TTDOTO 6.7

“…Since when did you know?”

“Does knowing change anything?”

At Seo Jae-rim’s excessively nonchalant reaction, Jae-an realized he had asked a stupid question. No matter when he had found out, the conclusion remained the same.

Despite knowing what their two fathers had done, Seo Jae-rim had ultimately gone into heat for him. Unlike Jae-an, who had tried to avoid and shun Jae-rim after learning of their fathers’ relationship, Jae-rim had wanted to resemble those disgusting men.

Jae-an swallowed hard, trying to suppress the bile rising in his throat. This was a man whose way of thinking about him had been different from the very beginning. Only now did the raw meaning of Jae-rim’s ‘love’ truly hit home. This madman had ‘loved’ him while knowing everything about the relationship between Seo Seung-hyeop and Lee Han-yoon.

Jae-an lost all will to continue the conversation. Seeing him freeze with his head bowed, Seo Jae-rim spat out a mutter that sounded like a sigh.

“Kindness…? Fuck. If that were possible. If our relationship could have ever been possible with something like that…”

Unlike his usual way of speaking—cleanly finishing a sentence even if he was brief—Jae-rim trailed off, leaving fragments of words behind. His voice, trembling faintly with agitation, was noticeable. In the uncomfortable silence, only the irregular sound of Jae-an sniffling through his nosebleed echoed.

Seo Jae-rim was worked up. ‘He’s going to hit me.’ His cheek? His stomach? Would his hair be grabbed, or his legs kicked?

Not knowing when the violence would start, Jae-an bit his lip and held his breath. However, with a low curse, Seo Jae-rim simply turned around and left the room.

The faint sound of the front door opening and closing followed. Fortunately, it had passed without him being beaten.

Only after some time had passed since Jae-rim left did Jae-an release the tension in his body and let out a thin breath.

“Haah…”

He unrolled the chains wrapped around his wrists. The messy, tangled links were a direct reflection of the agitation Jae-rim had felt while binding him. Massaging his aching wrists, Jae-an looked up.

Beyond the door Seo Jae-rim had left open, he could see the painting hanging on the hallway wall. It was a framed piece bought for the sake of appearance, to make him look like a normal person.

The indescribable, faint sense of wrongness that permeated this house was exactly like Seo Jae-rim’s life. His job, his personality, and his feelings for him—all were full of lies.

“…Hic.”

Even though Seo Jae-rim hadn’t even slapped his cheek, and it was Jae-an himself who had harmed his own body, he was as exhausted as a victim of a physical assault. He dragged his feet toward the bathroom.

He turned the lever to wash his hands with cold water and wiped under his nose several times, cleaning away the dried blood. While he was at it, he washed his face and stuffed his nose with rolled-up tissue. Once he finished, the drops of blood on his shirt caught his eye, so he rubbed and washed the T-shirt with cold water.

He leaned against the bathroom counter and looked into the mirror. The red, swollen forehead, the wet face, and the dark circles under his eyes—none of it showed a spark of life. As he stared at his pitiful reflection, a mutter escaped his parched lips.

“…Crazy bastard.”

‘He loved me even though he knew about our fathers?’ Instead of resenting him for being that man’s son, how could he harbor feelings of love? When and how did Seo Jae-rim find out? Even if he had found out long ago, or even around the same time as him, he would have been so young… Could it be that the young boy had endured that confusion and shock alone, and that was how he had ended up so broken?

Standing there blankly, continuing these trivial thoughts, Jae-an suddenly realized something. He was still feeling sorry for Seo Jae-rim, as if it were a habit.

“You probably just felt sorry for me. Not those kinds of childish feelings.”

The voice that had spat those words out with disgust echoed like an auditory hallucination. Jae-an remembered the day Seo Jae-rim first came to his house. The grubby clothes, the bursting backpack, the hollow cheeks as he hurriedly swallowed bread, and the golden eyes busy checking for reactions.

“…Of course I feel sorry.”

During all that long time when he had been unconsciously kind out of concern, Seo Jae-rim must have nurtured his feelings alone, and then reflected on how disgusting they were through the lens of their fathers.

Of course, collecting a person’s hair or toothbrushes year after year was not a normal way of doing things, but as he chewed over Seo Jae-rim’s life—carrying a heart he couldn’t even reveal for his entire life—ironically, the thought that he was pitiful surfaced again. ‘How did you end up liking someone like me, of all things?’

