JKA 45

“Have you forgotten it all?”

“I-I remember… But, let go of this.”

When pushing against his chest did nothing, Jiwoon lowered his hands and grabbed his wrists instead. Then he looked up at Zeo pitifully. However, Zeo, seeming to have no intention of letting Jiwoon go, started to fiddle between his buttocks with his fingertips.

“Ah, there…!”

His front was pressed tight, and his back was being stimulated by Zeo’s fingers, making his body flare up with heat as if someone had set it on fire. The fingertips did not dig inside, but instead played around the tightly puckered hole, moving as if teasing.

“You remember? You remember and you still talk like that?”

“…Ah, eugh, I don’t like the front, heu!”

“Then who is the Lee Zeo you were calling out to in your sleep? What bastard’s name did you attach to me?”

“N-no… That’s not it.”

Jiwoon shook his head and protested, but Zeo leaned in and whispered in a low voice into Jiwoon’s ear.

“Put your hands around my neck. If you fall, you’ll crack your head open.”

At those words, Jiwoon quickly reached out his hands and wrapped them around Zeo’s neck. Then Zeo tensed his hands and lifted Jiwoon into his arms. It became a position where he would have no choice but to fall if he did not cling on not only with his hands but also by wrapping his legs around Zeo’s waist. Feeling Jiwoon’s legs wrap tightly around his waist, Zeo pushed him against the bathroom wall.

Now Jiwoon was the one looking down at Zeo. No matter how much he lowered his disgracefully flushed face, he could not hide it. At that fact, Jiwoon’s body trembled, shudder. His member, which had been relentlessly pressed against his body, ejaculated weakly onto Zeo’s stomach.

“I said you were holding back well, unlike your usual self. The guy who used to pounce on me every other day managed to hold back. So how could you not leak in your sleep?”

“…”

“It would have been funny if you had done all sorts of crazy things with your ass out, but I was the idiot for thinking you were admirable for not doing so.”

Zeo said, frowning. No, actually, that was a lie. During the days Jiwoon thought were peaceful, Zeo, on the contrary, could not shake off his complicatedly tangled thoughts. His insides were churning to the point where he wished Jiwoon would just pounce on him, unable to hold back his desires.

The reason was obvious. He could not stand the fact that Jiwoon did not feel lust for him. Even if he did not have such desires, Jiwoon had to have them. He had no right to touch and caress Jiwoon’s body unless Jiwoon came to him first and begged him for sex. He could only do it if he wanted it. All his actions were like that.

He had stopped his hand right before penetration and had not touched him since, leaving Jiwoon behind, who did not understand why. It was because of the wish that Jiwoon would not simply want only his body. It was an extremely human wish, so he tried hard to escape from such thoughts, but he could not.

The unhealing wound on his cheek, the change in himself that 17 had mentioned, the desire to have Jiwoon even with a body that could not feel lust. When he realized that all of this was in perfect contradiction to his existence, Zeo was resentful of everything. The problem had started from meeting Myeong Jiwoon, and if he did not want to admit this to himself, he should have accepted 17’s suggestion.

But it was he himself who had refused and run out. He was not in a position to keep demanding things from Jiwoon. On the contrary, it was a situation where Zeo himself had to beg and plead with him. But he could not do that. He thought he should not. Jiwoon could not live for eternity, but he could live for a time close to eternity.

It would be an easy thing to dig into his most vulnerable part by telling Jiwoon to give him his everything. He knew well that he demanded his body out of a longing for human warmth. So if he treated him just a little more affectionately, Jiwoon would easily fall into his grasp.

But what next? Zeo asked himself. What should he do next? For now, he was living well enough, adjusting to the world, but what would happen to Myeong Jiwoon if he disappeared? Could he watch him die? Zeo absolutely could not. He had no choice but to admit that fact now.

That was why, under the peace that Jiwoon was thinking of, Zeo was agonizing like crazy. While spending each day with him, pretending to be fine, he had to suppress and press down on himself, who could not bear the desire to reach out. But contrary to his thoughts, his heart wished for Jiwoon to reach out to him first. He had the ridiculous thought that if he did, he would somehow, do anything.

For the first time, Zeo felt that he was a weak and insignificant being. If he thought that Jiwoon no longer wanted him, the angel, the moment he decided he would try to live in this wretched world, he would have to disappear from here no matter how much he threw a tantrum and struggled. That thought was driving him crazy. He wanted Jiwoon to want him from the depths of his heart.

Not just this body, but his everything. Knowing that this timid man could not recklessly harbor such a tremendous thought, how wonderful it would be if he wanted him just as much as he was determined to throw himself to the ends of hell—that was all Zeo thought about.

He had decided not to touch Jiwoon and told him that was the best he could do, but in a way, that was not the best. He wanted to at least press their bodies together. Later, he even wished that he would at least want his body. He should have endlessly tangled and dug into him, and as 17 said, made him go wild, saying he would die without him.

