MW 16

Dohae burst out laughing. Yijae squeezed his eyes shut, anticipating the pain that would soon follow. As expected, Dohae grabbed him by the hair, shook him, and slapped his cheek.

“Kh, ugh.”

As if Yijae’s pained groans weren’t enough to quell his anger, he viciously kicked Yijae’s side with the heel of his shoe and cursed.

“Still not talking, are you.”

“Ah, ugh. Hngh.”

Yijae, finally losing his balance and collapsing to the floor, felt a stinging pain in his palm. Looking down, he saw blood flowing from his hand, which had been cut by a piece of broken glass.

Biting his lip hard, Yijae looked up at Dohae and opened his mouth.

“Dohae, it’s not what, what you think. He’s just a sunbae from the same department. hic, that’s why.”

“I just hate that someone like you even knows Kang Jaeha. Fuck, who do you think you are! What the hell are you!”

Yijae could hear Dohae’s increasingly rough breathing above his head. Staring at the tears falling onto the back of his hand, he silently endured the violence inflicted upon his body.

And in that moment, Dohae’s kicking stopped at the sound of a voice coming from far away.

“Yijae! Seo Yijae!”

In an instant, instead of the fierce kick he expected to hit his body, the voice calling his name reached Yijae’s ears.

Opening his tightly shut eyes, he lifted his head upon hearing the sound coming from behind the building. Meanwhile, Dohae, looking just as flustered as Yijae, chewed on his red lips and spat out a curse.

“Fuck… I’ll see you at home.”

Dohae lowered the hand he had raised high in the air, roughly shoved Yijae’s shoulder, and disappeared as if fleeing. Yijae, who was watching Dohae’s retreating back, suddenly tilted to the side. The strength in his arms that had been supporting him gave out.

“Ugh, ugh.”

His chin hit the ground, and he barely managed to push himself up by grabbing onto the wall. Then, he quickly dusted off his messy clothes and followed the sound that was continuously calling for him, heading toward Jaeha.

“Seo Yijae! Seo Yijae!”

As he limped around the corner, the sight of Jaeha, his hair flying as he searched for him, filled his vision. Yijae took a deep breath and walked towards him. Soon, Jaeha’s gaze landed on Yijae.

“Seo Yijae, you…”

Jaeha spotted Yijae, his already fair face deathly pale and covered in marks from being hit, and quickly ran to him.

“Who did this.”

He grabbed Yijae’s shoulders and asked, his voice laced with cold fury.

“Which bastard was it.”

His grip on Yijae’s shoulders tightened, and a line formed under Jaeha’s jaw. His gaze fell on the direction Yijae had come from. Jaeha turned and took a step, as if he would head there immediately.

Yijae urgently grabbed Jaeha’s hand.

“Seo Yijae!”

“Hngh… ugh.”

Yijae shook his head, his face filled with tears.

“…You.”

Who on earth was he trying to protect? Seeing him desperately hold on like this even after getting beaten up made his insides burn. Jaeha’s vision filled with the sight of Yijae, trembling with a frightened expression. With a long sigh, he reached out and pulled Yijae into an embrace.

“Hng, hic…”

The sound of sobbing sobs was transmitted through their cold bodies. Jaeha wrapped his arm around Yijae’s head, patting his back slowly as if to calm him, and stared ahead with chilly eyes.

Squeak.

The stiff door, which hadn’t been oiled in a long time, opened with a chilling sound. The inside of the house was filled with a cold draft. He had scrimped on buying heating supplies, anticipating that his expenses would increase while attending school, and the cold felt particularly severe. Despite it still being March, Yijae, whose breath was still visible, walked into the house and hurriedly turned up the temperature of his electric blanket.

“Ugh… It’s cold.”

Still, thanks to the new blanket he had recently bought, it was bearable. Wiggling his toes under the covers, he thought of Jaeha’s angry face and pouted.

“He must be mad at me… I wonder if he doesn’t want to be friends with me anymore…”

When asked who did it, he couldn’t bring himself to say it was Dohae. Recalling the tired expression on his face after his continued silence, Yijae’s chest kept stinging.

“Why is it like this.”

Feeling the sharp, pricking sensation in his heart, Yijae bit his lower lip hard and got up from his spot.

“It’s cold…”

Deciding to wash up before it got any later, Yijae took off his outerwear and shivered as the cold air seeped through his thin knit sweater.

He rubbed his goosebump-covered arms and then picked up the thickest hoodie he owned. But at that moment, without any warning, someone burst into the house with a loud bang.

“Yijae, did you have a good day at school?”

Dohae’s steps were full of leisure as he entered with a wide smile. However, the moment the door closed, his expression changed to one more terrifying than ever before.

“We still have a lot to talk about, don’t we? Right?”

“……”

“Why aren’t you talking? You were talking just fine earlier.”

Wiping the smile clean off his face, Dohae tapped Yijae’s cheek hard enough to make a sound.

“Hmm? Yijae.”

Yijae clamped his lips shut, his gaze falling to the baseball bat in Dohae’s hand.

“I’m asking you a question, you fucking bitch.”

“Do-Dohae.”

“I’m giving you one last chance. Promise me right now that you won’t meet with Jaeha hyung anymore.”

Seeing the hand gripping the weapon as if it would swing at his body at any moment, Yijae felt his heart drop. But he couldn’t make such a promise. Yijae fell to his knees before him, lowered his head, and spoke as if pleading.

“I can’t. Dohae, just this once.”

“Fuck. You’re dead today.”

Thwack.

The beige baseball bat rose into the air. A moment later, a dull pain landed on Yijae’s shoulder.

‘I can’t make a sound.’

Biting his lower lip hard, his face turned deathly pale as he swallowed his groans.

Thwack.

The pain in his shoulder lost its presence to another pain. And the spot where that pain had landed was forgotten in turn by a newly felt pain.

“Ugh.”

In the end, Yijae parted the lips he had been biting down on and coughed up blood.

“Yijae. You know you can’t be friends with Kang Jaeha anyway. Why do you go through all this trouble. Hmm?”

Dohae, catching his breath, poked Yijae’s shoulder with the baseball bat and asked with an innocent face. Yijae, his closed eyes trembling, finally opened his mouth in response to Dohae’s question.

“S-Sorry…”

Smack!

Yes, this was to be expected.

Yijae squeezed his eyes shut at the fierce sting he felt on his face. Biting his bleeding lip, the coppery taste of blood on his tongue felt especially sickening today.

“Fuck! Did it feel good when Kang Jaeha gave a piece of shit like you some attention? Huh? Did it?”

“……”

“But that’s just pity. Because he feels sorry for a beggar like you. Jaeha hyung was always like that. He could never just pass by a pitiful kid, he was always meddling. But do you think that’s going to last forever?”

More than when Dohae raised his hand, more than when the baseball bat in Dohae’s hand hit his body… the words that came from Dohae’s lips hurt more.

“It’s all temporary. Stop being stupid and say you won’t meet him anymore. Then I won’t hit you anymore.”

But even if it was just a moment of pity, Yijae couldn’t let go of Jaeha, who had pulled him out of that dark warehouse. He recalled his face, his eyes sparkling with sunlight as they held Yijae in their gaze.

He pressed his lips firmly together and raised his head. And Yijae looked straight into Dohae’s eyes and said.

“No matter what you say. I can’t give up.”

At those words, Dohae’s patience reached its limit.

“Aaaargh!”

As if unable to control his own surging emotions, Dohae screamed loud enough to shake the house and glared at Yijae as if to kill him.

He then narrowed his eyes fiercely and gripped the baseball bat tightly with both hands.