103.
“…”
Ryu Ho-yeon, who had been lying around comfortably, suddenly raised his hand high above his face. This revealed his remarkably clean, healed hand. It had been a week since his hands were cleaned up. Yet he still wasn’t sure how to feel about it—whether he could openly show his happiness about it or not.
For the first few days, he tried pretending not to notice, but it was too difficult. He wasn’t a fool or blind—how could he keep pretending not to see the fresh skin that had grown as if a line had been drawn?
Eventually, a few days ago, Ryu Ho-yeon had finally pretended to notice the change in his skin with a very stiff, robotic reaction like, “Oh. How. Strange. Why. Is. My. Hand. Like. This?” Choi Jae-won offered his congratulations with an odd expression that was hard to tell whether he was smiling or crying.
‘Congratulations. But you don’t have to go that far just because of me.’
‘What? What do you mean…?’
‘It’s a happy thing. You don’t have to be so cautious around me.’
Choi Jae-won’s face looked so strange as he said this while stroking the healed back of his hand for a long time that afterward, Ryu Ho-yeon decided to just pretend his healed hands didn’t exist.
Come to think of it, it was probably because of his hands that they fled from the Sejong branch office that day, and also why he insisted on maintaining “Won’s” identity while taking Ryu Ho-yeon out… It seemed that Choi Jae-won had no intention whatsoever of letting Ryu Ho-yeon out into the world.
If he wanted to keep him locked up, Ryu Ho-yeon was willing to be imprisoned.
This might be far from the bright and healthy way of loving that people talk about, that he’d seen in countless movies and dramas, but still, Ryu Ho-yeon wanted to go along with whatever Choi Jae-won wanted to do.
He couldn’t even fulfill that simple request to stay by his side, to remain as his only paired Guide, and had to turn away—so this time, truly, anything.
This was the second chance he had gained after enduring bone-cutting pain and turning his back on everyone through harsh years. Ryu Ho-yeon’s second chance should be Choi Jae-won’s first.
Choi Jae-won, who always woke up much earlier than him, must have gone for exercise today as well—the faint sound of the shower echoed from the bathroom. Just as the “shoosh” of the water stopped, Ryu Ho-yeon quickly hid the smooth back of his hand, which he had been staring at, under the blanket. He tried to pretend to be asleep, but he was caught again today.
“Why are you up already? You woke up early today?”
He wanted to point out the objective fact that no one in the world would consider waking up at 11 AM to be “early,” but Choi Jae-won’s face, fresh from the shower with steam rising from it, looked particularly refreshed, so he decided to let it slide.
“…Just. I woke up because I was hungry.”
“You woke up because you were hungry? Oh, you poor thing. That won’t do. Wait just a moment. I’ll make something for you.”
Doing this repeatedly was becoming a habit. Calling him “Jaewon hyung,” using formal speech with him consistently—it was gradually becoming easier to do without reluctance.
Ryu Ho-yeon got up groggily and walked forward like children entranced by the Pied Piper, following him to some unknown place. His destination was that broad back draped in a bathrobe.
He walked up casually and stuck to him naturally, moving as one body, which caused a satisfied snort from the front.
After his hands healed, his mind became complicated in many ways, but one thing was good—the wave of physical contact that had been almost completely cut off after their first emotional embrace and a few awkward kisses upon reuniting had now been revived overwhelmingly.
“Hey, hyung.”
“Yes? What is it?”
Choi Jae-won seemed to be in a good mood, humming a tune as he ground the coffee beans. Soon, the small kitchen was filled with the fragrant smell of coffee. Ryu Ho-yeon, resting his chin on Choi Jae-won’s shoulder and watching the coffee drip drop by drop, casually posed the question he had wanted to ask since the night before.
“So when are we… going to go all the way?”
Crash! Clang!
“Hyung?”
…It seemed to be bad timing. Choi Jae-won momentarily lost strength in his hand and dropped the glass he was holding, which shattered into pieces.
Choi Jae-won, startled, first picked up Ryu Ho-yeon. He set him down on the kitchen island, earnestly told him not to move, and busily cleaned the floor.
