SLC 13

He first heard the word “ttibuseal” during a conversation with his elementary school nephew.

“Ttibuseal? What’s that?”

The kid showed him a sticker from a bread package, boasting proudly that it wasn’t an ordinary sticker but one you could peel off and stick on repeatedly.

Then wouldn’t it be “ttebuseal” instead of “ttibuseal”?¹ With that doubt, he tucked the word away in his memory.

Later, after a few crushes, Kim Jinkyung recalled the ttibuseal. His crushes resembled ttibuseals, they stuck well and peeled off easily. There was little physical resistance when attaching or detaching. In short, it was easy and convenient.

He started feeling that way around his second year of middle school. While reading a book about Dante in the library, he came across a painting by William Adolphe Bouguereau. The dynamic entanglement of two men in the depiction of hell gave the young boy quite a shock. Feeling as if he’d been struck by lightning, Kim Jinkyung stared at the picture for a long while without turning the page.

Even after returning home, the painting lingered in his mind, and it kept coming back as he lay in bed. Eventually, the next day, Kim Jinkyung borrowed the book again and sought out the Bouguereau painting he’d seen the day before. For several days, he clocked in at the library like it was his job, looking at the same book. Only after saving up his allowance to buy the book did he stop going to the library.

He didn’t harbor strange feelings or sexual impulses from looking at the painting, but in retrospect, the figures in it were no different from his first love to Kim Jinkyung. Back then, he looked at them every day and thought about them every day.

That feeling transferred to a real person around his third year of middle school. It was a sunbae from the sports club who rode the same bus, someone he’d never even spoken to. The trigger was when, on a crowded bus, the sunbae kindly offered to place Kim Jinkyung’s bag on his lap. The crush naturally ended when the sunbae, whose name he only knew, graduated from school.

The next crush stuck around for quite a while. In his first year of high school, he liked his classmate Seo Sangil until Seo Sangil’s third-year graduation. That long crush ended the day Seo Sangil introduced his girlfriend.

“Hey. Starting today, I’m dating Ahyeon-noona.”

He wasn’t particularly shocked or sad when he heard that. The two suited each other well, and he’d known they’d date someday. Even in one-sided love, there was a code of honor, so it was only natural to fold his feelings for someone who had a partner.

After putting a period on that three-year-long crush, Kim Jinkyung encountered Go Jinyoung at a university freshman welcome party.

“Are you okay?”

Falling for the sunbae at first sight, who handed him a hangover remedy with a worried expression, was perhaps an inevitable outcome. Unlike the beautiful first meeting, the end of the crush came savagely, like a spring allergy sufferer’s sneeze.

“You look so upright. Don’t you have a twin sister? An older sister? A cousin sister? A cousin younger sister is fine too. Ah, no minors. Then you can introduce me when they become adults.”

He was on the verge of dizziness from the nonstop torrent of talk about women. The crush that started late at night ended precisely around the afternoon of the next day. It was a natural extinction, like the dinosaurs vanishing from Earth.

After that, minor crushes continued. A nameless student who picked up his ballpoint pen in the lecture hall, a convenience store part-timer who told him about a cone event, and so on.

Like a ttibuseal, his feelings peeled off and stuck on easily, roaming freely in his brain. No residue was left after peeling.

Since he desired nothing and didn’t show any signs, the other person never noticed.

No, to begin with, no one even knew that Kim Jinkyung’s romantic interests were men.

But this time was different.

Mok Seongha was aware that Kim Jinkyung liked men. He had even heard about it at their first meeting and asked what that had to do with him. He had clearly drawn the line, saying he wasn’t Kim Jinkyung’s romantic target.

To Kim Jinkyung, the possibility of this crush was like Schrödinger’s cat² explaining quantum mechanics.

If you put a cat and poison in a box together, until you open the box to check, the cat can be seen as in a superposition of being alive and dead. This superposition holds until the box is opened, until the confession.

This crush was no different from receiving a dead cat as a gift before it even began.

And a pitch-black, enormous one at that.

On the day he realized his feelings, Kim Jinkyung pulled the blanket over his head and indulged in self-loathing for starting the prelude to a crush despite everything.

As Mok Seongha said, am I an idiot, a sucker, a fool?

What’s the point of being handsome, tall, well-built, and ridiculously rich? He’s a person who might bury him if things go wrong, could turn into a panther and bite him to death if annoyed, or have Secretary Kang dump him in the ocean. And who in the world licks someone’s thigh after stripping their pants off out of nowhere, claiming to heal a wound?!

