NHL 21

“If you only list someone’s faults, anyone would seem pathetic, Joeon. You need to acknowledge your strengths and know how to use them well.”

“What are my strengths?”

Dylan answered immediately, without a hint of hesitation.

“Joeon, you have good concentration. Your movements are clean and without unnecessary actions. You’re deliberate, and cautious….”

Joeon, who had been listening in silence, replied in a small voice, as if embarrassed.

“I… tend to think too much. Being deliberate and cautious is all in that same context. This can also be a weakness.”

“Why?”

“As much as I think, I also worry a lot, so I give up quickly. Before I even try to move my body.”

Dylan listened attentively with a calm expression as Joeon quietly poured out his inner thoughts.

“…You led me this far, but I’m originally the type to give up and run away easily. People often dress up giving up and compromising as a mature choice, but to my eyes, it’s nothing more than the excuse of a jaded pessimist. Because… that’s me. That’s why I know it so well. The excuses of defeatists.”

Dylan realized Joeon was no longer talking about skating and soothed him in a gentle voice.

“Joeon, it might not be my place to interfere, but from what I can see, you’re doing really well. You’re working hard at your job, too. In a stable way.”

“Working hard?”

Joeon let out a small, derisive laugh. He couldn’t believe that he could appear that way in others’ eyes. Or it was surely the unique Canadian pleasantry or sweet-talk of only offering positive words, enough to make a whale dance with praise.

“I’ve merely submitted to the conditions I was given and set my own limits. Just like people who have gotten older and become more fearful tend to do. In the end, isn’t saying I’m deliberate and mature just self-glorification? I didn’t come to lead my current stable life because I’m mature. It was because I’m a coward.”

“Just the fact that you’re worrying about yourself this much seems amazing and meaningful enough. Some people live with their brains empty, without a single worry. Like me.”

Joeon, who had at some point lowered his gaze and his eyelids, muttered as he looked at the treetops holding the distant sunset.

“I’m actually envious of you, Dylan. Your natural talent, your environment, that undying spark, that tenacity that ultimately achieves its goal—I covet it. That’s why you don’t even need to worry about life, isn’t it? If I had been born like you….”

“……”

“Well, I probably wouldn’t have lived like you even then….”

Dylan, who had moved closer to listen to the barely audible confession, responded in a whisper. The distance between them slowly closed even as he spoke.

“That’s true for anyone. Even if I had been born as you, I couldn’t have become like you. Someone this smart and charming.”

“Excuse me? What are you talking about….”

“And you also drive people crazy.”

His voice was so quiet it was hard to hear unless their bodies were touching, so to read his lips, Joeon tilted his head slightly to look at Dylan.

“Dylan….”

The tips of their noses brushed, showing just how close they had gotten in that time. Unlike the startled Joeon, Dylan didn’t pull away and met his eyes directly.

His arm wrapped around the helmet Joeon was wearing as if to hug it, holding it in place and making it difficult to move.

“I’m so glad you were born as Joeon. If you hadn’t been, we wouldn’t have been able to meet that day.”

Joeon’s lips parted slightly as if to say something. But nothing came out except for a short sigh. Dylan muttered, his consciousness quietly fixed on the dark, moist, reddish mouth.

“Don’t try so hard to find meaning. The reason you are who you are now, the reason you can’t be like someone else. Don’t crush your heart with impossible what-ifs; just acknowledge and accept your charms. What’s important isn’t the unchangeable past, but right now, this moment.”

Each time he whispered, as if secretly passing on a confidential story, his hot breath tickled the edge of Joeon’s lips, brushing past without permission.

It was too close.

“…But, Dylan. The distance… I think it’s a little close.”

“It seems just right.”

“No, it’s very close. If this keeps up….”

Joeon swallowed the rest of his words. The same subtle atmosphere as when they had mixed their breaths with the sweet fragrance of warm citron tea flowing between them was present.

“Ah. You’ve noticed now?”

“What……”

“You should have pretended not to know for just three seconds.”

“Three seconds?”

Three seconds that felt like three minutes passed while he blinked his bewildered eyes. Dylan remained motionless with a faint smile on his lips, like someone waiting for Joeon to ask him to clarify his meaning.

“If you don’t have any feelings for me, say so now.”

It didn’t take long to realize that was a misunderstanding. Dylan hadn’t been waiting for Joeon to ask for a clarification; he had been giving him time to refuse.

Because as soon as the three seconds were up, he had already moved right in front of him, gently pressing against the tip of his nose.

Their lips touched and parted in a brief moment. His breath caught in his throat. The light scattering off the ice shattered like starlight within the pale blue irises.

“Maybe it was from the day I first saw you. You were cute, waddling around like a penguin, so I kept watching you.”

“……”

“I only vaguely realized it when you said you would buy me dinner. I think I’ve wanted to do this with you ever since then.”

Joeon, who was gazing at Dylan as he sent a heated stare as if asking his intention once more, held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut. This time, it was clear permission.

Slowly lowering his face, Dylan devoured the red lips that had been making his heart flutter with their exhaled breaths.

The second kiss, unlike the first passing touch of the lips, was hot and heavy.

As if worried he might get scared and run away as he had been warned several times, Dylan pressed down firmly with his lips, sealing them, and swept over their surface with the tip of his tongue. Feeling the flinching shoulders, Dylan wrapped his hand around Joeon’s shoulder to gently soothe him and caressed his cheek with affection.

