Rabbit Hole Chapter 16

He wanted to say, I want not to know, but you never let me not know. Geumseo wanted to say this but held back.

Soon, he heard Go San telling the driver his home address. He didn’t want to go home with Go San. It might be the size of a booger compared to Go San’s place, but to him, it was a nest he’d barely managed to find. Don’t come, I said don’t come….

But his body wouldn’t listen to him. Geumseo, forced to lay his head on Go San’s thigh, which was solid as a rock, felt slightly carsick. Amid the dizziness, Geumseo felt a bit of relief, thinking that even if he couldn’t stop him from coming over, Go San surely wouldn’t have sex in his tiny, palm-sized home.

∞ ∞ ∞

“How do you wash up in a place like this.”

“It all gets washed….”

Go San was spouting whatever nonsense came to mind. It was preposterous.

“Yang Geumseo, your place is tiny as a dick.”

If my dick were the size of that bathroom, I wouldn’t even be able to walk around. Geumseo imagined that and giggled. The fever made his laughter come easy. Go San looked seriously at Yang Geumseo lying down, laughing to himself while burning up, and then left the house. Guess he can’t stand a place like this even a little, huh? I get used to everything. Grateful that Go San had left, Geumseo laughed to himself again. Then he remembered Go San once saying that idiots don’t even catch colds. This was definitely a cold, so that meant he wasn’t an idiot. Go San wouldn’t be able to tease him about that anymore either.

He drifted off for a moment. He could have slept more, wanted to sleep more, but Go San shook him awake, so he had no choice but to get up.

“Take your medicine.”

Without even giving him time to brace himself, Go San opened his mouth and pushed the medicine in. He pressed down on his tongue to open up his throat. Just as a gag reflex was rising, water was poured in. He swallowed the medicine in the confusion, and when he coughed, Go San even sat him up and patted his back. It was a bit forceful and rough, but it was nursing nonetheless.

“Now sleep.”

“I’m hungry.”

Making the act of laying him back down pointless, Geumseo turned his body toward Go San and curled up. His eyes were hazy from the fever.

“He’s doing all sorts of things.”

Go San clicked his tongue and squeezed in beside Geumseo. The blanket was for one person, so with Go San getting in, it was far from enough. Go San arbitrarily pulled Geumseo right up against his side and opened a delivery app. This? This? To everything he asked, all Geumseo saw were things he had no confidence he could digest. Growing frustrated, Geumseo tapped on a porridge chain restaurant and ordered the most expensive one. Having done that, afraid he’d be told to pay for it himself, he swiftly pressed the payment button. Go San didn’t even look at the price and didn’t particularly care.

“People usually eat porridge when they’re sick….”

You’re American, so you don’t know that? Geumseo was about to ask but stopped. It wasn’t that. It was that he’d never been sick, so he wouldn’t know. At least, the Go San he had seen had never been sick. Then was Go San an idiot too…? Even just today, he’d been outside in short sleeves, and unlike him, wasn’t he perfectly fine? They say athletes need to manage their condition carefully, but to have a body that doesn’t need that. He’s blessed.

“I got you to quit that place.”

“That place? Who? Did what?”

“That place you worked, you, quit.”

“No! I never did that!”

Geumseo tried to bolt upright in surprise but was pinned down by Go San’s arm and couldn’t budge. Go San asked Geumseo how much he got paid. Geumseo answered with a fair amount of confidence. Asking how many days a week and how many hours he worked, Go San tapped at the calculator. A number appeared on the phone screen. It was an amount barely a few hundred won above minimum wage.

“This….”

Go San was about to unleash a truly vile curse, but words failed him, so he just gave up.

“This is why rich kids.”

Rich kids, sneered Go San, who was himself an actual rich kid. Even before Geumseo’s family went bankrupt, they weren’t on a level to be compared to Go San’s family. Which meant Go San wasn’t in a position to denounce Geumseo for not knowing how the world works.

“Ugh, seriously.”

There was so much to say, but he didn’t know where to start. Go San wanted, this time for real, to do something to knock some sense into Yang Geumseo, but since he might actually die right now, he decided to hold back. Of course, that wasn’t easy.

“Don’t treat me like an idiot…. I caught a cold, see.”

