I ducked into the narrow alley on the way home and let out a long breath through my mouth. It felt like I was drowning, flailing underwater.
I raked a hand through my hair. Even though thoughts had no physical form, I resorted to physical means to shake them off. Leaning back against the cold wall, I stood there. Maybe the alley acted like a wind tunnel, because frigid air kept sweeping through. I straightened my shoulders as they tried to curl inward on their own and kicked lightly at the ground.
Before long, a tall figure appeared and blocked the path. It was Eden.
He walked toward me with steady steps. He was definitely making noise on purpose. Not that he needed to—his presence stood out enough already. The sense of him forcing himself into my narrowed field of vision crushed any resolve to run away. It felt like Eden would follow me no matter where I went. Probably because he looked like someone worth following around.
I faced him with my jaw set hard. The alley was so narrow that even with each of us against opposite walls, the distance between us remained close. Being forced to stay conscious of the other person’s presence at all times felt uncomfortable. It was unfair if I was the only one getting restless over it. In the end, I was the first to drop my gaze.
“You left this behind.”
My jumper hung from Eden’s hand. No wonder I’d been cold. I took it and draped it over my shoulders. My eyes still stayed fixed somewhere in the filthy alley.
“If you’re done, go.”
I even waved my hand like I was shooing flies, but Eden didn’t budge. I glared at his feet planted on the ground, then my eyes traveled up his long legs. His calves were straight instead of curved, making him look even taller. His thighs weren’t bulky, but they weren’t thin either.
Standing upright, he looked solid in just the right way. Even simply looking him over felt as exhausting as climbing a steep mountain. Just as my gaze reached his chest and I was about to lower it again, Eden asked,
“No walk?”
I’d come outside intending to do exactly that, but my plans had fallen apart. I couldn’t deny that I’d become timid—that the man in front of me was the reason why. The realization left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“No. Don’t feel like it anymore. I’m gonna lie down and watch a movie.”
I should buy beer and snacks before heading home. If I relaxed and took it easy, maybe I could clear my head.
“What about the examination? You’re not doing that either?”
Eden shifted his foot after making the suggestion. Reluctantly, I raised my head, and as though he’d been waiting for it, he rubbed his lower lip with his thumb. He was definitely provoking me.
“That’s… a necessary procedure.”
“Then let’s do it now.”
Unlike him, who clearly wanted to get it over with quickly, I hesitated. For one, I hated that we were in a dirty alley. And my mood still felt unsettled. I wanted to do it somewhere I could focus, when my chest didn’t feel overheated like this.
“Right now is kind of…”
“Wouldn’t it put my mind at ease too if you got it over with quickly?”
As Eden started to step closer, I quickly raised both hands.
“Okay, okay, just stop. Stay right there. I can see everything just fine, and I can reach you too.”
Should I take him to the car? Ah, I left the keys behind. If we went to my place, we could be alone there. It’d be more comfortable too. But letting a stalker into my castle would be insane.
After trying and failing to think of an alternative, I looked at Eden. Starting from the strands of hair falling over his forehead, my eyes swept over his handsome brows and thick-rimmed glasses. It was like anesthesia before surgery. I couldn’t tell whether I was the one being anesthetized or him, but after studying the sharp bridge of his nose, I finally began the examination in earnest. I carefully traced his still lips with my eyes and asked,
“Can I touch you?”
Without waiting for an answer from Eden, I nodded to myself. A classic case of asking and answering my own question.
“I’m gonna touch you.”
I announced it while lifting my hand.
“I’m touching.”
I’d reached the point of declaring each step to myself like a lunatic as I loosened my fingers. I planned to touch him only briefly, with as little force as possible. I knew his lips trapped people like flypaper—once you got stuck to them, you didn’t want to pull away. So I approached carefully.
Right before we finally touched, I burst out laughing. I was acting like some clumsy virgin idiot, and it amused me. Eden, who’d been quietly waiting for my hand, lifted the corners of his mouth too.