Though it did heal completely.

No. Snap out of it. It’s a dead cat. Yeah. Living in the same house, I’ll surely see plenty of the cat’s bad sides and my feelings will evaporate soon. It’ll peel away quickly. My crushes are easy and simple.

Having barely achieved a mental victory, Kim Jinkyung suddenly felt thirsty and stepped outside.

“…….”

“What?”

Topless, Mok Seongha was drinking water. He turned his head when he detected the presence.

“…Did you wash?”

“Yeah. I exercised.”

Kim Jinkyung looked at the clock. The time approached midnight. The nocturnal panther harmed the mental health of the person with the one-sided affection severely.

“You should sleep early. You must practice maintaining a state where your brain stays awake in the morning. That way, when you take the exam….”

Kim Jinkyung deliberately averted his gaze to another place, and he rambled on at length, but he suddenly gasped when he saw the forearm that came close to his face.

“What is the bedtime?”

Mok Seongha drew water again from the purifier. Kim Jinkyung moved aside a little next to the purifier.

“You mean mine? I usually sleep by eleven at the latest….”

“No, not yours but mine.”

“Sleep before midnight and exercise in the morning. If you exercise too late, you might have trouble sleeping.”

“I understand.”

Mok Seongha set down the cup he had finished in the sink. Kim Jinkyung bowed his head politely, and he turned around.

“Hey.”

“Yes?”

“Didn’t you come to drink water?”

“Uh, …yes.”

Kim Jinkyung then remembered that he had come out to drink water.

“Cup….”

Kim Jinkyung looked around to find a cup, but Mok Seongha took out a cup and handed it to him.

…It irritates me. Why does he act so pointlessly and minutely considerate? It causes my heart to tremble.

Kim Jinkyung murmured thank you in a small voice. He poured water from the purifier and drank it, then he started pouring another glass.

Mok Seongha stood leaning with his arms folded, and he observed Kim Jinkyung as Kim Jinkyung received the water.

“Why do you act that way?”

“What?”

“Do you intend to drink more water?”

“No.”

“……”

Then why aren’t you leaving?

“Don’t you drink?”

Mok Seongha inquired. Kim Jinkyung turned around, and gulped down the water. He was not a minor drinking alcohol in front of an adult, yet he felt tense. After Kim Jinkyung finished the water, Mok Seongha took away Kim Jinkyung’s cup.

He then filled the cup full of water again from the purifier, and he handed it.

“Drink.”

“Yes?”

Kim Jinkyung opened his eyes wide, and he looked back and forth between the water cup and Mok Seongha.

“You said you get thirsty when you see a man. Drink.”

Because it was the grave that Kim Jinkyung had dug himself, he meekly accepted the water and drank it. Even after Kim Jinkyung emptied the second cup, Mok Seongha did not leave.

“Drink.”

“…….”

Mok Seongha poured water into the cup again, and he handed it to him. At this point, Kim Jinkyung wondered if Mok Seongha was tormenting him. Perhaps he had noticed that Kim Jinkyung liked him, so he was trying to fill Kim Jinkyung’s belly with water to kill him….

While Kim Jinkyung drank the water, he stole a glance at Mok Seongha. His nose was straight, and his golden eyes sparkled, like a feline’s eyes when it is watching something fascinating.

Kim Jinkyung set down the cup.

“Is it enough?”

“It is fine now.”

“Really? That is regrettable.”

“…What is?”

“You drinking water amuses me. Perhaps because your throat is narrow, this part moves with a gulping sound.”

Mok Seongha pointed to his Adam’s apple as he spoke. His neck muscles that connected from the jaw to the collarbone added a clear presence whenever Mok Seongha moved. Sweat trickled along the tightly woven grain of his muscles.

Kim Jinkyung struggled to shift his gaze to another place, and he started sweating excuses.

“The size of the throat is about the same. There will be no big differences among people. Probably, although it is not exact…. Ah, and as I mentioned last time, for memorization subjects, it would be good if you organize while listening to internet lectures, and please tell me separately only the parts you do not understand.”

“Hey.”

“Yes?”

“Are you still feeling pathetic?”

At first, Kim Jinkyung did not comprehend what Mok Seongha was saying, so he blinked a couple of times. Then, as he recalled the nonsense that he had uttered earlier, his face grew hot.