But making Geumseo’s hard-won words pointless, Go San seemed to have completely forgotten that he’d teased Geumseo by saying idiots don’t catch colds.

Go San was still pouring curses on the boss of what was now Geumseo’s former workplace. All sorts of profanity in Korean and English came out. Geumseo grew dejected at the fact that the job he thought he’d picked pretty well himself had once again, without fail, turned out to be shit. He felt miserable. The ear the boss had pulled also hurt. As Geumseo fiddled with his ear, Go San smacked his hand away and covered it with his own large hand.

“Then how do you want me to treat you.”

There wasn’t any particular treatment he wanted from Go San. But maybe because his whole body ached right now. Geumseo, who also rarely got sick, unexpectedly had no immunity to pain. He reached out his hand to Go San’s neck, wrapped his arm around it, and pleaded with a damp tongue and swollen lips.

“Just not hurting….”

“…”

“Can’t you make it not hurt…?”

Go San’s eyes rolled. Geumseo probably meant for him to make things not hurt in general, not right now, but to Go San’s ears, it sounded like he was asking to be taken gently right now so it wouldn’t hurt.

Even if this was a misunderstanding, was that his fault? It was Yang Geumseo’s fault for causing the misunderstanding.

Go San threw his conscience to the dogs.

Geumseo’s bleary gaze didn’t catch Go San’s crazed eyes. Go San yanked the arm he had tucked under Geumseo’s neck. Their bodies pressed close. Geumseo slowly realized there was a hand entering his pants.

“…What?”

“You said make it not hurt. I’ll try, so tell me if it hurts or not.”

“Now…?”

“I’ve wanted to try it when you had a fever.”

“Then do it when you have a fever….”

“When I have a fever, you can eat me. I’ll give you my dick.”

Is that eating me? Geumseo was dumbfounded. To him, that sounded not like him eating Go San, but like Go San, even while he was sick, was motivated to pound into him. And that was probably not a misunderstanding but the truth.

“I’m not eating you. I want to eat porridge. When is the porridge coming?”

“When it comes, I’ll feed you that too.”

For a guy born and raised in America, Go San was good at Korean, and he was even good at spewing dirty talk like that. Go San smacked away the hands weakly pushing at him. The small blanket rustled pitifully. Along with it, glimpses of the side of Geumseo’s legs appeared now and then. The rooftop room was vulnerable to drafts. Cold, he unconsciously drew his legs together, and Go San laughed under the blanket.

“Don’t….”

He hated Go San for hurting him, then was grateful because Go San showed up and helped, then got angry because Go San arbitrarily made him quit his job, then felt a little strange because Go San got angry on his behalf over his stupid situation, then felt a tickle in his chest because Go San nursed him, and now he couldn’t even tell what he was feeling. It was like the feeling of being slapped by a loan shark until he said I was lazy this week, over and over, for only bringing this much, and then being told good work next week and taken to a barbecue place and eating the meat they grilled for him.

“Ah….”

Geumseo’s waist arched slightly. Go San, who had been sucking at the tender skin between his testicles, lowered his head further and licked Geumseo’s lower entrance. Geumseo shed streams of tears from the shame. He had too little strength to resist, and his tear ducts were loose from the fever to hold back his crying and keep his pride. The same went for down below. Go San licked and coveted that place as if it were Yang Geumseo’s lips. He even hoisted Geumseo’s legs over his own shoulders and chewed at his perineum. The entrance loosened like a tear duct. Go San came out from the heated blanket, wiping his wet lips, philtrum, and the tip of his nose with the back of his hand.

“I swim, you know.”

I know.

Geumseo turned his head away, not wanting to hear him talk about something he already knew all too well.

“I like the water.”

Somehow, it seemed like nonsense would follow.

“You know you’ve got a lot of water?”

As expected, it was nonsense. Geumseo pulled the two corners of the pillow up to cover his ears.

“I don’t know…. I don’t know, and I just don’t like you.”

But maybe he should have covered his mouth instead of his ears? Geumseo ended up spilling his true feelings in a moaning voice without realizing it. At that, Go San’s eyes, which had been wiping his lips with his thumb, went round. He looked innocent, which didn’t suit him. Soon, with a grin, the momentary innocence vanished without a trace.

“I don’t care.”