GB 46

The day after the big cleaning. The cadets were excited and thrilled about the fact that they were going home for the first time since the entrance ceremony. For the first three months after admission, even the “young masters” couldn’t go home unless it was a matter of life and death. In other words, it meant “absolutely no going home.”

Amidst the excitement permeating the entire building, Haero also packed his bags. Since he had to leave suddenly, if he were to see Yoon Moo-hwa this time, it would be after nearly four months.

His lips inevitably dried. Haero was licking his lips nervously, almost tying his shoelaces wrong.

Here, everything from how to tie shoelaces to how to iron is predetermined. Yoon Moo-hwa had also been through this place, so Haero couldn’t appear clumsy from their first meeting after admission. Regaining his composure, Haero left the dormitory building wearing a crisp uniform, cap, and shiny shoes.

The freshman dormitory was located in the deepest part, so it took a while to walk to the main gate. After leaving the campus and finally taking a bus, he arrived at the house Yoon Moo-hwa had prepared for him. Haero was exhausted from the hangover and the shocking short dream. To cheer himself up a bit, Haero rummaged through his pocket and pulled out a letter. It was sent by Yoon Moo-hwa a week ago.

“I haven’t given up your room. When you return, I’ll go there too. It’ll take some time as I’ll be going through the base. Rest up.”

‘When will you come home? I miss you, can I see you, I’ll go to your quarters, I’ll wait there.’ 

Haero focused intensely on the letter like a young fox seeing only its prey. It was quite different from the beginning of his admission when he didn’t send any letters with all sorts of excuses like it would be difficult to contact by letter anyway, and it would depend on luck.

Yoon Moo-wa’s reply to Haero’s urgent inquiries was, true to his nature, concise, clean, and straightforward.

Although it wasn’t necessary since he would mostly be living in the dormitory, Yoon Moo-hwa had kept his own house. Entering the unfamiliar house that felt like a model home, Haero let out a deep sigh. Only the arrangement of numbers on the keypad was familiar, everything else from the strange entrance to the house layout was unfamiliar. Despite his tension at the door, the inside was disappointingly empty.

“Looks like he hasn’t arrived yet.” Haero mumbled in a deflated voice, losing the strength in his back.

Dragging his feet to the room, he flopped down on the bed, not caring if his uniform got wrinkled, and closed his eyes.

“Just a little bit. Just a little bit more.”

As if hearing Yoon Moo-hwa’s nagging to wash up immediately after going out, Haero mumbled like sleep-talking, “I’ll wash up right away in just a little bit.”

When it had gotten so dark that the sea and night sky were almost indistinguishable, Yoon Moo-hwa quietly entered.

The entrance light flickered on and off. Yoon Moo-hwa slowly loosened his tie as he stepped into the open door.

It smelled of sunlight and salt. It wasn’t a fishy smell at all. It was just the scent of Haero’s skin.

Yoon Moo-hwa stood slightly askew next to Haero. With one hand in his pocket, his expression unreadable with his cap still on. But somehow, one could feel that his gaze was directed at Haero.

“……”

‘How much time had passed like this?’

Haero started to groan. Feeling hot, he pushed away the blanket with his feet and raised one leg onto the blanket. His long leg was fully visible through the rolled-up pajama leg. It was an elastic leg like a deer’s.

Yoon Moo-hwa neither covered him back up nor moved from his initial position.

However, soon after, Haero started to groan more and more, his face contorting into a strange expression.

Yoon Moo-hwa slowly began to lower his gaze from Haero’s face. His eyes were sharp and persistent, yet cold and detached, as if examining a very complex engine of a ship.

His gaze reached Haero’s crotch.

At the bulging volume, Yoon Moo-hwa quietly straightened his tilted head.

“Mmnh.” Haero let out a painful moan as if his throat was being strangled. Soon, he cried inwardly as if whimpering.

Yoon Moo-hwa quietly reached out his hand at the dry crying sound without tears.

With a clang, the window opened, and the still cool breeze rushed in. Haero, who had flinched greatly, seemed to feel better with the change in air.

“Did the dream change?” Mumbling in a somewhat wet and languid voice, Yoon Moo-hwa waited until the bulge in Haero’s crotch subsided again, then quietly covered him with the blanket and left the room as silently as he had entered.

