Magic on the Dead Chapter 90

The kiss from last night, which had felt like a punishment, once again swirled in his mind. Being forcibly held, his tongue relentlessly sucked by him, and even amidst the pain that felt like he was suffocating, the parts of their bodies that touched were scorching hot.

The cold dawn, the warm body, the vengeful kiss that had pushed him to the edge of a cliff.

What was all that?

A tense silence, as taut as a tug-of-war rope, continued.

Hajin steadfastly met the gaze that settled gravely upon his face and swallowed his dry saliva. The way his eyes were studying his reaction, as if deep in thought or contemplating something, was unusual.

“…”

“…”

Before long, the silence that had been tightly constricting the surroundings broke.

“We’ll rest fully until today and leave early tomorrow.”

Eden let go of the wrist he was holding and turned his body.

“Don’t overdo it and just lie down.”

Adding those words, he vanished from the room in an instant.

Hajin stared at the door closing anticlimactically and let out a soft sigh. Just from that momentary eye contact, he felt as if all the energy had been drained from his body.

“Hoo…”

An inexplicable tremor was mixed in with his exhale. On his wrist, where the warmth had disappeared, a tingling electricity still lingered.

🃏

Perhaps because the sun had not yet completely set. Sleep did not come easily. Hajin stroked the nape of Pie’s neck, who was stretched out long beside him, trying to sleep.

Grubby teddy bear stickers were plastered all over the translucent glass window. One, two, four, seven… Even counting the numbers meaninglessly did not bring on drowsiness.

The sunset that warmly illuminated the room felt desolate. The dead, eerie silence only served to muddle his mind into a swamp.

Weapons and food, travel route, survival, his brother Junseok and Miso, stars, Jeffrey… Mr. Chunbeom, and… Jung Taegeon.

Jung Taegeon, Jung Taegeon…

As he repeated Eden’s name, for some strange reason, the pit of his stomach ached. The emptiness and loneliness he had felt last night seemed to still be wandering in his chest. He had returned, but a fear once experienced is not easily shaken off.

“…”

After a moment of hesitation, Hajin turned his body halfway and looked down. Eden, lying on the bare floor with a thin blanket, had his hands clasped behind his head and his eyes calmly closed.

‘I told him to just come up and sleep, but he’s so stubborn…’

They had laid down earlier than usual because they were scheduled to prepare and leave early in the dawn. In the meantime, Eden had found a spare blanket and made a separate bed on the floor. He said it was to give the bed to Pie, but Hajin couldn’t shake the feeling that he was avoiding him.

Was that all? After that inscrutable eye contact, he hadn’t given him a single glance. Even when he deliberately tried to speak to him in a friendly manner, all that came back were stiff, one-word answers. To his bruised pride, Hajin felt hurt by his seemingly distant attitude. They were in the same space, yet it felt as if he were left all alone.

After a moment of hesitation, Hajin finally sat up. Carefully, so as not to wake Pie, he got down from the bed and crouched by Eden’s head, gently shaking his shoulder.

“Mr. Jung Taegeon, are you sleeping?”

There was no response, whether he was deliberately not answering or had really fallen asleep.

“Just come up and sleep together. Why are you sleeping on the floor when we have a perfectly good bed?”

He continued to talk to him for a while after that, but he was still met with silence. Hajin eventually gave up trying to wake him and sat with his body curled up.

“Hmm…”

Tick, tock, tick, tock… Time passed just fine. Instead of forcing the sleep that would not come, he rested his chin on his knees and blankly scanned Eden’s face.

The single eyelid on his right eye, which seemed to appear when he was tired, remained a deep crease even with his eyes closed. Hajin, without realizing it, gently stroked it with his index finger.

The skin that touched his finger was softer than expected. As if mesmerized, he traced a circle along the brow bone around the eye socket. His index finger then moved to the bridge of his nose, slowly tracing down the high ridge before settling on his philtrum.

He could feel the texture of the scratchy stubble. It seemed he hadn’t been able to find a razor, as it had been faintly dark for several days. Strangely, the facial hair exuded a healthy, wild charm rather than a slovenly one.

It was the moment his finger, which had been enjoying the texture like artificial turf, moved under his chin.

“Are you done touching me?”

“Ugh!”

Hajin, utterly terrified, fell flat on his butt. At the same time, his back hit the bedside table, and the table clock tumbled down onto the round crown of his head with a thud.