“…”
Choi Jae-won’s head, which couldn’t even meet his gaze and was focused on cleaning up the glass shards, somehow appeared to be turning pink—or so Ryu Ho-yeon thought.
“Hey. You still haven’t answered my question.”
“…Ugh!!”
It wasn’t an illusion after all. Seeing his nape and ears turning bright red with that single groan.
Ryu Ho-yeon felt a strange satisfaction and continued with his mischievous questioning.
“Why? Did I say something I shouldn’t have? You don’t want to go all the way? If you don’t want to, what’s the reason?”
“Ho-Hoyeon…”
In the car on the way back from the Sejong branch. He thought they would go all the way, but Choi Jae-won, who had been nibbling at his lips and touching his bare skin, suddenly broke down in tears like a waterfall and pulled away, exhausted.
Judging from the sad breathing mixed with sniffles, it was something like this: seeing the bare skin that was completely hidden under clothes, not just parts like limbs or face that he had seen before, made him feel so guilty and sorry that he couldn’t bear it.
It was hard to believe the spectacle of him clearly showing signs of excitement, then cutting things off halfway and bursting into tears of apology, but from that day on, Choi Jae-won became a half-wit who would go no further than kissing.
Ryu Ho-yeon couldn’t understand it. If he had already gone so far as to deceive and forcibly confine him, wasn’t that already the seed of an excellent obsessive madman? An obsessive madman who stops undressing the other person and just cries while in an aroused state—this was unheard of.
If the reason was that his body, covered entirely in scars, was too ugly to desire, he could at least understand. But seeing how Choi Jae-won would bring massage cream every day to treat wounds that wouldn’t heal anyway and spend hours touching him, that didn’t seem to be the case either.
In that situation, it was only natural that they would habitually find themselves pressing their lips together and seeking each other’s embrace.
But they never went all the way on any day. Even when he was healthy, Ryu Ho-yeon couldn’t fully handle the bull-like intensity of the young Guide who would charge at him with rolled-back eyes—he’d rashly told him that if he had so much energy, he should go guide some other Esper. How much worse would it be now that he had become so weak compared to before?
He would become exhausted and out of breath before even reaching the halfway point, let alone conquering the peak, and as soon as Choi Jae-won realized Ryu Ho-yeon’s stamina had reached its limit, he would promptly dress him back up as if wrapping a gift. Even fruit wrapped for holidays wouldn’t be wrapped so neatly.
“I-I don’t dislike it. It’s not because I dislike it. You know that well, Hoyeon.”
“If it’s not that you dislike it, then what is it?”
“No, so, so that’s…”
Choi Jae-won became immobilized every time he saw Ryu Ho-yeon’s body with all its traces of suffering. These were wounds that hurt the viewer more than the bearer. And he had learned how to heal those wounds without leaving a single scar.
It wasn’t even difficult to heal them. All he had to do was pay Song Won-young an appropriate amount and tell him to heal Ryu Ho-yeon. If Song Won-young was an issue, he could call any Healing Esper. The only difference would be in the recovery speed, but eventually, Ryu Ho-yeon would regain his original dazzling appearance, like the ugly duckling that became a swan.
“…I don’t know. I just feel sorry.”
But he absolutely didn’t want to do that. He wanted to monopolize Ryu Ho-yeon by ignoring the pain he had personally endured. He was too ashamed. He felt he didn’t deserve it.
“Hmm…”
Whether deliberately or not, Ryu Ho-yeon sighed inexplicably while cradling his chin with his hand, now smooth with fresh skin. Choi Jae-won, forgetting about cleaning up the glass, was sweating profusely, waiting for Ryu Ho-yeon’s next words.
“You know, Jaewon hyung. Perhaps…”
“Perhaps…?”
“You can’t get it up?”
“Huh?”
“I’m asking if you have a problem down there.”
“…Huh?”
Though he hadn’t used it since Ryu Ho-yeon disappeared, there shouldn’t be any problem… Choi Jae-won couldn’t even defend himself and just blushed furiously, his face turning various shades of red.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
