JKA 60

If anyone was going to lie on the cold floor all night and get sick, it would be Jiwoon, not him. Jiwoon acted as if he didn’t know that. No, in reality, he probably didn’t know. Just as Hanbyeol had said, Jiwoon was treating Zeo like a human. No matter what he did, to him, he was human.

Zeo got up from the bed and lightly lifted the curled-up Jiwoon into his arms. At that, Jiwoon, who had been deep in sleep, scrunched up his brow and then opened his eyes. After blinking a few times, his eyes widened and he looked at Zeo, saying.

“A-are you okay? A-are you not in pain?”

Jiwoon’s voice, having just woken up, was dry and cracked. Instead of answering Jiwoon’s question, Zeo laid him down on the bed he had been lying on. But Jiwoon, as if he had no intention of meekly lying down, sat up and pulled on Zeo’s wrist.

Zeo obediently followed his lead and sat down on the bed with a plop. Jiwoon placed his hand on Zeo’s forehead and removed it a few times, asking with a worried look.

“Y-your body was s-still hot. I-it would have been good to wipe you down with a wet towel, but I was afraid you’d w-wake up.”

Jiwoon picked up the wet towel he had set aside by the head of the bed and chattered on as if making excuses. He wanted to take his clothes off, but he couldn’t wake him up while he was sleeping soundly, and yet he couldn’t just leave him with a fever, so he lengthily explained how he had only wiped his face and arms with the wet towel.

“I-it’s a r-relief your f-fever went down.”

“I won’t die just from a little fever.”

Zeo answered, for some reason, gruffly. It was because the way he couldn’t speak his mind clearly and had to beat around the bush, and his frustrating stutter, which had been so annoying, was now somehow quite amusing as he fumbled around in front of him, fiddling with the wet towel.

He didn’t have to do anything. But the fact that he was pleased that he hadn’t done nothing was clear proof that both his body and mind had gone crazy. His chest felt ticklish. It felt like ants were crawling inside him. In the end, none of his actions were meaningless.

“Y-you did it for me b-before, too.”

Jiwoon brought up the time when Zeo had placed a wet towel on his head when he had a fever from a cold, and had filled the freezer with ice cream. As he said this, he avoided Zeo’s blatant gaze and mumbled, his head turned slightly away.

“S-so I just…”

“Where are you looking, look at me.”

Zeo reached out and turned Jiwoon’s chin. There was no way to properly see the color of Jiwoon’s face in the dark room. But Zeo could see. The tip of his nose, slightly red even though he wasn’t sick, and his ears, flushed bright red, were clear.

“Are you scared I’ll die?”

“Y-you said you w-won’t die from a little fever…”

“You didn’t know that.”

“…”

“I’m asking if you’re scared.”

At Zeo’s pressing question, Jiwoon gave a slight nod. He met his eyes as if he were asking something obvious, but Jiwoon couldn’t see anything except Zeo’s gaze, which, though cloudy, was clear even in the darkness.

“I’m not even human, what’s there to be scared of. You know there’s no such thing as dying or not dying.”

Because I’m not human. Zeo put extra emphasis on that sentence. But Jiwoon dismissed it as if it were no big deal and said.

“S-so what if you’re… not. Wh-what does it matter.”

“…”

“I-I did it because I wanted to.”

Everything was strange to Zeo. It was confusing that he felt like he understood the changes happening to him and the reason for them, yet he couldn’t. On the other hand, Jiwoon acted as if it didn’t matter much. So, for Jiwoon, it really was okay no matter what. Whether Zeo was an angel or a human, he was far removed from such problems.

It was a funny thing. It was an important thing. What kind of crazy human would give up their bed for a robot vacuum cleaner that was running hot, doze off on the floor, and try to cool it down with a wet towel? But that thing was right here.

“Y-you had a fever, and you were sweating c-cold sweats… how could I just l-leave you be.”

Jiwoon, as if telling him not to ask any more questions, got up with the wet towel and headed for the bathroom. As he did, he turned on the room’s light, making it bright. Zeo, squinting as if blinded, didn’t take his eyes off Jiwoon, who was moving about here and there. Jiwoon knew of Zeo’s persistent gaze but pretended not to.

No matter how much he stared, he didn’t give him a single glance, and it was Zeo who got worked up. He wanted to just look at that face, but he didn’t like the way he kept turning this way and that to avoid showing it. In the end, he got up and stood behind Jiwoon, who was hanging the lightly rinsed towel in the bathroom.