When that desire, a feeling that should never exist for Zeo, rose up to his chin, the sleeping Jiwoon moaned, calling his name repeatedly. Not anyone else, but the name he himself had given, Lee Zeo, he called it out ceaselessly, twisting his body this way and that. Zeo watched him quietly and clenched his fists. He was so jealous of the version of himself in Jiwoon’s dream, who could bite and suck on Jiwoon’s body as much as he wanted, that he could not bear it.

“Tell me I was in your dream.”

“…”

“Tell me what you want. Ask me why I didn’t shove my cock all the way inside you back then.”

“…”

“Fuck, don’t have a dream about fucking me and then wake up thinking you’d rather be dead. Don’t make me read such a shitty civil complaint.”

Do you hate doing it with me so much that you’d rather die? It’s not like that. Zeo swallowed those words with all his might. As he did, Zeo urgently kissed Jiwoon. He pushed him against the hard wall, thrust his tongue into his dry mouth, and savored him, sweeping over the soft flesh.

He clung to the meaningless act that gave him no feeling or emotion. He exulted in the touch of hands that gripped his shoulders tightly and scratched down, unable to even breathe properly.

At that moment, Jiwoon, panting from the onslaught of kisses, reached out one hand to the side. Then, the shower faucet barely touched his fingertips. Jiwoon pushed Zeo’s shoulder away, and with his other hand, he lifted the faucet handle, and then from the shower head hanging on the wall, cold water suddenly, poured out.

The cold, rough stream of water soaked Zeo and Jiwoon’s hair. Only then did Zeo pull his lips away and look at Jiwoon. Jiwoon panted heavily and met Zeo’s gaze. The completely soaked t-shirt clung to his body, and his thin chest, visible underneath, rose and fell rapidly.

Jiwoon recalled Zeo’s appearance when he got angry after he brought up wanting to save Hanbyeol. He also remembered how he had acted coercively towards him in Hanbyeol’s form after that. And the moment those two images overlapped with Zeo’s appearance in front of him now, Jiwoon, even for a fleeting moment, was afraid of him.

So the stratagem he had painstakingly come up with was to turn on the water. He thought that the sudden downpour of cold water might cool down the heat that had bloomed between him and Zeo. More than anything, Jiwoon wanted to calm Zeo down immediately and say what he wanted to say while he was at least a little bit sane. Jiwoon wanted to deny his words.

His body gradually grew cold from the continuously pouring cold water. There was no warmth to begin with on Zeo’s skin where they touched. As summer slowly approached, the daytime temperature was mild. However, the cold water turned on at dawn was enough to make his teeth chatter. Thanks to that, Jiwoon felt he could soberly convey what he wanted to say to him.

“I-it’s not l-like that because you were in my d-dream. I… I wasn’t hating it t-to the point of wanting to die that you k-keep appearing in my dreams.”

“…”

“I’m scared that you keep appearing in m-my d-dreams. You’re someone who c-could disappear whenever I o-open my eyes, and knowing that, the fact that I k-keep looking for you even in m-my d-dreams.”

His eyes kept closing because of the water streaming down his hair. His face should have been flushed beet red, but his skin was growing paler and paler from the cold that soaked his body. At that moment, Jiwoon became scared again. He was afraid that he would once again misunderstand his thoughts because of his pale face. So Jiwoon continuously wiped his face and said, looking him straight in the eye as much as possible.

“S-so, tell me.”

“…”

“A-are you by m-my s-side because you want to be?”

“…”

“Someday… when my c-civil complaint is over, will you just disappear then? W-without a single word?”

At Jiwoon’s words, Zeo firmly supported his buttocks with one hand and wrapped his other arm around his back, pulling him closer. Then he buried his face in Jiwoon’s chest and listened. Thump-thump, he heard his rapidly beating heart. Jiwoon wrapped his arms around Zeo’s head. Even under the wet cloth and the pouring stream of water, Jiwoon’s heartbeat was heard very clearly.

What Jiwoon and Zeo wanted and feared were the same. They did not know what the basis of that emotion was, or where it originated from. The only important thing was that, ridiculously, they found solace when they were holding each other. At the same time, they were afraid of feeling such emotions. That was why they had ended up hoping those words would come out of each other’s mouths first.

“…I don’t know.”

“…”

“I don’t know what will happen either.”

Zeo said honestly in Jiwoon’s arms. What happens after Jiwoon’s endless civil complaints end? That was unknown. It was not Zeo’s role to decide that. But even while saying he did not know, Zeo did not let go of Jiwoon. Rather, he just held him even tighter.

“I don’t know when your desire to die will end, but there will be a moment when it does. That’s why I’m here. So… it’s true that if those thoughts disappear, I will leave your side. But I don’t know what that method will be.”

“…”

“But even if I don’t know that, I can’t let you live with the thought of wanting to die. No matter what the end may be.”

“I, I.”