GB 81

“I, I…”

Haero mumbled and took a step back. Despite Yoon Moo-hwa having pursued him relentlessly, and despite Haero priding himself on knowing Yoon Moo-hwa better than anyone else after watching him his whole life, the person before him now was utterly unfamiliar.

Haero’s leg slipped from Yoon Moo-hwa’s grasp. Unable to wait for that moment, Yoon Moo-hwa clutched at the air. If it had been the leg, it would have left a mark.

“Hyung, you’re acting strange right now.” Haero whispered.

Yoon Moo-hwa let out a cold laugh. Of course it’s strange. It can’t help but be strange. He had hunted, used his artificial eye to the point of overheating, and above all…

“I saw your blood.” That sweet whisper was clearly different from his usual gruff manner of speaking. 

Haero noticed that Yoon Moo-hwa was not in his normal state. 

‘It’s dangerous.’ 

A warning instinctively flashed in Haero’s mind, shaped by growing up on a pirate island close to the wild.

The current Yoon Moo-hwa is dangerous. Not that he’s afraid of him, but the current Yoon Moo-hwa is not okay. 

This warning froze Haero’s face.

In an instant, their positions reversed. Haero turned away, Yoon Moo-hwa pursued.

“I think it would be better if I came back another time, Captain.”

Sensing that warning, Haero turned around abruptly.

Opening the closed bulkhead door requires effort. Thanks to the extra two seconds it would take, Yoon Moo-hwa could easily catch Haero.

It doesn’t matter if it’s difficult. The conclusion would be the same anyway.

He grabbed Haero, turned him forcefully, and crashed into his small lips. He was about to roughly grab Haero’s face but instead stretched out his hand and painfully grasped at the air. He poured his directionless desire into Haero’s mouth. Haero’s delicate Adam’s apple bobbed. Such a cute ripple.

Yoon Moo-hwa wanted to show him what a kiss was. 

‘There were no traces of other bastards in your diary. But if by chance you had experiences with others that you didn’t write about, that I didn’t find and discover for you, those were all fake.‘

Their tongues were just dirty muscles, and he wanted to drill into Haero’s head that, ‘What we, or more precisely what I’m doing to you now, is real.’

And he wanted to say that there wouldn’t be a third lesson. Because from now on, it would happen without teaching.

After a long moment of panting breaths and wet sounds, Yoon Moo-hwa slowly pulled away, twisting his face and curling his lips. The grotesque eye scar and cool artificial eye stared directly at Haero. Despite having no warmth, it felt like it could burn. Left eye, frostbite; right eye, severe burn.

“Why? Are you finally worried about yourself now?” Yoon Moo-hwa muttered. His voice cracked beautifully.

The rotten smell that had been permeating the sea was fading. Partly due to the efforts of the sea’s cleaners, but mainly because they were already moving away from the debris.

Still at the entrance of the ‘gray pit’. Sadly, just leaving the port of call. The journey ahead is still long, and there’s no escape hole on this vast sea full of only danger.

Pressing his lips against Haero’s again, Yoon Moo-hwa whispered, “Your drinking habit is really the worst, you know?”

‘We’re trapped on an island, and lies won’t work anymore. It’s time to show our poker hands. Who holds the ice cream stick, who holds the knife handle.’

* * *

One year ago.

Time flows backwards, riding on the moist fog floating subtly above the sea.

It was a day of damp, misty rain. A 7,600-ton warship was huddled in the dark naval port.

His eyes ached from the bad weather. It wasn’t real pain, more like phantom pain. Yoon Moo-hwa pressed hard on his eye patch as he got into the car.

“Huff…”

Sitting at the wheel, he hugged the steering wheel for a moment, as if trying to shake off the fatigue from this particularly tiring operation.

Should he have a drink? The weather wasn’t inviting for drinking alone at home. But he didn’t want to get embarrassingly drunk either. He didn’t want to look like some heartbroken bastard wallowing in self-pity.

Heartbreak… It’s ironic that word came to mind.

“Better not to drink.” He muttered pathetically. He was already being maudlin, no need to add spice to it.

Yoon Moo-hwa drove. However, without realizing it, he was heading somewhere other than his officer’s quarters. It was his house that he hadn’t yet sorted out.

The house he had prepared for Haero was cleared out the day after Haero left. It was Haero who did it, not him. The only space left for the two of them was where Haero had last seen him and left. If they ever reconnected, it would be the only place Haero could return to.