Taking off his hat with hands damp from fatigue and alcohol, Yoon Moo-hwa slowly ran his fingers through his hair.

After letting out a deep sigh, he slowly recalled the faces of the new cadets.

‘Who could have entered Haero’s dream?’

He remembered silently, analyzed slowly, and carefully selected candidates. However, there was one thing even he didn’t know. The candidates he selected, although mere serious imitations, each resembled him in some small way.

* * *

The sweet scent of pancakes, butter melting on the frying pan, and the savory smell of eggs.

Haero quietly smiled at the fragrant scents occupying his morning memories. Then he jumped up from his place as if leaping.

“Hyung!”

As he opened the door and shouted energetically, a calm greeting of “You’re up” came from behind the bent pillar.

“When did you arrive?!”

Whether it was due to having slept well or still being half-asleep, Haero was very cheerful, in contrast to yesterday’s tension. He ran to the broad back turned to him, hugging him tightly from behind and wrapping his arms around his waist. 

Yoon Moo-hwa coughed lightly as if feigning discomfort, then very naturally removed Haero’s arms.

The cough, along with the action, felt very natural.

Haero grinned widely and clung to Yoon Moo-hwa like a small animal, “Did you come late? You should have woken me up.”

“You sleep earlier than before. School life is regular, I suppose.”

“No, I still stay up late studying. Yesterday I was just tired.”

Haero’s breath tickled as he closed his eyes and deeply inhaled Yoon Moo-hwa’s scent. 

Yoon Moo-hwa lightly tensed his neck. 

“How are your classes?”

“Wow. I didn’t know you’d be interested.”

“Right. Actually, I’m just asking out of courtesy.” Yoon Moo-hwa replied as he took off his apron and hung it aside. 

It was hard to tell if he was joking or not. But what did it matter?

“Classes are difficult. But manageable. The emergency medicine professor said I have talent and asked if I’d consider switching to that field.”

“If you wanted that, you would have gone to medical school.”

“Exactly. But there’s a medical school affiliated with our school, so they say transfer would be easy.”

Yoon Moo-hwa put down his cutlery at Haero’s chattering. He quietly stared at Haero and then asked in a honey-coated voice, “It seems good to me too. Aren’t you interested?”

Haero wasn’t fooled by this kindness. “Don’t try to persuade me. You want me to switch to becoming a doctor while studying that, right?”

‘He won’t be fooled by this level of persuasion.’

Yoon Moo-hwa smiled bitterly. As he lowered his head to cut the omelet, he mumbled, “Would you be persuaded if I tried?”

Despite knowing he had just said ‘don’t try to persuade me’, Haero’s hand hesitated at the strangely nuanced reply. At the same time, the scene he had tried hard to erase flashed back in his mind.

While he couldn’t remember most of what happened at the social gathering, the shock from that video remained vividly in his body. 

Haero gripped the fork he almost dropped and spoke as casually as possible, “I saw a strange video there.”

“Hmm.” Yoon Moo-hwa had a rough idea. After all, Haero’s dream-state reaction last night was clearly different from when he had nightmares. “What kind?”

But he pretended not to know and asked.

“It was pornography, I’ve never seen anything like that before. I couldn’t even find such things in my life, but I guess there are cadets with various special skills.”

It seems Haero doesn’t know that all his personal devices have parental controls. The fact that he didn’t suspect this even now showed how much he trusted Yoon Moo-hwa. 

Yoon Moo-hwa felt a little guilty conscience that he wouldn’t regret. “So how was it?”

‘How was it?’

Haero was a bit taken aback.

‘Do people ask about these things?’

Haero, whose friendships were not just limited but non-existent, had only Yoon Moo-hwa as both a friend and guardian. However, remembering how Tan Shui had casually critiqued the video at the social gathering, which left only a vague memory but a clear shock, he assumed this must be natural.

Still, it’s a bit embarrassing.

“Well, just… It was a bit shocking.”

While knowing perfectly well there was no need to ask such things, Yoon Moo-hwa calmly probed Haero, “What did they do in the video?”

He was curious. What Haero, exposed to such things for the first time, might have dreamed about. Who the partner might have been. Whether it was just nameless hands reaching out to caress him, or if they had shared their bodies.

“Well…” Haero averted his gaze.