“The fact that you’re not getting swept up by how stupid I’m acting is actually pretty admirable.”
The lips muttering in a self-deprecating tone brushed against me by accident, and after barely surviving the jolt that shot through me, I finally touched him.
“You already swept me up in it, but I don’t care. I’m even stupider than you.”
Once I actually touched him, my hesitation faded. I rubbed the soft flesh of his lips. Comparing it to what I already knew, feeling relieved that the texture hadn’t changed at all.
Maybe because my hands were cold from the wind, Eden’s body heat felt especially warm. I gently stroked his closed lips. When I stopped at the fullest part in the center and pressed against his lower lip, a breath slipped out through the narrow gap. Warm, just as I expected.
Was it the difference in temperature creating moisture? His lips weren’t wet, but the silence clinging to my fingertips felt sticky. It was a bad sign. It reminded me of the mistake at Racer’s party.
And this time, there was nobody around to drag me back to reality.
As though my predicament meant nothing to him, Eden’s warmth acted like gravity. To resist it, I held myself rigid enough to make the back of my neck ache.
Was there no disease where you’d die if you couldn’t kiss someone? If there were patients suffering from something like that, they’d throw themselves at people just to survive. There had to be something extreme—some justification that made it acceptable to touch. Feeling good, craving another person’s warmth, simply wanting to do it… those reasons weren’t enough. Lives had to be at stake, or your sanity slipping away. Which meant Eden and I were something even lower than “nothing.”
It wasn’t like me to overthink a simple kiss this much. If I resent you for making me like this, that’s understandable.
“You want to say, ‘You’ve only been touching the parts that weren’t injured this whole time,’ don’t you?”
I asked teasingly, and Eden blinked in confirmation. I rubbed at his lips a little more before pulling my hand away.
“Congratulations. You’re completely healed.”
“I don’t find that very trustworthy.”
“That’s a troubling response to give the esteemed Dr. Quinn. You should be grateful I’m not overcharging you for treatment.”
Completely immersed in my role as an honest doctor, I received a light clap from Eden.
“Impressive.”
“Hmph.”
I snorted and turned around. The tension that had been tormenting me had already scattered into the wind. My outerwear fluttered weakly as I walked out of the alley first, with Eden following behind me.
Even though I felt lighter now, my decision to cancel the walk hadn’t changed. I headed off to buy beer and snacks, then turned back into another alley. Eden followed along in this idiotic detour as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
We went deeper than the spot where I’d examined him earlier. Which also meant we were closer to the opposite entrance, so there was no point in trying to avoid people. Someone entering from that side glanced at Eden and me standing in a line before passing by.
“Looks like word’s gotten around that the doctor here is good.”
Eden spoke from behind me. He had a point. The alley had been deserted when it was just the two of us, but suddenly people kept walking through.
“You spread the rumor, didn’t you?”
“You’re framing an innocent man.”
“This place won’t work.”
Giving up on finding a quiet environment, I left the alley and gestured for Eden to walk beside me. He obediently followed. It was surprisingly compliant behavior, but I still didn’t trust him. He was just as fickle as I was, and impossible to read.
Eden Reed was the kind of existence that deserved to be studied. Glory to the scholar who could observe, investigate, calculate, and finally discover the answer. And envy too. The thought of someone else reaching a realm I couldn’t attain was unbearably irritating. Not because of emotional destruction, but from a pure thirst for knowledge.
“We’re getting farther and farther from the apartment.”
“I know. We’re turning back after we reach that building.”
I used the skyscraper towering over the tall street trees as a turning point and kept walking.
“If you’ve got something to say, just say it.”
It was unfair. I had no idea what Eden was thinking, yet he always pinpointed exactly what was on my mind. I glanced at him, then looked away again toward the apartment.
“I got a message from Jimmy Myers. You remember the guy you were wary of at the party, right? I figured if there’s a man trying to approach me, you should know—”
“You won’t gain anything by trying to provoke me with that.”
