TTDOTO 6.6

The sound of gasps and sharp intakes of breath drew the eyes of everyone nearby, and the man, looking severely embarrassed, hurriedly fled the scene.

Even after the man had gone, Jae-rim did not pull away, continuing the kiss for a long time. The sound of people whispering felt exceptionally sharp as it pierced Jae-an’s ears. The moment Jae-an tried to twist his head away, Jae-rim bit down hard on his lip. He only released the grip on the nape of Jae-an’s neck after he had finally torn the skin and drawn blood.

“Ha… ha…”

Passersby were busy stealing glances at the two men who had just kissed in the middle of the street. Jae-an could only breathe raggedly, staring at Jae-rim’s lips, which were now stained with his own blood. Dazed by the onslaught of sensations, he couldn’t even feel the pain in his lip.

“Get in.”

Only then did he see Seo Jae-rim’s car standing idly in the middle of the adjacent road. The street was already a chaotic mess as other cars scrambled to avoid Jae-rim’s vehicle, which had been brought to a halt at a skewed angle.

The sound of honking horns. The murmur of the crowd. The smell of blood, and the sound of his own heart. His head spun.

“What the fuck are you looking at!”

Seo Jae-rim, unlike his usual self, couldn’t hide his agitation. When he barked savagely at a pedestrian who was staring, the others who had been stealing glances quickly looked away.

Jae-an couldn’t understand why Jae-rim was this worked up. This was the same person who had once pushed him into Jang Han-seong’s den just to “correct his habits,” yet now he was flying into a rage simply because that man had spoken to him. If he had been watching, he surely must have seen Jae-an rejecting the man.

Drowned in confusion, Jae-an stood frozen until Jae-rim grabbed his wrist and dragged him. Led along like a doll, Jae-an was shoved into the passenger seat, and Jae-rim slammed the door shut with brute force.

Without so much as a turn signal, the car crossed the center line, made a U-turn, and sped off. After racing down the road in a mad silence, Jae-rim’s car came to a slanted halt in the garage, nearly scraping the wall.

It was a sudden stop so violent that his body jerked forward. Jae-rim unbuckled his seatbelt, got out, and strode around the front of the hood toward the passenger side. Fearing he might be struck if he were even a second too slow, Jae-an’s hands moved frantically to undo his own belt. In that time, Jae-rim had already yanked the door open and painfully pulled Jae-an out by the wrist he was using to hold the handle.

“I—I can walk, ah…”

Jae-rim didn’t even pretend to listen. He dragged Jae-an out of the car and walked roughly, still gripping his wrist. Even when Jae-an, being dragged along, nearly tripped over a stone in the garden, Jae-rim did not slow his angry pace.

As soon as they stepped through the front door, Jae-an was shoved into ‘that room.’ His sneakers, which he hadn’t managed to take off, tumbled across the hallway in different directions.

“Let go and talk…!”

At that weak resistance, Seo Jae-rim released his wrist. Because he let go with such pent-up temper, Jae-an stumbled, nearly falling. After managing to stand upright, he reflexively cradled his throbbing wrist. Red finger marks remained clearly etched over the scarred skin of his wrist. It was a grip so strong it would surely leave blue bruises by tomorrow.

With a series of loud thuds, Seo Jae-rim began opening and closing boxes. An organized box was knocked over. Jae-an’s belongings, which had been gloomily collected there, spilled out like vomit, and from among them, Jae-rim picked up a leather collar coiled like a snake.

Jae-an backed away, searching for a place to hide in the furniture-less room. The moment a cold hand reached for the nape of his neck, he twisted his body and struggled, trying everything to avoid being caught.

“N-no…!”

Seeing Jae-an’s unusual resistance, Seo Jae-rim decided it was impossible to put the collar on him. Instead, he snatched Jae-an’s wrists and began wrapping chains around them haphazardly.

“Ah, stop it, Seo Jae-rim…! It hurts, it hu… rts…!”

“Stay still before your arm breaks.”

“What did I—what did I even do to deserve this…? I didn’t do anything!”

Tears welled up in Jae-an’s large eyes. It was unfair. He was helpless and had done nothing, yet this rage was being directed entirely at him.

However, Jae-rim didn’t even respond. With a hardened face, he tightened the chains until there was no slack. Blood began to stop flowing into the wrists crushed by the intersecting links. Seeing his hands turn deathly pale, Jae-an cried out convulsively.

“I don’t have a name or a phone number to give him! You know that better than anyone!”

“And if you did, would you have given it to him?”

Seo Jae-rim’s golden eyes, devoid of any emotion, locked onto Jae-an. At that suffocating expression, Jae-an shook his head frantically. No, no. Really, no. He repeated the word “no” over and over in a trembling voice. Instead of answering, Jae-rim walked toward the hook on the wall to fix the end of the chain, and Jae-an let out a pleading voice as he was dragged along.

