MBL 20 – END.

Joonyoung’s lips touched his flesh. His tongue licked up the shaft. Lifting his head, he licked the pronounced ridge of the glans with a ticklish sensation, as if a thousand insects were crawling over it. As Joonyoung opened his mouth and took the rounded tip, which had begun to leak a slick fluid, into his mouth, Joonwon convulsed violently, like someone struck in the stomach.

“Ugh!”

The rounded figure buried in the bedding was filling his mouth. Joonyoung was forcing his throat open, trying to take it in as far as possible.

“Joonyoung, Jun, Joonyoung, wait, Jun… ah, ugh!”

He couldn’t hold back. The sensation was overwhelming. Spitting out what he had fully taken in, he raised his head from the blankets, coughing and exhaling hot breaths. Joonwon pulled the bedding back.

Joonyoung, disheveled and with a dazed expression, was holding his organ with his hand, rubbing his cheek against it. Joonwon stared at him in a trance.

“It’s hot. So hot it feels like it’s going to burst.”

“…….”

His younger brother took his dick into his mouth. Licking the throbbing, explosively erect shaft like an ice cream bar, he sucked it and took it in. Joonwon, panting heavily, felt his mind go blank, unable to think. He just stared blankly at his younger brother. Even the sensation of release froze over.

“Hup, this… hyung, can I bite it?”

“Haa, what?”

“I want to bite it.”

As Joonyoung eagerly bit down on the tip and nibbled, Joonwon, like someone caught in an unexpected accident, ejaculated. The spurting, murky fluid soaked his younger brother’s face, lips, and tongue.

“Ugh…”

Joonyoung’s hands and face were clouded with Joonwon’s ejaculate. Joonwon hurriedly grabbed tissues from the side table to wipe Joonyoung’s face and hands. He had often imagined tainting his younger brother with himself, but a scene as shocking as this was beyond even his imagination.

His startled heart finally began to pound. He trembled. His groin and thighs, having just ejaculated, shivered with tremors.

“…It’s bitter. Tastes bad.”

Having made Joonwon release into his throat and swallowed it, Joonyoung, unable to comprehend Joonwon’s behavior after experiencing it himself, stayed still with a puzzled expression as Joonwon wiped his face.

“You thought it would taste good?”

For something like that, Joonwon had greedily swallowed his younger brother’s release like a starving man.

Joonyoung, who had quietly let Joonwon wipe his sticky face, opened his eyes once it was clean.

“I didn’t mean to do it on your face. Were you surprised? Sorry.”

“No. I liked it too. Because you liked it, that’s why I liked it.”

“…….”

Joonwon hugged his younger brother’s waist, lifting him to sit on his thighs.

He leveled his gaze with Joonyoung’s.

“…It would’ve been better if I’d given birth to you.”

“You know that’s even more dangerous than what we’re doing now, right?”

“I mean it.”

Joonwon still didn’t know how to explain this feeling or in what way.

Being brothers wasn’t enough. It was the same reason he felt uneasy about their father.

It felt insufficient. There should be a way to be connected as one, to make Joonyoung entirely his, but he didn’t know how to go beyond what they had.

For the first time, Joonwon was relieved that Joonyoung was his brother, connected by blood. He had wished and prayed to change their surname, to be strangers without shared blood, but now he was glad Joonyoung was his blood-related brother. They weren’t strangers. They were something more.

“Alright. Then let’s say I gave birth to you. Dad.”

“Don’t.”

Hearing it, he grimaced as if offended. Joonyoung burst into laughter at his reaction.

Wrapping his arms around Joonwon’s sturdy, tree-like shoulders, Joonyoung kissed his cheek.

“Teach me how to ride a bike.”

Hugging him and resting his cheek on his shoulder, Joonyoung whispered softly. Joonwon, embracing his younger brother’s back, nodded.

“I’ll teach you to ride a bike and swim too.”

“…I want to go on bike trips together, go to the beach in the summer, and swim. You avoided me, so we never did those things. We don’t have any memories. It feels like we’ve never done anything together. Except studying.”

“You’re right. It really feels like we’ve done nothing together except study.”

“I want to try everything. With you, hyung.”

“Let’s do it. I’ll make sure you get to do everything you want, Joonyoung. We’ll make memories from now on. Better ones, cooler ones.”

Joonwon stroked his younger brother’s back soothingly, as if comforting the pain of being ignored when he deserved to be loved most.

“We’ll take pictures too.”

Joonyoung grabbed Joonwon’s phone, unlocked it himself, and held it to his face. Hugging his broad shoulders, he stretched one arm out. Their reflections appeared on the screen.

“Anyone would freak out and run away seeing this.”

In Joonwon’s phone gallery, he saved a photo of himself kissing his older brother. Joonwon was shirtless, and Joonyoung’s lips were just about to part against his full lips. It was undeniably not something to dismiss as a joke.

“I’ll take more. So I can show them if anyone tries to hit on you. Did you know? People came from the provinces just to see you play the guitar. I want to see your performances, but I also don’t.”

With no one around to hear, Joonyoung whispered softly.

“I want to be the only one to see it.”

Joonyoung boldly took photos. He captured their lips biting each other, and himself burying his face in Joonwon’s neck, embracing him. They could delete them later. Joonwon let Joonyoung do as he pleased.

The problem was that letting Joonyoung do what he wanted was making him increasingly aroused.

This wasn’t why they had moved out. They couldn’t keep doing this like animals.

