#161
Ki Baek-woo couldn’t bear every moment when Lee Han-sol was out of his sight. He pretended otherwise but it all showed. He was even anxious when Lee Han-sol went to the bathroom attached to the hospital room. At this incomprehensible reaction, Lee Han-sol even had strange thoughts while looking at the tiny window in the bathroom.
Do I look like a fairy to Ki Baek-woo? Does he think I look small and cute enough to escape through that mouse turd-sized window? I guess when you can’t sleep well, your judgment gets impaired… Of course, it wasn’t a serious thought.
Three days passed like that. Lee Han-sol was on the verge of exploding because of Ki Baek-woo who wouldn’t cooperate. He was at a loss for how to make him sleep and how to feed him. And he was also resentful as usual.
You think I’m doing this because I’m fine? Am I the only crazy one? I’ve gone crazy because of him too, so why do I have to be doing this? Ki Baek-woo, this bastard, even before this happened he was sensitive if you put it nicely or needlessly emotionally unstable if you put it badly, and looking at him, he really hasn’t changed at all.
If I were even a little less of a pushover, I’d just beat him half to death so he couldn’t pull this nonsense. Lee Han-sol thought, talking shit about Ki Baek-woo in his mind as he got up from the guardian cot again today as usual. He glared at Ki Baek-woo and said.
“You’re doing this on purpose thinking I’ll hold you and sleep with you again today.”
“No, hyung! I’m just… it’s because I’m weird. I’m weird so I keep thinking hyung will leave, stuff like that.”
“Well, it’s good that you know you’re weird.”
“Really, why am I like this? I’m being such a nuisance. I’ll try not to be like this. Really.”
In front of Ki Baek-woo who was fretting with the same pale appearance as three days ago, Lee Han-sol finally let out a deep sigh as if he was fed up. At that sound, Ki Baek-woo’s restless movements stopped abruptly. He swallowed dry saliva nervously and raised his gaze. Eyes full of conviction that Lee Han-sol would abandon him at any moment.
Lee Han-sol found that look familiar for some reason.
Ki Baek-woo had clung to him crying and pleading before, but this was the first time he was flailing around like this… why would that be familiar? Lee Han-sol searched his memory. It was strange. So many scenes flashed by. Even though this was the first time he had tried to turn his back on Ki Baek-woo in the twenty-five repeated cycles.
His childhood wandering the streets. When he briefly left his spot at dawn and returned, Ki Baek-woo who had woken up in the meantime would have that lonely expression unbefitting a child.
When the government orphanage was established and they entered there, the depressed look in his eyes when he would inexplicably sink down after Lee Han-sol mixed words with other children.
After settling in District A, Ki Baek-woo who had grown remarkably after painful growing pains. When he tried to burrow into Lee Han-sol’s embrace as usual but realized he was no longer smaller than him, his shocked appearance of being restless as if something terrible had happened.
When he confessed that he was just a worthless chrysalis and Lee Han-sol was his entire world, the look of being terrified as if facing the end times.
Lee Han-sol looked at the current Ki Baek-woo who somehow seemed to overlap with the countless Ki Baek-woos in his memory and closed his eyes tightly once before opening them. That can’t be right. Ki Baek-woo couldn’t have suffered from such anxiety his whole life. It’s a mistake. Thinking that, he snatched the blanket from under Ki Baek-woo’s knees.
Lee Han-sol had always only had Ki Baek-woo. Everything about him revolved around Ki Baek-woo, and he did whatever Ki Baek-woo wanted. He even loved him when asked to love him. He even gave up his ass…! Such a Ki Baek-woo couldn’t have been experiencing his whole life that emotion Lee Han-sol felt continuously after the system separated them… that emotion he had to feel from wanting Ki Baek-woo alone.
He scolded himself for having idle thoughts, then sighed once more and covered Ki Baek-woo’s head with the blanket.
“I didn’t want to do this because it seemed like it would be really annoying…”
Ki Baek-woo grabbed Lee Han-sol’s hand with a nervous look.
“I’m not trying to do anything weird, so move your hand. Lie down obediently.”
“…Yeah.”
After glancing at Ki Baek-woo who lay down despite hesitating since he was told to lie down, Lee Han-sol briefly recalled Choi Tae-hyun’s hands that used to wrap him up. He grabbed the end of the blanket as it came to mind and rolled Ki Baek-woo to the side, then made him lie back down, diligently wrapping up his long body.
“Hmm, is this enough?”
“…What is this?”
“Huh? Hey, stay still. Why do you undo this so easily? When the building owner did it, it never came undone no matter what.”
Ki Baek-woo, who was about to get up after removing the blanket that loosely wrapped his body, lay still again at Lee Han-sol’s restraint. Ignoring Ki Baek-woo who was looking at him with anxious eyes, Lee Han-sol fixed the undone blanket appropriately again and said indifferently.
“Why are you looking like that? What, are you worried I’ll tie you up and run away?”
“…It’s not like that.”
