#077
Monday, Jiwoon picked up Yechan and headed to school, checking the calendar. Exam period was approaching.
Listening to a particularly boring lecture today, Jiwoon spun his pen. Yechan’s face concentrating on the lecture beside him was white and straight as always.
His resolution made Jiwoon excited. He had made up his mind after his conversation with Jukyung. So now, living together was actually a good thing.
It didn’t matter whether Yechan looked down on him or not. First, he needed to absolutely increase the time they spent together. He could teach him manners slowly.
Even that seemed like it would be enjoyable. After Jukyung left, Jiwoon had immediately opened his suitcase and packed his things. And that suitcase was now loaded in the car trunk.
Good eyes, and an even better face. Jiwoon glanced at Yechan listening to the lecture with serious eyes and slipped his hand into Yechan’s pants pocket. Yechan turned his head to look at Jiwoon.
“Candy.”
Jiwoon whispered quietly and found the familiar candy case. Yechan had to bite the inside of his mouth at Jiwoon’s hand moving with only a layer of fabric between them.
Jiwoon took out a candy, put it in his mouth, and slowly dissolved it. Yechan turned his head forward again.
After discovering Jiwoon’s jealousy, Yechan had been in a slightly excited state. It meant that Jiwoon at least had that much awareness, that much interest in him.
That fact made Yechan incredibly happy. Even though he thought himself childish for being excited over such a thing, he couldn’t help it. All this time, Jiwoon had treated him like an animal he was temporarily protecting.
He was moderately kind to Yechan and gave him his body, hoping that Yechan would someday share sincerity with someone. It was a relationship wrapped in sympathy, guilt, petty morality, and duty.
In that gap that seemed impossible to narrow forever, Yechan always thirsted.
Jiwoon’s wall was always high and solid. So high and solid that even when Yechan struggled and revealed all his torn insides, he couldn’t climb over it at all.
The nonexistent person he liked was a justification that allowed him to maintain his relationship with Jiwoon somehow. The moment that justification disappeared, he would surely become garbage crazed with desire instead of justified garbage.
He hated that alone. Yechan didn’t want to be more ruined in front of Jiwoon.
But cracks began to appear in Jiwoon’s wall. Even if Jiwoon’s jealousy was simply limited to Yechan’s body, considering the hygiene of a sex partner, that was fine.
But at the same time, Yechan was certain. The anger that had consumed Jiwoon that day wasn’t as simple as he thought.
Jiwoon, who had used violence without hesitation, resembled some aspect of Yechan. Upon discovering this, a ray of light entered Yechan’s world that had been pitch black, blocked by Jiwoon’s wall. The light seeping through the cracked wall awakened Yechan and made him dream of what lay beyond.
Yechan crossed his arms and leaned back. Jiwoon’s white jawbone was firm as he typed on his laptop while chewing candy.
The nape of his neck, broad shoulders, and solid forearms—Yechan’s eyes narrowed as he traced them.
“I won’t let go.” Yechan stuck out his tongue and licked his lower lip. Having discovered the crack in the wall, what he had to do was decided. Yechan thought of water drops falling steadily, drip by drip.
Water drops that would fall without rest forever and eventually bring down the wall. Yechan’s eyes deepened.
“How are you going to study for exams?”
“Well.”
At Jiwoon’s answer, Yechan laughed and asked.
“Want to go to the library?”
“Sure.”
After their afternoon lecture, Yechan and Jiwoon reserved reading room seats on their phones. There weren’t many seats left, as if all the college students who had been looking at flowers and ordering cold noodles on the grass had turned their destination to the library.
Though it was a library they had only visited to borrow necessary books, the two easily found their seats. The wide table open on all sides was packed with people.
Among the studying people, he spotted a few lying down asleep. The atmosphere was full of academic fervor against the backdrop of white noise in the silence.
Yechan placed books from his bag on the table. Jiwoon, who had been staring at the white arms and large hands revealed under the short-sleeved henley neck shirt, also opened his bag.
How many hours had passed? A can was placed in front of Jiwoon’s eyes as he moved between his laptop and notes. A beige tea drink had a post-it note attached.
Jiwoon looked up to identify the person who had placed the drink in front of him. A girl with long straight hair bowed her red face and quickly disappeared.
Jiwoon tried to ignore the can and focus on his studies. He would have, if not for Yechan’s gaze staring at him from beside him.
“Why?”
Jiwoon asked with lip movements. Yechan, who had been watching Jiwoon with his chin propped up, gestured toward the can with his eyes.
Actually, receiving phone numbers was a frequent occurrence for both of them. However, Jiwoon, who usually threw away contact information as soon as he received it outside, was staying still today. Yechan found that irritating.
“I was concentrating well.” Jiwoon silently peeled the post-it from the can and crumpled it up.