Having nurtured both love and scars in tandem, Seo Jae-rim was now pouring out his long-held anger, obsession, and hatred haphazardly, starting from the day Jae-an attempted suicide.

The box that had vomited up stalking evidence when it hit the floor was just like Seo Jae-rim. The exterior was neat, but the inside was filled with things as rotten as infected organs.

“Kindness…? Fuck. If that were possible. If our relationship could have ever been possible with something like that…”

He wasn’t wrong. Even if Seo Jae-rim were kind, there was no way Jae-an would ever love him. Never.

Letting out a sigh, Jae-an opened the cupboard, took out one of the neatly folded towels, and wiped the moisture from his face. He threw the damp towel into the basket and changed his wet clothes. He even pulled on fresh underwear. The ring, loose from his weight loss, spun like a treadmill on the base of his ring finger.

He walked out to the living room, sat on the sofa, and watched the garden as the sun began to set.

When Seo Jae-rim first left, he had felt a great sense of relief that he hadn’t been bound or beaten further, but now he was belatedly worried about where he had gone.

He had clearly been enraged to the limit. As soon as the memory of that cold profile staring at the business card came to mind, Jae-an shut his eyes tight. When he opened them again, his gloomy eyes were filled with obvious anxiety.

‘He hasn’t gone to hurt someone, has he?’

Driven by fear, he walked toward the phone. However, his thin fingers hesitated, unable to lift the receiver. Lacking the courage to call, he ran out to the terrace instead. Standing on his tiptoes, he peered toward the garage next to the garden.

Jae-an bit his nails, staring only at the garage with an anxious face. It was the first time he had ever wished for Seo Jae-rim’s return so desperately.

As he paced between the sofa and the terrace, his eyes became bloodshot, and his fatigue-worn complexion grew even paler. He repeatedly bit his lower lip and his nails, shifting restlessly.

The tips of his fingers stung. Looking at his rounded nails, he saw thin threads of blood rising. Seeing the blood made him even more anxious. He repeatedly mistook the noise made by the occasional wind for Seo Jae-rim’s presence.

Several dozen minutes later. When the cry of a bird crossing the sky sounded like the scream of the man whose wrist had been cut, Jae-an finally sprang up and grabbed the phone.

He dialed Seo Jae-rim’s number, but the call didn’t connect until the automated response played. With bloodshot eyes, he frantically pressed the redial button. When he heard the mechanical tone, he tried again; and when he heard it again, he tried once more.

After countless attempts, Seo Jae-rim’s voice finally came through the receiver.

[What.]

“Where—where are you…?”

Seo Jae-rim didn’t answer for a long time. What had he been doing, and where? Surely, he wasn’t hurting that man because he couldn’t get over what Jae-an had said. The boundary between his constant nightmares and his imagination crumbled, and his thin breath grew strangely heavy.

“What—what are you doing…?”

[Just hanging around.]

“Come… home.”

Silence followed again through the receiver. He felt like his heart might burst. Then, he heard the sound of a low laugh. At the sound of the laugh, which was almost like a breath, Jae-an swallowed hard.

[If I go now… it’ll be hard for you, Hyung.]

“……I know.”

[I’m very angry right now.]

His heart sank at the voice that spoke with emphasis on every syllable, as if suppressing his emotions to the limit. However, Jae-an squeezed out his courage.

“Even so, come… show your face and be angry at me……”

[Why are you suddenly acting pretty after saying such shitty things? You’re confusing me.]

“I’m sorry. Come home… please?”

[Why. Because you’re afraid I’ll kill that bastard?]

His words were cut short. As expected, the sharp-witted Seo Jae-rim was reading his mind completely. Jae-an pressed a finger near his eyebrow and replied.

“Don’t be angry…”

[How could I not be angry when you’re volunteering to play the martyr because you’re worried about another man?]

“It’s not like that… Come home quickly, Jae-rim-ah.”

He heard Seo Jae-rim sigh. Soon, he heard the sound of the engine starting.

[Loosen yourself up on your own. It might really tear today.]

The call was cut off unilaterally. But there was no time to resent him. Jae-an sprang up and went to the bedroom. He opened a drawer, took out a tube of gel, and immediately pulled down his underwear and pants.

