By Zephyria 
“…A place to go back to?”
Eun-myeong felt as if his heart had plummeted and shattered. A gaping hole had been carved into his chest.
“Next time, maybe that sashimi restaurant will do? Hmm?”
The man’s eyes remained fixed on him. Now, he was even using the sashimi restaurant as a threat, smoking leisurely as if he already knew the answer.
Dazed, as if he had been struck in the back of the head, Eun-myeong finally realized.
Ah, because Eun-myeong—who naturally had to obey the man—wasn’t complying with his wishes, the man was displeased.
“For a reason like that… that was the house where Noona and I lived.”
You should have just lied. Told me you did it to destroy the evidence. If you had, I’m such a clueless idiot that I would have understood even if my house burned to the ground.
But he wouldn’t even give him a white lie.
He hated him; he resented the man so intensely it felt like madness.
Eun-myeong dropped his gaze. The tips of his white socks were slightly singed, and his big toes poked out. His toenails were stained black from the soot. His whole body felt grimy, and he thought he could smell a foul burnt scent.
He had thrown himself into a man as fierce as a wildfire, and in the end, everything he owned had burned away. All that remained was this wretched, useless body. Like a fish skeleton after all the meat had been stripped away.
“It was the first house I bought with my own saved money….”
Eun-myeong’s lower lip trembled. While his body shook violently like an aspen leaf, the man remained composed.
He had a look on his face as if he were wondering where a dog was barking. As if Eun-myeong’s feelings or attitude didn’t matter in the slightest. As if he wouldn’t blink an eye even if Eun-myeong simply vanished like air.
“…….”
“…….”
A chilly silence flowed between the two. In a stillness that felt as if a ghost had swallowed them whole, only the whistling sound of the wind filled the void. The terrace door must have been slightly open, as a side breeze drifted in and fluttered Eun-myeong’s shabby clothes.
“…I am not some fly.”
He wasn’t some insect that could be swatted to death just because he was annoying or didn’t obey.
“I’m not an insect you can just crush.”
Eun-myeong bit his lower lip hard. The tender flesh trembled as if it might burst at any moment. Slowly, indignation surged within him. The anger rising from his heart swelled, making it throb painfully.
“Stop acting cute and cut it out.”
The man tried to pull him closer, but Eun-myeong stood his ground.
“I’m not some dog that comes and goes whenever the Boss tells me to. The reason I came when you told me to, and left when you told me to, was because…”
Eun-myeong’s small chest heaved. His breath caught, and he swallowed hard.
“Because I…”
Because I love you.
The next words couldn’t bring themselves to leave his lips. Eun-myeong could only gasp for air. His heart had already been rejected countless times; would confessing it once more change anything?
He was already exhausted. His heart had become a ragged piece of cloth. He knew that the emotions he had forced himself to cultivate were drawing a distorted, messy picture, like a cast net with tangled threads. He knew it himself. Yet, because these feelings were so precious, he had clung to them tightly on his own.
By forcing them to grow, it had eventually become a trap with a hole too large to escape.
And looking back now.
He hadn’t realized that as the boat rocked in the storm, the torn cast net was entangling his ankles. He hadn’t realized he was being helplessly dragged into the deep sea.
He wouldn’t have been greedy for this moment to last forever; he just wanted the man to prioritize him, at least when they were together. He just wanted him to give his heart fully, if only for now.
Perhaps then he could have found a sliver of hope. But everything was already ruined.
Just as his clothes and body were filthy, his heart was in a pitch-black sewer. At this point, every moment he had given his heart to the man felt like a mirage. What on earth had he been loving all this time?
“What? Are you going to start the love talk again?”
The man laughed, his chest shaking, as if he were genuinely looking forward to it. Eun-myeong felt like he was on the verge of tears, his heart burning so hot he couldn’t control it. How could the man be so composed?
“…….”
Come to think of it, it was always like this. Only Eun-myeong was anxious, like a puppy needing to pee. He spent every day worrying about how to make the man look at him once more, hold him, or find him appealing.
It was his own life, yet the man had so easily placed a collar around his neck and snatched the leash away.
And every day, only he—like a fool, miserably, subserviently—was begging…. The emotions surging within him now were too violent to be pressed down with a palm anymore.
And so, like a bursting dam, like a total collapse, Eun-myeong blurted it out without realizing.
“…You’re mean.”
“What?”
It was then. The man’s right eyebrow shot up. It was the first sign of agitation from a man who had remained perfectly calm. His white eyes gleamed sharply, and it was terrifying enough to give one chills.
“Baby, what did you just say to me?”
However, the man quickly regained his composure. He asked again as if he had misheard something. The voice echoing from his chest like a cave was incredibly eerie.
