By Zephyria 
His breathing grew ragged. The savage sensations of sucking, swallowing, chewing, and biting were overly vivid. Overwhelmed by a dizzying feeling that he might be chewed alive just like this, Kim Si-baek groaned while clutching Tae-un’s shoulders.
Tae-un pulled his mouth away from the nape of the neck he had been chewing at will and used his tongue to lick a long strip of what should be called a wound rather than a hickey. Though he couldn’t see it directly, he could tell that round bite marks, bleeding, had been etched there.
“Hng, do you… like that?”
“I like it so much I feel like I’m going to cum right now.”
Tae-un rubbed his genitals, which had swollen even more than before, against Kim Si-baek’s thigh.
“I don’t just want to bite your neck; I want to bite your entire body. Your face, your chest, your nipples, your stomach, your cock, your thighs—I want to chew, bite, and tear at every inch of your skin so that I can leave marks that will never fade.”
“…….”
“Even if you forget me, I want my marks to remain on your body until the day you die. You can even heal yourself; I wonder how much I’d have to bite for a mark to stay? Should I chew right down to the bone?”
His tone was playful, but the weight of the emotion embedded within it pressed heavily upon Kim Si-baek.
〈I want to be the last person you think of right before you die. I want your head to be so full of thoughts of me that it feels like it’ll burst, so that you die holding only me.〉
Ah, so that was it.
Kim Si-baek finally understood that everything, even those words he had laughed off in the past, had been sincere.
“……Why does a young kid like you keep talking about dying?”
A small chuckle tickled the nape of his neck.
“I’m telling you this for the first time, but before I entered middle school, I happened to meet a shaman on the street. They were incredibly surprised to see me. They asked how I was still alive when I should have died long ago as a child.”
Kim Si-baek frowned, thinking some pseudo-shaman had said strange things to a young child.
“That’s just a trick to rip money out of people for exorcism rituals, so don’t pay it any mind.”
“Is that so? To me, they seemed very spiritually gifted.”
A large hand caressed Kim Si-baek’s stomach. The touch slid down to his flank, traced his back, and then slipped inside his pants. At the coldness of the fingers groping his heated skin, Kim Si-baek took a sharp breath and trembled slightly. His lower abdomen tightened.
“My lifeline is incredibly short, Hyung. Everyone who read my palm said it’s practically non-existent.”
“Un-ah.”
“Even if that’s not the case, this is the kind of world we live in. Someone powerless, frail, and weak like me might be torn apart and killed by a magical beast tomorrow.”
Tae-un pulled down the pants and underwear simultaneously and gripped his beginning-to-erect cock. Contrary to the cool lips speaking of death, the hand rubbing the shaft grew hot, as if absorbing Kim Si-baek’s heat.
Kim Si-baek bit his lip to stifle a moan from the pleasure rising from his reddening genitals and gripped Tae-un’s shoulders.
“I’m here, so don’t say such nonsense. Whether it’s a magical beast or anything else, Hyung will protect you. I’ll treat all the magical energy, too.”
The voice of the panel discussing the death of 5-year-old Tae-gun echoed and hummed. Kim Si-baek shook off the dreamlike voices that were dizzyingly stirring his mind.
It’s a dream. It’s nothing more than a vain delusion that will burst and vanish like a bubble upon waking. Perhaps he had accidentally read Dr. Cloud Carter’s resume while searching the internet at some point. A trivial memory, not even remaining in his conscious mind, must have appeared as a dream.
Therefore, it’s all a dream. It’s a lie. My child who died at age five cannot be reality.
“Don’t ever think about dying again.”
At the firm voice, Tae-un looked up. Meeting those resolute eyes beyond the darkness, he spoke nonchalantly with a smile, as always.
“Yes.”
For Tae-un, telling lies was the easiest thing.
Tae-un, who became six and then thirty-six after meeting Kim Si-baek, knows the truth: that he will not become thirty-seven.
The glans, which had been gripped and quickly stroked by a hand, deepened into a peach hue. Along with a suppressed moan, white mucus surged from the small hole. Without even a moment to catch his breath from the afterglow of the climax, Kim Si-baek hurriedly grabbed the shoulders of Tae-un, who was curled up between his legs. If he was too late, Tae-un would eat it.
When the large body didn’t budge even as he pulled, he grabbed the top of Tae-un’s head and pulled him up. Tae-un, whose upper body was forced up, muttered in a voice dripping with lingering regret.
