Winter Season Chapter 73

Ugh, a foreign sensation immediately settled upon his lips. Before he knew it, Yihyeon clenched his fists to push Seunghyeok away, and strength poured into the hands gripping his wrists as well.

The hot tip of a tongue pushed through his lips, which had parted naturally from the pain. The tongue, entering his mouth with ease, coiled around Yihyeon’s frozen tongue.

Seunghyeok’s face was reflected in Yihyeon’s pupils, which had dilated in shock. Seunghyeok continued to kiss him more deeply without closing his eyes. At the wet, forceful kiss, Yihyeon’s neck gradually began to tilt backward.

It was when Seunghyeok paused for a moment to tilt his head that Yihyeon regained his senses and shoved Seunghyeok’s chest. As soon as he saw the silver thread of saliva stretching between their lips, he felt a jolt of clarity as if he had been struck on the back of the head.

When he jerked his head away to avoid Seunghyeok, who was trying to overlap their lips once more, Seunghyeok looked down at Yihyeon from a close distance. Yihyeon whispered, trying to calm his chest which was heaving significantly.

“…Don’t.”

At the barely audible murmur, a scoffing sound of disbelief came from above.

“From now on, if you’re going to refuse, do it in a more certain way.”

It was a voice laid so low it made his heart feel as if it were dropping. Before the lingering resonance of his words could even fade, their lips overlapped again, and a tongue delved through the parted gap.

Between the buildings, where the yellow streetlights scattered just enough light to barely discern their silhouettes, and with a gap of less than ten centimeters between them, the gazes of the two men became entangled like shackles.

Unlike their touching noses, the breath leaking from between their lips felt incredibly hot. Yihyeon clenched his fists. He didn’t know anymore.

His eyes closed shortly after.

༘⋆🤍˚ .❄️₊˚ෆ

There was no clear reason why he had tossed and turned late into the night and only fell asleep toward dawn. As he lay there unable to organize the thoughts that followed one after another, the grayish morning dawn was already rising outside the window.

Even when he had done more with Gu Seunghyeok, his mind hadn’t been this dizzy. Yet, the events of last night kept replaying like a scene on a movie screen, as if he were watching someone else.

‘Let’s just check one thing.’

Whenever he recalled that low, chanting voice, he felt as if he were falling abruptly from a high place, and his stomach knotted uncomfortably. He couldn’t understand himself for not pushing Gu Seunghyeok away and instead closing his eyes.

Could the excuse of being swept up in the atmosphere work? It seemed that whenever he got involved with Gu Seunghyeok, everything flowed unexpectedly. The reason why he shook helplessly, as if being dragged here and there by the waves, whenever he was swung around—was it because of the traces of emotion he hadn’t yet erased?

“Haaa…”

Perhaps he already knew the answer. He just didn’t want to admit it.

Letting out a long sigh, Yihyeon lowered the arm he had placed over his eyes and stared blankly up at the grayish sky visible through the window. Since the snow was fluttering and the day was so overcast, he couldn’t gauge the time at all.

When he blankly picked up his phone, the time on the screen was past 1:00 PM. No matter how much it was a day without part-time work, waking up this late was rare, so his entire body felt stiff.

Yihyeon, turning on the cold water in the bathroom to clear his head, caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and paused his hands. His exposed neckline was covered in reddish marks.

He was past the age of blushing over such things, and no one else had seen them, but his face grew hot with a sense of pointless shame. Yihyeon hurriedly bowed his head and splashed cold water with both hands.

It was around the time he was wiping the moisture from his face with a towel that the phone, which had been quiet all along, began to vibrate. The name Gu Seunghyeok was displayed boldly on the screen.

He didn’t know the reason, but his palms and fingertips felt itchy. As he just stared down at it without answering, the call cut off.

Buzz, buzz.

A moment later, the phone began to vibrate again, and simultaneously, a knock was heard at the front door. When he opened the door while wiping the water from his face with the towel, Gu Seunghyeok was standing there with the phone to his ear.

