By Zephyria 
“You’re not getting strange. It’s just that Tae-hwon is relying on me more than before.”
“Is… is that so. Really?”
“Of course. Tae-hwon has always taken care of everything alone. Tae-hwon has been worrying and facing the difficulties and adversities of life alone. But now I’m here, and I’m taking the lead in solving everything, so it’s unfamiliar. You don’t have the habit of relying on someone.”
Kwon Rae-i brought his lips close. Now Tae-hwon didn’t avoid it either. He just reluctantly matched his lips to his, unable to win. Warm lower lips gently interlocked, and each other’s body temperature mixed. So that they would be at a similar temperature. Only then did Tae-hwon realize that his body was very frozen.
Kwon Rae-i was warm, but Woo Tae-hwon was coldly hardened.
“As far as I know, Tae-hwon has never given himself to anyone else. Even when he came to the Gyeongjeong Faction because he had nowhere to go, he didn’t ask his father for help and rely on him, but thought he owed him a big debt.”
“Yes…”
“A debt to be repaid someday. A sense of indebtedness. That’s why Tae-hwon is having a hard time now. You don’t have to do that with me.”
Kwon Rae-i bit Tae-hwon’s lips and mumbled, slowly licking them with the tip of his tongue. It was a signal to open his mouth, so Tae-hwon hesitated and opened his mouth and gave his tongue. Then Kwon Rae-i happily widened his eyes and pressed his tongue against his. His eyes shone colorfully and fantastically, as if fireworks of various colors were exploding.
“Eup, heu.”
He was hot and impatient. It was a little rough, but not unbearable.
As he kissed deeply, he groped and touched Tae-hwon’s waist as he always did. The touch of stroking and touching was ticklish.
Lying down and kissing Kwon Rae-i at the Jeun Faction’s headquarters seemed like a crazy act to Tae-hwon’s common sense, but he kept saying it was okay, so I was confused as to whether it was okay or not. I didn’t know if my judgment was clouded, or if Woo Tae-hwon was now relying on Kwon Rae-i more, as he said. I felt like I was trusting him, following him, and then finally sharing life and death with him and becoming a complete community of fate.
“Tae-hwon, haa, keep in mind. I will definitely protect Tae-hwon.”
“Ah, eum.”
“Got it? Huh? Rely on me.”
“Eut, I understand. Stop now…”
“No. Just a little more. Don’t push me away yet.”
Kwon Rae-i persistently followed and pecked. Tae-hwon, who thought he was about to cross the line, pushed his chest, but Kwon Rae-i clung to him until the end and poured out a deep kiss until Tae-hwon was completely out of breath. Only when his waist started to tremble did he take his lips away.
“Haa……. Haa.”
Kwon Rae-i lay down next to Tae-hwon, who was catching his breath, and lay on his stomach. Then he suddenly shouted ‘Ack!’ with his face buried in the pillow, startling Tae-hwon. He muffled the sound with a pillow, but it was still quite loud.
“Y-Young Master?”
“Ah! My heart is tightening because I like Tae-hwon! I’m going to run out of energy.”
“What is it, suddenly again. Why again?”
“I never even imagined that I could kiss Tae-hwon in this room, right here. When I was living in this room, I was always rejected by Tae-hwon, and I was burning inside while hitting the wall alone. Aaa.”
Kwon Rae-i groaned while banging his forehead against the pillow. Or maybe he’s happy. He was just acting crazy on his own. Then he put down the pillow and clung to Tae-hwon again, hugging his back tightly and trapping his whole body.
“I guess I’m thinking about the past too. There’s no use for that past now. I told Tae-hwon to forget the past, but what am I going to do if I’m the one who’s bound by it?”
Kwon Rae-i grumbled and muttered messily. Even he, who was always full of confidence, seemed to be shaking a little in this room. I didn’t know if it was because the room was so deeply stained with the years of the past. Tae-hwon also felt a little choked up when he thought of Kwon Rae-i, who had struggled alone in Jeun. I felt sorry for him and pitiful. I also wondered how much he liked Woo Tae-hwon to be acting like this.
“…Young Master. Did you suffer a lot here?”
“Um, just a little.”
“I’m curious about how you lived. I still don’t know Young Master very well.”