“I was supposed to eat this.”
Kim Si-baek blocked the mouth of the man who was mumbling about eating someone else’s semen from his hand as if a terminally ill patient were talking about taking medicine, using his index finger.
“Hyung will do something else for you instead.”
Tae-un’s eyes seemed to widen. Fearing the imagination that would spring from that small head, Kim Si-baek quickly pulled Tae-un’s shoulders into an embrace.
Lowering the collar of the gown draped loosely over his shoulders, he buried his lips in the nape of the neck. As he licked and rubbed the thick neckline filled with dense, elastic muscle, Tae-un laughed softly like a ripple, as if it tickled. Then, when Kim Si-baek bit down hard, the laughter stopped abruptly.
He hoped it wasn’t because it hurt. Even in the midst of this, he hesitated out of worry, but he could feel the thick Adam’s apple move greatly as Tae-un held his breath. Caressing the shoulders that had stiffened with tension—unlike him—Kim Si-baek swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth.
While kissing and foreplaying, he had often naturally left traces of himself on a partner’s body, but this was the first time he had intentionally gnawed like this. It was the same for Tae-un.
Feeling a sense of strangeness within himself, Kim Si-baek nevertheless bared his teeth without hesitation. The sensation of teeth sinking into smooth skin was novel. Tae-un’s low moan flowed above his head. As he chewed on the nape of the neck, various thoughts crossed his mind. The scent of the skin in close proximity seeped in, and every time he sank his teeth in and licked with his tongue, the flinches of trembling were transmitted directly into his arms.
The pulse of the carotid artery, which quickens blood flow, felt vivid, as if vibrating directly against his teeth. This was also the spot where vampires were said to bite to drink blood. Was etching a mark on the nape of the neck an act of partially taking for oneself the evidence of life that flows along with the blood? If so, he could give Tae-un as much pain or as many wounds on his neck as he pleased.
Because there was quite a bit of pain, he couldn’t bite down until it bled like Tae-un had, but clear bite marks remained. A clarity that did not fade even with the magical energy overwriting his skin.
Kim Si-baek rubbed the bite marks he had left with his hand and whispered in his ear.
“Don’t you forget me either.”
When he first kissed Tae-un, Kim Si-baek had sensed regret.
As he conveyed his sincere wish not to be forgotten, Kim Si-baek regrets it. To the younger brother he had cherished like family and longed for for decades, to the brother who had suffered alone for twenty-one years searching for him, he now urges him not to forget and not to become comfortable. In a world where he lacks confidence, he hopes the child who might end up living alone again remains as he is.
The relationship between the two had changed. His selfishness, not wanting to lose the child he had etched within himself, had also changed.
Kim Si-baek did not know if the name of this relationship was that of a deeply affectionate older and younger brother like family, the sex partner Tae-un desired, or if he should give it some other name.
Perhaps he would not know the name of this even until the day the quest is completed. Kim Si-baek does not know the name of the thing that shakes the foundation of his firm resolve to definitely return, and that shakes him with deep regret despite his decision not to leave any traces in the world he would depart from.
Asking the name of something he had never fully experienced or enjoyed before, he smiled faintly.
“These marks will fade quickly in a few days, though.”
“……Hyung.”
What was he trying to say? Tae-un let out a choked sound with a breath, swallowed it back, opened his lips again, moved his Adam’s apple greatly, and then licked his earlobe in a voice mixed with his usual hint of laughter.
“I’m thinking of getting a tattoo exactly where the bite marks are.”
“……Don’t do that, it’s perverted. If they look like they’ll fade—no, I’ll make sure they don’t fade.”
“Until you go back?”
“……Yeah.”
Did he notice the lukewarmness in the answer? Tae-un let out a low laugh that vibrated in his throat and bit down hard on the plump earlobe.
Tae-un’s knee, coming up from below, naturally parted and pushed between his thighs. Tae-un’s heavily erect member brushed against his crotch, and Kim Si-baek bit his lip, forgetting that he had been wounded.
At the sudden urge that made the roof of his mouth feel dry, Kim Si-baek reached his hand down, but instead, he was caught by Tae-un. The child’s hand, which had always been cool, caressed his wrist with a red heat. And a voice as urgent as that heat followed.
“Hyung, I just remembered something, and it’s a big problem.”
“Huh?”
“I didn’t bring condoms from Daejeon.”