Joeon’s hand, which had been fumbling with the uniform, came up to the chest and created creased wrinkles as it tightly gripped the fabric.

“Hold on here.”

Whispering, Dylan carefully took the back of the trembling hand and brought it to his own waist. They naturally fell into an embrace.

He settled Joeon’s hand on his bare skin, where angry muscles were twitching beneath the raised hem of his uniform, and pressed down gently, allowing the other to feel his own feverish body heat with his palm.

“Wai—.”

Joeon’s lips trembled as he tried to say Dylan’s name. But it melted on the tip of the tongue that was greedily delving inside, disappearing without a trace.

“Shh, just a little more.”

He whispered, barely audibly, and pressed their breaths together again. Soon, he stealthily rose from his reclining position, wedged Joeon’s thigh between his knees, and climbed on top. His weight pressed down on Joeon, leaving him breathless.

Dylan languidly pressed his hardened front against him and lightly writhed his hips, causing their bulging clothes to rub together roughly. His breath grew hotter with the skilled back-and-forth movement of his hips, like during sex.

The space between his legs began to moisten quickly. Joeon’s fingernails dug into Dylan’s side. The stimulation was so intense his head spun dizzily.

The tongue that had been toying with his dry lips parted them, slid inside, swept over his teeth, and found his hidden tongue to tease it. He sucked on it urgently, like a child tasting candy for the first time.

Cowardly Joeon, looking as if he would run away at any moment, squirmed in his arms, so Dylan tightened his thighs to hold the frozen-like-a-statue body in place, as if determined not to lose his prey.

Then he pressed down on the flinching shoulders with both arms, held his face, and lunged at him fiercely like a beast. He bit and swallowed his lips until they were raw and ravaged the inside of his mouth.

His mind grew hazy from the kiss that was as rapacious as intercourse. Joeon, panting raggedly through his nose, fiercely scratched Dylan’s hard waist, which seemed as if it wouldn’t permit a single wound.

“Wa-wait, Mmph, wait a minute!”

“Hm? Why?”

Dylan pulled his head back for a moment and asked. His breath, which had been completely sucked away by him with every exhale, at some point managed to take in a difficult breath of clear air. A sticky silver thread stretched long from the corner of Joeon’s lips as he panted to take in the needed oxygen. It had started from Dylan’s own wet mouth.

“We’re… we’re on a lake.”

“So?”

“…What do you mean, so? The ice… there’s a lake underneath….”

Joeon’s thoroughly cowed soul stealthily glanced up at Dylan. His two eyes, always clear and blue, were submerged in deep darkness. The shadow of lurking lust, holding its breath, flickered faintly within them.

“Aha, then should we go inside and continue?”

“No, it’s, it’s also cold….”

Joeon avoided answering Dylan’s question and changed the subject.

“Do you like fireplaces? Should we do it in front of one?”

“Excuse me? No….”

The low voice whispering with their noses touching sounded obscene. Feeling a premonition that it wouldn’t end here, Joeon urgently shook his head from side to side. It was a barely expressed sign of refusal.

Dylan slowly licked his wet lips to clean them and twisted the corner of his mouth slightly, hiding his bitterness.

“I’d like that. But I guess it can’t be helped. To be honest, it is cold right now, just like you said, Joeon.”

He changed his tone to a lighter one, as if to belatedly soothe the frozen Joeon, and tossed out a joke.

“Darn, I should have worn my under armor. I pushed myself because I wanted to show you, but I can’t take it anymore. The rink is never this cold. Let’s go inside and have some warm soup. How about it?”

Only then did Joeon relax his entire body.

“…Okay.”

“It’s really hard to hear you say that once.”

Dylan, who stood up first, exclaimed in a vigorous voice.

“Let’s go!”

Joeon stood up to follow Dylan without thinking and staggered again. His pathetic body, which couldn’t even dare to compare to a professional athlete’s reflexes, was warning him, as if asking if he had forgotten he was on ice. Dylan swiftly snatched Joeon and pushed him onto the ground.

The distance that had felt instantaneous when coming down to the lake shore now felt far as they headed back to the mansion. When Joeon stumbled a few times, Dylan used it as an excuse to offer his hand. He merely added, “Because if you fall and get hurt, it will be my responsibility.”

Walking half a step ahead, he fanned himself with his fluttering uniform despite the weather being close to minus ten degrees Celsius. His hand was like a hot hand-warmer.

“I sweated a lot, so I should shower first.”

Joeon glanced at Dylan’s neck, which was anything but sweaty. It seemed like the amount of skating he did with Joeon today wouldn’t even amount to half of one-quarter of his usual workout.

“Want to do it together?”

“What?”

Suddenly snapping to his senses, Joeon frowned a beat late and stopped walking, and Dylan laughed, showing a nonchalant face as if asking what was wrong.

“The cooking.”

“Ah….”

Joeon’s eyes quickly softened as he lowered his gaze to the ground. The path, covered with a rubber carpet, continued all the way to the mansion so one could come and go without slipping even while wearing skates.

“Sorry, that was a mean joke.”

“……”

“Of course, I’ll do the cooking. You’re a guest, Joeon, so just relax. When you get out of the shower, I’ll give you some warm, fuzzy pajamas. You can wear those, sit in front of the fireplace, have a glass of wine, and lie down comfortably. It’ll be heaven on earth. Sound good?”