F53

Siwoo prayed that the summer of his twenty-first year would never end. He spent every moment of his vacation with Yeonho, lounging around the house in each other’s arms, occasionally abandoning whatever plans they had made the night before to go on spontaneous trips together.

That summer, he did all the things he’d never experienced before. It had nothing to do with time, money, or age. Even if he had all the time and money in the world and were older, none of it would have happened without Yeonho by his side.

Because Yeonho was with him, Siwoo went to places he never would’ve gone, ate food he never would’ve tried, and looked up at skies he otherwise never would’ve seen.

He loved how his day was disrupted by Yeonho. He loved this feeling that overpowered the structure wired into him, this love that overwhelmed his system.

After spending such a happy time together, it was only natural that even the word “semester” exhausted him. Had Kim Siwoo ever hated going to school this much before? Not even as a child.

He usually humored people by attending drinking parties during the first week of the semester. Even if he didn’t like being around others, he had a kind of fake social ease he had developed since childhood. Just in case, he never cut himself off entirely from social contact. He lived while hiding his discomfort behind a practiced smile.

It was the second day of the semester, and this was his second drinking party. The bar was too small and too noisy. His right elbow was touching the wall, and the lack of a backrest on his chair meant his back pressed directly against the person sitting behind him.

It was exactly the kind of environment Siwoo disliked. He wanted to be somewhere clean and quiet, spending time alone with Yeonho. But he didn’t show any of that on the surface.

A friend across from him filled his glass and asked,

“Are you seriously not going to meet him?”

At that moment, the person behind Siwoo leaned their back against his. Siwoo straightened his spine so they could lean on him more comfortably and replied,

“No, I’m not.”

“Come on, just once, for my sake. I already told him I’d introduce him to someone hot.”

“You should worry about your own pride. I can barely manage mine.”

“Just look at the picture one more time. He’s a model and goes to S University. You’re really gonna pass this up?”

At that, the guy behind him slowly reached out, poked Siwoo’s back, and started tickling his side with his fingers.

Siwoo finally decided to reveal what he’d been hiding from others all along.

“I’m seeing someone.”

He had kept his relationship a secret because he didn’t want it to become gossip at drinking parties. Naturally, he had no intention of saying who it was.

The guy who’d been glued to his back quickly pulled away. Laughter erupted from his table, laughter Siwoo recognized instantly.

On the second day of the semester, at a party with their classmates, Yeonho downed a shot of soju and smiled brightly. He perked up his ears to eavesdrop on the conversation behind him.

“Why didn’t you say anything? Did you start seeing him over break? Since when? Who is it?”

“I don’t like talking about him in this kind of setting.”

Yeonho, moved, relaxed and leaned comfortably against Siwoo’s back, who was sitting behind him. He took another drink, the tension melting away as the alcohol set in.

There was a clear reason why Yeonho always insisted, “I love you more.” If he hadn’t made the first move, they wouldn’t even have become acquaintances, let alone lovers.

From the moment Yeonho first saw Siwoo, he had wanted him. Siwoo, on the other hand, hadn’t desired Yeonho until right before they started dating. He was simply swept up by Yeonho’s relentless pursuit.

Yeonho often felt a chill at the thought that, if he’d hesitated even once or missed his timing, he would never have had Siwoo. That’s why he always saw himself as the one in the weaker position. Unless he loved Siwoo with everything he had, he couldn’t hold on to him. That was the nature of their relationship.

And what if someone else came along, someone just as bold as he was? There was no guarantee Siwoo wouldn’t waver. The thrill he once gave him would dull over time, and only someone new could replace that thrill. There was a world of difference between someone familiar and someone new.

That’s why Yeonho didn’t like Siwoo going out, didn’t like him doing anything social. Unless he tied Siwoo down somehow, he could slip away at any moment. Yeonho had to admit it, he was possessive and obsessive, but only when it came to Siwoo.

He’d even looked into adopting Siwoo once. But the law stated that an adoptee couldn’t be older than the adoptive parent, and that alone made it impossible.