“I was just taking a walk…”

As he was pulled, Jae-an tried to dig his feet in and resist. But because of his slippery socks, he had no choice but to be dragged across the marble floor. The only thing he could hold onto was Jae-rim’s wrist.

“During my walks… you’re not supposed to… monitor me. Right?”

“I intended to, but what can I do when bugs  like Jang Han-seong keep pestering you?”

This meant that since the incident with Jang Han-seong, surveillance had been attached even to his thirty minutes of freedom. That was how Seo Jae-rim was able to show up exactly where the man was. The moment that frost-chilled voice pronounced the name “Jang Han-seong,” Jae-an’s tongue froze like ice.

Seo Jae-rim had killed the ‘bug’—Jang Han-seong. And now, he had used the expression ‘bug like Jang Han-seong’ for that stranger.

If he provoked Seo Jae-rim any further, there was no telling what would happen to that man. He couldn’t forget the profile of Jae-rim’s face as he had stared intensely at the man’s business card.

“…Hic.”

Jae-an’s shoulders jerked. It was a hiccup triggered by shock. While Jae-an was frozen in terror, Seo Jae-rim reached the wall with the hook. However, Jae-rim couldn’t clip the chain on his first try, his hands fumbling repeatedly. The metallic clattering of the unlinked chain echoed several times.

“Fuck, seriously. This is so fucking shitty, seriously.”

Seo Jae-rim was currently in a state of extreme agitation. His statue-like face was as calm as usual, but his breathing was heavy, and he was completely failing to control his words. Curses flowed incessantly from his expressionless face.

“Fuck the tutoring, just stay in the house. Just stay the fuck cooped up in this house until you die.”

At that bone-chilling mutter, Jae-an belatedly realized why Seo Jae-rim was so angry. There was a common thread in every situation where Jae-rim became violently enraged: it was whenever Lee Jae-an slipped out of his control. The suicide attempt, the blackmail with the photos Jang Han-seong took behind Jae-rim’s back, and the man he happened to meet today—all of them were unexpected variables.

“Everything that lingers around you, Hyung, is so dog-tired annoying.”

The moment that blade-like rage turned toward others, Jae-an’s eyes wavered.

On the day of his first suicide attempt in the car, a man named ‘Lee * Yoon’ had been reported dead in his place. When Jae-an had slit his own wrist, Jae-rim had cut the wrist of a foreigner, saying he would show him how to die properly. And the moment he learned Jang Han-seong was blackmailing Jae-an with photos, he had asked without hesitation if he should kill him. Every time Seo Jae-rim was enraged because he couldn’t control him, he took that anger out on someone else.

At this rate, Seo Jae-rim would hurt someone again. Staining those scar-covered hands with blood once more and using that to threaten Jae-an was Jae-rim’s characteristic, cruel method of “discipline.”

A dark shadow fell over Jae-an’s eyes as his shoulders shook with a small hiccup. He looked up and saw the thick chain, and at the end of it, Seo Jae-rim was leaning over, trying to hook it.

Clink, fuck, clink, clink, fuck. The sound of metal hitting metal and Seo Jae-rim’s cursing alternated as the hook refused to cooperate.

It was too loud.

Both in his head and in his gut.

Covering his ears with his palms, Jae-an turned his head to the side. The wallpaper, woven with fine, regular patterns, began to swirl. He stared at the wallpaper with bloodshot eyes, then tilted his head back, and the solid wall suddenly rushed toward his face.

Thud.

Seo Jae-rim’s cursing stopped, and the clinking of the chains ceased simultaneously. A moment later, dizziness set in, and Jae-an lifted his head again, then slammed it back into the wall.

As he hit his forehead once more with a thud, his nose struck the surface as well, and blood immediately began to drip from it.

“You… fuck.”

He felt Seo Jae-rim straighten up and grab his shoulders. Jae-an stumbled, then turned his head back toward the wall again. As Jae-an lunged toward the wall like a bug drawn to a light, Seo Jae-rim threw the chain aside and grabbed both of Jae-an’s shoulders, pulling him back forcefully.

“What are you…!”

Finding the swollen forehead and the nosebleed triggered by the impact, Seo Jae-rim’s eyes wavered for a brief second.

“I was… wrong, hic…”

Jae-an apologized. Despite the unsightly hiccups, dizziness made Jae-an close and open his eyes very slowly.

“I was… wrong.”

Jae-an wiped under his nose with his unchained hand. Even after wiping it once, the nosebleed continued to flow down his philtrum and over his lip line. There was more blood than expected. Jae-an continued speaking, unconcerned. He had to say what he had done wrong.

“I was wrong for talking to him. I should have ignored the card or the business card or whatever, but I’m sorry I took them. I was wrong. I’m sorry for calling you an acquaintance—.”

“Shut your mouth.”

