By Zephyria 
Last night’s kiss, which felt like a punishment, lingered in his mind. His body forcibly held, his tongue ruthlessly plundered, and even amidst the suffocating pain, the points of contact burned intensely.
A cold dawn, a body brimming with warmth, a kiss like a venting of anger that drove him to the edge of a cliff.
What was all that about?
A tense silence, like a taut tug-of-war, continued.
Ha-jin steadfastly met the weighty gaze that settled upon his face, swallowing hard. The look in his eyes, scrutinizing his reaction as if pondering or contemplating something, was unsettling.
“……”
“……”
Before long, the silence that had tightly constricted them shattered.
“Rest well until today, and we’ll depart early tomorrow.”
Eden released Ha-jin’s wrist, which he had been holding, and turned away.
“Don’t overexert yourself, just lie down.”
He added those words and vanished from the room in an instant.
Ha-jin stared at the door closing emptily, exhaling a long sigh. Even a fleeting moment of eye contact had left him feeling as though all the strength in his body had drained away.
“Haa…”
An unknown tremor laced his breath. A tingling sensation still lingered on his wrist, where the warmth had disappeared.
❖ ❖ ❖
Perhaps because the sun hadn’t completely set yet, sleep didn’t come easily. Ha-jin stroked Pie’s neck as he stretched out beside him, trying to sleep.
Grimy bear stickers were plastered all over the opaque windowpane. One, two, four, seven… He counted the numbers meaninglessly, but drowsiness didn’t come.
The sunset, warmly illuminating the room, felt lonely. The deathly silence only muddled his mind into a quagmire.
Weapons and food, travel routes, survival, his younger sibling Jun-seok and Mi-so, Byeol, Jeffrey… Chun-beom, and… Jeong Tae-geon.
Jeong Tae-geon, Jeong Tae-geon….
As he repeated Eden’s name, a strange throbbing pain shot through his chest. The emptiness and loneliness he had felt last night seemed to still linger in his heart. He had returned, but the terror he had experienced once was not easily shaken off.
“……”
After hesitating, Ha-jin turned halfway and looked down. Eden, lying on the bare floor with a thin blanket, had his hands clasped behind his head and his eyes closed peacefully.
‘I told him to just come up and sleep, but he’s so stubborn….’
They were planning to prepare and leave early in the morning, so he had gone to bed earlier than usual. In the meantime, Eden had found an extra blanket and made a separate bed on the floor. He said he was giving the bed to Pie, but Ha-jin couldn’t shake the feeling that he was avoiding him.
And that wasn’t all. After that inexplicable eye contact, he hadn’t given him a single glance. Even when he tried to strike up a friendly conversation, all he got in return were curt, monosyllabic answers. Humiliatingly, Ha-jin felt a sense of disappointment at his distancing attitude. They were in the same space, but he felt like he had been left alone.
After hesitating, Ha-jin finally got up. Carefully, so as not to wake Pie, he climbed down from the bed and squatted beside Eden’s head, gently shaking his shoulder.
“Jeong Tae-geon, are you asleep?”
Whether he was deliberately not answering or had really fallen asleep, there was no response.
“Just come up and sleep together. Why are you sleeping on the floor when there’s a perfectly good bed?”
He continued to talk for a while, but still, there was no response. Ha-jin eventually gave up trying to wake him and sat curled up in a ball.
“Hmm….”
Tick-tock, tick-tock…. Time passed by. Instead of forcing himself to sleep, he rested his chin on his knees and blankly scanned Eden’s face.
The monolid on his right eye, which seemed to appear when he was tired, remained distinctly visible even with his eyes closed. Without realizing it, Ha-jin gently stroked it with his index finger.
The skin that touched his finger was softer than he had expected. As if possessed, he traced the eye socket along the brow bone. He then moved his index finger to the bridge of his nose, slowly sliding down the high line until it settled on his philtrum.
He felt the prickly texture of stubble. He must not have found a razor, as it had been several days since he shaved. Strangely, it felt more like a healthy wildness than untidiness.
It was the moment his finger, enjoying the sensation like artificial turf, moved under his chin.
“Have you touched enough?”
“Eek!”
Ha-jin, utterly startled, fell on his backside. At the same time, his back hit the bedside table, and the table clock rolled off onto the top of his head with a thud.
“Ah!”
