By Zephyria 
57
The sound made Ho-eun stop breathing. He froze for a moment before abruptly sitting up.
“G-God of War?”
Ho-eun blinked rapidly. His vision cleared, and he saw Tae-muk sitting on the edge of the bed.
Tae-muk’s expression was blank as he sat on the black blanket, and there he was, lying on the bed.
Realizing this, his body suddenly felt heavy, as if his entire being had turned to stone.
“Ah…”
Ho-eun shrank back, inching away. It was a pathetic attempt to escape, but he couldn’t bring himself to bolt outright, fearing Tae-muk would bare his fangs and devour him like a rabid beast.
“…”
Tae-muk stared silently at Ho-eun, who was trembling and crumpled. Ho-eun, tormented by the gaze, hung his head low, glancing sideways for an escape route.
But he soon realized there was no way out. There was no way someone like him could escape Tae-muk and get out of the tent. Even if he did get outside, what then? This was the Crimson Rain Brigade encampment, entirely under Tae-muk’s control.
Moreover, it would take a full ten days of riding to get home. The area would be swarming with Devouring Ghouls that even a Gun couldn’t kill, and he probably wouldn’t last half a day before being torn apart.
Ho-eun’s face fell into despair at the thought. There was no way to escape Tae-muk.
Just then, Tae-muk reached out towards Ho-eun, or rather, towards the hair that covered his face. Ho-eun cowered.
“D-Don’t… please…”
He didn’t even know what Tae-muk was going to do, but the words came out anyway. He was deathly afraid of being touched by him, of his hand coming closer.
“…”
Tae-muk said nothing. Ho-eun’s lower lip trembled at the silence. He knew all too well what Tae-muk’s blank expression, his silence, his disregard, could lead to.
But then, Tae-muk suddenly stood up. Ho-eun squeezed his eyes shut and cowered further.
He could feel Tae-muk moving. He could hear him breathing, swallowing hard, the rustling of his clothes as he moved. All of it struck Ho-eun like lightning.
But then, Tae-muk began to move away. Ho-eun peeked through his hair with one eye.
Tae-muk was heading towards the tent entrance. Could he be leaving? And then he really did go outside. It didn’t take long for his presence to disappear completely.
“…”
Ho-eun slowly straightened up, craning his neck to make sure Tae-muk was really gone. Thankfully, Tae-muk didn’t reappear.
“Haa…”
Ho-eun sighed in relief, tucking the hair that had fallen over his face behind his ears. Then, he absentmindedly looked around the tent and saw that the table beside the bed was full of things.
A basin of clear water, a clean cloth draped over it, a bowl of Herbal medicine, a spoon beside it, and various medicines, for who knew what or where.
They were familiar things. When he was sick, his parents would hold things like that close and stay by his side.
“…”
Ho-eun stared at them for a long time.
Ho-eun opened his eyes to a throbbing pain and an unpleasant foreign sensation. Unlike before, his vision was clear. It wasn’t so much that his body was better, but that the tent was brightly lit. The table, the cabinet, the lanterns, and even the oil lamp were all lit.
As he stared blankly at them, Ho-eun belatedly realized that one of his legs was raised in the air. And when he turned his gaze to his leg…
“…”
“…”
He met Tae-muk’s eyes.
Tae-muk was kneeling between Ho-eun’s legs, holding one of his legs in his hands, while Ho-eun’s legs were spread wide open in a vulgar display. Of course, he had no pants on.
“…”
Ho-eun froze at the sight, unable to process it all at once. His face slowly turned blue. He shook his head, his chin trembling.
“D-Don’t… please don’t. I can’t. I can’t…”
Tae-muk raised an eyebrow at that.
“What can’t you do?”
“…”
Ho-eun’s lips moved hesitantly at the cold reply. Receiving the God of War was something a Bondmate should do, but he couldn’t do it now. Not with this body, this mind, these emotions. He would surely die if he received him like this. Either he would die at Tae-muk’s hands, or he would kill himself. Either way, he would die.
While Ho-eun was frozen in terror, Tae-muk readjusted his grip on Ho-eun’s leg and reached for his backside. Only then did Ho-eun break free from his frozen state and try to swim away.
