F Side Story 20

Empty bottles were lined up neatly across the table. Yeonho thought it reflected Siwoo’s personality perfectly, clean, meticulous, in control. Despite drinking far more than usual, Siwoo hadn’t let himself get sloppy. He showed no intention of leaving the cleanup to Yeonho.

Drink. Talk. Kiss. Tidy up. Drink. Talk. Kiss. Tidy up. Siwoo repeated that cycle until, at last, he pulled Yeonho into a tight hug, then staggered off to the bathroom. Given how much he’d drunk, it was a wonder he could even stand, but somehow he kept himself together, brushing his teeth and finishing his routine without losing consciousness. There was no sign of drunken rambling or messiness.

Eventually, what Yeonho was left with was the body of Kim Siwoo, fast asleep on the bed, passed out from alcohol. Yeonho, who had barely touched his drink, gently laid him on his back and pulled the blanket up to his chest.

Siwoo had seemed freer, lighter, more at peace lately. It didn’t feel like he’d been drinking out of grief or distress. If anything, it seemed like he’d been following through on something he once said: “I’ll get so drunk I can’t even move, so you can see for yourself.” Yeonho laughed softly as he stroked Siwoo’s hair.

“I can’t do something like that to you. How could I? I just think about it, that’s all.”

Both of them had occasionally woken the other with physical affection or even morning sex, but that was always something they’d agreed upon. Neither of them was the type to take advantage of a partner’s unconscious body or secretly record them without consent.

“I just wanted to ask if it would be okay. I wanted you to tell me that I’m different from everyone else. That’s all I needed. I really meant it when I said I didn’t mind if it were you.”

Just as Siwoo wasn’t the same as Seong Junhee, Yeonho needed to hear from Siwoo’s own lips that he wasn’t like Park Jihyun either. He didn’t want proof through action. Deep down, he feared being treated like someone else. Like he was no exception after all.

“You could’ve played with me instead of drinking so much…”

He stayed beside Siwoo for a while, watching him sleep, then pressed a kiss to his forehead and cheek. The desire stirring in him, dark and messy, he decided to take care of that alone in the bathroom. The kisses were simply a goodnight. Something to ease him into rest.

Then his heart lurched. Siwoo’s eyes were open.

“You’re awake?”

Yeonho opened his mouth to apologize for waking him. But before he could say anything, Siwoo’s hand shot out and gripped his neck tightly. So tightly that it became hard to breathe.

“Hyung. Hyung.”

Siwoo’s eyes were different from usual. Maybe because he’d passed out drunk and was just coming to, they were dull, unfocused, and hazy. Yeonho stared into those wary eyes as a flurry of thoughts spun in his mind.

If this had been the usual Siwoo, he would’ve accepted the kiss and held him gently. But right now, Yeonho wasn’t even sure if Siwoo recognized him. Did he know that it was Joo Yeonho whose neck he was holding?

Even though his airway was being squeezed, Yeonho didn’t struggle. It wasn’t because he believed Siwoo would never hurt him. It was because he genuinely didn’t care if Siwoo, in a drunken haze, ended up breaking him.

Soon, Siwoo’s eyes grew red underneath, and he released Yeonho’s neck. Instead, he grabbed his wrist tightly. And in that moment, Yeonho thought he had his answer to the earlier question, “You can check for yourself if I really like you.” Now, Siwoo was going to drag him out and treat him like Park Jihyun. There were no exceptions. Not even for Joo Yeonho.

Siwoo pulled him out of the bedroom. If Siwoo mistook the goodnight kiss for something sleazy and punched him in the face or stomach, Yeonho planned to keep it to himself. He had no intention of telling Siwoo the truth later. Siwoo would only feel regret.

As they moved, Yeonho gently rubbed the back of Siwoo’s hand and apologized.

“Sorry for kissing you while you were passed out. I’ll be more careful.”

But then, something shifted in Siwoo’s eyes. A glimmer of moisture shimmered across their surface. In the reflection right before him, Yeonho saw Siwoo’s desire.

Suddenly, Siwoo pushed him to the floor and pinned him down with his full weight. Yeonho let out a shaky breath under the pressure. Siwoo’s arousal, now hard as stone, pressed painfully against his own.