He chose an inefficient route that took an hour to drive from the naval port where they had docked this time. On impulse, he veered off the road and sped down the damp streets.

He didn’t know why. It wasn’t a rational decision. He stood in front of the house, glaring at the dark brick building that showed no signs of warmth or life.

His lower abdomen ached. In fact, it might not be his lower abdomen but his dick that hurt. Yoon Moo-hwa felt his dick swelling. It was unpleasant. Because he knew why it was swelling.

For a while, Yoon Moo-hwa had almost castrated his sexual desire. As if he had suddenly forgotten about sexual desire altogether, he only used his hand when absolutely necessary, and even then, hardly ever.

Haero’s habits seemed to be contagious.

Just as Haero’s preferred sunny-side-up cooking style had changed his taste to break the half-cooked yolk with a spoon and eat it first, and just as he had started eating nachos instead of popcorn when watching movies, Haero had silently colored Yoon Moo-hwa.

Yoon Moo-hwa thought of Haero when he masturbated.

Very occasionally, when he couldn’t bear it, he would call out Haero’s name through gritted teeth.

When he became aware of that single moan, he felt dirty from head to toe, as if he’d been doused with cold water. Self-loathing consumed him to the tips of his hair.

The Haero in his mind was dirty too. Sometimes Yoon Moo-hwa would ejaculate on Haero’s face, on those curly locks, on those round eyelashes that curled up like his hair, on his chest. Sometimes he would aim at the prettily split vertical navel and ejaculate. There was often so much that it would thoroughly wet his stomach.

He wanted to wet him with something else too.

That’s what he meant by dirty.

That greed has no end.

That his efforts to deny and not face it directly were already broken and useless.

Haero was indeed very smart. On the day Haero pounced on him, did he know that he hadn’t just ended their relationship, but had simply and excellently broken the lock that Yoon Moo-hwa had carefully designed?

Yoon Moo-hwa opened his eyes. He must have fallen asleep in the meantime. He got out of the car, massaging his tired neck. The characteristic chilly and damp air after rain enveloped his body.

As he approached the entrance, gently cracking his neck from side to side, he suddenly stopped.

There was someone at the entrance.

Yoon Moo-hwa’s body naturally expanded threateningly. His muscles tensed and his nerves stood on end. But immediately after, instead of subduing the unknown person, he ran to the entrance.

He abruptly lifted the crouching figure. The person, swaying with eyes closed, was wet in two ways. One was rain, the other was the smell of alcohol.

“You…!” Yoon Moo-hwa’s expression hardened terribly.

But the other person wasn’t scared or flustered. Of course not, as he couldn’t even open his eyes properly. He swayed back and forth like a wet towel.

Yoon Moo-hwa knew well that Haero couldn’t handle alcohol. He had requested a separate examination when implanting the nano-chip for GPS and biometric signals. He was genetically low in alcohol-metabolizing enzymes. There was nothing good for his body about it, and his drunk behavior was terrible to boot.

He knew where Haero was living now. It was an hour away from here. In the opposite direction from where Yoon Moo-hwa had come.

What would have happened if he hadn’t impulsively come here? At the very least, Haero would have certainly caught a bad cold, and that would have been the mildest outcome.

Yoon Moo-hwa grabbed Haero’s dropped chin and turned it sharply from side to side.

“Haero, Haero. Wake up. Do you know where you’ve come?” Yoon Moo-hwa, barely suppressing what was trying to rise up from deep inside him, called to Haero as calmly as he could manage.

The rain, which he thought had stopped for a moment, started falling again. He clicked his tongue after glancing up at the sky, then opened the door with his biometric information.

The inside of the house was as neat as a model home. And it lacked warmth. It was so dark and cool that it was hard to believe anyone lived there. It was natural for Haero to start shivering in the chilly temperature.

Yoon Moo-hwa tucked Haero under his arm and headed for the bathroom. Even if he started the heating now, it would take time to warm up. He sat Haero in the bathtub, turned on the heating, and hurried back to the bathroom. In the meantime, the unconscious Haero had tilted over and was about to fall headfirst into the water. It was exactly like drowning in a puddle.

“This is driving me crazy.” Yoon Moo-hwa sighed as he lifted Haero again. 

He rested Haero’s chin on his shoulder and started undressing the troublemaker who smelled strongly of alcohol all over, as if he had been drenched in liquor rather than rain.

“Is this how you show up after three years?”