LLU 78

At this moment, I simply wanted to fall into a sleep so deep that I could not even dream. I wanted to sink into a dense and comfortable sleep where no nightmare, no sadness, no despair could intrude.

And only the man in front of me could grant that.

Even when I tried to close my eyes, my eyelids felt gritty as if sand had gotten inside. I blinked slowly. The sleep that had fiercely turned its back on me for weeks now poured down like a meteor shower beneath Choi Junghan’s body heat.

“…I will never… love you.”

“…….”

“I will never… love you.”

A small voice uttered futilely. I did not want to give Choi Junghan the answer he desired until the very end. Never again, even if he cut out my tongue. Forever.

“You will never find any answer from me.”

A voice thick with dampness emerged. The faint breath leaking from my nose and mouth carried the scent of blood and wine.

Amid my fading consciousness, a sudden realization came to me. Unlike the past days when my sense of existence kept blurring like smoke and I did not know what to do, right now I felt more vivid and clear than ever before.

Choi Junghan had poured intense color into my world that had been fading into monochrome. In truth, it was not some illusion of blue and red nights that were as hazy as smoke. He had truly poured hot blood into my mouth. He had awakened the dying cells with the fragrance of wine and his deep body scent.

With him, I could finally take firm root in this world.

“But I am the only one who can put you to sleep.”

Choi Junghan whispered quietly. His voice soothed me like a lullaby. Choi Junghan clearly recognized my desire to rest now in his arms.

Looking back, he had always been like that. He knew everything I wanted one step ahead of me. He used it to sway me and tried to control me from above.

“Sleep now, Oon-ah. You have been through so much.”

And such a Choi Junghan today again offered me what I wanted most, like a snake. The fruit in his hand looked as sweet as Eve’s apple.

“When you wake up, everything will have returned to its proper place.”

I accepted the fruit of my own will. The voice that gently coaxed and soothed me finally slipped into my mouth. His voice, melting while sweetly stimulating my tongue to the point of tingling, soon turned into a lullaby and rapidly spread through my veins.

At his soft and cool voice, every cell in my body that had been on edge folded its wings at once. Before his song that pulled me intensely downward into black water like death, I slowly and quietly submerged.

Would I really fall asleep like this in Choi Junghan’s arms? If I did, I would end up loving him after all. The remaining reason in me coldly cursed my future. But in front of it, I slowly shook my head.

Now, all I wanted was the lullaby sung by my invader.

Instead of fading and vanishing like smoke, I would choose the colors my tyrant painted over me.

The voice of reason gradually blurred like smoke. The voice that had screamed noisily in my ear was now gone. Insomnia, tears, anxiety, the blue and red nights—all vanished. All of them were slowly sucked down into a viscous swamp.

My eyes slowly closed.

Beneath the blanket of unconsciousness he covered me with, I set down the bloodstained knife I had clutched for years and fell into deep sleep.

Choi Junghan walked out of the bathroom, having thoroughly washed away all traces under the pouring water.

Even as he poured cold water over himself again and again to cool his heated body, Junghan did not blink once and kept staring through the open door crack at what was solely his, lying on the bed.

He could not take his eyes off even for a single moment. He feared that the butterfly that had flown into his hand like a dream would once again spread its torn wings, stagger, and fly away.

Junghan, who had not even properly wiped off the water, slowly walked out and carefully sat by the child’s bedside.

The child slept soundly. The completely limp body did not stir at all. Like a young child, arms spread wide, palms defenselessly open beside the face, the child slept the sleep of a butterfly.

“…….”

The arms covered in scabs and scars terribly irritated him. Yet at the same time, his chest boiled with joy.

These were the marks of desperate longing because the child could not forget him.

The child had struggled fiercely for years. The child had made him, the watcher, let out hollow laughs, ignited his competitive spirit, and sometimes even drew admiration with such effort.

The shabby yet desperate trajectory had ultimately aimed at escaping his shadow. The child had stubbornly clung to that futile goal without wavering.

Junghan’s goal had been to make Pioon revise that goal on his own. Not to live forgetting him, but to understand with his head and accept with his heart that he must be with him.

So how could he ever forget the moment the child came of his own accord holding a knife and finally found peace in his arms? He would never be able to forget it for the rest of his life.

Junghan’s kiss gently landed on the child’s exhausted forehead. Like a butterfly alighting on a flower, it was an extremely cautious gesture.

“Welcome back.”

The low voice welcoming the child was filled with satisfaction.

The tightly closed eyelashes trembled slightly. The lips tinged with red seemed to twitch for a moment, then stopped moving. The breathing remained regular. On the face of Pioon sunk in deep, profound sleep, not even a trace of insomnia remained.

Junghan knew how the child had suffered for days and nights without sleep, writhing in agony. And the insomnia that had tormented the child so much had completely melted away and vanished beneath his embrace.

A fullness that no words or flowery phrases could describe filled his chest.

It was his most beautiful flower. At first, it had been something gorgeous and pretty that he wanted to pluck and keep in his vase forever to admire.

But now Junghan was no longer satisfied with that. Since the child had returned to him of his own will, the child would become his one and only irreplaceable being.

The child would teach him things he had not known before. Just as the child had finally taught him emotions he thought he would never know in his lifetime.

The child had cursed him that he would never find an answer from now on, but Junghan already held that answer in the palm of his hand. If he had not known this, the sight of this defenselessly sleeping child could not have filled his chest so completely.

And he too would teach the child. Slowly, leisurely, taking his time. What the child thought he could never do in his lifetime—he was already doing it.

You are already loving me.

The child was a butterfly. One that could only fold its tired wings and rest beneath his song. A beautiful and pitiable child, and the only man who had made Junghan long for the concept of eternity for the first time.

At the same time, the child was a flower. Not one to be plucked and possessed, but the first flower he wanted to plant in his own garden, nurture carefully, and watch forever—the one and only life that would bloom gloriously and specially by his side for all eternity to come.

Thus, in his heart, the emotion he had not known and thought he would never know forever bloomed.

Pioon,

my lover.