MW 19

The sentence Yijae was writing on Jaeha’s palm ended there. With a hardened expression, Jaeha grabbed his hand and began to walk quickly down the hallway.

There was still plenty of time before class started, but Yijae’s eyes widened at his steps, unable to tell where on earth he was going.

“pant, pant.”

The place Jaeha brought Yijae to was the school’s nurse’s office. It was still early, so no one was there. Jaeha familiarly went to the inner part of the office and sat Yijae down on a bed. Yijae looked around the empty nurse’s office, glancing around anxiously.

“…It must have hurt a lot. I’d like to see those stairs myself sometime.”

“……”

Jaeha carefully examined Yijae’s injured forehead. The long gash still had a bit of blood welling up. To leave it like this without proper treatment. Jaeha let out a deep sigh internally and gathered the necessary items like disinfectant and ointment before sitting across from him.

“This will sting a little.”

He dabbed the disinfectant on a piece of gauze, held one of Yijae’s cheeks, and brought his face close.

“Hngh.”

For a moment, as he got closer and their faces drew near, Yijae grew tense. But the stinging sensation was worse than he had expected, and he flinched.

“You can’t move.”

He was about to nod unconsciously, but the touch on his face made him aware of Jaeha, and he only moved his lips.

A nice smell.

The scent of fabric softener seeped into his nose, as if he were on a fluffy cloud. Yijae lowered his gaze, looked at Jaeha’s slightly unbuttoned shirt, and then quickly averted his eyes.

“Yijae?”

Did he see me? Staring at him secretly like a pervert.

Yijae bit his lip, his face flushing red, worried that Jaeha might hear the pounding of his heart.

“Are you okay? Your face is so red.”

Yijae nodded his head vigorously even before his words ended and avoided his gaze. His stomach was churning and felt ticklish; he thought his heat cycle must be approaching.

He had barely had any heat cycles since he started having his pheromone fluid extracted for Dohae’s treatment, and the sudden premonition of a heat made Yijae feel dizzy.

He mentally calculated the remaining time and held his breath. With a face that felt like it would explode, he looked at the top of Jaeha’s head as he applied ointment to his palm after his injured forehead and slowly exhaled.

“Does it hurt?”

Jaeha suddenly looked up, and they were too close. Yijae let out a small gasp and pulled back.

“Ah, sorry.”

Jaeha gave an awkward laugh and apologized at Yijae’s reaction of avoiding his gaze as if he were uncomfortable. He felt strange, as if Yijae was avoiding him for some reason.

“All done. Don’t touch it now. Got it?”

Jaeha casually let go of Yijae’s head and playfully ruffled his hair.

‘Ah. Again.’

Yijae’s heart fluttered again at the sight of Jaeha’s bright smile as he looked at him. His heart felt ticklish and fluttery, as if bitten by a bug, and he swallowed and just nodded.

A somewhat awkward air flowed between them. Then, Jaeha, realizing there was really not much time left until class, stood up.

“I’ll walk you there. Let’s go.”

But in that moment, for some reason, Yijae didn’t want to just let Jaeha go. He reached out to him first without thinking and grabbed Jaeha’s sleeve.

“Yijae? Are you hurt somewhere else…”

“Th-Thank you.”

When he slowly opened his eyes, the sight of Jaeha looking at him with a surprised face filled his vision. Wiping the cold sweat on his forehead with his sleeve, Yijae managed to pull the corners of his mouth up into a smile.

“Thank you… sunbae-nim.”

“You…”

Jaeha’s eyes widened in surprise at hearing Yijae’s voice for the first time. It was a pretty voice, incomparably so to what he had vaguely imagined he might hear someday, if a little more time passed and if he came to trust him completely.

“…You have a nice voice. It suits you well.”

Yijae, who had been looking up at Jaeha with a tense expression, felt his earlobes flush red at his words.

On the way to the classroom with Jaeha, Yijae kept gnawing on his lip, his heart pounding. The way his heart was racing and he was short of breath made him scared that this wasn’t a heat cycle but perhaps a new side effect. Yijae let out a small sigh, thinking of his scheduled check-up with his doctor over the weekend.