He buried his mouth at the base of Yeonho’s neck, right where he had gripped it earlier, and began to lick the skin he had just squeezed. His hand slipped down and yanked Yeonho’s pants off.

Yeonho figured Siwoo must’ve felt aroused after recognizing him. Just a moment ago, he had flinched from any kind of touch. Now, the sight of Yeonho’s face had made him hungry.

“Hyung, hyung… You know it’s me, right?”

He had no intention of refusing. Now stripped down to his underwear, Yeonho parted his legs so Siwoo could enter him easily. He could take him in any condition, in any situation.

He was relieved to be recognized as someone different from the rest. He welcomed this moment, where Siwoo lost control and lunged for him.

But he needed to check. Just once more. He had to be sure that the Kim Siwoo who had blacked out in alcohol now wanted him, fully aware. This wasn’t just sex, this was something more primal, more like mating.

Siwoo lifted Yeonho’s shirt and began to suck at his chest, breathing heavily as he moved his hips to align his tip against Yeonho’s twitching entrance. Earlier, when they had first arrived at the pension, they’d already showered together and had sex, so Yeonho’s body was still loose. But with tension in his muscles, Siwoo’s length didn’t slip in easily.

Yeonho consciously tried to relax, loosening the resistance inside. But even as his mind accepted everything Siwoo was doing, his body fought back against the idea of being used purely to satisfy someone’s lust. That kind of role, just a vessel for sex, was something his instincts rejected.

Even if he welcomed Siwoo’s raw desire, it wasn’t the same thing.

“Hyung, do you know it’s me right now?”

He panted, asking again. This was the one answer he needed. I just want to know you’re aware that it’s Yeonho.

And just as Yeonho was thinking about the greed he couldn’t let go of, the part of him that couldn’t be erased even by love, Siwoo kissed along his earlobe and cheek, nudging against his entrance. Then, in a voice trembling from the pressure building in his throat, Siwoo said,

“I love you… so, so much… it overwhelms me…”

At that soft confession, Yeonho’s body, which had been rigid, finally relaxed. In that instant, Siwoo’s cock pushed past the loosened entrance and slipped deep inside. The hard shaft shoved aside his tender walls and drove straight into the spot hidden deep within, his prostate, hitting it with a hard thrust.

“Aagh! Hngh… Ahh.”

Yeonho’s torso arched off the floor in a graceful curve before he could even think. Siwoo caught him right away, cradling the back of his head and his lower back in his arms so he wouldn’t hit the ground or scrape himself.

“Haa… Haa…”

Yeonho smiled, he had just seen with his own eyes the most primal instinct buried in the depths of Siwoo. And that instinct was love.

The gentleness Siwoo always showed him hadn’t come from rational thought. Even when his mind wasn’t clear, he still cared for Yeonho. This, this was what Yeonho had begged to see, the true form of Siwoo’s instinct.

Siwoo slowly drew his hips back. Yeonho’s inner walls, clinging tightly to him and pulling him in, stretched out as if to follow, refusing to let go, as though pleading for him not to leave.

And Siwoo responded to that body. He thrust in again, striking the sensitive spot deep behind Yeonho’s navel, pulled back, and drove in once more. Yeonho tightened around him, refusing to let him go, and the two of them moved together like that over and over again, their eyes never leaving each other’s faces.

“I feel the same. I love you the same way you love me.”

Yeonho finally gave his answer to Siwoo’s confession. And not long after, Siwoo’s release gushed deep inside him. It didn’t stop with just one time. Held tight by Yeonho’s burning flesh, Siwoo hardened again, filling him repeatedly, pushing against Yeonho’s already bloated belly with every release.

When Siwoo finally pulled out, what had filled Yeonho spilled out in a slow, sticky trail. At the same time, Yeonho’s own release oozed out, trailing from his tip.

He’d climaxed so many times that he could no longer tell whether what was leaking from him was still semen or something else. Clear, watery fluid, maybe. He didn’t care anymore.

