#58

However, it likely wasn’t only because of him that Amber had been driven to such a dead end.

The life of someone prone to self-destructive behavior does not change easily. Everything surrounding Amber had changed, but had Amber’s perspective on it changed as well? Tennessee pondered that question.

“It must hurt; how did you walk here?”

Amber asked in a casual tone, pressing a towel against his thigh, where blood was still seeping out.

Having walked with great effort, Tennessee perched on the edge of his bed.

“Show me.”

“Why are you being like this? It’s embarrassing.”

And yet you freak out when I try to get close. Amber tried to make a joke, but Tennessee’s expression remained unchanged.

“Show me.”

As Amber’s lips trembled and he struggled to speak, Tennessee reached for his waist. Though tense, Amber did not resist. The drawstring of the sweatpants was loosened. Avoiding the dark-colored drawers, Tennessee gripped Amber’s thighs and gently spread them apart.

The tender flesh parted. Lacerations that had not yet healed were revealed. When Tennessee pressed down near them, beads of blood easily formed and trickled down. The wounds were much deeper than he had expected. A manifesto of love and hate.

“Why did you do this?”

“It hurts…… but it makes my mind feel at peace.”

It’s suffocating. Like opening the lid of a pot that’s about to boil over, by making a hole in the flesh and letting the thick blood drain out, it feels as if something highly toxic is flowing out along with the blood.

He also felt a sense of relief. It felt like proof that he was different from Huston. That monster of the past who resolved his own inferiority and twisted desires by destroying others.

The cuts were like empirical evidence telling Amber that he was not a monster like Huston.

“……Ah.”

Amber frowned as Tennessee took the towel and applied strong pressure to the wound. He shook his head to forget the pain. Then, he carefully rested his chin on Tennessee’s shoulder.

“It hurts.”

Amber let out a groan into Tennessee’s ear.

As if protesting, Amber hugged Tennessee. He fit tightly within his arms. As if trying to alleviate the pain by clinging to him, he rubbed his cheek against Tennessee’s ear and head. It was a pitiful gesture.

“Why do you have that look on your face?”

Once the bleeding had stopped, Amber’s thumb brushed Tennessee’s eyebrow. The thick brow slid smoothly beneath his fingertip.

Tennessee didn’t ask what his face looked like. It was a relief. Had he asked, Amber wouldn’t have been able to answer properly. Because it had been a comment born of intuition. In reality, Tennessee’s expression wasn’t much different from usual. But in that moment, Amber felt as if he had seen into Tennessee’s inner self.

“I feel relief when I self-harm. Because it hurts, I feel like I’m paying for my sins.”

“Sins of what?”

“The sin of having bad thoughts.”

I shouldn’t say it. There’s no turning back.

Despite the warning bells of reason, Amber opened his lips.

“Imagining that you stay in pain, or that you become a complete invalid, so that you rely entirely on me, stay with me, settle down…… and never leave me again.”

Unable to bring himself to look at Tennessee’s face, Amber rested his chin on his shoulder again.

“I think about it every moment. I want to lock you up. Would you look at me then?”

“Even if it weren’t my legs, I’d always be broken somewhere.”

He wasn’t just talking about the intermittent seizures that occurred during the night. Tennessee had never, for a single moment, considered himself normal. After everything that had happened, how could he?

Amber laughed softly. What he possessed was not such a clumsy desire for ownership. Amber truly wanted to break his legs. What would happen if he cut them off above the ankle?

Amber knew well that imagining such things was a sin in itself.

“I’m broken, and you’re broken too, Tennessee. The broken pieces fit together.”

And then, Amber hugged Tennessee and whispered like a sigh.

“It hurts so much, Tennessee.”

“I’ll give you a painkiller, under the bathroom sink—”

“It hurts so much I can’t stand it. When will I stop hurting?”

Tennessee pressed his lips firmly together. Even without looking, he could picture Amber pitifully rubbing his cheek against his ear.

Whenever he was like this, Tennessee found himself unable to do anything. It had been that way when Amber was a child, as he grew older, and even more so now that he was an adult.

On one hand, Tennessee’s sharp intellect saw clearly that this was bait.

Since you’re a coward, I’m doing this for you. It’s not that you’re shamelessly attracted to me, but because I’m this wretched, this pitiful, so you have to help me.

He could hear Amber’s voice even without him speaking.

Pushing away Tennessee’s hand after the bleeding had stopped, Amber revealed the wound like an offering. A wound where the scab had barely begun to harden. Pushing aside the towel in Tennessee’s hand, Amber let Tennessee’s bare fingertips trace the wound directly.

