By Zephyria 
A breeze as soft as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings blows.
The wounds on the man’s knuckles must have almost healed by now, and the weather has softened, breaking its edge like a cotton quilt…
He had promised his Noona that he would return, so he really should tell him now that he is leaving. But Eun-myeong kept hesitating. Because he knew that once the words left his mouth, it would become an irreversible reality…
And so, like a patient given a terminal diagnosis, he continued to extend the days spent with the man, one day at a time.
Eun-myeong was trimming spring greens with Aunt Jeong-hye. He sat around the newspaper-covered table with a sullen face. He took a handful of wild chives from the overflowing basket and flicked away the dirt.
“Correcting the mistakes of the past and becoming a new person. This is called ‘Gaegwa-cheonseon,’ a complete reformation.”
Aunt Jeong-hye was solving a four-character idiom quiz in the newspaper to kill the boredom. There were Chinese characters mixed in here and there, and she answered them all correctly. Watching her, something drifted into Eun-myeong’s mind.
“Auntie, do you happen to know these characters too?”
“Which ones?”
Eun-myeong flicked the dirt off his hands onto his apron. Then, taking a ballpoint pen, he pressed down firmly to write the characters one by one in the corner of the newspaper.
Lilac
The words were completed, giving off a somewhat rounded feeling. Although Eun-myeong was completely illiterate when it came to Chinese characters, he had looked at the man’s body so many times that he could now write them perfectly even with his eyes closed.
“Let me see.”
The aunt perched her glasses on the tip of her nose and looked at the newspaper from a distance.
“I’m not sure what this one is.”
She tilted her head. Her face looked as if she had no idea what it meant.
“Is that so?”
Eun-myeong felt disappointed and smacked his lips.
Just then, his cell phone vibrated. Even so, Eun-myeong had no intention of answering; he simply stared down at the small gray cell phone that fit comfortably in one hand. No matter how he looked at it, it was a number he had never seen before.
Aunt Jeong-hye, who was beside him, glanced at Eun-myeong.
“Aren’t you going to pick up?”
“It’s an unknown number, but they keep calling. I don’t think anyone knows this cell phone number.”
Aunt Jeong-hye continued as she bent one knee.
“Ugh, you have no idea how many of those advertisement calls come in. It’s annoying to death.”
Another aunt nearby joined in while flicking dirt off some shepherd’s purse.
“Lately, something like… bo, botto? I heard those are trendy now?”
Hyo-jin Noona cut into the conversation from the side, vigorously scrubbing the table with a dishcloth.
“No, voice phishing.”
She tucked her short hair behind her ear and corrected the aunt’s pronunciation. Then, she flipped the cloth with a snap and scrubbed the table again with the clean side.
“Voice phishing?”
Eun-myeong blinked. When he asked what that was, Hyo-jin Noona lightly scolded him, asking why a young kid was so out of the loop.
“If you answer a call from an unknown number, they talk nonsense about being a prosecutor or a police officer from some department, and then they strip away your account number and password.”
She said that once that happens, they sweep away tens of millions of won and cause total chaos. Eun-myeong, who had been listening quietly, turned pale.
“Just by answering the phone, money disappears like that?”
“That’s right. And once the money is stolen, they say you can’t even catch them. I heard they even take out private loans in your name.”
At the mention of the word ‘private loans,’ Eun-myeong clamped his lips shut. It was because unpleasant memories suddenly surged back. In any case, those who lived by scamming others were unnervingly clever.
Eun-myeong glared at the cell phone with wide eyes. He vowed that he would never answer that call, even by mistake.
Sensing someone at the door, he turned his head.
“Welcome.”
And at the face that entered, Eun-myeong softly bit his lip.
A body as massive as a tank, a suit that looked as if it had been plastered onto that frame, and a scent that enveloped the entire man in a thick, heady musk.
Two thug misters, who had been sitting to one side keeping a sharp eye on Eun-myeong, jumped up first and bowed deeply.
“Boss, you’ve arrived.”
Usually, it was a slow time for customers, but by chance, a large group had visited, making the restaurant bustling and noisy.
“Here is the raw fish noodles.”
As soon as he set the bowl on a customer’s table, more orders flooded in. “One more raw fish noodles here,” “Please give us a bowl of rice,” as the words followed in succession, Eun-myeong quickly memorized each order in his head.
However, even as he scurried all over the hall, all of Eun-myeong’s nerves were focused on the Maehwa Room located in the back.
He kept glancing toward the closed door. A faint black silhouette flickered beyond the paper screen. It was likely the man’s back. For some reason, he had appeared alone today.
There were almost no customers who visited the sashimi restaurant alone. Then, could he have come to see me? The thought made his heart thumping. Embarrassed, he hugged the tray tightly to his chest.
After a while, the customers’ orders slowed down, and taking this as his chance, Eun-myeong hurried into the Maehwa Room carrying a complimentary dish.
“Boss.”
But the room was already empty.
Could he have left already? After leaving the grilled eel plate in the room for a moment, Eun-myeong ran anxiously out into the alley.
The man was standing there, immersed in the deep darkness. He was smoking a cigarette, the ash turning white. In his other hand, he held a cell phone.
