By Zephyria 
“It feels kind of different and nice when you call me ‘you’…”
I pushed Moon Gyeon-woo, who was talking nonsense with a strangely slurred voice, and entered the bedroom. Yeon-rok was startled as he grabbed Gyeon-woo’s face, which looked exceptionally haggard, with a slapping sound. His body felt like a ball of fire.
“You have such a high fever!”
“I’m okay. It’s just a cold. I’ll be fine if I take some medicine and get some deep sleep. Sorry for making you worry.”
However, Yeon-rok narrowed his eyes and scanned Moon Gyeon-woo thoroughly. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t a simple case of a body ache from a cold. He slowly looked around. Come to think of it, he had rarely entered Moon Gyeon-woo’s bedroom, and compared to the first day, it was incredibly cluttered. It was strange, considering Moon Gyeon-woo’s tidy personality.
“Yeon-rok-ah, you might catch my cold. Hurry and leave.”
Ignoring those words, Yeon-rok turned on the light in the dark room, causing Moon Gyeon-woo to groan and frown. While trying to act nonchalant, Yeon-rok’s gaze was fixed on the mountain of books and documents piled on the desk, and the laptop that was wide open. Moon Gyeon-woo flinched, inwardly panicked.
Yeon-rok held the other’s face and quietly sensed the heat radiating from his skin. As expected, something was wrong. When he tried to remove the mask, Moon Gyeon-woo began to resist. Yeon-rok easily suppressed the weak patient’s resistance and stripped the mask away. Moon Gyeon-woo kept his mouth tightly shut.
“Open your mouth.”
“…….”
“Or at least say something.”
Even while drenched in cold sweat, Moon Gyeon-woo remained silent with his mouth clamped shut. He seemed to hope the other would just let it slide, but Yeon-rok had already reached a conclusion.
“The name removal research—was it actually legitimate?”
After being pressed several times, Moon Gyeon-woo finally gave up and sighed. As he slowly opened his mouth, something mottled was visible on his tongue. It was the name that had disappeared and was now beginning to reappear.
“I thought it was a success, really…”
“Since when has it been like this?”
Yeon-rok sighed along with Moon Gyeon-woo. As if his energy had completely drained, Moon Gyeon-woo flopped onto the bed and confessed honestly.
“Suddenly, since the night before yesterday.”
Now Yeon-rok understood why Moon Gyeon-woo was so sick. No matter how he looked at it, the symptoms were identical to when a name first manifests. It was exactly like a sudden, thunderous onset of a severe cold and body ache. He had been in agonizing pain, as if suffering from a severe illness, and Moon Gyeon-woo’s symptoms were exactly that. He also understood why the pronunciation was slurred. Since the area where the name manifests is particularly the most painful, it must be very difficult to speak right now.
“Just lie down for now. Did you take a fever reducer?”
“Yeah…”
Looking at the empty medicine packaging, it didn’t seem like he was lying. Yeon-rok went to the kitchen and made porridge again. It was obvious that Gyeon-woo had no appetite, but Yeon-rok urged him to eat. One needs to eat something to even have the strength to be sick. Though it was extremely rare, there were cases where people with congenitally weak bodies died during name manifestation.
After eating the porridge, Moon Gyeon-woo fell fast asleep as if he had fainted. While he slept and groaned in pain, Yeon-rok flipped through the research papers piled on the desk. He couldn’t read them properly because they were in English, but the traces of someone’s desperate research remained. He also found yellow-tinted medicine bottles and syringes.
“This… did it even go through proper clinical trials?”
Yeon-rok frowned at the belated doubt. When he worked at the factory, there was someone who suffered greatly from hair loss. That person searched for new hair loss drugs every day and fluctuated between joy and despair with every news report, yet among so many drug candidates, almost none had been properly released. From what he had overheard, the process—from safety tests to clinical trials—was incredibly rigorous and time-consuming.
Considering that, wasn’t Moon Gyeon-woo’s name removal research still not at a stage to be used on humans? Moreover, since names are a rare phenomenon, it must have been difficult to obtain proper samples. Yeon-rok looked at Moon Gyeon-woo with a worried gaze.
“Knowing that there could be abnormalities in the body, how could you do something like this?”
In vulgar terms, wasn’t this just madness? Without knowing what kind of side effects might erupt.
“You crazy bastard…”
Even though he spoke softly, Moon Gyeon-woo half-opened his eyes as if he had heard. He seemed to be smiling faintly, and the affection clinging to that slender eye-smile was vivid. What was he to him that he would go this far… Yeon-rok’s tension suddenly vanished.
“Hyung, Gyeon-woo Hyung. Wake up.”
