SLC 56

Kim Jinkyung washed his hands in the sink and wiped them dry with a towel. The pregnancy test, now capped, sat in plain view. He had read the instructions twice before he started. They said it would take three to five minutes for an accurate result to appear.

Kim Jinkyung stared at the test and let out a sigh. He was overcome by a deep, heavy sense of self-loathing.

“…I’m pathetic.”

He had turned pale and rushed out to buy a pregnancy test just because of a single joke from a junior.

Did that make any sense? It was impossible for two men to get pregnant. Besides, they only did it last night. Fertilization can occur within a day. No, men cannot conceive in the first place! …But then again, the fact that a human could turn into a panther made no sense either.

He had loitered in front of the pharmacy for thirty minutes before he finally went inside and bought the test. Even after he returned home and set the test down, Kim Jinkyung agonized. He felt as if he would cross a point of no return if he opened that packaging.

However, after another bout of nausea forced him to retch, Kim Jinkyung tore the packaging with trembling hands.

He believed it was absolutely impossible, but he couldn’t let go of that “What if?”

Ever since he met Mok Seongha, the paradigm of his entire life had shifted. He used to never believe in things that science could not explain, but now, he began to doubt everything.

As the time written in the manual approached, his heart beat faster. His stomach churned and he profusely sweated.

What if there are two lines? What would he do if two lines actually appeared? He had lived his whole life single, and if he got pregnant after having sex just once….

The string of irrational thoughts made Kim Jinkyung laugh.

“Haha….”

Is this the process of how people start to believe in cults?

“…Am I crazy?”

“Who is?”

Kim Jinkyung turned around in terror at the sudden question. Mok Seongha was standing there, dressed impeccably, leaning his head in to look at him.

“Ack!”

Kim Jinkyung screamed and quickly hid his hands behind his back.

“What is it?”

Mok Seongha asked.

“O-oh, it’s nothing.”

…That response just now was incredibly awkward and unnatural. Of course he would not believe it.

“Is that so?”

Mok Seongha replied as he turned his body.

Did he believe me? …Maybe I have a talent for acting.

That delusion ended when a hand reached out.

“……!”

Surprised, Kim Jinkyung tried to reclaim the test quickly, but Mok Seongha was already looking at the result window.

“Corona?”

“N-no. …Is it two lines?”

“No. One line.”

As expected. It was so obvious, yet he had to buy this to confirm it…. He wanted to die.

“What is this?”

Kim Jinkyung tried to snatch the test before Mok Seongha could properly read it. He had to protect his dignity as a human being. However, he was outmatched in both height and strength. Mok Seongha restrained him in an embrace with one hand and read the words on the test.

Kim Jinkyung desperately reached out. He finally managed to snatch the test from Mok Seongha’s hand, but the latter had already figured out the situation.

“You….”

“B-because Seongha-ssi said those things back then…. I bought it just in case, but I know it’s obviously not true. I know it too. But since a human turning into a panther makes no sense, I thought there might be a 0.1% chance….”

Kim Jinkyung could not even look Mok Seongha in the face as he spoke. He felt like he might cry from shame. Cold sweat ran down his body and his stomach churned.

“My stomach feels so….”

Kim Jinkyung stood up again. He ran to the sink and began to gag. Mok Seongha rushed to him.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Ugh….”

He had nothing to throw up, so only clear gastric juice came out. Kim Jinkyung’s legs gave out and he sank to the floor. Even his hair, soaked with cold sweat, felt heavy.

“Hey! Teacher! Hey!”

…Are “Hey” and “Teacher” even a proper combination?

Kim Jinkyung mumbled words he wanted to argue to the handsome guy through his blurred vision and lost consciousness.

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“It’s acute indigestion.”

The doctor said as he pulled back his stethoscope.

“He passed out from indigestion?”

“Plus, he has accumulated fatigue.”

“But he pass out?”

“Yes. The human body is stronger than one might imagine, but it is also weaker than one might imagine.”

The doctor rose from the floor.

“He had symptoms of dehydration, so I connected an IV. He will be fine. Watch his meals for a while. Don’t get stressed. Don’t overdo it.”

Kim Jinkyung kept his eyes tightly closed and hid his face with a pillow out of embarrassment. He had to hear advice he could get at any local clinic from a university hospital professor.

“Doesn’t he need surgery?”

Mok Seongha asked with such a serious expression that the professor could not even get angry. He simply repeated the same words.

“It is indigestion.”

“So you’re saying there’s no need for surgery?”

“….Why would you cut open a perfectly fine stomach?”

Kim Jinkyung protested in a tiny voice from under the pillow.

“You should open it up to check if he’s okay.”

“…….”

Is this guy crazy?

“You don’t cut open a person’s stomach so easily. Please take the prescribed medicine and rest.”

“…I’m sorry.”

Kim Jinkyung thanked the doctor in a small voice.

“Doctor.”

Mok Seongha stopped the doctor as he was about to leave.

“Yes.”

“He’s not pregnant, right?”