He was there; he hadn’t left after all.
In an instant, a bright glow, like smooth porcelain, appeared on Eun-myeong’s face. He quickly scurried to him and threw himself into his arms. The chest of the man he lunged toward held a hot heat, as always.
The man, who was in the middle of a call, asked with his lips in a look of disbelief.
‘What?’
Eun-myeong rubbed his forehead vigorously against that body heat. He rubbed as if he didn’t care if his skin were peeled away. His forehead turned bright red. The man dropped the phone from his ear and laughed like someone who found the situation absurd.
“Are you dying to talk about that damn love stuff again?”
The sound of someone calling “Boss?” could be heard from the phone, but the man simply hung up.
“How is it that your head is filled with nothing but thoughts of being loved by me?”
The man gripped Eun-myeong’s waist tightly with his firm forearm. He chuckled, asking how he could act like a newborn puppy. At the crooked curve of the man’s lips, Eun-myeong felt as if his heart had been scorched.
“No, it’s not that… I brought some complimentary food.”
He continued speaking, his shoulders trembling as if he had been caught off guard.
“Eel is in season lately, so I grilled some.”
“Eel?”
Even if the man was a VIP customer, providing grilled eel as a complimentary service was a bit much. It wasn’t the highest grade, but he hoped the man would realize that he had put a great deal of effort into it…
Eun-myeong looked up at the man with moist eyes. However, the way the corners of the man’s mouth curled into a strange smirk sent a sudden, chilling sensation sliding down his spine.
“There’s a fellow flopping around under here too, so why bother?”
The man pulled Eun-myeong’s hand and made him grip his crotch tightly. At the heavy, hot energy that filled his hand, Eun-myeong recoiled with a start, as if burned.
He was teasing him like this again. Every hour, every second Eun-myeong spent with the man was precious, but the man was always full of dirty ideas to make fun of him, which only made Eun-myeong feel upset and anxious.
“…Boss, you don’t know how I feel.”
He hadn’t meant it in such a vulgar, sexual sense. It was simply his pure devotion.
If he wanted to know if the man had actually left the shop, he could have just checked if the bill was paid. But his heart had raced ahead of his head, and he had come out wearing this ridiculously red apron.
Compared to the man, who was perfectly dressed in a suit, he was wearing three-thousand-won triple-stripe slippers and a red apron with a picture of a female celebrity holding a bottle of soju.
What a massive gap. Eun-myeong felt utterly miserable. His lowered eyelashes trembled.
“Then I’ll be going, the orders are piling up…”
Just as he turned to leave the alley, a forearm roughly yanked him back.
“Why…”
He tried to ask why he was doing this, but the man roughly swallowed Eun-myeong’s lips first.
He greedily sucked on the narrow philtrum, entwined his tongue filthily, and thrust a large piece of flesh into the throat.
“Ugh, uuh…”
At first, Eun-myeong was so surprised he froze like a block of ice, but remembering they were in front of the shop, he pounded the man’s chest with his fists, his face flushed red.
But it was useless. The man, whose chest muscles were as hard as concrete, was completely reckless. He lunged in greedily as if to devour him, leaving no way to block him. Only Eun-myeong’s pounding fists hurt.
“Haa, ngh, Boss…”
The man’s tongue flicked against his lingual frenulum with a slapping sound and then swept across the sensitive roof of his mouth. It felt as if the inside of his mouth were melting away.
Eun-myeong groaned and clung to the man’s waist. Before he knew it, he was hanging onto him, exhaling ragged breaths. It felt so good that he unconsciously acted coquettishly, asking for more.
Finally, with a wet sound, their lips parted. The man gazed at Eun-myeong with sticky eyes.
“…”
What an invasive gaze. Eun-myeong was so embarrassed he felt like finding a mousehole to crawl into and hide. The fingers gripping the man’s shirt curled instinctively.
A strong urge seized Eun-myeong that he had to say something. Then, the tattoo flashed through his mind. He felt around the man’s thick flank with his hand.
“W-what does this mean?”
He asked between wet, shallow breaths, panting softly. He asked what this tattoo meant.
“You still don’t know that?”
The man asked back. As he did, he gripped Eun-myeong’s hand. He made him trace the tattoo one by one with his fingers.
“Red ‘Ja,’ rake ‘Jeong’.”
For Eun-myeong, these were characters he had seen so often he could recite them even if he woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. Every time he traced a stroke, the man’s ribcage expanded and contracted deeply. Huff, huff. Along with the erotic breaths, the muscles dipped and surged. Eun-myeong felt the back of his neck grow hot and his crotch itch for no reason.
“…Fragrance ‘Hyang’.”
The last word flowed from the man’s lips. Eun-myeong let out a long, humid breath. His plump cheeks were so reddish that they looked as if they would pop with a single touch.
“It’s the scent that comes from your nape.”
Eun-myeong couldn’t find the words to continue. The tension made the inside of his throat feel tight. So, he just parted his lips breathlessly, gasping. It felt as if the man were holding his chest in his hand, making it hard to breathe.
Eun-myeong, with lips damp from the man’s saliva, looked up at him blankly. Facing that defenseless face, the man murmured.
“Get ready. I’m taking you to Seoul.”