A sharp pain rang through his spine and head. Ha-jin curled up like a pill bug and quickly rubbed the top of his head. He was completely disoriented.
“Ugh….”
Eden, who had already risen, roughly brushed away the hand covering his head.
“Stop acting crazy and stay still.”
He sighed and rummaged through Ha-jin’s hair. A bump was rising on his reddened scalp, but fortunately, there were no other visible injuries.
At the sound of another sigh from above his head, Ha-jin bit his lip, feeling embarrassed.
“What is it? Fidgeting around in front of me.”
When he looked up, slightly reddened eyes, as if tired, were directed at him. The gaze looking down at him, with one hand resting on the bedside table, was filled with inexplicable irritation.
Ha-jin hurriedly made excuses.
“I was just going to say that since the bed is big, you could just sleep together instead of sleeping on the floor. I tried to wake you up, but you wouldn’t wake up, so I was just waiting, and then I was just curious about the stubble, so I just touched it.”
How many times are you going to say ‘just,’ you idiot…. While silently berating himself, Eden’s body, which had been trapping Ha-jin, moved away.
“That’s enough, just go up and get some sleep.”
He said curtly and lay back down on the floor.
Ha-jin, who had been awkwardly curled up, looked at Eden, who had fallen away so easily, with a puzzled expression.
‘What’s wrong with him, really?’
At this point, he wondered if he had stuck his dick in his face or something. Because it was a situation where he could only see that he was clearly avoiding him.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“……”
“If not, just come up and sleep together. There’s no need to sleep on the floor when the bed is big.”
Eden slowly removed the back of his hand that had been covering his eyes. After staring at the ceiling for a while, he finally slowly sat up.
Taking advantage of the gap where the crimson sunset that had been illuminating the room had disappeared, a dim light settled in. A heavy silence descended, as heavy as the darkened room. In the meantime, Pie whimpered softly, as if sleep-talking.
Eden turned to face Ha-jin, who was sitting in front of the bedside table. The gaze that immediately fell upon him was somehow as cold as frost.
It was the moment Ha-jin, whose spine had turned cold from an unknown chill, was about to say something.
“Ugh…?!”
His neck was suddenly constricted by an immense force. He was grabbed by the collar and, before he knew it, followed Eden as he rose from his spot.
“Wh-What…!”
Immediately afterward, unwavering fingertips quickly burrowed inside Ha-jin’s short-sleeved shirt. His left hand, passing over his warm abdomen, firmly gripped his chest.
“Ugh, what the…?”
The sudden sexual stimulation caused his steps to involuntarily move backward. As he faltered, Eden pinned Ha-jin against the wall. Thud…! At the same time, the door closed.
Ha-jin widened his eyes and mouth in disbelief. Then, firm teeth bit down hard on his lower lip. Ah! Following that, a thick tongue invaded his mouth.
Ha-jin’s voice, which had been about to say something, was swallowed down his throat.
“Mmm!”
There was no time to come to his senses. His flat chest was gripped as his lips were sucked painfully. His lower body was also pressed tightly together, making it difficult to even struggle. As if not allowing even the slightest movement, Eden relentlessly pushed him against the wall.
It was a different feeling from the violent kiss they had shared in the bathroom last night. As all his senses vividly flared up, as if his closed eyes and ears were opening, Ha-jin’s chin trembled.
As his body writhed from the somewhat overwhelming sexual stimulation, the hand that had been caressing his chest slid down and grabbed his arm. Soon, both hands were raised above his head. Feeling a slight resistance to the completely trapped position, Ha-jin groaned through his throat, “Ugh, ugh!”
Slurp…! With the sound of wetness, Eden’s face moved away.
“Haa… haa…!”
Ha-jin, breathing heavily, stared in disbelief at the saliva that stretched stickily between their lips. The saliva soon broke and drooped weakly to the tip of Eden’s chin.
Only then did the hazy vision clear, and his dilated pupils contracted sharply.
“Jeong Tae-geon. This is….”
Once is a mistake, but twice is not a mistake. Eden seemed to know that clearly as he once again sucked on Ha-jin’s lower lip, which was wet with saliva and glistening.
“Haa, how far are you willing to go?”
Was it just his imagination, or did the question feel like a threat? Ha-jin blinked rapidly and swallowed the warm saliva he hadn’t yet swallowed.