Jiwoon, who was hanging the towel on the bathroom wall, turned around with a startled expression, and Zeo, who could finally see Jiwoon’s face properly, looked down at him and said.

“Want me to wash you too?”

“What?”

At the out-of-the-blue question, Jiwoon asked back as if to say, what are you talking about.

“Wh-what do you mean, wash?”

“I’m asking if you’ll wash me.”

“…”

“You said you couldn’t wipe me down because you were afraid I’d wake up. My whole body’s covered in sweat, you’re not going to wash me?”

At Zeo’s words, Jiwoon’s face flared up. Zeo watched with interest as he just rolled his eyes around, silent, wondering what he was thinking. Blocked by Zeo, Jiwoon, who couldn’t even escape and was lost in thought, at some point made a face of disbelief.

“Y-you don’t n-need to wash, do you? You can d-do that thing, like m-magic, and get c-clean.”

Zeo was someone who could even change his appearance at will. He was always clean. He always maintained a clean appearance without having to go to the effort of washing, eating, or dressing. He knew how he could do that, but he didn’t know what to call it, so after some thought, he called it magic, and at that, Zeo suddenly burst out laughing.

“Magic?”

“No… w-well, what do you call it then.”

“Forget it.”

“…”

“Wash me.”

Zeo started taking off his clothes without a second thought. As he casually threw off his clothes with a person right in front of him, Jiwoon didn’t know where to look. He didn’t know why he was doing this when he could do it himself.

“Wh-why… y-you can do it yourself.”

He couldn’t just stand there any longer and was about to leave the bathroom, but the door slammed shut with a thud. Zeo was still taking off his clothes and hadn’t even touched the door. Seeing that made him even more flabbergasted. Wasn’t he being stubborn and asking to be washed when he could do it himself by any means?

“Then why did you put the wet towel on me? Why did you lay me on the bed? Why did you do something that wasn’t even necessary.”

“That and th-this are d-different.”

“What’s different. You just said you were disappointed you couldn’t wipe me down.”

“You d-don’t have a fever now!”

“I do.”

Lying shamelessly, Zeo became completely naked. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen his naked body, but Jiwoon was in a state of bewilderment, to the point where his head was spinning. He stood there stubbornly, as if he wouldn’t move an inch until he was washed.

In the already cramped bathroom, there was nowhere to run. If he turned on the shower, it was obvious he would get soaked too. It was unavoidable if he was to wash a man who was much taller than him. In the end, Jiwoon pushed him in front of the shower and let out a deep sigh.

“Don’t sigh. I had to wash you, who had fainted, while scraping all that out, because you kept begging me to come inside you…”

“I-I get it, so please b-be quiet!”

Jiwoon covered his mouth with one hand and picked up the shower head hanging on the wall with the other. Only then did Zeo shut his mouth as he wanted. Jiwoon, who was repeatedly checking with his hand to see if warm water was coming out after turning the faucet, said to Zeo once the water was at an appropriate temperature.

“T-turn around.”

When Zeo did as he was told and stood facing the wall, Jiwoon, who was about to aim the stream of water pouring from the shower at his back, paused for a moment. It was because there was a large scar on one of his shoulder blades. It was the place where the clump of feathers, which was ambiguous to even call a wing, had been.

The scar, which hadn’t healed properly, wasn’t smooth and had a deep groove in between. Rather than being cut by a knife, the cross-section was rough, as if it had been forcibly ripped off. Jiwoon, forgetting that he had to wash him, reached out and touched the scar.

The stream of water falling from the shower head in his other hand only wet the wrong part of the floor. The small bathroom quickly filled with hot steam. Jiwoon, fully aware of this, pretended not to know and continued to carefully touch the scar with his fingertips, asking.

“D-does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“W-wasn’t it because th-this part hurt?”

Jiwoon remembered the sight of Zeo collapsing, clutching the area around his shoulder.

“I-is the reason you don’t have o-one w-wing because s-someone cut it off?”

Zeo was silent for a moment at Jiwoon’s question. Then he reached out, turned off the faucet, and said.

“I cut it myself.”

“…”

“I ripped it off.”

“Wh-why?”

“I don’t remember.”

It wasn’t a lie, it was the truth. He felt like he had definitely remembered it, but from some point on, he couldn’t recall the reason. The funny thing was that he wasn’t even trying to remember. He must have ripped it off because it was worth ripping off—even without the memory, he could be sure of that much.