Feeling a strange longing as Siwoo’s warmth trickled out of him, Yeonho reached between his legs and touched the messy, sticky entrance with his fingers. Siwoo, meanwhile, took Yeonho’s length into his mouth and licked up every last drop. Even what had spilled onto Yeonho’s belly didn’t escape his tongue.

As Yeonho lay there, still trembling and curling his toes from the lingering pleasure, Siwoo softly caressed his skin and muscles with his palm. And then, for the first time, he gave voice to the possessiveness he felt.

“Everything inside you belongs to me. Your skin… your bones… even the drops of sweat you shed…”

Yeonho, I want to swallow your blood too.

It was something he never would have said if he hadn’t been drunk. Something he wouldn’t even remember come morning.

But Yeonho decided he would remember this moment alone. When the sun rose, he would act like he hadn’t heard a thing. And then he would press the fingertip cut from a paper slice to Siwoo’s lips and beg him to devour the part of him that bled, beg him to claim all of Yeonho as his, as though Yeonho had been his from the very beginning.

***

He dreamed.

On his eleventh birthday, Kim Yeonho sat in front of the dining table. In front of him was a heavy porcelain bowl of seaweed soup. The smell was so sickening he felt nauseous. It had been a long time since this particular moment appeared in his dreams, but here it was again, returning as a nightmare.

Even after falling asleep in Joo Yeonho’s arms, after becoming one with him, his dreams were still this cruel? He had believed this nightmare would never come back.

Kim Yeonho lowered his head and reached for his chopsticks. His hands and knuckles trembled from nerves. He couldn’t afford to mess up. He couldn’t drop the chopsticks. He had to hold them perfectly, just as his father and mother had taught him.

If he slipped up, his father’s heavy hand would come down on his head, and his foot would kick him across the floor. His mother would justify it, saying, “Why do you embarrass me like this? You’re making it look like we failed to raise you properly.”

He gripped the chopsticks and reached for a rolled omelet. But no matter how hard he tried, his chopstick technique was still clumsy. He had no control over this dream. He couldn’t change it, no matter what he did.

Trembling, he lifted his head, bracing for the sight of his father’s angry face.

“…Huh?”

But what he saw wasn’t fury. It wasn’t the look of disappointment from his mother either. Instead, standing before him with a frying pan in both hands, was a ten-year-old Joo Yeonho.

“Hi!”

The young Yeonho had barged into his dream like he owned the place. Without hesitation, he knocked out both of Yeonho’s parents with the frying pan, then began dragging their unconscious bodies toward the front door.

“Hyung, grown-ups are heavy! Help me!”

“Really? Alright.”

Together, they hauled his parents into the garden and left them there. In that moment, Kim Yeonho knew: they would never appear in his dreams again.

Joo Yeonho, triumphant, laughed brightly, then shyly took his hand and whispered, “Hyung, wanna come over to my place?”

Kim Yeonho packed his school bag. He emptied it of all his heavy cram school books and filled it with pajamas, underwear, and a toothbrush. With the now full bag slung over his back, he followed Joo Yeonho out of the house. Before leaving, he turned back and bowed his head toward the nameplate that bore his parents’ names.

Goodbye. I won’t waste my love on places it doesn’t belong anymore.

Later, Kim Yeonho found himself seated at another dining table.

He smelled the scent of seaweed soup. The one who had placed the bowl in front of him was Joo Yeonho’s father. And he heard Joo Yeonho’s mother, saying, “Still young, but already good with chopsticks! You’ll be using them like an adult in no time.”

She praised his awkward chopstick use and patted his shoulder, ruffled his hair.

The face he could see clearly in front of him belonged to Joo Yeonho, beautiful as ever. Joo Yeonho had rewritten the ending of Kim Yeonho’s dream. He had replaced the family he could never escape on his own.

Joo Yeonho pressed his soft lips to Yeonho’s cheek. The scent of his shampoo touched Yeonho’s nose, followed by the taste of sweet cake spreading in his mouth. In his ear, Yeonho heard his warm voice.

“Happy eleventh birthday.”

All five senses were wrapped in love and happiness. Not one of them hurt.

Ah. I’m loved. I’m protected. I’m alive.

Fin.