It was a confession that he’d been watching through that camera all along.
“No, you should go to sleep now. It’s late.”
He must have wanted to do something to him.
“Lie down.”
Of course.
Now every word from the man no longer sounded straightforward. Geun-yeong merely let out an inaudible snort and didn’t move. He rebelled by not moving.
Today wasn’t insulin replacement day. No matter what this man did to him, he couldn’t call Detective Kyung. All that would remain on the camera would be the disgusting intercourse between men who called each other son and father, nothing more. The evidence was insufficient. So today, he didn’t want to do anything.
Then suddenly, he thought of the man who said he’d come running as soon as he reported. He said to report regardless of whether it was night or dawn. He wondered if the man had to stay awake because of him, and that thought made him anxious.
Rather than waiting for a situation, he needed to create one.
Not only for the man waiting for his call, but because Geun-yeong himself didn’t want to stay here for even a day, an hour, no, even a minute or a second. He felt like he might grab the man’s neck just as he had clutched the paper.
After glaring at the book, crumpled ugly like his life, he closed it and stood up.
He had to be careful not to make eye contact with the man. He felt like he might strangle him the moment their eyes met. Geun-yeong fixed his gaze on the center of the bed where he was supposed to lie down. Avoiding the persistent gaze following him, he climbed onto the bed and lay down.
The man, who had been watching him follow instructions without complaint, sat at the foot of the bed.
Geun-yeong had to exercise difficult restraint to keep his disgust from showing on his face. His stomach churned as if he might vomit at any moment because of the man who had told him to rest, to go to sleep, but wasn’t leaving.
The man, who had been looking Geun-yeong up and down as he behaved obediently, was now crawling up on his knees.
Geun-yeong closed his eyes tightly, then opened them. He turned his gaze from the hateful crown of the head that was gradually growing larger to look at the camera. While thinking about what needed to be captured there to bring this man down—actions that had to be recorded—he gathered the tension rising amidst his disgust.
Then, he thought about who would see what was recorded there. Probably the people who would punish this man. And, since they couldn’t stop the reporters, people who had nothing to do with the man’s punishment might also see it. But, before anyone else, the first person to see it would probably be Detective Kyung.
At that thought, sadness suddenly washed over him. He had deliberately not told him. He wanted to hide it. Now that things had come to this, it seemed like it wouldn’t matter if the whole world knew, but he wished Detective Kyung wouldn’t see it. He had only shown his foolish and clumsy side until now; he didn’t want to show his dirty, obscene side too.
His resolve wavered. He wondered if he should stop now. A weak thought came to him—what if he didn’t report and just lived like this? But.
‘You’re braver than I thought.’
Detective Kyung had praised him for giving up everything and wanting the man to be punished. It wasn’t hard to imagine the disappointed face he would make if he now changed his position and said he would just live like this, and the sight of the man’s back as he turned away with such a face. That was as painful as showing the obscene acts.
The man, who had crawled up with Geun-yeong’s body between his thighs, sat on his thighs. He grabbed the hem of his top and lifted it. After pulling it up to expose his chest, revealing his nipples, he said:
“The old model machine may not sync with the app, but it’s sturdy. The latest models these days seem to focus on software, so they’re not very solid.”
He was saying this while looking at his chest, not his belly where the device was inserted, and licking his lips. The man, who made no attempt to hide his lust, immediately lowered his upper body. Hot breath was felt on his chest. Soon, wet sounds began.
Gritting his molars and enduring the shameful sensation, Geun-yeong clenched his fist and then released it. He looked at the camera. He thought of the man beyond that camera.
It was painful.
He looked at the ceiling with his gaze withdrawn from the camera. He tilted his head back sharply to avoid seeing the crown of the head squirming on his chest. It was because of the murderous impulse that kept rising. He wanted to end it quickly. It seemed like he needed to end it quickly. After trying to relax his entire body to take the strength out of his voice, Geun-yeong said:
“Tell me about when we first met.”
The lips and tongue that had been biting, chewing, sucking, and pulling his nipples to the point of soreness and pain stopped.
Ji Seokhun was quite surprised. This was the first time, the first words he had heard since he started sleeping with the boy. Throughout their relations, the boy had never spoken except for closed moans that seemed to slip out after holding back. He had no particular complaints about that. The boy’s very existence was neat and tidy. He was satisfied with the boy who maintained a pleasing appearance without any dishevelment, even during sex. He had never particularly desired things like aegyo or flirtation that wouldn’t suit such a boy.
But hearing what the boy said now, he realized that wasn’t the case. While it wasn’t quite aegyo or flirtation, it seemed he had wanted an emotional exchange based on memories beyond the everyday. Seokhun was very satisfied with Geun-yeong’s considerably changed attitude. He suppressed his emotions, which were becoming excited and aroused for reasons beyond the two red, swollen nipples. While pinching and twisting one of the nipples, which was as flawless as the boy himself, with his fingers, he said:
“You stood out at first sight. Pretty, neat, and also well-behaved.”