“Ah!”

A stinging pain rang through his spine and head. Zing— Hajin curled up like a pill bug and quickly rubbed the top of his head. He was in a complete daze.

“Ugh…”

“You’re one thing after another.”

Eden, who had sat up at some point, roughly pushed away the hand covering his head.

“Stop being so distracting and stay still.”

He sighed and parted Hajin’s hair. A bump was rising on the reddened scalp, but fortunately, there were no other visible injuries.

At the sound of another sigh from above his head, Hajin clamped his lips shut in embarrassment.

“What is it? Fidgeting in front of me.”

When he lifted his head, slightly reddened eyes, as if tired, were looking at him. His gaze, as he looked down at him with one hand on the bedside table, was filled with an inexplicable irritation.

Hajin hurriedly made an excuse.

“The bed is wide, and since you were sleeping on the floor, I was just going to ask you to sleep together. You wouldn’t wake up when I tried, so I was just waiting a bit, and then, I was curious about your beard, so I just touched it.”

Just how many times are you going to say ‘just,’ you idiot… While he was secretly berating himself, Eden’s body, which had been boxing him in, moved away.

“That’s enough, so get up there and just go to sleep quietly.”

He spoke bluntly and lay back down on the floor.

Hajin, who had been awkwardly curled up, looked at Eden, who had detached himself so anticlimactically, with a puzzled expression.

‘What’s with him, really?’

At this point, he was starting to wonder if he had actually pushed his dick on him. The situation could only be seen as him clearly avoiding him.

“Did I do something wrong, by any chance?”

“…”

“If not, then just come up and sleep together. The bed is wide, so there’s no need to sleep on the floor.”

Eden slowly removed the back of his hand that had been covering his eyes. After staring at the ceiling for a long while, he finally sat up slowly.

As the orange glow of the sunset that had been lighting the room disappeared, a dim light settled in. A silence as heavy as the darkened room descended. Meanwhile, Pie whimpered softly, as if talking in his sleep.

Eden turned his body toward Hajin, who was sitting in front of the bedside table. The gaze that immediately fell upon him was somehow as cold as frost.

It was the moment Hajin, a mysterious chill running down his spine, was about to say something.

“Ugh…?!”

His throat was suddenly squeezed by a tremendous force. Grabbed by the collar, he was inadvertently pulled to his feet along with Eden.

“What, what is…!”

Soon after, an unhesitating hand quickly delved inside Hajin’s short-sleeved t-shirt. The left hand passed his warm abdomen and seized his chest with a firm grip.

“Hn, what the…?”

At the sudden sexual stimulation, his feet automatically stepped backward. In the midst of his hesitation, Eden pushed Hajin against the wall. Thump…! The door closed at the same time.

Hajin’s eyes and mouth opened wide as if in disbelief. Then, hard teeth bit down on his lower lip. Ah! Following that, a thick tongue invaded his mouth.

The voice of Hajin, who was about to say something, was swallowed down his throat. Gulp.

“Mmm!”

There was no time to come to his senses. His flat chest was being squeezed as his lips were painfully sucked. Their lower bodies were pressed together so tightly that even struggling was not easy. As if he would not tolerate a single movement, Eden continuously pushed him against the wall.

It was a different feeling from the violent kiss they had shared in the bathroom last night. Hajin’s jaw trembled at all the sensations that were blowing in so vividly, as if his closed eyes and ears were opening.

As his body squirmed at the rather overwhelming sexual stimulation, the hand that had been kneading his chest slid down and grabbed his arm. Soon, both of his hands were lifted above his head. Feeling a faint resistance to the completely trapped position, Hajin let out a groan through his throat. Eup, eu-eup!

Slurp…! With a wet, sloppy sound, Eden’s face pulled away.

“Haah… haah…!”

Hajin, breathing raggedly, stared in disbelief at the saliva stretching stickily between their lips. The saliva soon broke and hung limply from the tip of Eden’s chin.

Only then did his vision, which had been hazy like sea fog, become clear, and his dilated pupils constricted sharply.

“Mr. Jung Taegeon. This is…”

Once is a mistake, but twice is not. As if he knew this fact clearly, Eden once again sucked on Hajin’s lower lip, which was glistening wet with saliva.

“Haah, how far can you go?”

Was it just his imagination that the question felt like a threat? Hajin blinked rapidly and swallowed the hot saliva he hadn’t been able to swallow before. Gulp.