128
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The two people who had briefly walked along the reddened seaside packed up some ice cream. The large paper bag in their hands was particularly colorful.
There were quite a few hunters who had come to the beach, and when they spotted Samin and Doun, they approached to request autographs or photos.
‘I don’t have a signature… I’m sorry.’
‘No, Magnetic hyung. Honestly, at this point, shouldn’t you make one?’
At the friendly words from a young-looking male student, Doun stood there for a moment, thinking. Then he even asked the student for his opinion on what kind of signature would be good.
‘If you were to make a signature, how do you think it would be good to make it?’
‘How about writing hyung’s nickname in English? Or maybe drawing a cute magnet shape and writing your name?’
‘Then I’ll practice when I have time later. Not now though, since I came to play with Samin.’
‘Ah, please definitely do it next time, hyung.’
‘Yes. I’ll definitely do it for you when we meet next time.’
Doun smiled warmly at the student. Samin felt a sense of déjà vu and realized there had been a similar incident when they went to conquer Floor 55.
When they returned to the hotel and entered their room, Samin asked Doun.
“Hyung. Why do you smile so nicely at young men these days?”
“What?”
“No, I mean, you know. Last time when we went to conquer Floor 55 too, when some young guy kept clinging to you going ‘Magnetic hyung, Magnetic hyung,’ you unusually answered him and smiled at him. Look at today too. You even asked that guy who probably doesn’t even have an ID yet about signature designs and smiled brightly at him.”
Doun was a bit dumbfounded. He knew Samin was jealous, but apparently even other men were all targets of his jealousy. If he thought about it as jealousy because Samin liked him, it was just cute, but he was worried that at this rate, Samin might growl at everyone who came near.
“I am weak to young men, that’s right.”
“Why! Aren’t you satisfied with a young, handsome younger boyfriend?”
His face, with lips pushed out in protest, seemed to be covered with mischief. Anyway, what should he do with this damn puppy. Doun chuckled and answered.
“If Dohyeon had grown up, he would have been around their age, so thinking about that makes it hard for me to just coldly reject them.”
Samin flinched and rolled his eyes. He didn’t ask the stupid question of who Dohyeon was. The Dohyeon that Doun was talking about must mean his one and only younger brother.
Thinking back, the age group of those Doun had been particularly soft and friendly toward did seem young.
Doun had lost his family when he was twelve. His younger brother Lee Dohyeon had been two years old at the time, so if he were alive, he would be spending his sixteenth summer.
“No… I didn’t even know that and was being petty with jealousy. I deserve a million point deduction today.”
Samin muttered awkwardly. Then Doun was surprised and asked back.
“What deduction?”
“Huh? Weren’t you still doing the scoring?”
Doun became dumbfounded. Scoring? When had he stopped doing that? He hadn’t expected that Samin would think the words he had carelessly blurted out as a desperate measure while awkwardly putting off Samin’s courtship to become his boyfriend were still ongoing.
“I don’t do that. Why would I score someone I’m dating… Why did you think that?”
“Well, after we have sex, you look at me with such loving eyes and feed me delicious food, so I thought I was earning tons of points… Ow! Why are you hitting me!”
Samin made a fuss while quickly rubbing his forearm. His face looked completely uninjured though.
‘What? Lee Doun doesn’t do scoring? Then is it okay to fool around a bit more?’
His face was full of joy, filled with thoughts of being more clingy with Doun.
“These days there isn’t a single day I don’t get hit at least once, really.”
After getting rapidly closer with Samin and then starting to date, Doun had decided to reduce his physical discipline. But it wasn’t as easy as he thought. His live-in boyfriend turned out to be much more childish and full of mischief than expected, and was serious about making people embarrassed.
“Aww, you should hug me with love. Why do you always hit me?”
“You keep breaking your promises after saying you’ll behave so I won’t hit you.”
Samin bent his upper body down and rubbed his face against Doun’s chest. Because there was quite a difference not only in height but also in build, he had to curl up his body considerably to take this position.
But Samin enjoyed crumpling his large body like paper as much as possible to be held in Doun’s arms every time. The sensation of those white, long hands embracing him was ecstatic.
“They say this room shows the sunrise in the morning. I’ll set an alarm for sunrise and wake you up in the morning.”
“Ah… I didn’t bring my medicine.”
Doun made a troubled expression and dry-washed his face. Though the number of pills he had to take had decreased, there were ones he needed to take consistently. Since he had somewhat impulsively suggested the beach trip in the car, he had completely forgotten about his medicine.
“Now, ahem. Our honey, please pay attention here.”
Samin drew Doun’s gaze to himself. It was when Doun glanced at him. Samin took out a small box from his inventory.
“Did you bring condoms and lube again?”