Yes, he was pretty, neat, and well-behaved. Among those who were acting out for no clear reason, covered in dirt and dust on top of some unknown stickiness, he was like a pink pearl shining quietly. He shone with a smooth texture without a single rough spot.
Seokhun, who had briefly recalled that time, trembled with an elevated feeling. He sucked on the nipple again. And he lowered his hand that had been stroking near the waist, putting it into the pants, into the underwear. He gently touched and caressed the boy, whose even the dirtiest and most unclean parts of the human body were clean, neat, and therefore pleasing to look at.
“What if I didn’t have diabetes?”
“Huh?”
Seokhun asked back without removing his lips from the nipple, without stopping his hand moving inside the pants.
“If… if it wasn’t me but another child who had diabetes, would you have taken that child instead?”
Ji Seokhun raised his head. He looked at the face of the boy who was looking somewhere beyond the ceiling with his head tilted back. Even if one of those sticky and dirty boys that he wouldn’t want to touch even with rubber gloves had diabetes, there was no way he would have brought such a person to this house. Seokhun spoke his honest feelings:
“No. Even if you didn’t have diabetes, I would have brought you.”
“Why?”
“Because bringing you wasn’t just because of your diabetes.”
Ji Seokhun, who had lifted his upper body to sit up, unbuttoned the top button of his shirt that was buttoned all the way up to his neck.
“I seemed to have everything, but I was always empty. I always felt completely hollow. When I first saw you, I thought you would fill my emptiness. When I looked at you, I wasn’t empty. It felt like a dented circle being filled. That’s why I wanted to continue being with you. Then. Now. And continuously in the future.”
Geun-yeong snorted inwardly. The man’s words were amusing, like a monologue from an overly dramatic play. Throughout listening to the words that, despite being wrapped in elegant terms, only evoked mockery because they were so disgusting, all of Geun-yeong’s attention was focused on the blurry black dome-shaped camera visible in his left field of vision. He wondered if this much confession was enough.
And now what was needed was video evidence to prove what had happened to him. He lowered his eyes from the ceiling and looked at the man. He faced the face that he wanted to kill right then and there.
“What if I said I wanted to meet someone else? What if I said I wanted to live with someone else now?”
The hand that was undoing the last button paused, then moved again.
“You know better than anyone that’s not possible. No one but me can treat your disease. Look. Have you forgotten what happened after you were away from me for just two days, mere two days? If I had been a little late in finding you, your life could have been in danger.”
His action of taking off his shirt was as rough as his quickened speech. The man was quite angry, and Geun-yeong knew it. But this wasn’t enough. As the man who had thrown off his shirt reached out to grab Geun-yeong’s clothes near his chest, he said:
“I’ve fallen for someone.”
Not only Ji Seokhun who heard those words, but also Geun-yeong who said them had to be very surprised.
In his mind, it was clearly a lie to provoke the man. But the words that came out of his mouth weren’t a lie but the truth. Geun-yeong realized he was speaking the truth.
He liked that person, Detective Kyung.
The moment he realized this fact, the emotion that rose up almost choking him was none other than regret. It was the sadness of realizing too late. And the disappointment that it was useless to realize it now.
“Forget it.”
The man, who gave timely advice to Geun-yeong whose determination was greatly wavering, roughly pushed up the clothes hanging on his chest as if he might tear them apart right then. While twisting, bending, and lifting his arm to remove it from the sleeve of the t-shirt, the monitor on his forearm got caught in the fabric. Muttering “shit” through his teeth, the man untangled the twisted fabric with irritable handling. He pulled the shirt over his head, removing it from both arms, and threw it away. Just as the man’s hand now grabbed the waistband of his pants, Geun-yeong spoke.
“I want to be with that person.”
Eyes pleading sincerely and eyes that couldn’t accept those words collided in midair. Geun-yeong steadied his wavering heart by making eye contact with the hateful man and spoke again.
“I want to go to that person. Please, let me go.”
Along with pouring out his sincere feelings, the rising sense of regret was also uncontrollable. It rose and surged until it finally began to overflow.
“Why are you crying? Am I torturing you right now?”
The man’s voice, which seemed even louder despite being lowered, triggered an instinct conditioned over many years. Geun-yeong, who had obeyed and submitted to that voice for 18 years, forgot that what was attached to his stomach wasn’t insulin. He forgot that he might not have diabetes. He was only overcome with fear that his blood would fill with sugar and that his rotting limbs would need to be amputated. He was afraid of the man who could make him that way. He raised his trembling hands to wipe away his tears. But they came again. He wiped them away again before the man glaring at his face could notice. They flowed again.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
