GBH 105

As he played the game, Se-kyung blurted out words as they came to mind, just like when he picked fights with Song Yi-heon. The smile he usually wore as a foundation disappeared. Without his smile, Se-kyung was far from kind. As his eyes and lips, which usually formed curves in his features, stiffened, his delicately pretty face took on a chilling transformation.

The smile was something he put on to act good under Choi Myung-hyun’s watchful eye. So Se-kyung, blinded by jealousy, completely forgot about Choi Myung-hyun and cast off the oppression that had been imposed on him.

Without the oppression, Se-kyung didn’t devise schemes or employ tricks with fluttering eyelashes. He didn’t consider others or smile kindly. There was nothing else. All he had was his feelings for Song Yi-heon.

Even Choi Myung-hyun couldn’t control these feelings. He couldn’t build a dam to stop Se-kyung’s incomparable sea of jealousy. It was beyond the realm of parental control.

Desire and thirst, envy and jealousy, monopoly and possessiveness. The nature that governed Se-kyung once the oppression was gone was of a violently raging kind. His white face seemed restrained, but his clearly defined features were tinged with strong obsession.

The two stared at each other for a while.

The dried and twisted leaves at the edges rustled. The breeze that brushed past Song Yi-heon carried his scent. The smell of sweat from running on the field mixed with the earthy smell that stained his uniform was pungent and stale, far from a gentle and fragrant scent. However, there was something that stirred primal instincts.

The sweat shed from intense movement that caused heavy breathing even carried an intimate scent that could only be detected by burying one’s nose in the skin. Se-kyung inhaled. The strong scent flowed hotly through his veins, coalescing into a strange heat below his navel.

“Are you done?” Song Yi-heon asked provocatively, unaware of what desires were boiling in Choi Se-kyung from his scent. Not knowing that even his rough words were inflaming the heat Se-kyung harbored below his navel.

“I asked if you’re done saying what you want to say.” Song Yi-heon had said similar words on that night by the sea in Gangneung, where moonlight reflected off the waves.

It was late spring. Amid the waves crashing and the rotten fishy smell wafting through the cracks in the cement pier, Song Yi-heon had told him not to hold back. He said to do as he pleased, that he would handle it. 

Se-kyung had never forgotten this.

Thinking back, there were signs even before they boarded the express bus to Gangneung. Song Yi-heon chasing away the male students who appeared during night study to study together, and calming Song Min-seo who had an outburst, was a fresh shock to Se-kyung.

He liked his mature demeanor. Song Yi-heon skillfully did what Choi Se-kyung had wanted to do. He wondered how he could do it, his gaze following him. He wanted to be like him and perhaps even rely on him.

He thought it was admiration, but it was love.

It might have really been admiration. But the moment Se-kyung heard the words not to hold back, the moment his existence was acknowledged without being suppressed or forced, that welling up of emotion could only be explained as love.

He said not to hold back. If so, the one who has to handle it is not him, but Song Yi-heon.

“… No. It’s not over.”

Se-kyung finished his thoughts and raised his eyelashes. His dark eyes, filled with darkness, were full of desire without the slightest gap and willful. Like a newly matured beast, he was clumsy and threatening. His vivid youth was dangerous like a beast’s long fangs, fierce with jealousy but still awkward.

Song Yi-heon tilted his chin up as if the childish scuffle had been annoying but was now finally interesting.

“Stay away from Kim Yeon-ji, don’t contact other girls. Don’t even brush past them or make eye contact. In front of me, don’t meet anyone else until graduation.”

Just like when he joined the game after seeing Song Yi-heon carrying Kim Yeon-ji, Se-kyung spoke impulsively. “At least meet someone better than me. Meet someone so amazing that I can’t even be jealous.”

He knew he had no right to demand this. It was forceful and presumptuous, and might make him lose whatever affection he had left for him. But Se-kyung was simply not holding back, as Song Yi-heon had told him.

“Someone might think I was cheating or something.” A sneer escaped from Song Yi-heon, as if the other party acting so peculiarly in an unremarkable relationship was pathetic. 

Se-kyung clenched his fists in indignation, but his fierce jealousy remained unchanged. The obsession of Se-kyung, freed from oppression, was not broken by this much.

“Choi Se-kyung.” Song Yi-heon grabbed Se-kyung’s chin. He supported under his chin with his index finger and rolled the plump part under his lip left and right with his thumb. 

Se-kyung furrowed his brow but didn’t push Song Yi-heon away. Song Yi-heon’s somewhat rough touch turned Se-kyung’s chin as he pleased.

After briefly glancing over his smooth jawline, flawless skin, and the curve from his high nose bridge to his cheeks, Song Yi-heon admired his black eyes shining brightly, full of desire.

Although irritation seeped into Se-kyung’s eyes as Song Yi-heon seemed to be enjoying himself, he didn’t mind and opened his mouth after looking at his fill.

“Did I kiss her or make out with her? I just carried her on my back for the game, that’s all.”