There was a lot to organize, and Joonyoung’s university preparations to handle. There were piles of things to check for tomorrow’s tutoring session. The rationality of needing to deal with pending tasks clashed tumultuously with the torment of wanting to roll around in bed with Joonyoung all day.

“Should we stop and go out? If you’re not hurting, let’s go together. There’s a lot to buy and prepare. Joonyoung, listen to me. Let’s stop. Okay?”

He held Joonyoung’s shoulders to keep him still. He really meant to stop, fearing he might do something even worse to his already hurt younger brother. Joonwon exercised self-control.

Lifting Joonyoung by the waist with both hands, he moved him off his lap and stood up. He succeeded in getting off the bed. If he looked back, he might pounce first. He headed straight to the bathroom.

“I’ll shower first, hyung.”

Entering the bathroom, he stripped off the loosely worn bottoms. He showered with cold water again. The icy water pouring over his head and shoulders doused the lingering warmth of desire and cleared his mind.

When he finished showering, Joonyoung was still fidgeting on the bed, looking at his phone. There was nothing compromising except the photos Joonyoung had just taken.

But Joonyoung was looking at Joonwon’s phone with a serious expression, as if reading messages. Joonwon didn’t have close friends to share heartfelt conversations with. At most, there were brief messages for information or confirmation.

While drying his wet hair with a towel, Joonwon realized something.

His promise to go abroad after Joonyoung’s college entrance exam, to disappear from his sight, wasn’t a lie. His phone still had traces and files related to studying abroad. It didn’t matter which university, as long as the conditions were met. There was likely a table organizing language test requirements too.

Joonwon took the phone from Joonyoung’s hands. As expected, the screen showed study-abroad materials.

“It was real. You were going to study abroad.”

“That was the plan back then.”

“I thought it was just talk. I didn’t think you were serious about going abroad.”

“Get washed up.”

It was already a done deal. Joonwon changed the subject.

Joonyoung agreed and got up. The bathroom floor, wet from Joonwon’s shower, was slick with water.

Joonyoung stared silently at the faucet set to cold. He tried turning it to cold water like Joonwon but flinched and switched to hot. It was winter. The water wasn’t just cold; a brief touch made his arm ache and gave him goosebumps. Taking his time with hot water, Joonyoung emerged from the bathroom, and Joonwon handed him new underwear and clothes.

“We need to make a list of things to buy. Detergent first.”

Joonwon took his phone and noted the shopping list. At the same time, he habitually rummaged through his coat for a cigarette.

“This is a non-smoking apartment.”

“I know.”

With a cigarette in his lips, Joonwon opened the window. He was more accustomed to the cold than anyone. Leaning out, he took a deep breath and exhaled. White breath rose like cigarette smoke.

Staring out the window with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, Joonwon didn’t seem to feel the cold, standing shirtless.

“Not cold?”

“It’s refreshing.”

His uncombed hair was disheveled. His solid upper body, built only with necessary muscle, seemed impervious to the cold. Leaning loosely against the wall, breathing in the fresh air, his silhouette was breathtakingly beautiful.

Joonyoung approached, suddenly lifting Joonwon’s arm and slipping underneath, hugging his side.

“Ugh, it’s chilly.”

“Don’t catch a cold with wet hair in this breeze.”

He quickly closed the window. Joonyoung briefly understood why Joonwon took cold showers as the cold air hit his face, but the room soon warmed up.

“What am I, sickly? Catching a cold from this. You’re not even wearing a shirt.”

“I’m a Marine. I swam in the winter sea at night. This cold is nothing.”

“I love you, Kang Joonwon.”

Because you’re my hyung, I love you even more crazily.

The whispered words pierced Joonwon’s ears.

“I love you, hyung.”

“…Me too, Joonyoung.”

Joonyoung wrapped his arms around his neck, pressing their lips together, whispering something.

“I want to kiss. With a guy who can swim in the winter sea and doesn’t feel the cold.”

“I want to kiss too. With someone who doesn’t listen and cheekily buys condoms first.”

“I’m thorough because I take after you, hyung.”

“I should’ve prepared. I’m sorry for making you do that.”

“You keep saying sorry. Stop it.”

The whispered sweet nothings with his brother and lover made his back tingle and his heart throb.

“No saying sorry. Say something else.”

“Like what?”

Joonyoung, drawing closer, kissed his smiling cheek and spoke with his breath.

“Like, I love you.”

He pulled Joonyoung into a tight embrace, erasing all the resolutions he’d made today from his mind.

“I love you.”

Joonwon spoke softly and pressed their lips together.

The fervent, blind devotion to one person, the obsession, the thirst that could only be quenched by his younger brother, moistened his parched, cracking tongue like sweet rain.

With eyes closed, he deeply pressed their lips together, lost in the kiss. The reason to live and breathe was here. In the floating sunlight, amidst aching moans, calling his name and speaking of love, he layered his lips over Joonyoung’s moist lips, continuing to breathe.

Pulling back, Joonwon’s eyes were red with emotion.

“…Crying again? No crying either. No getting emotional over everything.”

“…Okay.”

He pressed their lips together again, inhaling the hot breath.

The permission to live was in that breath.

It was okay to live. It was okay to love.

It was as if he’d been granted life itself. A worthless life dissolved in the winter sunlight.

Joonwon’s arms fiercely pulled Joonyoung close, tightening around him. The faint moans escaping him shattered into sweet pain in his embrace. The winter sunlight of the afternoon was blindingly white.