By Zephyria 
The police car clung precariously to the cliff for a long time. It looked incredibly unstable, as if it might crash through the guardrail at any moment.
Shortly after he luckily grabbed the policeman’s cell phone and called the man, the car finally succumbed to the weight and plunged into the sea.
The two officers in the car had already escaped, but Eun-myeong could not.
It was because of the handcuffs locked around his wrists.
“Ugh, hng.”
His toes trembled violently. He was truly exhausted now. The seawater, which had already risen to just below his nose, kept surging into his nostrils.
The seawater pressing down on his body was as cold as ice. The waves were unimaginably fierce and relentless. They crashed over Eun-myeong’s body repeatedly, as if telling him to just get lost and disappear.
“Hng, ugh….”
Eun-myeong alone remained in this narrow space.
This place was no different from a living hell.
In a place that was noisily silent and coldly terrifying, he was quietly disappearing all by himself.
Since it was a life where he had nothing anyway, he should have had nothing to regret.
And yet. If there was one single lingering attachment in his pathetic life, it was simply the man.
If he had lived, if only he had survived, perhaps he could have secretly visited and stolen a glance at him whenever he missed him too much.
…Of course, that was a story for after he got out of the prison cell.
But now, trapped in this prison made of the sea, Eun-myeong truly could do nothing.
Being alone like this, the sea was so terrifying and frightening. It felt like a monster ready to swallow him whole.
…Am I dying like this?
Am I really dying like this?
Clang, clank!
Eun-myeong tried pulling at his wrists again, but the handcuffs firmly locked to the handle only caused immense pain. To make matters worse, it was raining outside, and all the car windows were closed.
The situation was dire.
He felt every single minute and second. Now that the time to die had come, time flowed incredibly slowly. Eun-myeong thought of the man very slowly.
He thought he had lived a truly wretched life.
Looking back, that wasn’t true.
Even when he thought he would surely die trapped in that fish warehouse, the man had come to find him, hadn’t he?
Under the moonlight, the man had appeared before him like a savior who existed solely for his sake.
Ah, looking back now, all the hatred for the man had been love. Eun-myeong loved every memory of him.
The Boss hated it when people talked about love, but that was the only thing Eun-myeong could think of in this moment.
If only I had been a slightly better person… what would it have been like?
Would he have loved me too?
Maybe it’s better for the Boss if I just disappear like this. The cell phone he had dropped floated by, flickering. It seemed to be malfunctioning.
Eventually, the seawater completely swallowed Eun-myeong.
Eun-myeong struggled wildly. It was agonizing. It felt as if an invisible hand was gripping his throat and pressing down hard. He felt the water force its way into his lungs.
In times like this, the man used to come to save him, but today might truly be the end. Eun-myeong fought between endless hope and despair. It was a truly silent war.
Eventually, the strength drained out of Eun-myeong’s body.
“……!”
Suddenly, something seemed to appear in his faintly open vision.
It was a large, black silhouette. With something sharp in his hand, he smashed—bang, bang!—through the car window. The face visible beyond the glass seemed, somehow, to resemble the man.
Is this a dream….
Even in the moment he was drowning in the sea, Eun-myeong thought of the man. Then, the agony vanished as if washed away, and he instead felt a sense of peace.
Then came the blackout.
“Ha, gasp!”
The man crawled up the cliff, clutching Eun-myeong tightly in his arms. The body trapped in his embrace was like a sheet of ice.
He hurriedly laid Eun-myeong down on flat ground. When he placed a finger under his nose, no breath came out.
Thump—the man felt as if his heart had stopped. But there was no more time to waste.
He immediately grabbed Eun-myeong’s small chin and tilted it up. Holding Eun-myeong’s tongue with his fingers, he breathed deeply into that beak-like mouth.
He repeatedly blew air into the lungs that must have shriveled from the lack of oxygen.
Eun-myeong’s lower abdomen repeatedly pushed up against the man’s large palm. The thin skin of his stomach was bloated for once. With this slender body, just how much seawater had he swallowed while trapped in that godforsaken sea?
“Ung, hu, haak!”