Cutting off Jae-an’s words, which had grown wet and slurred from the blood, Seo Jae-rim let go of his arms and wiped under Jae-an’s nose for him. Jae-an stared blankly at Jae-rim’s blood-stained hand. ‘Yes, if blood must be on that hand, it’s better that it’s mine.‘

“If you tell me… what I have to do, hic, I’ll do as I’m told.”

Despite his dizziness, Jae-an steeled himself. Seo Jae-rim was someone who always punished self-harm. Since he had committed self-harm by banging his forehead, he might be chained up again, or beaten, or he might have to endure being taken right here until his body tore.

But if it meant he wouldn’t hurt anyone else, Jae-an could endure any punishment. He could keep smashing his head against the wall until it split open and bone was exposed. If he had to be collared, stripped naked, and bound, he was prepared for that too.

Please, I hope he doesn’t hurt anyone else anymore.

While the silence stretched on, the nosebleed that had been hanging from his chin began to drip and stain his clothes. Staring at the blood-smeared face, Seo Jae-rim took a step back, distancing himself from Jae-an.

“Fuck…”

Seo Jae-rim chewed on a curse and slowly wiped his hand over his face. The blood on Jae-rim’s hand smeared across his pale cheek. The chains wrapped around Jae-an’s hands hung loosely, having failed to be connected to the wall.

It was a suffocating silence brought on by Jae-an’s self-harm. Only then did Seo Jae-rim calm his agitation and part his dry lips.

“You, who never listens for shit… you’ll do as you’re told?”

“…Hic.”

At the same time he wiped the flowing blood with the back of his hand, a hiccup burst out.

“Then…”

With a voice that was almost a murmur, Seo Jae-rim gave a faint smile and continued.

“Since I’ll take care of all the bugs that pester you and your boring life…”

“…….”

“Can you manage to love me?”

Hic. Jae-an hiccuped again. He had to say he would before the answer was too late, but his blood-soaked lips wouldn’t easily part. Jae-an only lifted his gaze as if checking Jae-rim’s reaction.

The unusually disheveled bangs, the blood on the white cheek, the madness in the eyes beneath long lashes, and the red lips curved into a smile—all of it blurred and wavered in Jae-an’s vision.

“That expression, seriously…”

Seo Jae-rim, who had been smirking, eventually burst into laughter as if it were absurd. But the overbearing atmosphere neither vanished nor was hidden. Jae-an’s fingertips reflexively curled.

In that twitching moment, the blood hanging precariously from the tip of his nose dropped again. Jae-an wiped his nose with a finger and quickly straightened his expression.

“I’ll try, if that’s what you want. But…”

He knew he shouldn’t add anything more, but strangely, his lips moved on their own. He must have broken something when he hit his forehead so hard.

“Can we… really do that?”

Jae-an watched for a reaction, and though he stammered, he couldn’t stop the words Seo Jae-rim would hate.

“You don’t… actually like me either.”

“…….”

“That ‘loving me’ stuff… it’s not real, is it…?”

His voice was pathetically thin and hoarse. However, upon hearing that weak voice, the smile instantly vanished from Seo Jae-rim’s lips.

“What the hell do you know, Hyung?”

“…I’m sorry.”

Hearing the sharp retort, Jae-an immediately tucked his tail. Seeing Jae-an, who had quickly looked away with a faint apology, Seo Jae-rim closed and opened his eyes tightly. To avoid cutting off the flow of the conversation that Jae-an, who rarely revealed his inner thoughts, had finally started, Seo Jae-rim consciously imitated a gentle voice.

“Don’t just ignore it. Tell me.”

At the tone that was less fierce than before, Jae-an stole a glance at him and spoke softly.

“You hate me. …I think you hate me.”

Jae-an sniffled and wiped the blood flowing from his nose. Because his nose was stuffed, his voice was muffled, and his breathing was irregular due to the hiccups.

“How can you do this, hic, to someone you like…? It’s… it’s strange.”

“What’s strange about it?”

“If I were you… I would have been… a little kinder. Then you never know. Maybe… you never know…”

Jae-an’s rambling voice grew smaller and smaller until it finally cut off. Jae-an, his head bowed with a darkened face, felt his heart beating heavily, not knowing how Seo Jae-rim would react. Then, he heard Jae-rim’s sigh above his head.

“So.”

“…….”

“Have you ever liked me back when I was your ‘kind younger brother’?”

Jae-an blinked at the question asked in a heavy, damp voice. He reflexively looked up at Seo Jae-rim and protested.

“I did like you—.”

“Lee Jae-an…!!”

Cutting him off and shouting his name, Seo Jae-rim was clenching his jaw as if holding something back.

“You probably just felt sorry for me because I was a pitiful kid. Not those kinds of childish feelings.”

“…….”

“I’m asking if you’ve ever wanted to fuck, body and soul, without a single thought for the consequences, just like our fathers did—even once.”

Jae-an’s eyes widened, and his breath hitched.

Seo Jae-rim knew too. About that disgusting affair between their two fathers.

Jae-an asked in a trembling voice.