Winter Season Chapter 40

It was instantaneous when his upturned arm was yanked to the side. Without giving the man a chance to let out a sound of surprise, Seunghyeok, who had snatched Yihyeon’s arm away, was frowning as he looked down at the area of his wrist.

It was a scar that had not been there the last time he saw Yihyeon. Seunghyeok looked down at Yihyeon with a gaze that had turned fierce in an instant.

“Did you cut yourself?”

It was laughable that a man who must have witnessed far worse sights was acting so sensitive over a mere scar. Furthermore, why do you care?

Yihyeon gave a fishy smile and twisted his wrist to pull it away.

“If you came here because you had business, just do your work and go.”

“…”

“Stop paying useless attention to the wrist affairs of a homo bastard.”

Yihyeon, indifferently spitting out the same words Seunghyeok had used, pulled down his pushed-up sleeve and turned his back on Seunghyeok. As he lifted the glass and drained it in one go, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed.

Seunghyeok, who had been staring obsessively at Yihyeon, grit his teeth hard enough for his jaw muscles to bulge before turning his body toward the entrance.

The manager, who had tapped the shoulder of the bartender standing there watching the situation, went back inside, and the scene returned to exactly how it was ten minutes ago. Yihyeon, pressing his forehead against the table again, endured the sensation of his vision spinning.

…This is shitty.

Since acknowledging the fact that he was different from others, there hadn’t been a single day where living was easy, but he had never felt quite as particularly miserable as he did now. He thought he had grown used to the contempt he received from all sides, but today it was exceptionally difficult to brush it off coolly.

Was it because of his parents who denied his existence even while he was nearing death due to illness, or was it because of the son of a bitch in the next seat who used drugs to try and rape someone and then shamelessly showed his face? Or was it because of Gu Seunghyeok, who never hid his look of disgust every time they met?

No, perhaps he was simply receiving punishment for standing by and watching all that merciless criticism and mockery as if it were someone else’s business.

Ah… I can’t take it.

Yihyeon stood up abruptly from his seat. When he swayed slightly from failing to catch his balance, the man in the next seat propped up an arm to catch him. He shook it off and headed to the bathroom with staggering steps.

Standing over the sink, he turned on the water and splashed his face several times. The sorrow that had been packed tight in his stomach passed through his chest, over his throat, and flowed out as tears.

“Heh…”

He tried to hide his face behind the cold water, but he couldn’t hold back the emotions that were overflowing. He was standing there with his hands on the sink, letting tears fall, when he heard the sound of someone entering the bathroom.

He tried to hurriedly wipe his face and move out of the way, but before he could, both his arms and his collar were grabbed, and his back was slammed against the wall.

“…Ah.”

The face he looked up at was familiar. It was the man who had been sitting next to him until just a moment ago.

“Ah, fuck… Did something happen today? I wasn’t going to go this far, but seeing you actually cry, fuck, it’s so goddamn hot.”

The man, who held Yihyeon’s arms painfully tight, lowered his head and buried his face in the nape of his neck. The sensation of a wet tongue licking across his skin felt dull, as if it were happening a layer away.

Yihyeon, who tilted his head back to try and hold back the tears that were still flowing, struggled with his strengthless arms, but the man instead applied force to pin both his arms against the wall.

His lips passed the nape of the neck and moved lower. As if the loose-fitting knit sweater was in the way, he lifted the clothing entirely and sucked on his exposed chest.

“You made such a fuss saying you hated it, but you’re being quite docile today.”

“…Stop it.”

“Stop what. Ha, fuck… My dick is about to explode already.”

Being like this in a bathroom made him feel like absolute trash, but twisting his body and saying “don’t” weakly was the extent of the resistance he could offer. Then again, it was a trash-like life anyway. Whether he rolled around here or in a bed, it would be the same.

Despite that, Yihyeon struggled and kept turning his head away. The man let out a smirk as if watching a child’s prank and caressed Yihyeon’s body here and there.

Click, click.

The locked bathroom handle rattled around the time the man was rubbing his groin almost right against Yihyeon’s. Yihyeon, who had been standing helplessly having half-given up on escaping, opened his eyes slowly.