Yeon-rok shook Moon Gyeon-woo awake. However, Moon Gyeon-woo couldn’t seem to regain consciousness properly. Yeon-rok didn’t want to wake him up if he could help it. But since he had been sleeping for nearly half a day without even drinking water, he had no choice.
“At least drink some water.”
Moon Gyeon-woo, barely managing to push himself up, drank the water. Seeing this, the frown on Yeon-rok’s forehead didn’t budge.
Moon Gyeon-woo’s condition only continued to worsen. Rather than dropping, the fever rose every time it was measured, leaving Yeon-rok feeling distressed. After barely drinking the water, Moon Gyeon-woo collapsed back onto the bed.
“This isn’t working. Let’s go to the hospital. Your condition is too bad right now. Give me your phone.”
“Going to the hospital… won’t help…”
As he spoke, he sounded exactly like a patient delirious with fever. Yeon-rok abruptly pried open Moon Gyeon-woo’s lips and looked closely inside. Moon Gyeon-woo was so out of it that he only noticed the contact once Yeon-rok put a finger in his mouth.
The name had only been restored to less than half. Perhaps because of the side effects of trying to forcibly delete the name, the symptoms were exceptionally severe. Usually, name manifestation fever rarely exceeds 38 degrees. However, Moon Gyeon-woo had already surpassed 39 degrees. If left like this, it felt like it would actually kill him.
“Saying that going to the hospital is useless…”
Does that mean only the contact of a name partner is useful? Or does it mean that even that isn’t working, so there is no way?
He had already been holding Moon Gyeon-woo’s hand all night. Hoping it wasn’t the latter, Yeon-rok looked at Moon Gyeon-woo’s face, flushed red from the fever. Then, he made a big decision.
Moon Gyeon-woo, who had been drifting in and out of consciousness due to the fever, suddenly opened his eyes, wondering about the weight being applied to his body. Then, he flinched in surprise.
“Ye-Yeon-rok-ah.”
Lee Yeon-rok was sitting astride his legs. Moon Gyeon-woo’s voice trembled from the shock.
“What are you doing right now…?”
“Your fever is too high. I have to bring it down somehow.”
Speaking in a firm voice, Yeon-rok began to unbutton the pajama buttons one by one. However, his fingers were also trembling slightly.
“You don’t have to go this far, it’s o… kay…”
“Shut your mouth and stay still.”
As he decisively threw off the pajama top, Moon Gyeon-woo’s face flushed in a different sense. He raised his arm to cover his face, mumbling in a voice that sounded devastated yet faintly expectant.
“I didn’t want to do this with you in this way…”
“What did you say?”
After stripping off his own short-sleeved shirt and hugging Moon Gyeon-woo’s upper body so their bare skin met with a slapping sound, Yeon-rok asked. It looked as if he were saving someone whose life was in danger from hypothermia. Moon Gyeon-woo’s voice was too small and tense to be heard clearly.
“…Nothing.”
Moon Gyeon-woo let his body go limp. For some reason, he seemed a bit embarrassed.
What Yeon-rok aimed for was to make the name on his chest touch Moon Gyeon-woo. He thought that would greatly increase the contact efficiency. He was worried because Moon Gyeon-woo’s body was so scorching hot. If it didn’t work, he planned to fill the bathtub with cold water and push Moon Gyeon-woo in.
After holding him like that for a while, he checked the fever, and fortunately, it hadn’t risen further. However, the temperature didn’t drop either; it just maintained its level. Since he remained in a high-fever state, Yeon-rok could feel Moon Gyeon-woo’s energy gradually depleting.
“What should I do…”
Yeon-rok muttered unconsciously. He unhesitatingly pried open Moon Gyeon-woo’s lips. Seeing that the name on the tongue had only manifested halfway, he sank into worry. He wondered if the other could endure this without any issues until it fully manifested.
If necessary, would he have to do the kind of things he did with Yeom Cheon-ho with Moon Gyeon-woo as well?
While Yeon-rok was steeling himself, Moon Gyeon-woo’s Adam’s apple bobbed once, and he hesitantly spoke.
“…If you’re okay with it, can I lick it?”
“Where?”
“I mean, so that your name and my name touch…”
Only then did Yeon-rok understand what Moon Gyeon-woo meant. Making the name on the left chest and the name on the tongue meet. In short, it meant Moon Gyeon-woo wanted to lick Yeon-rok’s left chest.
“If you’re okay with it, I’m okay too.”
Nodding, Yeon-rok shifted his body. It was a bit embarrassing to change positions to make it easier for the other to lick his chest. Despite the embarrassment, he lowered his body until he could feel the other’s breath. After a moment of hesitation, a hot, wet piece of flesh soon touched his chest.