“You’ve really lost all fear, haven’t you, you little thing.”
He smiled, his mouth stretching wide again, but his eyes were not smiling at all.
At that, Eun-myeong shrank his shoulders. He could tell by the instinct screaming through his entire body: he must not defy him any further. A terrifying sense of crisis shook him completely.
The man had never once raised a hand to him, but he dealt with anyone who rebelled against him ruthlessly, without looking back.
But having already opened the floodgates, he couldn’t stop.
He remembered the moment the man’s face twisted in a scowl. The euphoria that had bloomed in his chest like a fever-flower back then….
I was the only one always anxious. Because I knew this relationship was a thin, fragile thread that would snap the moment you let go, I was the only one tossed hither and thither like a colt with its tail on fire.
“The Boss is a mean and cowardly person…!”
With a grimy face, Eun-myeong glared, his eyes wide. Since he was doing something so unlike himself, his eyes stung and smarted; he closed them tightly for a moment and then snapped them open again.
Screech, SLAM! As soon as Eun-myeong finished speaking, the terrace door closed with a thunderous crash. The whistling wind continued to batter the glass window.
Once again, a chilly silence pressed down on the suite.
“Have you ever seen the stray dogs that live on the street?”
The man moved his jaw from side to side, making a clicking sound. He crushed the glowing cigarette in his hand.
“Not only can they not fill their bellies day by day, wandering through trash cans, but if they’re unlucky, they get kicked by things that aren’t even human. They live so miserably just because they were abandoned by their owners….”
Though he was saying something random, Eun-myeong could easily read the hidden meaning.
Do you want to end up like that?
That was what the man was asking. White smoke curled up with a hiss from the thumb that had crushed the cigarette. It must have been hot and painful, yet the man didn’t even flinch an eyebrow. He simply shone a piercing blue light toward Eun-myeong. Eun-myeong was suddenly terrified.
He had truly stepped into an irreversible current. If he kept going, he might not even be able to follow the man around like a goldfish’s poop.
But for Eun-myeong, this was the limit. Both his body and heart were tattered like rags. It felt as if the wind was blowing through the gaping holes.
“Owner… dog…?”
Muttering softly, Eun-myeong approached him as if possessed. With his hips, soft as a ripe peach, he climbed up, pressing against the man’s hard thighs, and grabbed the man’s chest.
“You should have done this from the start.”
Only then did the man relax the tension in his expression. He smiled wickedly, twisting one corner of his mouth. He had a look that said, I knew you’d be like this.
A thick arm wrapped around Eun-myeong’s waist. The man probably thought Eun-myeong had surrendered and embraced him willingly, but far from it.
With his hand on the man’s side, Eun-myeong pulled down the robe. lilac Every single stroke of the characters was etched into Eun-myeong’s gaze.
Spring was gone, the flowers had all fallen, and the scent had vanished….
But his heart remained here.
“No matter how poor I was, I once had indoor slippers they gave me at the orphanage.”
They were too big for Eun-myeong’s small, delicate feet. They had given him large ones on purpose so he could wear them as he grew, but because Eun-myeong’s growth was slow, he had to drag them around for a long time.
They were so big that his heels slipped out every time he walked, making him almost trip, but he was still happy.
Because they were his. They were the first thing that belonged solely to him.
“And my name was written on them. I loved it so much….”
Eun-myeong’s life was one of deficiency. The absence of family, lack of affection, poverty, scarcity, and debts that kept draining his bank account no matter how hard he worked…. Everything was the embodiment of emptiness, but those slippers remained a fond memory.
“But I don’t write ‘slippers’ on my own body, because I am the owner of the slippers.”
Eun-myeong covered the man’s side with his palm. He could feel the heart thumping. Looking at the man’s face, he seemed almost the same as usual, yet his heart was beating this fast.
It was almost believable that the heart might jump out of his chest. Following that violent beat, Eun-myeong’s own heart seemed to beat in sync.
“But the Boss wrote ‘Lilac’ right here. Then, who is whose owner….”
Even if he loved him, he wouldn’t be loved in return. He felt as if he would wither and die at this rate. This was no different from when he used to hang from the window to steal glances at the volunteers. He was still young, foolish, and lonely.
Eun-myeong spoke back firmly, unlike his usual self, but his voice trailed off at the end. The voice, fluctuating in volume, sounded like a small puppy barking after having its tail stepped on.
“Then why do you say you don’t like me? How am I supposed to handle the confusion?”
The man looked down at Eun-myeong, holding his breath. His chest was puffed out, as if he were holding back his respiration.
His composure, too, had broken.