“…Yes. As I told you earlier, I bet my medical career that he absolutely is not. A man cannot get pregnant. Never.”

Kim Jinkyung’s grip on the pillow tightened.

He wanted to die. He should have died before he bought the pregnancy test. If he had, neither he nor that doctor would have had to suffer this mental trauma.

“Well, I shall take my leave.”

The doctor left the apartment. Even after he heard the front door close, Kim Jinkyung did not think of coming out from under the pillow.

Mok Seongha snatched the pillow and threw it away. Their eyes met.

“…It really was just indigestion.”

Kim Jinkyung made an excuse.

Fortunately, he had regained consciousness immediately after he collapsed on the bathroom floor. When he found Mok Seongha, who looked even paler than himself, trying to call Secretary Kang, he mustered every bit of his strength to stop him.

He insisted it was indigestion. He said he simply had indigestion and refused to go to the hospital.

He could not forget the cold gazes he received from the doctors when he was previously carried in for faking an illness. If he went there again for simple indigestion, he would surely be despised to an incomparable degree.

“Does it make sense that your face is this pale just from indigestion?”

“That’s just….”

“Let’s go to the hospital now. Get an MRI and an X-ray. Get blood tests, and….”

Kim Jinkyung grabbed Mok Seongha’s hand.

“I am really okay. It is just because I am tired and was too tense.”

It was his first experience. He naturally did not know that accepting a man would be such a painful and difficult task. It was even a special situation with a special partner. They had spent the entire night connected below while having intercourse. It was only natural for his whole body to ache.

Mok Seongha looked down at Kim Jinkyung’s hand and sat on the floor again.

“Are you really okay?”

“Yes.”

It was embarrassing enough to call a professor from a tertiary hospital for symptoms of this level. And he felt like he wanted to die of shame because Mok Seongha had asked about the possibility of pregnancy with such serious expression.

…Though that was a grave he had dug for himself.

“My stomach just felt a bit bad all day, and I think I overdid it.”

“If your stomach is bad, you should rest at home. Why do you push yourself? Are you an idiot?”

“…I am sorry.”

“What are you sorry for again….”

Mok Seongha could not finish his sentence and bit his lip. He caught his breath while he tried to suppress his anger, then he held Kim Jinkyung’s hand tightly.

“Do you have other symptoms? Are you sure?”

“Yes. I only threw up because I was feeling nauseous. I think I ate the ramen too quickly.”

Kim Jinkyung laughed weakly.

“I am going to set fire to all that fucking ramen.”

“…….”

It seems I won’t be able to eat ramen in front of him for the time being.

“Finish this IV first, then we talk.”

“…Yes.”

Mok Seongha glared at the falling drops of the IV fluid and kept his mouth closed. Not long after, when the fluid was fully administered, he called the standby nurse to remove the needle. Only after he received the prescribed medicine did all the people waiting nearby disappear. Kim Jinkyung finally felt a bit of the burden lift from his mind.

“Do you want to take the medicine?”

“Yes.”

Mok Seongha brought a glass of water, opened the medicine packet, and placed it in Kim Jinkyung’s palm.

“Thank you.”

He put the medicine into his mouth and swallowed the water. Just as he was about to take another sip because the pills felt slightly stuck in his throat,

“I’m sorry.”

Kim Jinkyung’s eyes widened when he received the unexpected apology

“It is because of me that you are like this.”

…What are you talking about? We just concluded it was because of the ramen and that you would set fire to it.

Mok Seongha sat on his knees and continued to speak with his fists clenched.

“You are hurting because I am fucking terrible at sex.”

Kim Jinkyung almost spat out the water in his mouth. He barely managed to swallow but coughed, then he asked, “What?”

“I should have stopped, but it felt too good. Your inside was slippery, and every time I thrust, it clung to my cock, so I thought my dick was going to explode….”

“……!”

Kim Jinkyung was horrified and blocked Mok Seongha’s mouth with his palm.

“Don’t, don’t say things like that.”

Mok Seongha looked down at Kim Jinkyung’s hand. Then he stared at him. The breath against his palm felt hot. Kim Jinkyung quickly withdrew his hand.

“But it is the truth.”

Mok Seongha replied calmly.

This damn cat. Until recently, his entire sexual knowledge consisted of a single book titled. “Puberty and Beautiful Sex,” and he was the type to confidently claim that men did it through the belly button.

Kim Jinkyung sighed as he looked at the man before him who seemed to have grown up so much in an instant.

“Anyway, it is not because of Seongha-ssi.”

“It is. It’s because I was so bad at it.”

“That is….”

If someone asked if the sex with Mok Seongha felt good, the answer was yes. To hug the person he liked, to kiss him, and to reach a climax was a more incredible experience than he had imagined. However, if someone asked if it was good the entire time, the answer was no.

First of all, it hurt. Mok Seongha was too big, the surface was rough, and the glans even swelled during intercourse through some unknown mechanism. Every time he thrust and pushed with that, it felt like being beaten inside. That was not the end. Because the transformed organ got stuck inside.