He rubbed the cold gel between his buttocks and thrust a finger inside. As the cold and the sensation of a foreign object hit him simultaneously, goosebumps broke out near his groin.

Enduring the pain, he moved his wrist in a circular motion. Lacking time, he hurriedly forced a few more fingers in.

Instead of arousal, his body grew stiffer from the tension. The more it did, the more his heart raced, and his fingers moved even more aggressively.

“Ah, ugh…”

Unable to bear the pain, he pulled his fingers out to find bright red blood smeared on the transparent gel. Still, knowing he had to take something several times thicker than a finger, he bit his lip and pushed his fingers back in. He fumbled with himself until his gel-soaked fingertips grew wrinkled.

Before long, he heard the sound of the front door opening and closing. He heard Seo Jae-rim let out a cold, mocking laugh upon seeing him struggling on the bedroom floor with his lower half exposed.

In an instant, his body was dragged. It wasn’t his arm or his hair that was grabbed, but his neck. The grip crushed the area below his jaw, cutting off his breath, and he was thrown onto the bed just as his air was running out. His body was scraped here and there by the hands that stripped off his T-shirt as if tearing it.

Feeling the concentrated rage, Jae-an felt a sense of relief instead. ‘He didn’t hurt anyone else.’ Jae-an didn’t even take a deep breath, silently enduring those aggressive and restless hands.

“Did you loosen up properly?”

“Ah… ugh. Yes.”

Before he could even finish his answer, the highly aroused glans pierced the opening. The pain was so intense that his toes curled, rendering his prior preparation useless. Jae-an trembled slightly, his reddened eyes distorting.

It was the beginning of his sentence.

***

The room was thick with moisture. It was a humid, stuffy atmosphere created by Jae-an’s tears and cold sweat, the sweat soaking Seo Jae-rim’s forehead, and the saliva from him licking Jae-an’s entire body.

His eyes were open, but nothing was clear in his vision. The burning sensation below had grown dull, and now he only felt a heavy pressure. His body was shaken mindlessly. The encounter, fueled by intense rage, was relentless.

He couldn’t get an erection, but as the glans stabbed the same spot countless times, physiological fluids leaked out. When he was taken from the front, teeth bit into his nipples; when taken from behind, his neck was pinned down.

He stopped counting the number of times Seo Jae-rim came. He didn’t know if the moments where Jae-rim didn’t climax but simply shuddered before starting to thrust again were even part of the count.

It was grotesque how his member could stay erect even while he was so angry. But since this was a love grown from rage and disappointment, it made a twisted kind of sense that his anger would make him even harder.

Suddenly, his body was lifted. The member was still buried inside him. Carrying his limp body effortlessly, Seo Jae-rim walked to the dining room, opened the fridge, and took out an unopened bottle of water. As Jae-rim downed more than half the bottle while holding him, the sound of his throat gulping reached Jae-an’s ears.

Having finished the bottle in an instant, Seo Jae-rim threw the empty container to the floor, grabbed Jae-an’s jaw, and kissed him. Lukewarm water spilled between their joined lips. Half was swallowed, and half flowed down his chin.

When the hand supporting his buttocks loosened slightly, his weight caused his body to slide down. The erect flesh pushed against his organs, digging deep. Startled by the pressure, he wrapped his arms around Seo Jae-rim’s neck, and he felt the vibration of Jae-rim’s chest as he laughed. Jae-an let out a cry for the first time.

“N-no, I hate this…”

However, his back hit the wall painfully, and Seo Jae-rim thrust his hips upward. It was a deep, powerful penetration that made him gasp. Jae-an stiffened his body and groaned like someone receiving a member for the very first time.

“Agh. Ugh…!”

He endured it in all sorts of places and in various positions. After a long time spent rutting like a dog on the living room floor, his forehead, which was being pressed into the rug, began to ache, so he twisted his head to the side. Thinking he couldn’t take any more, he reached back and blindly pushed at Seo Jae-rim’s stomach. Seo Jae-rim’s body was also drenched in sweat from the long session. No matter how much he pushed the slick, hard stomach, it didn’t budge.

“It’s… hard…”

“For me too.”

“…….”

“It’s fucking hard catering to Lee Jae-an’s whims.”