If he couldn’t bind him legally, he considered illegal means. He researched all kinds of shameless and terrible ways. But one by one, he ruled them out as things he couldn’t bring himself to do. Like filming sex secretly and using it as blackmail, just the idea of doing something so filthy to someone he loved disgusted him.

After one last drink, Yeonho stood up.

“Sorry, I’m heading out first. I’m a little drunk. If I drink any more, I might make a mistake.”

He waved warmly and left, walking alone through the night. His steps took him toward the dark campus. He sat on the stairs of the art school plaza, a place no one else usually came to, and waited.

After about five minutes, a man showed up and handed him a bottle of milk. Yeonho accepted it and leaned his head on the man’s shoulder, blinking slowly. If he hadn’t been drunk, he wouldn’t have let this kind of complaint slip out.

“Ugh. Why is it so emotionally draining? I just want to feel a little less. Why can’t I just brush things off? Why do I get so mad?”

Siwoo looked at him with a mix of pity and affection, then lightly pinched his soft, pale cheek.

“Don’t try to feel less.”

“Don’t?”

“If you’re anxious, just be anxious. I couldn’t control it either.”

Having come to his own realizations, Siwoo pulled Yeonho tightly into his arms and continued.

“So I decided to live with it. Wanting a peaceful, easy relationship, it’s just my selfishness.”

Yeonho blinked up at him, then nuzzled his warm cheek and lips against Siwoo’s neck.

“Everything we did together, don’t do any of it with anyone else.”

So that’s why it hurts, he realized, because he was Siwoo’s first. If Siwoo had already done those things with someone else, or if Yeonho himself had, he wouldn’t have been this emotionally drained.

Thinking that way, he felt maybe it would be better if things just stayed the way they were forever.

Siwoo smiled faintly and kissed Yeonho’s forehead.

“You too. And we can, you know. Because we want the same thing.”

Siwoo walked Yeonho home. Normally it would have been the other way around, but Yeonho was drunk tonight, so he didn’t protest.

He quietly took off his shoes. His older brother, who had been living with him since summer, was already asleep with the lights off. This was the first time since they started living together that Yeonho had come home drunk.

He moved as quietly as he could so as not to disturb him, drank some water, washed up, and even dried his hair before collapsing into bed and falling into a deep sleep.

He dreamed of Siwoo. Siwoo often appeared in his dreams, more than anyone else. In the darkness, Siwoo tickled the soles of his feet, grabbed his ankles. His hands slid up his calves and slipped under the blanket.

Now that he thought about it, Yeonho used to be quite insensitive to touch, until he had sex with Siwoo. Siwoo had turned his whole body into an erogenous zone. Places that had never felt ticklish before had become hypersensitive from all the licking and touching.

If this were the past, even if someone touched his body while he was drunk, he might not have noticed and just kept sleeping.

But now, the sensations grew more intense. Fingers trailed across his body like a snake. When they reached his lower abdomen and belly button, Yeonho twitched. That area was where he was most sensitive, not the skin itself, but something deeper inside. Even just Siwoo brushing his belly could feel like he was filling him up and pushing inside.

In the dream, it was Siwoo who was touching him. He could see Siwoo. But the hand pulling up his sleepwear and stroking his belly didn’t feel like his. He could tell, even if it was just this one spot.

Was it because it was a dream? Because this sensation wasn’t real?

Yeonho took a deep breath, eyes still closed. There was no scent. If it were really Siwoo, he would smell like himself, even after showering. His perfume, body wash, shampoo, they all shared the same scent. But now there was nothing. Was it just because it was a dream? Was even his sense of smell not real?

He saw Siwoo, but he was also aware that his eyes were shut. Which meant his vision wasn’t real either.

What scared him most was what would happen once he woke up. If, when he opened his eyes, Siwoo disappeared, and the sensation crawling over his body didn’t, then the person touching him couldn’t be Siwoo.

It could only be the person who lived with him.

The person who no longer wore fragrance, and whose presence carried no scent.

His older brother, Seong Junhee.