“Tsk. I moved those to the suitcase ages ago. This became our honey’s dedicated medicine storage box that I packed this morning just in case.”
Wondering what nonsense this was, he looked down into the box to find medicine packets inside. The phrases written on the packets like ‘before bed’ and ‘as needed’ looked familiar.
‘This is… my medicine.’
Seeing even the hospital name clearly written, it was definitely his medicine.
“How is it? How does it feel to have such a thorough and well-prepared boyfriend?”
“…Why do you carry this around like it’s something good, you fool.”
It wasn’t even something good, but medicine to heal his weak mind, and he felt embarrassed and shy that Samin carried it around so preciously. Doun just pouted and glared at the medicine packets in the box.
“Medicine isn’t a bad thing, so what’s wrong with it? It’s not like I stole it to take myself. I never know when we might stay out overnight, and what if you said you wanted to go home again because you didn’t bring your medicine? That’s why I prepared it. If we hadn’t taken this trip today, I would have quietly put it back.”
Though he might have packaged his sneaky intentions to sound considerate in words, Doun couldn’t help but feel Samin’s true feelings. The warm consideration that treated his shame about the medicine he took daily as if it were nothing special.
Doun couldn’t figure out what would be good to say in response. He could scold Samin and pretend not to know as he always did, or he could honestly say thank you for taking care of him.
While he was unable to get his bearings and just hesitating, Samin quickly put the box back into his inventory and led Doun to the bathroom.
“Come on. You worked hard today, so go wash up. I’ll wash up in the other bathroom.”
Without even having time to respond, he was left alone in the bathroom. Thinking they would definitely get tangled up again since they had come all the way to a hotel, he prepared thoroughly and came out of the bathroom, only to be greeted by Samin who was lying neatly on one side of the bed.
“Come on. Hurry and lie down. We need to sleep early to see the sunrise tomorrow morning.”
Though he was saying that, Doun knew from several experiences that this guy would sneakily slip his hands under clothes or push his lips forward. Doun climbed onto the bed with a somewhat determined expression and lay down awkwardly.
“I packed clothes to change into in the suitcase too, you know? Let’s sleep in robes tonight.”
“Did you pack my clothes too?”
“You said to share the dressing room and use it comfortably.”
“That was telling you to hang up your clothes comfortably, not to go around stealing my clothes.”
“What do you mean steal? I just packed them just in case.”
“What else did you pack in that suitcase besides the naughty stuff? Tell me honestly. I’ll let it slide.”
“Besides stuff to use when doing naughty things? Your clothes and my clothes… and snacks to eat when blood sugar drops?”
“Even if the world ended, with that suitcase you’d be comfortable for several days.”
“Of course. Even if I die, I’m going to die hugging your clothes tightly. Saying ‘I bought so many condoms but I’m dying like this without getting to use them all with hyung. It’s so heartbreaking…'”
“Are you crazy?”
“A man who died holding his lover’s clothes in his arms. Isn’t that so romantic?”
“What’s romantic about dying! It’s not romantic at all.”
“Hmm. Then I have no choice but to live long.”
Samin giggled and lightly kissed Doun’s cheek. When a scent quite different from his usual body fragrance wafted over, it felt strangely new and exciting.
“You worked hard today. To hit that ugly guy, you had to get close, and I was really worried because the mental shock to hyung must have been big.”
“What?”
“Our honey, you’re always looking at my handsome face, so seeing such a squid-like guy after so long must have made you feel so nauseous.”
He wanted to object that it was nonsense, but thinking about it carefully, he did seem to have felt nauseous. It was probably from tension, but after hearing Samin’s words, he thought it might have been from seeing Choi Jeongwook’s face after so long.
Naturally, he couldn’t help but feel guilty about hitting someone. But when he listened to Samin’s words, the guilt seemed to be greatly diluted. When he was making such an effort, he couldn’t not play along.
“Hey… don’t raise my standards and then dump me, really.”
Doun said something a bit embarrassing. But as Samin said, seeing that handsome face up close every day, if he ever broke up with Samin, it seemed like ordinary people wouldn’t catch his eye.
When Doun played along with his nonsense, Samin grinned with joy.
“Don’t you dump me either, hyung. As long as you don’t dump me, even after we become grandfathers, we’ll live happily together like a picture in a detached house. I’m planning to have prophetic dreams too.”
“Ah, not that you had them, but you’re planning to have them?”
“Yes.”
He chuckled at the shameless answer. Doun slipped into Samin’s arms. Then Samin patted him with his firm arms and just kept repeating that they should sleep early. Usually he would have been groping his waist or thighs.
‘What? Today… is he really not planning to do it?’
Doun was confused as he lay obediently in his arms. Wondering intensely if he should ask him to take out the evening medicine with sleeping pills from that box he brought earlier.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
