Boy Monster Chapter 72

Mulling over the fact that Jang Hwonwoo was, at this very moment, having lewd thoughts about him, Eunho found it utterly impossible to cool his head.

The sudden awkwardness and discomfort that surged up within him were strangely similar to excitement. Every part of Jang Hwonwoo’s body and mind that gave Eunho a sexual thrill was greatly amplified, enveloping him. The profane thoughts the kid had spat out in informal language were one of them.

The memory of Jang Hwonwoo’s naked body, seen once before after he had finished bathing, mixed with his warm body scent and captivated Eunho.

‘Eros.’

The gradually burning excitement warmed his breath. This excitement couldn’t be dismissed as the heat of a summer day. His breathing grew ragged with the desire to immediately accept the sensory stimuli floating in his mind with his own body.

‘This is the desire for affection called eros.’

Eunho took off his jacket to cool down and lifted his head to check if he was heading in the direction of the hotel.

To the northwest was the plaza with the hotel and Hwangudan Altar, and continuing straight on this road would lead to the mansion. It was quite a walk to Hwangudan. Eunho turned at the next street corner. The alley, far from the pleasure district, was dark and quiet.

After worrying that he might miss Jang Hwonwoo, Jae Eunho came up with a method. It was to send out butterflies. The idea was to guide Hwonwoo so that he could find Eunho by following the butterflies one by one.

Butterflies of various colors flew towards the octagonal roof of the Hwangungu (皇穹宇), scattering light purple powder. It was a procession that one could only notice by looking carefully. The butterflies, flying at a great distance from one another, circled the high octagonal roof and swooped down to the hotel windows.

While thinking of Jang Hwonwoo, who would follow the secret signposts to find him, a feeling of comfort and pride filled his chest.

‘Then is this platonic? The spiritual affection, fulfillment, the feeling of connection… is this it?’

The sense of trust that he could share the secret of the great undertaking with that boy alone, the gratitude for the things he had done… Countless warm feelings piled up high, their labels removed. It felt as if an invisible force had filled his chest to the brim.

He wanted to quickly confirm these two strands of emotion, learned for the first time in his life. Before he knew it, the brightly lit windows of the Chosun Hotel came into view in the distance. Just as he quickened his pace, a brutish hand roughly spun Eunho around by the shoulder.

Then came a sharp, menacing voice in Japanese.

“Who are you, loitering around the banquet hall?”

Judging by his clothes, he looked like a wealthy Japanese man staying at the hotel. Eunho quickly used his ability on the man to find out his identity. He was a plainclothes detective from the Higher Police Section of the Government-General’s Police Bureau, lying in wait around the banquet hall.

“Hands up and identify yourself. Are you a Joseon-jing?”

The muzzle of a gun was grimly aimed at Eunho’s forehead. It was frustrating to have his powers restricted like this. If only he didn’t have the amulet, he could have made this guy search elsewhere or put him to sleep! Right now, he could sense things, but manipulating the opponent’s consciousness was beyond his capabilities.

For now, getting out of the situation was the priority, so Eunho searched the detective’s knowledge to find something to say. Realizing the man had little information about Gyeongseong’s logistics companies, he put his diligently studied Japanese skills to use.

“I’m on my way to the 00 Company across from the hotel on business. There’s an issue with the cargo to be shipped tomorrow, so I’m heading to the company in the middle of the night.”

After answering, he immediately read the man’s thoughts:

‘For a merchant, his hands are delicate and his face is pale, like he hasn’t spent much time outdoors. High probability of it being a lie. There’s a strange aura about him, so he’s either a prostitute or a pampered young master. Suspicious. It would be to my advantage to arrest him.’

The undercover detective roughly knocked off Jae Eunho’s fedora with the tip of his gun and glared.

“Let’s talk at the police station. Follow me!”

“It’s a summons from the Chairman. If I’m arrested and things go wrong, Viscount Song Byeong-jun* will be furious.”

Eunho told a bold lie. Taking advantage of the fact that the detective had no information about major figures in the trading business, he had dropped the name of a powerful figure from the Iljinhoe to imply he had connections.

The detective paused, calculating in his head.

