thought we had become somewhat close.”
“Fuck.”
It was bullshit again. Unable to endure anymore, Taein put his hand to the man’s neck. Then he immediately applied force and choked his neck. This was the most effective way to attack opponents bigger than himself. The man, who probably didn’t expect to be choked, frowned deeply while showing bewilderment. Quite a bit of force was applied, enough that finger marks would soon appear.
“Ah, shit.”
A beat late, the man who grabbed Taein’s wrist slowly pulled it to the side.
“Kill…”
Even as his arm was being withdrawn, his anger didn’t subside, as Taein repeated words like “kill,” “die,” “I’ll kill you.” His face was bright red with anger. The man was holding just one of Taein’s wrists, then grabbed the other wrist too. It was because he was about to throw a punch too.
“Wow.”
Donghwan, who laughed with a dejected face, properly pressed the man’s two arms against the wall. His strength wasn’t particularly great, but he knew how to apply force momentarily. It was the kind of quick reflexes that could keep choking most guys’ necks and still have energy left. Even pinned against the wall, Taein’s momentum didn’t decrease. With both arms caught, he tried to use his legs, and when that didn’t work out, he brought his head forward. It was a gesture as if to headbutt.
“……”
Donghwan, whose face had hardened more than before, just quietly watched Taein doing that.
His head couldn’t reach the distance, and both wrists were pinned to the wall. His legs weren’t easy to move because of the towel. Even under those conditions, he was being this aggressive.
“Let go… fuck…”
His face being like this. The torn and scarred places everywhere, now he understood. Donghwan convinced himself alone about the traces he had examined one by one last night and slowly loosened the strength in his hands. Taein, who had suddenly gotten excited, also just breathed heavily and angrily when the man made eye contact and loosened his hands. Though his eyes were fiercely glaring, it wasn’t a face that wanted to attack more.
“Did I speak like fucking shit?”
“……”
Taein, who glared with just his eyes at Donghwan who had also released his other hand, didn’t respond separately.
“I don’t think so though.”
Donghwan tilted his head diagonally and made a “tsk” sound. Though the reaction that came back was beyond imagination, it was hard to see that he had no fault in speaking teasingly. Still, he didn’t know the man’s temperament was to this degree. Until now he had only thought he was sensitive because of his younger brother, not knowing he was the type to rush in like this without distinguishing fire from water. Donghwan looked down at Taein with a face that said he couldn’t understand.
“……”
His black pupils were completely rolled up, looking like he would raise his hands at any moment.
Wow, Donghwan tilted his head and turned his body while leaving Taein standing against the wall.
He seemed to just look around the hotel room silently, then walked forward a few steps.
When his feet reached about the middle of the room, Donghwan turned back again.
“Oh, it’s not a joke.”
It seemed like he was responding sarcastically to the earlier question about whether life seemed like a joke. Taein kept his eyes on the man’s shoulder area, then looked at the man’s face. Looking at the man from a distance, the condition of his neck also quickly caught his eye. He could see the skin had turned red from choking his neck roughly. Taein closed his mouth.
Actually, the man hadn’t harassed him intensely. Though he had provoked his temper with nonsensical words, it could have been overlooked. Today he had also woken up in an unfamiliar space, and the man hadn’t clearly revealed the reason, so his temper seemed to have flared up all at once. Still, he should have endured it. Taein regretted it belatedly.
The man was money. It was no different from the remaining money he said he’d give after seeing his face flying away. If he was unlucky, he might even take back the money he said he put in the bank account.
Taein, who recalled reality one by one, swallowed the saliva that had gathered in his mouth.
Did he think he had become something?
If it had been Jang Ihwan, he would have endured and endured again.
Yoon Donghwan. Even if that man came out jokingly, he shouldn’t have crossed the line.
For some reason, he had crossed such a line too easily. His explosive temper often became poison, but it had never been this fatal. He knew his place and usually chose people before raising his fists. The man treated him too casually, so he probably thought he could do the same.
After quickly going through such thoughts, Taein bit his mouth hard then immediately opened it.
“I’m sorry.”
“…What?”
Donghwan, who asked back “What?” with a bewildered face, came closer.
He seemed to be thinking he couldn’t believe it and wanted to hear it up close.
Taein looked at Donghwan’s eyes and bowed his head.
“…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have acted like that. I was, very inadequate, and momentarily a bit,”
“Ah. I’m going crazy.”
Donghwan, who made the “ah” sound particularly low, raised his head toward the ceiling then lowered it. Taein continued to apologize for his wrongdoing even after Donghwan’s “going crazy” remark without any change in expression. I’m sorry, I was wrong. It was a timing that required blind apology as much as the reckless attack. Taein had done too much begging and pleading until now. Moreover, this was his fault. There was no reason not to apologize.
“Wrong,”
“Yeah, I got it. Stop.”
Donghwan approached Taein showing both palms.
“……”
Taein followed the approaching Donghwan with his eyes.
“Since you like getting to the point.”
Donghwan spoke as if throwing the words and immediately continued with the next words.
“I’ll tell you from the main point. First, sleeping together isn’t a lie. I don’t know what reason you went to JAM for, but. That bastard thug gave you drugs, and that…”
He spoke well up to that point, but it was difficult to finish the latter part. First, Donghwan couldn’t give a reason for bringing a guy drugged like that to a hotel room. Of course. Because he didn’t know the reason. The handsome Kang Taein customer who caught his eye. That was the extent of his appreciation, so what reason could there be? Donghwan licked his lower lip with his tongue and made up any words.
“I’m usually unnecessarily sentimental and tend to meddle, you know? So I brought you here. But what happened to you. You got drugged. Are you in your right mind? No. You can roughly imagine what happened… Well, so I was wondering whether to do it or not.”
Donghwan curled his fist and hit the thumb side against his palm with a thud.
“I just did it for you.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
