ITDW 24

Jaeri looked up at him. He laughed as if in disbelief.

“This really won’t do.”

His eyes were not smiling. Jaeri, more afraid of his eyes than his words, avoided his gaze.

“Is it okay for me to just touch your body?”

“…No.”

“If another guy touches you outside, are you going to stand there stupidly?”

“…No. It was because you, hyung, were touching me… that I stayed still.”

Jaeri defended himself, though he stammered.

“I said I’d give you sex education.”

“…Yes.”

“Let’s do it properly, okay?”

“Yes…”

As Jaeri tried to grasp the situation, his hyung first asked a question to help him focus on the education.

“Where did I just touch you?”

“…My ear, and my chest, my hand, my collarbone. Also, my buttocks…”

As he recalled and listed the places to make sure none were missed, Jaeri’s cheeks began to turn redder. He couldn’t tell. Whether this situation was good, bad, sad, or all of the above.

“What should you say if another man touches you?”

His voice was particularly gentle. He would use that kind of voice when he was about to watch every single detail of how you would react.

“‘Don’t’… is what I should say.”

“From when should you say that?”

He placed his hand on Jaeri’s body once again. The back of his hand brushed past Jaeri’s hand, moved up to his ear, and then lingered on his collarbone again. It was a touch that brushed by for a moment, showing the order. Jaeri answered just before he placed the back of his hand on his chest.

“…From when you touch my ear.”

“Touching my hand, is that okay?”

“That… if you’re friends, you might, or when you shake hands.”

“Who holds hands between men?”

“…I, …sometimes with Seonyeong, when we’re playing around.”

“Playing around?”

Jungyoon snatched Jaeri’s wrist. The hand was pulled along limply. He brought it between his legs and held it there.

Jaeri’s eyes widened in surprise. He tried to twist his wrist to escape his hand, but it only pressed Jaeri’s hand more firmly against his penis.

He tried not to feel it, but while sight can be blocked by closing one’s eyes and smell by pinching one’s nose, touch is unavoidable, so he had no choice but to feel it.

A heavy weight pressed into his palm. When Jaeri relaxed his grip on his captured wrist, his powerless hand trembled.

“This kind of playing around?”

“…No…. I’ll, tell them not to, from when they hold my hand. My hand, please…”

The heavy fullness that filled his hand felt like it was repeatedly pressing on his heart, making his chest feel tight. Jaeri panted a little.

Jungyoon let go of Jaeri’s wrist. As soon as he let go, Jaeri quickly hid both his hands behind his back.

“Lift your head up straight.”

“Yes…”

Jaeri, who had lowered his head as soon as Jungyoon let go of his hand, not knowing where to look, lifted his head, but his eyes couldn’t easily fix on one spot.

“Kim Jaeri. Why is your face red?”

“…Because I was surprised.”

“Jaeri. I’m not playing with you right now.”

“…Yes.”

Jaeri looked at him. He was completely serious.

“If that bastard you have a crush on touches you, how far will you let him go?”

“…I think he can touch my hand.”

He laughed as if he found it amusing.

“You don’t care if he takes your hand and rubs it on his dick?”

“My hand… it’s just, because he’s someone I like. …Hyung, I’m scared…”

His hyung finding him dirty is unsettlingly scary. What’s the problem with holding hands with someone you like? As expected, he must hate that I like men, feel that it’s dirty, and is finding fault with it.

“You shouldn’t be scared. If a man likes a man, he needs to know these things. We’re both men, do you think he’ll treat you with the same consideration as a woman?”

“…No.”

“If an easy-looking and pretty kid like you comes on to him, what do you think he’ll do?”

Jaeri nodded his head, signaling that he understood now and that his hyung should stop.

“Do you understand?”

“…I understand.”

He taught him how the creature called man treats an easy target.

However, Jaeri thought that if the hyung he had a crush on were to treat him rough sexually, it would hurt, but he would probably be able to endure it. His hyung’s concern was justified.

“I’ll ask again, how far will you allow the person you have a crush on to go?”

“…Up to my hand.”

“Reason?”

He looked Jaeri straight in the eye, as if to see if he would state the reason properly.

“Even if he takes my hand and… touches his dick… I like it…”

He clenched his teeth as if holding something back.

“…Alright. Even if you allow it, you have to know and allow it because you like it.”

“Yes…”

At the obedient answer, he turned and went to take a shower. Jaeri, who couldn’t even breathe deeply in front of him, took a few deep breaths for a moment to calm his churning heart.

His eyes fell on the briefcase his hyung had thrown in the living room. He went and picked up the chaotically scattered documents. As he was trying to organize them and put them back in the bag, he saw a familiar name.

Hanyoung Corporation—KN Logistics Merger TF Leader Nominee: Kim Yoonjae, Attorney at Haesung Law Firm

Noona’s name… Project Leader. He thought it was cool. His hyung must have brought these documents home to review his noona’s abilities in detail. They were both his younger siblings, yet he was a foolish younger brother who would get hurt somewhere just for liking someone, while his noona was a capable younger sister who was helpful to his hyung’s business.

