By Zephyria 
As expected, the questions he had grilled Han-seon about were asked with nighttime activities in mind. Just how much was he planning to do in one night? Tae-hwon suppressed his voice to avoid showing any agitation.
“Those are unnecessary worries, Young Master. I’m someone who has never shied away from any kind of hard labor. I’ve always lived a rough life, so this is nothing.”
“Still, you’ve never had a tendon severed, have you? And…….”
And?
“Tae-hwon has never slept with a man before, has he? It’s not something you can just shove it in and thrust around and come. What if Tae-hwon reacts with disgust!”
“…….”
“I’m used to being scared because of Tae-hwon, but if Tae-hwon is scared because of me, that’s…… that’s not okay, is it? He might want to run away.”
Good grief. Tae-hwon swallowed a bitter smile.
“What are you talking about? Why would I be scared because of you, Young Master? Do I look like such a coward?”
“Hoo…… Tae-hwon. Even if you say that, when it actually happens, no. Tsk, never mind. Forget it.”
Kwon Rae-i sighed repeatedly as if he was frustrated to death, then abruptly ended the conversation as if he was going to drop the subject. The more he did that, the more Tae-hwon felt like he was sitting on thorns.
“Yes, anyway, I understand. Then I’ll go wash up now.”
Tae-hwon left Kwon Rae-i and turned towards the bathroom. He held his breath without relaxing until he closed and locked the door, and only then could he exhale the breath he had been holding. Leaning his back against the door, Tae-hwon scrubbed his face roughly with both hands.
The day had only just begun, but he already felt dizzy. Tae-hwon took a slow, deep breath and steeled himself, then quickly stripped off the clothes he was wearing. No matter how flustered he was, he couldn’t possibly offer his dirty body to the Young Master in this state.
He crumpled the loose-fitting cotton pants and T-shirt into the laundry basket and took off his briefs. When he raised his head, he met the eyes of a dark man in the mirror in front of the sink. The appearance of a thirty-year-old still felt unfamiliar. Tae-hwon blinked his eyes uncomfortably and took out a razor to tidy up his face first. It wouldn’t soften his fierce impression, but still. He had heard all sorts of things throughout his life, such as being called a gangster, a hungry wolf, or a black-haired beast.
“Tsk.”
After shaving, Tae-hwon clicked his tongue sharply once and took out a toothbrush to squeeze toothpaste on it. He brushed each tooth cleanly and even scrubbed his tongue thoroughly. Even that wasn’t enough, so he gargled. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t enough.
Looking at his ragged body in the mirror, he could only feel speechless.
Scars from cuts, scars from burns, scars from being stabbed, cigarette burns, and countless other wounds he didn’t even know the origin of. His body, which had become much dirtier than the body Tae-hwon remembered from his twenties, seemed to prove his eventful and arduous life. His muscles were more swollen than he remembered, and thick calluses had formed on each of his knuckles. They must have hardened after blisters burst and formed dozens of times.
Swish, Tae-hwon rinsed his mouth with the flowing water and passed the bathtub to enter the shower booth. He turned on the showerhead above his head and washed every part of his body thoroughly while getting wet. He shampooed his hair twice, and he lathered up with body wash and scrubbed carefully, washing his neck, behind his ears, armpits, and groin as thoroughly as he had never bothered to do in his entire life. A refreshing citrus scent wafted from his body, but he still felt like he needed to do something more.
‘Can the Young Master really get excited by a body like this?’
He had been wearing clothes all this time, but wouldn’t he cool down once he saw it all bare?
And, although it was just a thought.
Could it be……?
‘Isn’t he infected with some dirty disease?’
Woo Tae-hwon at thirty was said to be a whore, so if he had contracted some filthy sexually transmitted disease and infected Kwon Rae-i, he deserved to die. Then he wouldn’t even be enough to strangle himself to death with his own hands. He would have to take a kitchen knife and cut off the hideous Dick between his legs and die.
‘You piece of trash, Woo Tae-hwon. Don’t live your life like that.’
Tae-hwon pounded his chest with his clenched fist. He felt frustrated and resentful, and he also felt a sense of resignation that he couldn’t help it. He thought he had already finished organizing his thoughts, but even at this moment, he felt unsettled. At this rate, he would show his troubled feelings even when he was lying next to the Young Master in bed.
‘You idiot. You moron.’
Unable to suppress his intense emotions, Tae-hwon banged his forehead against the wall.
He felt dizzy. The ceiling seemed to spin around, his ears went numb, and the sound of water faded away. A high-pitched ringing sounded in his ears.