“Don’t touch me!”
But Tae-muk grabbed his ankle and pulled him back down. Just like when he had forced himself on him, ramming his member inside him. Ho-eun, remembering that time, no, reliving it, gasped for breath as if he were about to die. Tae-muk said with his usual blank expression.
“I haven’t put enough on yet.”
But Ho-eun didn’t hear him.
“N-No… please let me go… please…”
Tears welled up in Ho-eun’s eyes. He struggled to pull his leg out of Tae-muk’s grasp, but Tae-muk frowned and threatened him, no, coaxed him.
“Just stay still. I’ll let you go when I’m done.”
“What… what are you putting on…”
Ho-eun, belatedly realizing that Tae-muk’s words were strange, looked down. Tae-muk then deliberately plunged his finger into a container he had placed beside his knee. The container was half-filled with a white, slippery, and viscous substance. It was ointment.
“The old man told me to apply it morning and night.”
Tae-muk said, rubbing his fingers together to get rid of the excess.
“The old man… as in…”
“The doctor.”
“…”
Ho-eun slowly repeated his words. Old man, doctor, ointment, and his torn backside. The color drained completely from his already pale face.
“Did… did someone else see my backside?”
“No. I didn’t show it to him.”
“…”
Those were strange words. He should have answered whether he saw it or not, but what did he mean he didn’t show it to him? Did that mean he didn’t see it after all? He didn’t want anyone else to see that part of him, not even a little bit. He would rather die in pain than let that happen.
Just then, Tae-muk’s hand touched the torn wound. A sharp pain shot through his spine.
“Ah!”
Ho-eun, caught off guard, cried out without holding back. He clutched the blanket and hunched his shoulders. Tae-muk’s hand stopped at the sound. He looked back and forth between Ho-eun’s crumpled face and his backside, then said to himself.
“How can something like this hurt so much?”
“…”
It was a ridiculous thing to say, so infuriating. Ho-eun wanted to say, ‘How can this be just something? Have you ever experienced it?’
But the moment he opened his mouth, he remembered Tae-muk’s battered body. Tae-muk, whose bones were broken, flesh torn, and skin ripped.
Not only that, but Dong-ja, whose collarbone had been almost completely eaten away, Gil-sang, who had a Devouring Ghoul’s finger embedded in his shoulder, and the soldiers in the Inyeonje in such a miserable state, and the soldier in the hospital whose shoulder and arm had been completely torn off.
During his more than ten years of battlefield life, Tae-muk must have experienced and seen countless wounds like that, or even worse.
Compared to that, it was definitely ‘just something.’
“…”
Ho-eun glanced at Tae-muk’s body, which was only covered in a Durumagi. His massive body was simply robust. There were no wounds or scars. It seemed that his wounds, which had been healing so quickly, were not a dream.
How could his wounds heal so quickly?
Ho-eun felt like he finally understood why Tae-muk was called immortal, and how he could kill so many Devouring Ghouls without a single scar. He felt that he was truly amazing for enduring so much pain.
But that was separate from the current situation. Ho-eun, his eyes narrowed, twisted the ankle that Tae-muk was holding.
“Yes. How could something like this hurt so much? So there’s no need to put medicine on it. Let me go.”
That was his attempt to show that he was angry. He tried to hide his fear and lowered his voice.
“No.”
But Tae-muk didn’t care. He didn’t even look at Ho-eun. His gaze was fixed on Ho-eun’s backside. He seemed to be very focused on the torn hole. He was being overly cautious and unnecessarily meticulous.
Ho-eun felt a shame that he couldn’t put into words. He had seen all sorts of things from Tae-muk over the past two days, but he still didn’t want to show him his backside.
“Then I’ll, I’ll do it myself.”
“How? Are you going to squat down and look at your bottom yourself?”
“I’ll, I’ll figure it out.”
“Stay still.”
“But…”
Just as Ho-eun was about to say something, Tae-muk’s hand touched the wound. A sharp pain shot through him. Ho-eun groaned. But Tae-muk continued to touch the wound. It wasn’t out of malice, but it still hurt. Ho-eun’s clear eyes were all distorted. Cold sweat formed on his forehead, and he clenched the blanket tightly with his dry hands.