As Yihyeon looked up at him silently, Seunghyeok turned his body and walked into the house. Then, after taking a look around, he picked up Yihyeon’s phone, which was still vibrating on the desk.

“Is the phone just for decoration? Why aren’t you answering?”

“…What’s going on?”

Seunghyeok didn’t answer Yihyeon’s question and began to pace the house. With Seunghyeok standing in the narrow room, the already low ceiling looked even lower. He scanned the house, which could be seen in its entirety at a single glance, and spoke as if curious.

“What happened to that palace of a house that you’re living in a place like this?”

“Gu Seunghyeok.”

“What.”

“I asked what’s going on.”

Yihyeon reflexively snatched Seunghyeok’s wrist. Seunghyeok’s gaze suddenly fixed on Yihyeon’s neckline. Recalling the mottled marks left on his white neck, Yihyeon quickly pulled the towel around his neck closed. The culprit himself spoke nonchalantly, as if nothing were wrong.

“Get dressed. We’re going out.”

His attitude was confident, as if they were people who had an appointment. It was bewildering to have someone barge in out of nowhere and tell him to get ready to go out. Yihyeon narrowed his eyes.

“Did you make an appointment with me without me knowing?”

“Did I have to? You’re playing hard to get. Fine, then. See you in the car in 5 minutes.”

“……”

“I’ll head down first.”

Seunghyeok, who had checked his wristwatch and given his one-sided notice, lightly shook the phone he was holding.

“I’m taking this.”

The sound of the door closing echoed, and Yihyeon, left alone again, wiped his mouth with one hand. Only one person had come in and out, but he felt drained as if he had experienced something major.

In his heart, he wanted to ignore Gu Seunghyeok’s words and just rest, but he couldn’t even do that because his phone had been taken. Letting out a small sigh, Yihyeon pulled a black turtleneck from the dresser drawer and slipped it over his head.

When he stepped out of the house, heavy snow was pouring from the sky. He hadn’t realized it when he caught a glimpse through the window, but the black asphalt was covered in white, as if it had been snowing all night. It was a year with particularly heavy snow. Yihyeon got into the black sedan parked in front of the door.

“Give me my phone.”

“Buckle up first.”

At the momentum that suggested he wouldn’t back down, Yihyeon sighed and fastened his seatbelt, and the car began to move smoothly. Seunghyeok took the phone out of his inner pocket and handed it to Yihyeon without even looking sideways.

Yihyeon silently turned his head toward the window. People were walking with their bodies hunched over against the diagonally falling heavy snow. He thought at most they would go to the Gawon-dong office or somewhere nearby, but the car was leaving the local road and entering the highway. Yihyeon belatedly asked Seunghyeok.

“Where are we going?”

“To work.”

To work?

“Then why did you bring me?”

When he looked at Seunghyeok with a furrowed brow at the completely inscrutable words, Seunghyeok, who had been resting his elbow on the window frame, fingered his lips. Then, after maintaining silence for a long time, he spoke.

“Have you ever been to the ocean in the middle of winter?”

“……”

“Because I haven’t.”

Yihyeon’s gaze landed on Seunghyeok’s profile.

“Two people are better than one person going alone and acting all pathetic.”

Starting from why I would go to see the ocean with you, there were one or two things to argue about, but Seunghyeok’s expressionless face while saying that somehow bothered him.

Thinking he should just consider it a service since he had nothing to do at home anyway, Yihyeon quietly shut his mouth and turned his head toward the window.

The car raced along the highway at a high speed. Snowflakes falling from the sky frequently stuck to the window.

After several hours of passing through multiple tunnels and plowing through snowflakes large enough to see their hexagonal crystals, the car arrived at a village with a sign that said Jeongseon, Gangwon-do.

Perhaps because it was Gangwon-do, the sun was shorter, and the sky was already stained with a mysterious color mixing red and blue.

“Damn it…”

Yihyeon, who had been nodding off in the car that was stopping and starting as he listened to the thud, thud of falling snow, snapped his eyes open at a jolt of the car.

“What kind of person leaves goods in a place like this?”