Finally, water surged out of Eun-myeong’s mouth. Eun-myeong’s small airway gasped incessantly. It was precarious, as if he might just drop dead at any second.
Eun-myeong vomited the water out in great heaves.
“Eun-myeong.”
Water dripped from the man’s entire body. Streams of water flowed down from his forehead, his ears, his eyes, and his chin.
“Wake up, huh?”
The man tapped Eun-myeong’s pale, white cheeks. The body touching his fingertips was unimaginably cold, like ice. Because it felt like hugging a corpse, the man rubbed his face with both hands in confusion.
“Fuck….”
Inevitably, the image of the corpse he had seen on the beach overlapped with Eun-myeong’s face. The man seemed to be suffering from a terrible nightmare.
Ah, you.
You shouldn’t die like this.
“Look at me.”
The man lifted Eun-myeong’s hand and wrapped it around his own cheek. He, too, let out a ragged breath, drenched in water. The fear that he might lose this person forever made his throat tighten.
“Baby, please open your eyes.”
How long had he waited for him, trapped in that sea? Even though he had come, Eun-myeong could not open his eyes and only let out continuous, ragged gasps.
The man buried his face in that small, freezing hand.
Please.
The man cried out desperately, not even knowing who he was praying to.
It was then. The thin breath suddenly faded, and the hand resting on Eun-myeong’s stomach dropped limply.
It fell as if life had been lost. The man’s eyes went hollow.
Eun-myeong was rushed to the emergency room. Unable to open his eyes at all, he fought against a severe fever.
“Cold, so cold…, I feel like I’m going to die of cold.”
Clack, clack, clatter—his teeth chattered. The sight of his entire body shivering, as if someone were pinning his limbs down, was heartbreaking just to watch.
No matter how many thick blankets were layered over him, his body temperature wouldn’t stay up, and cold sweat poured down his chilled skin.
The man held Eun-myeong in his arms and would not let go. Unaware that his shirt was becoming soaked with Eun-myeong’s sweat, he was busy soothing and comforting him like a baby.
Eun-myeong clung desperately to his warm body heat. The sight was so pitiful and heartbreaking.
“I’m scared….”
Whether he was having a nightmare, tears occasionally streamed down his face. He seemed to be out of his mind due to the high fever.
“I’m scared, I don’t want to, I won’t do it….”
He didn’t even seem to know what he was saying.
Eun-myeong heaved up gastric juices and groaned from stomach pain. Since he had inhaled such salty water into his lungs without respite, it was only natural that his stomach felt as if it had been burned.
The man didn’t care that his shirt was soiled by the gastric juices Eun-myeong vomited; he simply wiped Eun-myeong’s body.
He wiped the corners of his mouth with a wet towel. He wiped every single finger, the nape of his neck, his stomach, and his back.
“You’re not scared, not at all, it’s all a dream.”
He stayed by his side, accepting all the whims of the delirious Eun-myeong. Because Eun-myeong showed even more severe seizure-like symptoms whenever he stepped away, the man could not leave the bed for a moment.
No, he simply didn’t want to leave.
He whispered into Eun-myeong’s soft, downy ear.
“Those fucking bastards are all just a dream.”
The man’s eyes were not just bloodshot; the capillaries had all burst. Eun-myeong gripped the man’s side. Tight, very tight.
Desperately, as if he were clutching the last straw.
“Mm….”
The man looked down at Eun-myeong’s fingers. A bright red liquid began to seep between the white fingers.
“Shh.”
When he had jumped off the cliff to save Eun-myeong, he had smashed the car window with the pommel of the sashimi knife from his car trunk. He had to pull Eun-myeong out through that gap, and that was when a piece of glass had embedded itself in his side.
It must have been quite a large piece, as blood had spurted out like a fountain when the man pulled it out.
Even so, the man had simply taken some gauze from the hospital and shoved it into his wound. He didn’t even feel the pain. Even now, as Eun-myeong burrowed into his embrace, digging into the wound that had only been roughly staunched.
“Good boy.”
A faint smile played on the man’s lips.
For the sole reason that Eun-myeong was in his arms.