It did not even slide out. Their lower bodies remained connected all night, and he was repeatedly driven to climax. Through last night’s experience, Kim Jinkyung learned that pleasure can become a form of torture when it is excessive. Because he felt too much, his toes ached and his thighs trembled uncontrollably. Eventually, he became so sensitive that he reached climax just from Mok Seongha biting or sucking on his skin.

“Rather than being bad at it….”

He did not have enough experience or knowledge to discuss the quality of sex. However, yesterday’s experience could not be called successful. Everything was too much. The strength, the duration, and the size. While Kim Jinkyung hesitated to find the right words, Mok Seongha lowered his head.

“Am I clumsy?”

“No. It is not that either….”

They were both equally clumsy.

“Am I terrible? Is it the worst? Was it like trash?”

Mok Seongha asked. Kim Jinkyung shook his head.

“It is absolutely nothing like that.”

“…I will do better.”

Mok Seongha grabbed Kim Jinkyung’s hand, placed his forehead against it, and continued to speak while leaning over.

“I will work harder and do better, so….”

No. Don’t work harder. Please. Don’t try to do anything.

Just as the pale Kim Jinkyung shook his head and tried to speak.

“…Don’t be sick.”

Mok Seongha expressed his feelings in a murmur.

“And don’t die.”

He knew what the man feared most. Kim Jinkyung raised his hand and stroked Mok Seongha’s hair.

“All people… die.”

“……!”

Mok Seongha turned his head up.

“And everyone gets sick.”

“You….”

“It is impossible to never be sick and never die. I cannot make that promise. What is the point of making a promise that is a lie?”

Kim Jinkyung continued as he looked at Mok Seongha, who stared at him with an expression of disbelief.

“But I won’t be seriously ill. …This time was a bit of an exception.”

In his life, the times he caught a cold could be counted on one hand. This was the first time he had vomited from indigestion. …That was why he committed the legendary foolish act of buying a pregnancy test.

“So don’t worry too much…ah!”

Mok Seongha jumped into his arms. Kim Jinkyung’s breath was knocked out of his lungs, but he hugged him while pretending nothing was wrong.

“…How can I not worry?”

The arms wrapped around Kim Jinkyung’s back tightened.

“You seem smart but you are actually an idiot. You look like the perfect target for a scam. …And you like men way too much.”

“…….”

“You worry about me too.”

“…Yes. I am worried in many ways.”

He was also starting to worry about his own life, which had become entangled with someone like this.

“So…fuck. Just don’t die if you can help it.”

“Yes. I will do that.”

Mok Seongha tightened his hold and buried his head deeper. Kim Jinkyung silently stroked his hair. They stayed like that for a long time. He felt the man’s breath against his stomach.

I think it is about time we separate.

Kim Jinkyung placed his hand on Mok Seongha’s shoulder.

“Um….”

“…I’m not doing it.”

He murmured. Mok Seongha looked up at Kim Jinkyung and continued.

“I won’t do that kind of thing to a sick person.”

Only then did Kim Jinkyung notice that the space between Mok Seongha’s legs was bulging.

“By the way, how is the Chairman?”

He changed the subject for now.

“He decided to be discharged tomorrow afternoon.”

“Is he going home?”

“Yeah.”

It seemed they had reached a conclusion in their conversation. Kim Jinkyung chose his words and then spoke.

“You will be seeing each other often from now on.”

He could not say he was relieved or that it was good news. He was not ignorant of the reason why a terminal cancer patient would leave the hospital.

“We will probably fight every day. He nags a lot.”

Mok Seongha continued.

“Chew without showing your food, don’t make noise by hitting the spoon or chopsticks against the dishes, receive things with both hands when an elder gives them to you.”

“…Did the Chairman not teach you to use honorifics with people older than you, Seongha-ssi?”

“No.”

“…….”

He expected as much, but to think it was actually the case. Kim Jinkyung looked at how Mok Seongha used informal speech regardless of status or age and wondered where he had learned such manners.

He simply never learned them in the first place.

“Do I have to do it too?”

“Yes.”

Kim Jinkyung nodded at Mok Seongha’s question.

“To you as well?”

“In principle, you should do so to me too, but.”

“Then do I use honorifics from now on?”

“No. It is fine.”

He had used informal speech all this time anyway, so he felt there was no point in changing it now.

“Just, from now on, you should use honorifics with people older than you, like that doctor from earlier.”

“I get it.”

Mok Seongha buried his face against Kim Jinkyung’s stomach and asked, “Anything else?”

“Pardon?”

“Tell me if there is anything else I need to fix.”

“I will let you know when I think of something.”

Mok Seongha nodded. Then he suddenly raised his head as if he remembered something.

“Can I sleep here tonight?”

“Don’t you have to go back to the hospital?”

“I just need to be there by tomorrow morning. The Chairman actually kicked me out and told me to sleep at home today. The probability of rain tonight is over 30% too.”

He could not think of any more reasons to send Mok Seongha away. Kim Jinkyung gave up and said, “All right.”