Though he said it to emphasize that kissing or making out would absolutely never happen, an unpleasant chill ran through Song Yi-heon, making him shudder slightly. The tremor of disgust transmitted through his fingertips holding Se-kyung’s chin. Se-kyung’s furrowed brow relaxed a bit.

“What about you then? What was that about hugging a girl and parading her around in front of me? … It pisses me off just thinking about it.”

Song Yi-heon had things to say too. He’d been holding back to avoid seeming petty, but now that Choi Se-kyung brought it up, he couldn’t let it slide. He knew it was small-minded and childish to act the same way towards a younger guy, but he had to say his piece. Otherwise he’d be left frustrated later. He might kick the blankets instead, but anyway, Song Yi-heon had his own grievances with Se-kyung.

“I knew you were strong, but I didn’t know you’d run around crushing a girl’s waist like that.”

In the three-legged race where their ankles were tied together, Yoon-hee’s stamina ran out but Se-kyung’s jealousy didn’t subside. He even participated in the following events, practically carrying Yoon-hee as they ran around the field.

“When we played basketball, you didn’t cut me any slack, but the moment that girl stumbled even a little, you stopped right away?”

If the stakes for the basketball bet were 5 minutes of kissing and he absolutely had to win, then how he treated Park Yoon-hee was… like a default setting of the lifestyle Choi Myung-hyun forced on him. A kind, model student was supposed to be considerate and match pace when a friend was struggling. Following this brainwashed habit, Se-kyung stopped whenever Park Yoon-hee fell behind. But he was too busy being jealous and quickly turned on Song Yi-heon.

There wasn’t even time for internal conflict between consideration and jealousy. Se-kyung participated in the events while practically embracing the lagging Park Yoon-hee who kept bothering him. It was solely to spite Song Yi-heon.

However, it looked different to Song Yi-heon.

“When I was struggling, you didn’t bat an eye and just kept scoring, but when she struggled, you doted on her and kept her tucked under your arm? Why didn’t you just carry her in your mouth while you were at it?”

Song Yi-heon was bothered by the excessive contact between Se-kyung and this unfamiliar girl. Compared to their best basketball game, it really twisted his guts, making him overly sarcastic. His sharp gaze became more intense.

Towards the end of their best basketball game, as the score gap widened, Song Yi-heon was on the verge of collapse, his breath burning up to his chin. Having barely scored one basket, Song Yi-heon sprawled out on the floor as soon as the game ended. Even with a bet on the line, when the outcome is so clearly one-sided, both sides could have played more considerately for mutual enjoyment, but Choi Se-kyung was ruthlessly determined to win.

Song Yi-heon gritted his teeth, repeatedly losing the ball, unable to get past Se-kyung’s broad shoulders guarding the hoop.

And yet he practically carried that girl tucked under his arm.

As Choi Se-kyung said, if they had kissed yesterday, there was no need to run around hugging another girl. Even though Song Yi-heon had carried Kim Yeon-ji first, it was because he wanted to give the prize to Se-kyung, and Kim Yeon-ji was a classmate they both knew. But Se-kyung brought in some refined-looking female student from who-knows-where and carried her around.

Tall and pretty-looking, if you put her next to Choi Se-kyung, they’d look like a pair a photo studio would shoot for free. Unaware that the two had actually shot a school promotion together last year, Song Yi-heon chewed his lip, his imagination stirred by the appearance of this girl.

He had thought Choi Se-kyung should date girls his own age, but there was a world of difference between imagining some vague, featureless girl next to Se-kyung and seeing an actual girl take that place.

Not knowing what kind of relationship the two had, Song Yi-heon’s limited imagination was working overtime, and his patience was wearing thin.

He had a habit of getting up close and looking down on people when picking fights, so he pressed close to Se-kyung, shooting him a defiant look. “Why are you so quiet? I thought you were good at talking.”

“……”

Caught off guard by Song Yi-heon’s unexpected attack, Se-kyung’s mind went blank for a moment.

If they were just friends, Song Yi-heon should have been indifferent to Se-kyung carrying a girl around, or even balancing her on his head. As a friend, he might show interest by asking “Are you dating her?” but shouldn’t react with sarcasm or twisted emotions.

Se-kyung had proposed to Yoon-hee to participate together to provoke Song Yi-heon because he was hurt, but he didn’t expect it to be effective.

He was sure he’d be the one getting angry alone, jealous, discouraged, feeling deprived and falling away as a pathetic loser. Because Choi Se-kyung was the only one with feelings.

But the Song Yi-heon confronting him now was different. Parts of Song Yi-heon’s body seemed to be fragmented and pieced together in one frame, entering Se-kyung’s dilated pupils.

His cheeks that had cooled in the breeze while standing still but flushed again, his irritable and pressing tone, his rough breath passing through slightly parted pink lips, brown eyes full of discontent as if saying ‘this isn’t right’, and crucially, his confrontational questioning about his relationship with Park Yoon-hee.

In Se-kyung’s experience, there was only one reason for such signals. Slightly dazed, Se-kyung asked a different kind of question, “Do you… like me?”