ITDW 20

“You’re an excellent doctor. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t have entrusted Jaeri to you.”

— …Thank you, Kim Jungyoon.

“The diagnosis of childhood depression will be a great help in his treatment.”

The brief phone call ended. Sometimes, when he thought of her, he felt a feeling like looking at a faded photograph. This time, meeting and talking with her, and speaking on the phone, he would occasionally recall those times, but now the same memory was just crisp at the edges, like looking at a clean digital photograph.

He was lost in thought for a moment, looking out the window, then went to his desk.

From the desk littered with numerous documents, he picked out the ones to review at home. Then, his gaze was stolen by the monitor at the very bottom. He put down the documents, sat in his chair, clasped his hands, and looked at the screen.

“What is Jaeri doing?”

Jaeri was drinking water. He would drink a glass and get on the scale, then drink another glass and get on, repeating the act. He had said he would weigh himself after work today, but it must have been difficult to gain 2kg without eating anything. Pfft, a sound of laughter escaped like air leaking out.

Jaeri was like that when he was hypomanic. He firmly believed that crises were meant to be overcome. So he would go through all that trouble just to get a scolding, when he could have just taken a small one.

It was cute, but he couldn’t just let him get away with trying to deceive him with a shallow trick. He would have to correct this mistaken belief this time around. There was already a part of him that had developed a bad habit because he had let it slide a few times, thinking it was cute.

Unable to wipe the smile from his lips, Jungyoon picked up his phone.

“For dinner, soybean noodle soup would be good.”

— It’s winter, will that be alright, Mr. Vice President?

“I’m particularly craving it today.”

Looking at the monitor, he saw Jaeri drink another cup of water, weigh himself, and then jump for joy as if he had finally reached his target weight. That kid, seriously, how much of a scolding does he want?

Seeing the dinner menu, Jaeri looked a little troubled. He had been wanting to go to the bathroom for a while, but he tried to hold it until his hyung came. When his hyung came home from work, he said he would weigh him after dinner, so he tried to hold it until dinner. But seeing the soybean noodle soup, he felt at a loss as to how he should eat the liquid-heavy dish.

“…If I eat this, are we going to weigh me right away?”

“We’ll see.”

“Yes….”

Jaeri was already starting to feel pressure below. Little by little, he endured and ate the soybean noodle soup. He felt that his hyung was being considerate of him, since he would weigh more if he was weighed after eating dinner.

Even though he ate slowly, his stomach was already full of water, so he was too full, and he was also getting tired of the monotonous taste, so he was just about to subtly put down his spoon.

“You can leave the noodles, but drink all of the soybean milk.”

“That’s.”

“You promised to be a good boy, yesterday.”

“…Yes.”

It was something he had said first as a condition for sleeping in the same bed last night. In the deep darkness of dawn, Jaeri had touched his tongue to that man’s lips again in that bed. This time, he had even tried moving his tongue from side to side just once.

Jaeri decided it would be better to eat it quickly and get weighed quickly, so he lifted the bowl of soybean noodle soup and drank from it. His stomach quickly became bloated. It felt like his heavy stomach was putting even more pressure on his bladder, so he sat with his legs crossed. However, he was immediately stopped.

“Posture, you must sit properly.”

“Yes….”

He uncrossed his legs and put them back down, keeping his two legs pressed tightly together with his thighs tense.

Jungyoon put down his spoon. He had barely touched the soybean noodle soup. He told Jaeri to sit still and stood up. Knowing it wasn’t over yet, Jaeri’s lips began to dry.

He put a lemon cake on a plate, and even took out a bottle of wine from the wine cellar, which was as thoroughly locked as a safe. He poured only one glass and poured the rest down the sink.

The ripe aroma of the wine instantly dominated the space. Jaeri felt the wine was a bit of a waste. But the remaining wine’s aroma would have changed completely before Jungyoon looked for it again anyway. He was someone who quite enjoyed wine when he was out, but he rarely took out wine at home.

Jungyoon wasn’t one to enjoy alcohol, but he would have a glass or so when he was in a good mood. So Jaeri briefly thought that something good must have happened to him today. In any case, Jaeri didn’t have the leisure to sustain any thought for long. He wanted to go to the bathroom too much.

Jungyoon, who had placed the cake and wine glass on the table, looked at Jaeri with a smiling face. He took a sip of wine while gazing at Jaeri, and ate a bite of cake. But Jaeri couldn’t even think of picking up the fork in front of him.

“Come here.”

At the call, he went to him. Without even looking at Jaeri, he said lightly, “Sit,” and offered his lap. It had been an incredibly long time since he had been made to sit on his lap, so he felt an unfamiliar tenderness. He felt like he had only sat there when he was very young….

Jungyoon scooped up some cake with a fork and brought it to Jaeri’s mouth.

“Eat.”

It was a gentle tone of voice that didn’t feel forceful at all. Jaeri opened his mouth. Jungyoon’s gaze lingered for a moment on the wet tongue inside Jaeri’s mouth. His lips moved nibblingly as he swallowed the cake.

“How is it?”

“It’s delicious… But hyung, wait, just a moment. I’ll go weigh myself and come back.”

“Why?”

“I want to weigh myself, quickly.”

“You seem confident.”

“Yes.”

The moment Jaeri put strength into his feet, as if to get up and weigh himself right away, Jungyoon pressed down hard on Jaeri’s thigh with his palm. The weight of that palm was quite heavy, so Jaeri relaxed his feet.

“Your hyung is in a very good mood right now. Is our youngest not?”

“…I’m in a good mood, too.”