With a thud, the penetration grew deeper. His body was pushed forward, and the knees he was barely supporting himself with gave out. Flipping over the doll-like body, Seo Jae-rim grabbed the back of his knees and thrust his hips again. Drip, drip. The sweat hanging from Seo Jae-rim’s nose fell onto Jae-an’s face.

Staring at Jae-an, whose pupils had grown dull, Seo Jae-rim whispered.

“I still love you.”

The confession pierced his ears like a blade. Jae-an’s eyes wavered. Haa, haa. Breathing raggedly, Jae-an looked down. In the moment he bit his molars and held back his tears to endure the expression he had no immunity to, stars exploded before his eyes.

His head snapped to the side, and a burning pain belatedly rose around his cheek. Only then did Jae-an realize he had been struck.

“I said I love you.”

He was barely parting his pale lips when his face was snapped back again. This time, he felt his lip tear. When Jae-an tried to cover his stinging, swollen face with his hand, Seo Jae-rim painfully slapped it away.

“When someone speaks, answer them.”

His fierce gaze remained fixed on the torn lip. Sniffling through his aching nose, Jae-an spoke.

“Ye—me, too…”

Reading the gaze still lingering on his lips, he hurriedly added.

“I love you.”

“…….”

“I love you. I love you.”

In that moment, Seo Jae-rim’s body stiffened, and his member shuddered. Lifting his hollow eyes to look at Seo Jae-rim, Jae-an saw a raw expression of satisfaction as he savored the aftermath of his climax. He felt his strength drain away. Groaning with a low rumble in his throat, Seo Jae-rim pulled back and withdrew his member, which remained stiffly erect even after climaxing.

“Keep saying it.”

Walking to the console while still erect, Seo Jae-rim shook his pack of cigarettes and caught one with his teeth. After lighting it and letting the smoke out, Seo Jae-rim picked up Jae-an with a demanding voice.

“Well? Say it.”

“…I love you.”

It wasn’t hard. As if satisfied even by the voice devoid of any emotion, Seo Jae-rim wore a faint smile. After setting him down on the sofa, Seo Jae-rim moved the cigarette to his fingers. As Jae-an simply stared at the burning cigarette, Seo Jae-rim said,

“You can smoke.”

With trembling hands, he brought the cigarette to his lips. His torn lip stung as he rounded them to inhale the smoke, but perhaps because he hadn’t smoked in a long time, he felt the blood circulating to the very tips of his limbs. He soon realized it was a sweet reward for saying he loved him.

Seo Jae-rim knelt before him. His blatant gaze fell upon the place that was embarrassing because it didn’t have hair like others. Recognizing that the position was strange, Jae-an’s thighs stiffened, but Seo Jae-rim buried his face between his legs anyway.

Without hesitation, Seo Jae-rim began to lick the area dirtied by the sweat and fluids of the two men.

Jae-an endured the urge to shudder in disgust. The inside of Jae-rim’s mouth was hot and wet, and his tongue applied pressure, meticulously licking the soft member. After licking the frenulum connecting the glans and the shaft, he even pushed his tongue to the urethra, sucking up the pre-ejaculate that had leaked out physiologically.

Cruelly, the member slowly began to gain strength and stand. Seo Jae-rim released it, rubbed the corner of his mouth against the saliva-slicked shaft, and looked up at him.

“Don’t stop. Keep telling me.”

With the cigarette in his mouth, Jae-an spoke. I love you, I love you, I love you…

Seo Jae-rim lowered his head again and moved his face up and down. He was truly dedicated.

Jae-an was the one being sucked, but the growling sound of heavy breathing came more from Seo Jae-rim. His molars and the inside of his cheeks rubbed the glans and shaft with just the right amount of pressure. Before long, fluid erupted from the member. Jae-an shut his eyes tight, his thighs twitching.

Even though he had already come, his member remained trapped in that wet mouth. Belatedly realizing where he had ejaculated, Jae-an pulled his hips back. Seo Jae-rim lifted his head, his throat moving up and down as he swallowed. His face, smiling with eyes crinkled like half-moons, looked hauntingly innocent.

“I love you too.”

It was a confession that smelled of something fishy. Ash from the cigarette he hadn’t smoked properly had fallen onto the sofa cushion. Jae-an continued to hold the cigarette, even though it had burned down to the filter. Even knowing the heat would burn his finger, he couldn’t let go, fearing he would damage the sofa.