After placing the trash appropriately on the desk, Jiwoon opened the can, placed it in front of Yechan, and turned his gaze back to his laptop. Yechan wrote in neat handwriting on the notebook beside Jiwoon, who continued typing.
[I don’t like this. It tastes bad.]
Jiwoon, holding a pen, answered simply.
[Then throw it away.]
It was when Yechan was about to get up from his seat, seeing Jiwoon’s head turn back to his laptop. Something was placed beside his arm with a thud.
It was chocolate with a note attached. When he looked up, he saw the back of a woman in a hoodie. When Yechan, who had stood up, picked up the chocolate and drink can, Jiwoon pushed his chair back, stood up, and pointed toward the exit.
It was a signal to go out together. Yechan, who nodded slightly, followed behind Jiwoon who was walking ahead.
“Going to the smoking area?”
“Bathroom.”
Jiwoon opened the bathroom door located at the end of the reading room corridor. Yechan, who had planned to throw away the drink, also entered through the open door.
“Give me the chocolate.”
“Are you going to eat it?”
Yechan, who was pouring the drink into the sink with one hand, held out the chocolate in his other hand. Jiwoon, who had removed the note and thrown it in the trash, examined the chocolate this way and that.
“It’s new.”
It was a bar chocolate he hadn’t seen in a long time. Jiwoon, who checked here and there with the eyes of an inspector examining products for defects, unwrapped the chocolate.
Meanwhile, Yechan, who had finished pouring out the drink, threw the empty can in the trash. Jiwoon, who had put a piece of chocolate in his mouth and was dissolving it, said.
“It’s delicious.”
Jiwoon, who was chewing the chocolate, turned around to check the bathroom stalls. They were all empty.
Suddenly, Jiwoon grabbed Yechan’s wrist and pushed him all the way to the last stall. Yechan’s white face became puzzled.
“Yechan.”
Jiwoon called Yechan while putting another piece of chocolate in his mouth. Just as Yechan was about to answer, a low voice wrapped around his ear.
“Open up.”
Then Jiwoon pressed their lips together. Yechan’s heart swelled greatly.
Jiwoon pushed the melting chocolate into Yechan’s mouth and locked the bathroom door. The kiss wasn’t long.
When their lips separated, only the sweet and bitter taste of chocolate remained in his mouth. Yechan’s heart, blinking his eyes as if surprised, was now beating like someone who had sprinted at full speed.
Jiwoon threw the remaining chocolate in the trash. Then he opened the bathroom door and said.
“Don’t eat anything unless I give it to you.”
Having said that, Jiwoon leisurely left the bathroom. Yechan, who had been staring blankly at his retreating figure, soon pressed his palm hard against his mouth to pull down his rising lips. In the empty bathroom, only the sound of his own heartbeat seemed to echo loudly.
And when Yechan returned to his seat, Jiwoon had already packed up his laptop. Seeing Yechan return, Jiwoon suddenly held out his phone.
“Let’s go eat dinner.” At the text typed on Jiwoon’s screen, Yechan also packed his bag and left the library.
The sun was already setting. The two, who had dinner at the school cafeteria with Jiwoon saying he had no appetite because his mouth was sweet, got in Jiwoon’s car and headed to Yechan’s house.
“There are too many people at the library. I think it would be better to study at home.”
“There were a lot. It’s fine occasionally, but going every day would be hopeless.”
“Want to study at my house?”
“I wonder.”
Jiwoon’s answer was ambiguous. “He doesn’t seem to like it.” Yechan thought of other study locations.
Exam period was a good excuse to spend time together. When Jiwoon concentrated on studying, his expression was cool but his eyes sparkled particularly.
Every time he saw Jiwoon like that, Yechan was captivated as if bewitched. He wanted to stick close to him. He wanted to study together.
“Then let’s go to a cafe or Starbucks.”
“Yechan.”
“Yes.”
Thinking he might be rejected again, Yechan watched Jiwoon’s mood. Suddenly, Jiwoon’s hand touched Yechan’s hand as he slightly lowered his head. Yechan was startled.
Holding hands in the car was always Yechan’s role. Even that was more contact as a preliminary stage for acts rather than skinship between lovers.
But now, Jiwoon had taken his hand first for the first time. Jiwoon’s touch holding Yechan’s hand was incredibly plain. Yechan’s eyes widened.
“Let’s go home and study together. Bring the luggage from the trunk.”
“Luggage?”
The car stopped smoothly at a red light. Jiwoon turned his head and looked at Yechan with his characteristic languid expression.
“I’m going to live with you starting today. Did you think you could come with just your body?”
Jiwoon slightly narrowed his eyes. At that expression, something seemed to snap in Yechan’s head.
“I’ll… I’ll carry it. You could come with just your body, but hyung will need things.”
Yechan answered, trying hard to give an appropriate response to the situation. Soon turning his head toward the window, Yechan clenched and unclenched his free hand into a fist.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