He felt that if he said he wasn’t, he would never be allowed to sit on his lap again. If it weren’t for wanting to go to the bathroom, he too could have enjoyed this time with immense happiness.

Time was dragging on today. The smile lingering in his eyes, that languor, became frightening. The painting of melting clocks he had once seen in a New York art museum flickered in his eyes.

Jungyoon drank wine, fed Jaeri cake, gazed at his mouth, drank wine again, and fed Jaeri cake. The entire process flowed deliberately. The more Jaeri’s thigh muscles tensed and his toes curled, the deeper the smile in Jungyoon’s eyes became.

Amidst the relaxed evening atmosphere, where the rich aroma of fermented grapes flowed and the two sat together in an affectionate posture enjoying sweet things, Jaeri clenched and held in the aching area with all his might.

“Drink.”

He pressed a glass of sparkling water to his mouth. Jaeri turned his head, but the cup was brought to his mouth again.

“Hyung….”

“You have to eat and drink everything I give you.”

Jaeri drank. As soon as he finished one glass, cake entered his mouth again. It was now too hard to endure this time, so Jaeri closed his eyes. His toes couldn’t stay still. The tips of his feet kept getting cold.

“Why are you so cute?”

He said, unable to wipe the smile from his eyes. His lips were stained with the color of wine. Jaeri stared blankly at his side profile for a moment. He looked like a handsome, wickedly corrupt vampire who had lived for about five hundred years.

As he was admiring him absentmindedly, the arm wrapped around Jaeri’s waist suddenly tightened with a jerk.

Severe pressure was applied to his lower abdomen. To be exact, it was the area above his bladder muscle. Jaeri was startled and, as if responding to an emergency, held on for about three seconds, grunting with all his might.

But holding it in any longer felt as difficult as something only possible in imagination. Jaeri tried not to feel helpless.

“Ah, hyung, this, ugh, let go, please. …Hyung… that hurts,”

“Hurts? I’m cherishing you right now.”

The voice, full of affectionate nuance, hadn’t changed much from before, but an unknown chill reached him first. Jaeri squirmed his legs on his lap. The worry that he wouldn’t listen to him consumed his mind.

“Really, ah, please, …hyung, hyung.”

He felt like he really couldn’t hold it any longer, so he tried to pull away the arm pressing down on his lower abdomen with all his might, but the arm, far from being removed, only applied a consistent, dull pressure.

“Wait, hyung, I, I, the bathroom….”

“Hmm? Did you just use informal speech?”

Jaeri bit his lip once, then leaned his forehead, slick with cold sweat, against his shoulder and said pleadingly.

“The bathroom. I want to go. Hyung, I,”

“Hold it in.”

Now, almost smiling, he was pressing down on his lower abdomen as if wringing it out, and Jaeri shook his head from side to side.

“I can’t hold it, hyung, the bathroom, ugh… why are you pretending not to hear me… the bathroom.”

“I told you to hold it in.”

“I think it’s going to come out….”

Jaeri gripped his arm tightly. He had to hold onto something to concentrate all his nerves on stopping what was about to burst out.

“You’re even cuter when you keep using informal speech.”

Jungyoon kissed Jaeri’s cheek.

It must have been because he was surprised by the sudden action. The tension that had been gathered in one place was startled and shot off somewhere else.

A little bit of urine leaked out, hotly soaking him below. Jaeri flinched in surprise. It had nothing to do with how well he had held it in until now; once it was released, he couldn’t clench it again.

It was partly because he had held it for too long, and partly because of Jungyoon’s arm, which, showing no sign of surprise, was instead squeezing and pressing down even more, as if to wring out every last drop.

His legs trembled with the shame of the spreading hot wetness. Jungyoon carried Jaeri as he was to the bathroom. Even on the way, both of their clothes were steadily getting soaked. Jaeri couldn’t hold it for even a moment, so he covered his face. The amount that came out after entering the bathroom was also considerable.

“I told you I couldn’t hold it….”

Jaeri said in a small voice, his head bowed low, unable to even look at Jungyoon.

The silence that returned without an answer was uncomfortable. If it had been a silence where neither had said anything from the beginning, it wouldn’t have been like this.

Knowing it was already too late, Jaeri grumbled again to break the strange silence he had brought about.

“I said I couldn’t hold it, but you pressed on my stomach.”

Jungyoon, still without a word, took off his clothes first. Seeing that, Jaeri, with his lips pressed tightly together, also took off his clothes. As he watched him lather up shower gel and wash his body beside him, Jaeri also washed away the filth next to him.

He was watching his expression, but he couldn’t read his mood at all because of his face, which had now wiped away the smile from around his eyes and lips.

After they finished washing, he put on a bathrobe. Jaeri followed him and found his own bathrobe to put on.

As he followed Jungyoon out, he saw him contacting someone.

“Come and clean now. You’ll know what to clean when you get here. Just clean that and leave.”

At those words, Jaeri’s ears turned red. He turned his head and looked at the mess he had made. Then he felt a gaze on him and met his eyes.

“Let’s weigh you.”

His lips, which had been stained with the color of wine, had found their original color, and the color of his voice, which he had thought was languid, was now just crisp. As if pushed, he got on the scale.

The number, a mere 0.6kg increase, blinked and then settled. Jungyoon raised his eyebrows and looked at Jaeri.

“Why were you so confident earlier?”

“……”

“And the urine. Why was there so much of it?”

“……”

His voice was overly calm. He didn’t seem like someone who had been drinking, or someone who had sat his younger brother on his lap and fed him cake, or someone who, out of some mischief, had squeezed his brother’s stomach and made him urinate where he sat.