“What I said before should be enough. What else can I tell Tae-hwon, let’s see…”
Kwon Rae-i hugged Tae-hwon tightly with both arms and struggled while hugging him. Then, he suddenly raised his head and gestured to the cabinets lined up on the wall.
“I think there are things I used to use in there. Should I show you that?”
Tae-hwon silently nodded. Kwon Rae-i barely got up, lingering with a regretful face as if he didn’t want to let go of Tae-hwon, and opened the cabinet to show him.
The first cabinet was filled with various file folders, and the second cabinet was full of books. And in the third cabinet, newspaper clippings and photos of key figures in each organization were arranged and attached. And when I opened the next cabinet, there were so many clothes that there was no small gap. They were all the same school uniforms.
Kwon Rae-i took out a school uniform and showed it to his body with the hanger.
“I used to work in the early morning and stop by here to change my clothes and go to school.” It was hard to get the blood off.”
The charcoal gray blazer, black vest, and tie suited him very well. No, the expression ‘suited him’ couldn’t fully explain it. It was like the faint moonlight shining down on a quiet full moon night, wearing a school uniform. It felt like I was secretly peeking at a piece of his past youth. Even though it’s just that I can’t remember it.
“Did you graduate from school?”
“Of course. I didn’t go to the graduation ceremony, but I have a diploma.”
Kwon Rae-i opened the cabinet next to it. It was filled with helmets with dark black tinting. It wasn’t easy to see from a distance, but if you looked closely, every one of them was covered in scratches. The small scratches and broken traces seemed to show his rough past.
“Hoo, I’m so sick of helmets. I had to wear them every time, and it was so cumbersome.”
Kwon Rae-i put the school uniform back on and took out a helmet and showed it to him by wearing it on his head. Tae-hwon, who was lying on the mattress, sat up and watched him from afar. Getting to know the current Kwon Rae-i was no longer awkward or unfamiliar like before.
Tae-hwon was getting farther and farther away from him, who was the familiar young master, but he was no longer unfamiliar or uncomfortable. Kwon Rae-i was just Kwon Rae-i. He was accepted as he was.
“Always?”
“Yes. I even wore gloves in the summer and covered myself up to my neck? I was miserable because of the heat rash. That’s why I still hate the heat.”
Kwon Rae-i playfully complained, raising the visor, which was the eye part of the helmet. Tae-hwon slowly nodded in agreement. Since his congenital albinism was so noticeable, he would have been caught up in all sorts of gossip if he hadn’t covered it up thoroughly.
“In my memory, Young Master was more sensitive to the cold than the heat.”
“Well, of course, I don’t really like the cold either.”
“Some things never change, I see.”
Kwon Rae-i took off his helmet and tossed it back into the cabinet. His thin, white hair, flattened inside the helmet, sprang free and scattered voluminously. As he shook his head, his fine hair fluttered like shards of light around his face.
“Haha, Tae-hwon. Shall I tell you a secret?”
“A secret?”
“It’s a little embarrassing to say it out loud…”
Kwon Rae-i stalled for time as he closed the cabinet door. It was refreshing to see the twenty-year-old Kwon Rae-i hesitate, a sight he rarely showed. What secret was he trying to tell? Did he have more stories hidden from Tae-hwon? Was it perhaps a serious secret?
Tae-hwon swallowed dryly, feeling a strange anxiety creeping in. Then, Kwon Rae-i murmured shyly,
“It’s about my albinism.”
Albinism…?
“To be honest… it’s always been annoying since I was a kid. Being born with this appearance, always getting unpleasant stares, hearing sharp words, being treated like a rolling-in foreigner. Whether I’m really Chairman Kwon Jung-il’s blood or not, that I’m an unlucky mutant bastard, in many ways it was just fucking Dick, but, well.”
“……”
“The day Tae-hwon lost his memory and first woke up. At that time…”
Kwon Rae-i stopped talking for a moment and burst into laughter, his shoulders shaking slightly. Watching him closely, Tae-hwon could tell he was reminiscing, retracing his past memories.
He was recalling the day he first met Woo Tae-hwon, who had lost ten years of memories, that is, Tae-hwon with the memories of a twenty-year-old.
“He recognized me at first sight. Because of this albinism.”