Even after showering, Tae-hwon continued to stand under the water for a long time.
Only when the skin on his entire body was swollen from the water did he finally turn off the shower.
The scent of bath products vibrated everywhere. The scent of fluffy soap, the scent of cool citrus, and the scent of refreshing toothpaste. Tae-hwon, who had wiped off the water flowing down his body, took out a large towel, wrapped it around his waist, and returned to the bedroom.
***
The bed was empty.
He had been washing for almost an hour, but Kwon Rae-i was still nowhere to be seen. He wondered if he was taking a long time to wash too.
Tae-hwon walked to the bed and plopped down on the edge. He was about to wait for the Young Master like that, but he smelled a strange scent. Perhaps because he had spent a long time in the hospital, he could smell his own scent on the bed. It wasn’t to the point of being repulsive, but after showering, he could clearly smell his own scent on the bedding.
‘What is this.’
Tae-hwon suspiciously put his nose to the pillow and sniffed, inhaling the scent. He could definitely smell Tae-hwon’s scent. Wasn’t this a bit of a problem? Wouldn’t it be useless to have washed if this was the case?
‘Damn it.’
Tae-hwon jumped up from the bed. He didn’t know why he was so restless, but he couldn’t let Kwon Rae-i lie on this bed.
At that moment, he heard a knock on the bedroom door.
Knock knock.
“Tae-hwon. I’m coming in.”
He usually barged in without even knocking, let alone saying anything, so why was he suddenly knocking now?
No sooner had he thought that than the door opened and Kwon Rae-i entered. Like Tae-hwon, who had only a towel around his waist, he was wearing nothing but a bathrobe. The loosely tied waist tie was drooping, and clear droplets of water dripped from his wet hair, flowing down his neck. His face, which felt so pure that it was almost white, seemed to radiate a beautiful light.
It was as if a colorful aurora with iridescent colors was rippling, even though this wasn’t the Arctic. As if flowing like waves and creating a dreamy glow, Kwon Rae-i’s very existence was mysterious and awe-inspiring.
“Am I late? Did you wait?”
“…….”
“You didn’t even turn on the lights.”
Kwon Rae-i pressed the switch by the door and brightly lit the bedroom lights. And as if to show off, he locked the door he had entered through. After even checking to see if it was properly locked, he headed to the drawer next to the sofa.
“You didn’t change your mind at the last minute, did you?”
When he opened the drawer that had been locked with a key he had taken out of his pocket, it was full of lubricant that he didn’t know when had been in there. They were stacked so high that he couldn’t use them all even if he used them for a year. And transparent medicine bottles and syringes were also densely stored.
“You still can’t do it? You don’t want to?”
‘What kind of medicine is it……? The attending physician must have returned a long time ago.’
“It’s too late even if you do. You know that.”
Was it a type of painkiller? Was he going to inject it into Tae-hwon?
Kwon Rae-i grabbed as much lubricant, medicine bottles, and syringes as he could hold in his large hands from the drawer and dumped them on Tae-hwon’s bed. Four or five lubricants, three or four medicine bottles, and vacuum-packed syringes scattered on the white bed. And he began to untie the waist tie that fastened his gown.
“From now on, we’re going to be frantically busy. So, I’ll ask you one last time.”
Tae-hwon held his breath and stood with his mouth shut.
The gown he was wearing opened, revealing his stark naked figure from the tip of his hair to the tip of his toes.
He had just washed up and was wet, and he was breathtakingly beautiful. The way his transparently wet skin and hair clung to him was seductive. Even though he was naked, he was more sacred than arousing. Like a marble statue with religious meaning.
Tae-hwon, who had been mesmerized by the way his transparently wet skin and hair clung to him, belatedly noticed the tattoos that covered his body.
On his snow-white back, which he turned to place his discarded gown on the table, a dragon soaring upwards was grandly drawn.
Whirling and soaring, it stretched out lightly like lightning.
The dragon tattoo, which was colored on his pearl-like white body, was very eye-catching. Moreover, the tattoo overflowed not only on his entire back but also on both of his arms.
Tae-hwon forgot to even blink his wide eyes and froze in a daze.
All along, he had been worried that Kwon Rae-i would be surprised by his own rough body, but it was Tae-hwon who was surprised by the other’s body. Kwon Rae-i had been wearing clothes all along, so he hadn’t been able to see it, but that tattoo couldn’t have been done in a day or two. It was something that could only be completed by spending a long time drawing lines and filling in colors. Naturally, it would have been accompanied by no small amount of pain.
“Don’t be scared. Please.”