“…Class ends at 12 today, right? Are you free after class?”

Jaeha, who had stopped in front of the classroom, asked Yijae. For a moment, he was about to say no, but then he remembered Chairman Gu’s words that he didn’t have to act like before. Yijae hesitated for a moment, then slowly opened his lips to answer.

“I think… I’ll be free.”

It felt somewhat awkward to talk to him out loud. Thinking back to a little while ago, when he was silent for a while after hearing his voice for the first time and then told him it was pretty, the back of his neck grew warm.

Seeing Yijae with his gaze fixed on his toes in embarrassment, Jaeha patted his head and spoke.

“Then I’ll wait for you in front of the classroom when it’s over. See you later.”

Yijae, who smiled brightly like a puppy that loves to be petted, hurried into the classroom only when he saw the professor. Jaeha looked at the classroom door where Yijae had disappeared before turning away.

“Gu Dohae…”

Jaeha narrowed his eyes, replaying the CCTV footage he had checked last night in his head. The image of him mercilessly slapping Yijae’s cheek and kicking him, and of Yijae silently enduring the violence, filled Jaeha’s mind.

From the short video, the thought of how much time and pain Yijae must have endured to silently bear such violence made Jaeha bite the inside of his cheek and clench his fist.

The moment he saw the video, he wanted to go to Chairman Gu’s house and get Yijae out of there, but he couldn’t. Because he and he were nothing to each other. It wasn’t a matter that could be resolved simply as a school senior and junior.

Jaeha, who hadn’t been able to sleep at all last night, came to school even though he didn’t have classes. He recited Yijae’s schedule, which he had memorized after seeing it once, in his head and waited for him in front of the classroom.

And when he finally saw Yijae’s face, which was in an even worse state than yesterday, an unbearable anger surged within him. Seeing him run towards him with a bright smile, as if happy despite being beaten so mercilessly without being able to resist once, made Jaeha’s heart ache.

He wasn’t sure if it was just pity or a different kind of emotion, but Jaeha concluded that he couldn’t just leave Yijae like this.

He clenched and unclenched his fist, veins bulging, and brushed back his long hair, quietly waiting for Yijae’s class to end.

“Haa, haa.”

Spotting Yijae running towards him, panting heavily, Jaeha let out a small laugh without realizing it and waved his hand.

“Did you listen well in class?”

“Yes!”

He carefully examined the face with sparkling eyes, ruffled Yijae’s fluffy hair, and then headed out of the building.

Yijae, who was about to head toward the familiar cafe, tilted his head slightly when Jaeha walked in a different direction.

Jaeha saw him with a bewildered expression, clutching a bill tightly in one hand, and the corners of his mouth curved into a smile.

“Not the cafe today.”

“The club room, are we going there?”

Yijae swallowed hard, worried that someone might walk in like last time. At the tense expression with blinking eyes, Jaeha found himself answering in a playful tone.

“Not there either.”

At that answer, Yijae’s eyes grew even wider. The moment Jaeha saw himself fully reflected in them, he was faced with a strange feeling.

When he suddenly stopped walking, Yijae pulled on Jaeha’s sleeve with a worried heart.

“Sunbae-nim, are you okay?”

“Ah.”

Finally coming to his senses, Jaeha slowly retraced the emotion he had felt. He was definitely happy to see his whole self reflected in Yijae’s eyes. As if he was the only one who knew, as if he was the only one he was looking at.

smirk, Jaeha traced the curve of his lips with his fingertip, then took Yijae’s hand and said.

“Let’s hang out today.”

In that moment, a gentle breeze blew. Yijae walked with Jaeha, whose hand was holding his tightly.

The place they went to in Jaeha’s car was a Japanese restaurant in a quiet area. It was the first time in Yijae’s life that he had been to such a high-end restaurant, so he looked around with wide eyes.

“S-Sunbae-nim.”

Yijae, seeing the chef making sushi across from him, urgently and carefully tugged on Jaeha’s sleeve.