Look at what you’ve done to me. It hurts. You said you didn’t want me to be the one in pain.

A deep sigh escaped Tennessee’s lips. Damn it, he needed to get the surgery done quickly. It was obvious that Amber’s face wouldn’t be much different from when he was a child; surely, seeing that beautiful face should have reminded him of eleven-year-old Amber, but his broken mind wouldn’t allow it.

25 – Chapter

In Tennessee’s eyes, he saw a stranger every time. Thick black eyebrows, eyelashes that cast long, sorrowful shadows, and vivid blue eyes that contrasted sharply with his black hair. The handsome stranger was sobbing and pleading as if begging for something.

It was Amber, yet it wasn’t Amber. Tennessee thought vacantly that if he hadn’t known the Amber of the past, and if Ryker had been the start of their first connection, perhaps he would have approached him like this.

Wet lips parted. Amber’s lips opened faintly in front of Tennessee, just enough for his tongue to be barely visible. Feeling as if something were tightening around his heart at that movement, Tennessee opened his lips, his mind gradually fading into a blur.

“Call my name.”

“……Amber.”

Tennessee breathed it out as if under a spell. His voice was very low.

Now the ball was in his court. It was your choice. Amber slowly closed his eyes. Tension and fear made it hard to breathe, but he wasn’t gasping like before. He waited. For the decisive verdict of the guillotine.

And then, he was completely consumed by the touch and the breath that approached him hotly.

Lips bit down roughly. His entire body began to flush with excitement at the vivid tooth marks. The air grew hot quickly. While clashing lips breathlessly, Amber urged him.

“You like me, don’t you?”

Firmly locked lips. He would open those lips, which were surely soft, and rip out your heart.

Hot breaths exchanged as their lips locked tightly. Gasping, Amber whispered quickly.

“You love me.”

“Yes.”

“Not as a child. You love me.”

He would rip out the heart and chew it up without leaving a single drop of blood. He intended to bite down on that hotly throbbing heart, filling his mouth.

“You were turned on watching me do it alone. You couldn’t take your eyes off me.”

“Be quiet.”

“Tennessee…….”

Amber pleaded one last time.

“Does the world end just because the sun sets? Our relationship isn’t breaking. It’s becoming something new.”

Previously, he thought he had ruined the relationship. He believed he had shattered the peaceful agreement he had with Tennessee, who cherished him and gave him a rare kind of affection. But in order to reconstruct something, one must first dismantle it. He had simply realized that too late.

“Ha…….”

A sigh of unknown meaning. Did it mean he was fed up? Just as Amber grit his teeth in misery—

“Yes.”

Thunder struck. Creek, creek. Like forcing open a rusted treasure chest, Amber put strength into his arms to pry it open. As if he had to see the gold contained within at any cost. A storm raged. The chest opened, and everything inside came rushing out in chaos.

“You were scared, that’s why you ran away, right?”

“Yes.”

Unable to overcome his passion, Tennessee bit Amber’s neck. A firm bridge of a nose dug into the thin nape, and hot tongues and breaths exploded.

“Why were you scared?”

“Haa……. I was afraid I’d ruin it.”

After breaking the thing he cherished with his own hands, Tennessee instinctively felt that he could never go back to how things were.

After meeting Amber, Tennessee had hoped. He hoped that the things he cherished could remain cherished. He didn’t want to leave his dirty boot prints on something perfect.

In the distant future, he didn’t want Amber to look back on his own past and paint him as a predator who took advantage of ignorance.

“Ha, ngh, tell me… how much you missed me for two years.”

Two hard-standing members clashed through thin clothing. The erect pillars rubbed against each other, boasting their presence.

“You…….”

“Ngh,”

“I only worked because you kept coming to mind.”

Damn it. Tennessee did not hide his passion.

“……Why didn’t you contact me for two years?”

“Because I couldn’t face you, but I couldn’t cut you off either.”

Amber thought it was a cowardly answer, but not a bad one. As a result, he had been tortured by hope, but he felt the anger and incomprehension that had filled him to the brim gradually oxidize. The anxiety wouldn’t be resolved immediately, but at least he knew he hadn’t been discarded without regret.

He knew of the coward hiding behind Tennessee’s back, and he recognized the fear lurking behind his flight, but hearing the confirmation from Tennessee’s own mouth was different.

Yes, though he may have avoided him, he hadn’t simply left him behind.

“Why do you keep provoking me?”

“……Tene, ugh.”

Why are you poking at me?

If you’d just let me change your life, I would’ve lived like that, so why are you poking at me?

Now, it was Tennessee who was swept away by emotions like a turbulent tide.