‘It’ll be troublesome if I make a mistake by arresting him. I should check his identification first….’

Just as the detective was about to issue another command, a voice soaked in fatigue flowed out from the darkness.

“Hand him over to me.”

It was Jang Hwonwoo, the buttons of his uniform undone. Though he was disheveled from drink, his rank insignia made his identity clear. A lazy annoyance was writ large on his tightly furrowed brow and around his eyes.

“Deputy Commander Hiroshi.”

The detective was startled to see Jang Hwonwoo and immediately straightened his posture. Eunho was still sensing the detective, keeping his prayer beads hidden. His ability was about to be completely depleted. The last of the detective’s thoughts he read were as follows:

「Young age, picturesque looks, several prayer beads on his wrist… Deputy Commander Hiroshi. His commission as a First Lieutenant is only a few days away, so getting on his bad side would be a huge problem. If I hand this one over to him, he’ll surely take care of it. He’s a viper—meticulous, calculating, and cruel, so he’ll handle it his own way… My mission is to monitor the family head and the Sashimcheon mansion, so getting on the bad side of the next family head won’t do me any good. I heard that guy shows no mercy to anyone who challenges him, maybe because he’s seen so many rough things in dangerous enemy territories like Manchuria, Primorsky Krai, and Siberia. Once, a soldier disrespected him after hearing his age and got his face stomped on with a military boot in front of everyone….」

‘…What?!’

At that surprising part, Eunho’s ability ran out. Just then, Jang Hwonwoo tossed a remark at the detective.

“I said hand him over because I want to torture him. Is that a problem for you?”

“Not at all, sir. I’ll hand him over. I’ll be on my way, then.”

The detective quickly made his escape, glad to be rid of a troublesome responsibility. While Jang Hwonwoo fixed a persistent gaze on the detective’s back, Eunho picked up his fedora and whispered.

“I sensed him. He’s a Higher Police detective from the Police Bureau. We need to be careful.”

“So they’ve placed plainclothes cops at the mansion too because of the former family head. I’ll have to have the family head and the shaman’s conduct monitored.”

……In an era like this, where danger looms, ready to choke the life out of us with just a turn of the head.

Here we are, facing each other.

In the face of this cold reality, the heat that had warmed Eunho’s body and mind subsided. Jang Hwonwoo teased him in a low voice.

“Hmm… now, what kind of torture shall I inflict upon you, Teacher…?”

“Countless lives have been lost to torture at the Jongno Police Station and the prison. Such jokes are not appropriate.”

“I followed the butterflies and, sure enough, here you are, Teacher. I was about to go pick you up, but for you to come out yourself like this, were you in a hurry for our union?”

Jang Hwonwoo’s tone was subtly dangerous, high-handed, and even shameless. Since Eunho had uttered the words that he would permit sexual intercourse if the great undertaking succeeded, it was only natural that Jang Hwonwoo now held the upper hand.

As the uniformed figure slowly approached, Jae Eunho held out the traces of his torn-up exploration of romance.

“I taught you the foundation of the Joseon independence ideology and there’s still a mountain of things to teach you… but for this problem, it seems I must seek the answer from you.”

Jang Hwonwoo, slowly flipping through the crumpled papers with a cigarette in his mouth, let out a faint mumble.

“Teacher, you said to include nature in a love letter. This love letter is just full of lamentations and crossed-out lines.”

“A love letter? A love letter, you say? How is that a love letter in any way? It’s just research notes. If that’s a love letter, the poets of the world would lie down in protest.”

Seeing Jae Eunho display his rock-hard pride until the very end, Jang Hwonwoo burst out laughing. The answer he gave to Eunho, who wanted a clear explanation, was unexpected.

“Teacher, they say social dancing to swing jazz is all the rage and a mark of culture these days. Have you ever tried it?”

“…What? Why dancing all of a sudden? The sight of me doing such a dance would be nothing short of a scene from hell.”

He had hoped Hwonwoo would clearly sort out his labyrinthine heart, but Jang Hwonwoo made a completely random suggestion and offered his broad back.

“Get on. It’s a free rickshaw.”