“It’s not my ass. Why are you so suspicious? I’m the one who got abandoned several times.”
“That wasn’t me who did it, hyung, I never once…!”
“Right, it was because of the system. I get it, I understand everything.”
If I couldn’t accept that, I wouldn’t have come here. It’s annoying but I understand everything, so don’t say the same thing. You stop having weird thoughts too.
Lee Han-sol sat on the edge of the bed and muttered as if talking to himself. He quietly looked at Ki Baek-woo wrapped up in the white blanket. Wrapped long in the white blanket, he looked just like…
“You look like that thing. A silkworm larva.”
“Hyung made me like this…”
“Why are you whining? When you said I was a cocoon and you were a chrysalis… when did you say such unfunny things?”
“That has nothing to do with larvae.”
Lee Han-sol grabbed Ki Baek-woo’s feet that were sticking out of the blanket, unlike himself who had been completely wrapped up. His toes curled.
“You really are high maintenance.”
“…Me?”
“You’ve been like that since way back. Whining about nothing. Crying. Reading the mood.”
“That’s because it’s hyung…”
“Why me?”
“Hyung is…”
Ki Baek-woo trailed off vaguely and avoided his gaze. Toward Lee Han-sol who was urging “What about me” indifferently, Ki Baek-woo smiled awkwardly.
“It’s because I like hyung too much. More than hyung could ever imagine…”
“More than I like you? That would be hard. You remember now. How I treated you.”
Ki Baek-woo laughed with a deflating sound. It looked bitter for a moment. His neat eyelashes trembled slightly. After pausing a bit, he soon said quietly.
“Of course I like you more than that… Since when have I liked hyung…”
“Since when did you like me?”
“It’s a secret.”
“You like secrets, do you have the rank to make secrets?”
“I can’t say. You’d find it disgusting if you heard.”
“When you confessed, you talked about everything from your first wet dream to what you used as material when jerking off, and now you’re trying to save face?”
“That’s different…”
Lee Han-sol quietly looked down at Ki Baek-woo who was slowly opening and closing his eyes with a tired look. Still, he seemed a bit more comfortable, so Lee Han-sol thought as expected.
“Getting sleepy?”
“Huh?”
“This is a direct hit.”
“This is… for what?”
“When you wrap your body like this… no, compress it… no, what was it? Hormones?”
“Huh?”
“Anyway, when you do this to your body with a blanket, you get really sleepy. It’s not pseudo-science, it’s scientific.”
How long had it been since he relaxed? Ki Baek-woo looked up at Lee Han-sol with hesitant eyes again.
“…Who said that?”
“The building owner, there’s this guy. A human who raises Ppomi that I met in District B.”
Ki Baek-woo didn’t answer. An unknowable gaze clung endlessly to Lee Han-sol. A gaze that seemed like it would never end.
“What are you looking at? Just sleep.”
The vacant gaze stared intently at the cold and calm Lee Han-sol as if it wouldn’t get tired, then asked. It was a low voice where you couldn’t tell if he had made a big decision or given up.
“The person called building owner… is that by any chance Choi Tae-hyuk… that person’s hyung?”
Lee Han-sol, who was about to respond indifferently with “Yeah, did you hear that from Choi Tae-hyuk too?” couldn’t make any sound. He was so flustered that he even doubted his eyes. He couldn’t even close his open mouth and stared blankly at Ki Baek-woo.
“No, you… what?”
“……”
“Did I do something wrong? Why are you suddenly like this?”
Rolled up like kimbap in the blanket, Ki Baek-woo was suddenly streaming tears. Like a turned-on faucet, tears flowed quietly and continuously. Then Ki Baek-woo made a strange sound.
“Hyung, what’s your relationship with that person?”
“What kind of relationship?”
“If everything gets better… will you go to that person?”
“That person?”
Lee Han-sol stammered because he couldn’t grasp what Ki Baek-woo was talking about at all. Ki Baek-woo turned his eyes and nose red and spoke weakly and frailly. As if he was saying words he really didn’t want to say but had no choice. But as if he would somehow endure it if he could stay with him, resolutely.
“I’m… okay with being second…”
What kind of bullshit is this? Lee Han-sol stared blankly at Ki Baek-woo in complete bewilderment. His words were completely blocked and no sound came out. It was a feeling he had never experienced before. No matter how much he searched through the past, he had never heard such absurd words.
If he had to find something similar, it would be when Jung Yi-dam suddenly appeared and cried out about love. Lee Han-sol looked at such Jung Yi-dam and thought he was an impossible crazy bastard, and swore he genuinely wanted to kill him. He was feeling that same way now. Looking at that pitiful Ki Baek-woo babbling nonsense about being second or whatever.
“Just don’t leave without saying anything… if you just let me stay by your side, I’m really okay with everything. I’ll do whatever you tell me to. So don’t leave me behind…”
“What are you even…”
So, this is saying that me and Choi Tae-hyun are in that kind of relationship right now? Is this bastard crazy?
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