“That was just the introduction, so don’t get hung up on it.”
I had no intention of ruining the mood by dwelling on Jimmy Myers, so I moved on quickly.
“That day I came out after showering at Liam’s place, nothing actually happened. I was setting a trap to mess with you. I deliberately deceived you, so I should apologize, but… ha, this is pathetic.”
Even for me, someone usually unfazed by pathetic behavior, this ranked at rock bottom. Though honestly, if time rewound, I’d probably do the same thing again. Either way, the apology was ready to escape my mouth.
But Eden cut me off.
“You don’t have to apologize. Your trap was within the range I expected. I walked into it fully aware.”
That trap-within-a-trap kind of development left me blanking out as I tilted my head. I probably looked slightly stupid. Questions bubbled up and tugged at my facial muscles.
“What the hell is that? Then there wasn’t even any reason for you to feel bad. Nothing happened.”
A hollow laugh slipped from my lips and drifted toward Eden. At the same time, I unconsciously closed the physical distance between us, leaning in to listen more closely.
“Your intentions don’t matter. You wrapped your arms around Liam Dalton’s waist, kept going over to his house, stayed close to him. You even looked close with Jimmy Myers. It seemed like if someone put an arm around your shoulders, you wouldn’t push them away.”
Every item Eden listed with that serious expression was something completely ordinary. By his strict standards, even breathing too hard near another man would probably count as a problem. It sounded exactly like someone nitpicking and tormenting a cheating lover over every little thing.
Even though he had no right to interfere in my private life and was basically policing and accusing me, it didn’t actually feel all that bad.
I reined in the facial muscles trying to move on their own again and pressed him further.
“So you literally just hated seeing Liam and me fooling around? Friends can do that kind of thing. And criticizing the ‘atmosphere’ too is overdoing it.”
“You looked like you were about to kiss. You were too close.”
“Kissing’s not a big deal either. What’s wrong with that?”
“Not everyone is open to sexual contact.”
“It wasn’t sexual. Stop acting like some clueless virgin who thinks any skin contact has sexual meaning.”
Who was the one who taught me about sex in the first place?
Just as the powerful interrogation rose inside me, Eden stopped walking. We’d arrived in front of the apartment.
Standing beside him, I hesitated over whether or not to say what had come to mind, then changed direction entirely. Somehow, using the experiences we’d shared as a weapon left a rough feeling in my mouth. Besides, every issue between us stemmed from the gap that had formed between us, so that was the better angle to attack.
“This attitude where you treat me like I’m some incarnation of sex—you probably think that because of my sex life, but it’s unfair. Back when I said I wasn’t interested, you acted one way, and now suddenly this? Seriously. And it’s ridiculous that I’m the only one getting treated like some promiscuous bastard. What about you? Ever since you left me, have you seriously not had sex at all?”
Go ahead. Try to deny it.
“That’s not what we were talking about. And—”
“There you go changing the subject again. You always do that when things aren’t going your way.”
“I was still talking. Listen to the end.”
Eden adjusted his glasses out of habit and met my crooked stare directly. He looked painfully upright.
“Impossible things rarely happen.”
The emerald light lodged in his eyes dazzled me so much that I couldn’t even follow the movement of his pretty lips. But his low voice, almost like he was reciting poetry, carried the words perfectly into my ears. I quietly savored them, then blinked rapidly. My eyelids interrupted my vision, but I couldn’t stop them.
“Huh?”
“If you’re done here, go inside. I should head home too.”
“Wait, wait just a second.”
By the time I finally forced my eyes open properly again, Eden had already turned his head away. It didn’t just look lukewarm—it felt evasive. Maybe he regretted saying something unnecessary. But it was already too late. I wasn’t stupid enough to let prey escape once it was right in front of me.
“Have you really not had sex? Not even once since then?”
I leaned close to his ear as I asked, and saw his shoulders twitch with my own eyes.