“…I think I will be pathetic throughout.”

He really was pathetic. He should have been looking for reasons to lose interest, but all he was doing was staring at that body.

“Why are you pathetic?”

At Mok Seongha’s query, Kim Jinkyung lifted his head. Their eyes met. Mok Seongha was not teasing or mocking. He was genuinely curious.

“Well.”

Kim Jinkyung lowered his head.

If he could end this crush quickly, would he feel less pathetic?

“…I ruined the exam.”

Kim Jinkyung chose the most realistic and plausible reason.

“So that’s why you slept with a man?”

“…….”

Why does the conclusion lead there….

“I did not sleep with him. I did sleep, but…. I only slept.”

“Ah, yes. Of course you only slept.”

Mok Seongha echoed with a tone that conveyed not even a speck of sincerity. Kim Jinkyung seethed with rage, but because it was the grave that he had dug, he quickly calmed down.

“Anyway, that how it is.”

Kim Jinkyung mumbled in a weak voice.

He had tried to explain why he found himself pathetic, but saying it out loud only made him feel pathetic anew. He didn’t even want to imagine what score he might get on an exam he had taken with no memory of it.

“So what if a college student messes up an exam?”

“College students receive report cards too. Good grades allow you to receive scholarships, and they lead to good employment.”

“Are you that short on money?”

“It is not that short, but…. I must receive scholarships.”

Kim Jinkyung had to receive scholarships to gain time to study, and good grades would lessen worries about job hunting.

It was a timeless truth.

“I’ll tell Secretary Kang to register you as a foundation scholar. I will cover the tuition until you graduate.”

“No. It is fine.”

Kim Jinkyung refused firmly.

His connection with Mok Seongha was supposed to last only until the college entrance exam. His duty ended once he got him into a good university.

He could not guarantee what would happen to his own feelings afterward, but he did not wish to prolong the relationship through scholarships or anything of the sort.

He had been handed a dead cat to begin with. He didn’t want the ttibuseal to leave marks.

“Once you take the entrance exam, it’s normal for things to end with your private tutor. Haha.”

Kim Jinkyung said while laughing.

Considering the scenario where Mok Seongha entered college on his first try, it was the most beautiful ending possible. He expected an indifferent “yeah” in response, but even after some time passed, only chilly silence lingered.

Kim Jinkyung smiled awkwardly and lifted his head. Mok Seongha stood there with an expressionless face. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

“Haha….”

Kim Jinkyung scratched his cheek.

What, did I make a verbal slip?

“…If I achieve good scores, it ends?”

Mok Seongha still did not smile. The cold golden eyes looked down at Kim Jinkyung.

“And if you don’t get good grades… am I finished?” Kim Jinkyung asked, frightened. Mok Seongha answered with a simple yeah.

“It ends.”

“…….”

“So make me pass no matter what.”

“I understand.”

Kim Jinkyung brought both hands together and answered politely. Mok Seongha walked past him. The sound of his footsteps echoed in the quiet hallway.

“And you.”

“Yes?”

“The way I licked you until my tongue went numb, I did it so you’d teach me properly. It didn’t do it so you could have sex.”

“…….”

“If you skip tutoring one more time because of that kind of thing.”

Mok Seongha’s lips curled slightly, showing his sharp fangs. It looked like if he bit into someone’s neck, an artery would tear open and blood would gush out.

It felt like hot blood was flowing down beneath Kim Jinkyung’s heart

“You die.”

“…….”

…I didn’t do it.

Though the unfairness made him feel choked, it was true that he had skipped tutoring, so Kim Jinkyung had no choice but to nod. Mok Seongha, having obtained the answer, returned to his room with an expression like a satisfied cat whose belly was full.

1. 띠부씰 (ttibuseal) is the correct word. It’s a Korean term that comes from 띠었다 붙였다 할 수 있는 씰, meaning a seal or sticker you can peel off and stick back on repeatedly. Over time, that phrase got shortened in speech to 띠부씰. 떼부씰 (tteebuseal) would come from 떼다, to peel off. Linguistically, Kim Jinkyung thought it would make sense, because 떼었다 붙였다 sounds logical. But 떼부씰 is not the word people use. ↩︎
2. Schrödinger’s cat is a thought experiment where a cat is considered both alive and dead at the same time until someone opens the box and checks. It represents a situation that exists in two opposite states at once because no one has confirmed the outcome. ↩︎