Although Yoon Moo-hwa had asked so casually that Haero thought it was okay to answer, he still felt needlessly embarrassed. 

Yoon Moo-hwa neither rushed nor stopped him.

“They sucked each other’s genitals.”

‘Genitals.’

Yoon Moo-hwa almost laughed at the word choice that sounded like it was copied directly from a dictionary. 

‘He probably don’t even know there are other vulgar terms for his genitals. He’d be confused if he heard words like ‘cock’ or ‘dick’.’ 

Smart yet very naive. That’s how he had raised him. To naturally avoid things he didn’t necessarily need to know.

“That’s beyond overprotection, it’s overstepping! Are you going to take responsibility for that child’s life forever?”

That’s why he had distanced himself from Major Gu. She strongly opposed Yoon Moo-hwa’s parenting method, “I knew you lacked humanity, but I believed you wouldn’t go too far. Now I’m not so sure. You know what? You become strange when it comes to that child. You lose your rationality.”

Every time he was accused of losing rationality and every moment he chose Haero’s upbringing method, Yoon Moo-hwa was extremely rational and calm. That’s why those criticisms didn’t scratch him at all.

“So?”

“Huh?” Haero asked back as if he had misheard Yoon Moo-hwa.

“So, did Haero want to try it too?”

“Wh-what?!” Surprised, Haero ended up dropping his fork.

“You could be curious. Whether it really feels that good, what it feels like.”

“No, no, I don’t…”

Haero was at a loss, wondering if Yoon Moo-hwa had read his mind.

Watching Haero’s greatly flustered appearance, Yoon Moo-hwa slowly chewed his omelet. 

Haero was severely shaken for a moment, then soon pretended to be nonchalant. “Forget it. I’m not curious. It’s not something I can try alone anyway. How could I do that with someone else?”

“Who else?”

“…There’s no one like that.”

“Right. Haero, you don’t have any friends besides me.” Yoon Moo-hwa grinned.

Haero looked up and glared at him. He was clearly teasing. Though Haero had never felt particularly ashamed about not having friends.

This time it was Haero’s counterattack. Haero snapped back as spitefully as he could,”Why do I need friends? Do friends do that kind of thing? Have you ever done it with a friend?”

“Are you curious about that?”

However, the counterattack didn’t even last a second. Without even grasping the flag of victory, Haero was left speechless.

“Ha-have you ever done it?”

Seeing Haero leaning forward, gripping the table tightly, Yoon Moo-hwa lowered his head deeply. In that position, he bit his lips tightly, holding back laughter.

“Anyway, it’s not that you’re not curious, it’s just that you can’t do it because it’s not something you can do alone.”

Having finally swallowed his laughter and speaking calmly as if nothing happened, Yoon Moo-hwa’s words made Haero turn his head to the side.

“Why are you teasing me when you’re not going to do it with me anyway.”

The grumbled words came back to hit Haero’s own ears. Realizing that Yoon Moo-hwa must have heard it too, Haero jumped up from his seat as if burned.

“Finish your meal before you go.”

“J-just now, what I said…”

“Yeah. I can’t do that for you.” Yoon Moo-hwa explained calmly, without showing any sign of displeasure or surprise. “You’re a quasi-soldier, and if I were to suck your genitals or let you suck mine.”

It was Haero’s expression, not Yoon Moo-hwa’s style.

“It could be seen as sexual harassment using hierarchy.”

“……”

“So let’s stop this conversation and eat quickly.”

Haero felt his energy drain away and slumped back into his seat.

Yoon Moo-hwa didn’t scold Haero for slumping in his chair and stabbing at his food while holding the fork at its very end. For the first time, he who had strictly corrected table manners let such ill-mannered behavior slide.

After a long while, Haero spoke in a small voice, “I didn’t mean it like that. Just… like you said, I don’t have friends, and, uh, you were teasing me so…”

“I understand. I know I was teasing you too. I’m sorry.” Yoon Moo-hwa placed a coffee in front of Haero. As he did so, he asked, “You really don’t have any friends at all?”

“…I did meet someone.”

“Oh? Did you become close?”

“We just started talking, so it’s not to the point of being close or not. They do things like social gatherings. Did you do those too?”

Sitting across from Haero, Yoon Moo-hwa replied, “It was so long ago, I don’t remember well.”