Jaeri gathered the documents, put them in the bag, fastened the buckle, and then placed it in the study.

Jungyoon, who had finished his shower and come out to the living room, went to the medicine cabinet and took out Jaeri’s evening medication. He took it immediately as his hyung, with his wet hair, handed it to him with a glass of water. Jaeri placed the water glass on the table and said.

“I put your briefcase in the study, hyung.”

He looked at Jaeri without a reply. Then he brought up another topic.

“Did you organize it, Jaeri?”

“Yes…”

“You’re all grown up.”

“It’s just… the bag was in the living room.”

At Jaeri’s reply, his hyung just stared at him blankly for a moment without saying anything.

“…Go in and sleep.”

His eyes looked tired as he spoke. Jaeri called out to him with a slightly anxious look.

“Hyung,”

“You sleep alone.”

He was rejected before he could even ask. Jaeri didn’t press further. The view outside the window from the living room looked starkly blue. It was night, not even dawn.

Until the weekend came, Jungyoon was inexplicably cold to Jaeri. He often had dinner out. Jaeri had to film himself eating alone and send it to him. He could have checked it himself through the CCTV, but he made him do it that way.

Once, after he intentionally threw up what he had eaten, he had to confess all his wrongdoings to his hyung who interrogated him upon seeing the burst capillaries around his eyes. That time too, he was hit on his bare buttocks with a bare palm. He wasn’t even wearing a gown; his hyung had personally taken off Jaeri’s pants and underwear, placed him on his lap, and hit him painfully.

Jaeri endured the cold treatment, thinking that his hyung probably thought he should rationally understand gay people, but was still finding it difficult to accept emotionally. Before, he had even been afraid that his hyung might have him committed to a mental hospital, so this level of hardship was something to be grateful for.

Still, his hyung’s treatment continued to confuse Jaeri. It seemed like his hyung couldn’t decide whether to accept his gay younger brother as he was or not. It was a bit too severe to be called cold treatment.

The order he gave to the designer when they went to the hair salon together was also like that.

“Cut it as short as possible. Or just buzz it off.”

The designer, who showed reluctance at the overly vague words, showed him a hair design portfolio on a tablet. He flipped through a few pages and then pointed his finger at something random. Jaeri, who was watching from the side, moved his lips as if to speak and then finally tugged at his hyung’s arm.

“Hyung… I, that kind of hairstyle is.”

“It’s messy, so let’s make it neat.”

Jaeri didn’t argue further. Still, he asked the hairstylist who was fiddling with his hair to gauge its texture.

“Is it, messy?”

While the designer hesitated to answer, glancing at Jungyoon, Jungyoon, who was standing next to him, answered instead.

“It looks that way to me, do you think it isn’t?”

He stood behind Jaeri, who was sitting in the chair, and patted his younger brother’s shoulder consolingly.

After preparations like shampooing were finished, all of Jaeri’s curly hair was cut off. It was the first time he had ever had his hair this short. Jungyoon had said several times that Jaeri’s curly hair was a pretty kind of curl and nice to look at, and he had never cut his younger brother’s pretty curls so short.

Still, it wasn’t a hairstyle that was just short without any aesthetic elements. The bangs, which exposed his entire forehead, were left a little longer than the sides and were neatly swept up. With that done, Jaeri looked like a young English gentleman who was strict about his own style.

Also, the baby hairs at his hairline, which were naturally curly and bent in a gentle curve, were all exposed, which was cute. The designer admired his own work. It was hard for him to hide his smiling face, but the expressions of the Hanyoung family brothers, who were his clients, were not good, so he became a little nervous.

“…My hair is too short, it looks weird.”

Jungyoon silently stroked Jaeri’s short hair.

The brothers didn’t say a word the whole way to the main house, where the family was scheduled to have lunch together for the first time in a while. Jaeri was a little gloomy because there was no hair sticking out even when he ran his fingers through it.

Even though it’s home, the main house, it always feels unfamiliar. Jaeri thought as he diligently ate the rice in front of him. No matter how much of an appetite he lacked, Jaeri never picked at his food at the main house. He was afraid of his hyung who would scold him for being impolite, but the burden of his noona’s worried face and his father’s gaze, which observed him with a benevolent smile, was even greater.

Still, a lack of appetite was a lack of appetite, so he was mechanically chewing the contents, thinking he didn’t know what it tasted like.

“Kim Jaeri.”

“Yes, hyung.”

“Sit up straight with your back straight.”

“…Yes.”

At the sudden reprimand, Jaeri straightened his back and sat up. A slight tension flowed. Yoonjae kept her lips tightly sealed and made a displeased face at her oppa. Chairman Kim watched what Jungyoon was doing without letting his smile falter.