Click, click. Even though the attempts to open the closed door continued, the man paid it no mind and continued to prey on Yihyeon.

It’s going to go all the way at this rate.

To think that in this lifetime, he would end up having sex in a bar bathroom with a man he’d seen only twice. At the moment a self-mocking laugh leaked from between his thin lips, the bathroom door burst open with a loud “bang” and someone stepped inside. It was the appearance of an unexpected person.

“Fuck, who is it?”

A sharp gaze passed over Yihyeon’s almost-stripped top, the red teeth marks left behind, and his hands that seemed to be pushing away, before finally landing on his pale nipples. This homo bastard even has pink nipples. Seunghyeok, confronting the reddened eyes, displayed a cold sneer.

“You’re making me goddamn concerned.”

Yihyeon felt like he could let out a sigh at the fact that it was Gu Seunghyeok, of all people, who saw him in this state. Just thinking about how he would throw another fit about gay this and homo that already made his head start to ache. As Yihyeon lowered his eyes helplessly, Seunghyeok strode over, grabbed the man’s shoulder, and spun him around toward him.

Thud.

A fist landed on the man’s cheek before his body could even find its balance. The man, who was sent sprawling to the floor in a single blow, looked up at Seunghyeok with a shocked expression while clutching his cheek.

“Wha—what…!”

“I don’t care if you gay bastards screw each other…”

Thud.

“But doing it in someone else’s establishment is a bit of a problem.”

Thud.

Every time Seunghyeok swung his fist, terror grew deeper in the man’s eyes. His lip burst with one punch, and then blood flowed from his nose. The man, thrown aside by the sudden explosion of violence, floundered while lying on his back on the floor.

Seunghyeok roughly grabbed the terrified man by the collar and pulled him up. He couldn’t control the inexplicable anger and the emotion that seemed to boil up from within. Just as he raised his fist once more to drive it into the man’s face, he felt a faint force pulling at his body.

Turning his head, he saw Yihyeon with a pale face, not quite daring to grab Seunghyeok’s arm but weakly pulling at the bottom of his shirt. It was an excessive reaction for someone merely witnessing a scene of assault.

“…Stop it.”

At that one sentence in a small, trembling voice, Seunghyeok’s movements came to a dead halt. The strength drained from his tightly clenched fist. Not missing that gap, the man shook off Seunghyeok’s hand that was holding his collar and crawled along the floor.

Leaving the man alone, Seunghyeok looked down and stared at the hand clutching his clothing. The not-so-large hand was turned white.

“…Don’t do it.”

Thinking the halted punching was his chance, the man fled the bathroom as if running for his life. Without even sparing a thought for him as he ran away with his tail between his legs, Seunghyeok looked at Yihyeon.

At the sight of the disheveled clothes, the reddish eyes, and the subtle flush reaching all the way to the nape of his neck from the alcohol, a sensation as if something were seething arose deep in his gut.

“Is that how you talked to that bastard, too?”

“…”

“If you speak that way, what does it sound like other than an invitation to eat you up?”

He couldn’t understand what he was angry about, but he felt a surge of heat at the sight of Yihyeon looking completely drained and frightened. When Seunghyeok grit his teeth and glared fiercely, Yihyeon let out a weak sound like escaping air.

When the man who was the culprit behind his nightmare-like morning had shamelessly taken the seat next to him, perhaps he had foreseen this kind of ending. Maybe the reason he had left the man alone as he slyly struck up a conversation was because he wanted proof that there was someone who wanted him, even in that way.

“I did it so he would.”

“…What?”

Because seeing someone lust after him felt like it meant that even if he couldn’t be loved for his existence, he was at least worth hanging out with as a one-night stand.

“Gu Seunghyeok, do you want to sleep with me, too?”

As soon as he heard the words uttered helplessly with downcast eyes, Seunghyeok’s face distorted in an instant. Yihyeon murmured, as if driving in a wedge.

“Everyone says they like it.”

The expressionless face that had been filled with bewilderment gradually turned menacing. Seunghyeok stared at Yihyeon with a murderous gaze and spoke as if swallowing his words.

“You’ve lost your mind, haven’t you?”