Jang Hwonwoo lifted the hesitant Eunho onto his back, quickly scanned their surroundings, and then kicked off the ground without warning. At the soaring altitude, Eunho let out a short scream and clung tightly to Jang Hwonwoo’s neck and shoulders. Eunho’s hair whipped violently in the wind as he squeezed his eyes shut. In less than a few seconds, they were high in the night sky, with a panoramic view of the Gyeongseong city streets.

Eunho quickly adapted to the slow speed of floating through the sky. When he finally opened his eyes and looked down at the dizzying depths below, he saw the flickering lights of sky lanterns stretching far along the banks of the Han River. Gazing at the night of Gyeongseong, brilliantly shining with golden light, Eunho let out a breath of excitement.

“This isn’t a free rickshaw, it’s a free airship!”

“Now, watch carefully how to do the social dance.”

Jang Hwonwoo cut through the darkness at high speed and then leisurely descended above the hotel. Landing by a deserted window, Jang Hwonwoo pointed inside. It was the area behind the first-floor dance hall. Jang Hwonwoo didn’t put Eunho down even after they were on the ground, and Eunho, captivated by the splendid scenery inside the hotel, had no thought of getting off his back.

They watched the movements of the people: making eye contact, holding hands and spinning, circling far apart to meet and bow as if in greeting, then switching sides to hold hands again and bring their bodies close.

Soon, Jang Hwonwoo floated gently into the air again, stopping at a third-floor hotel room window. Opening the window, the two of them flew lightly into the room and settled in a shadowy corner.

Only after they had hidden in the room did their two flushed streams of breath find stillness. When Jae Eunho came to his senses after getting off Jang Hwonwoo’s back, he was already in the kid’s arms, which were wrapped around his back.

“Well then, shall we enter that scene from hell together?”

“Haha.”

“I’ll take responsibility. You just have to hold my hand, Teacher.”

He looked at Jang Hwonwoo’s outstretched palm, and then finally placed his hand on top of it. In the dark room, where only the blue moonlight laid a white path, movement blossomed.

As the two, hands joined and bodies close, moved their steps to the beat, a light breeze brushed past their ears. In the moments they separated to bow and then swiftly came close again, deep breaths were exchanged. When they circled wide and switched hands, their gazes, as wistful as the distance between their bodies, intertwined.

One, two. Three, four. Five, six. Then, over the low jazz melody he hummed, his breath and the warm wind were transmitted in their entirety.

Sometimes the dance would stop due to missteps and stumbles. But their gazes, which held each other captive, never broke. The more they moved their bodies, the more heated their gazes became, sinking into one another, and they could not release their embrace.

Jang Hwonwoo’s idea of answering the romance questions scribbled in the notebook with a dance was a brilliant method Jae Eunho could never have come up with, and its silent explanation was superb.

The clumsy social dance he led said it all. Affection and love are simply things you know with your body and heart.

The moonlight streaming over his shoulder and the wind brought by the dance…

Eunho thought he would never be able to forget this night, even if he lived a lifetime.

The endless sky lanterns lined up along the riverbank.

The endless dance, dance, dance beneath the moonlight…

And the blue-gray eyes.

His eyes, his hair, the transparent moonlight that dwelled everywhere today…

Jae Eunho could not escape from the light emanating from Jang Hwonwoo’s soul, beyond his physical body. The conviction that this very moment he was witnessing would last for hundreds and thousands of years made Jae Eunho sad. At the same time, it made him brave. At the thought that the world had finally listened to his pain and his whining. Jae Eunho felt that perhaps he could sustain himself for a lifetime with this brief memory.

“Teacher, your lips are red. You’re already aroused. Shall we stop dancing?”

Jang Hwonwoo teased in a hushed voice. The humid air, heralding the summer, filled Eunho’s non-response. His next words were as heavy as the brushstrokes of a painting depicting a scene from hell.

“Shall we dance a different dance now? A dance only we can do.”

The kiss that poured down the moment they stopped their steps was as natural as a predetermined sequence. They hugged each other’s backs tightly and devoured one another as if to swallow each other whole.

Footnote:

• A pro-Japanese collaborator belonging to the Iljinhoe (a pro-Japanese organization).