Rabbit Hole Chapter 27

“…Am I ugly?”

His face was sullen and smeared with tears and drool, so there was no way he was prettier or cuter or more handsome than usual, so why the hell was he asking this? Go San couldn’t understand. Yet he answered in a tone that called him cute.

“Yeah. Dirtily ugly.”

“Then why are you turned on?”

“How do you know that.”

“Your lips swell up when you’re turned on.”

His already full and prettily shaped lips became even more lewdly suggestive. Geumseo, with a blank face, pressed down deeply on Go San’s lips.

“You get turned on when I become ugly?”

“…When you say it like that, it makes me sound like some sexual deviant.”

“So you’re not?”

“That’s not it.”

Go San thought for a moment. He’d been caught being turned on, but he didn’t feel a particular need to hide it.

“It’s not that I get turned on when you become ugly, I think I get turned on when you look miserable.”

Oh, yeah, I think so.

Go San even nodded, accepting it.

Even though Geumseo didn’t know what it meant to look miserable, he did feel miserable at the fact that Go San was turned on. Which meant that seeing that look, Go San would get even more turned on. It was a vicious cycle, like a stupid snake eating its own tail.

“I’m cold. Let’s go in.”

“That’s why, why did you come out in short sleeves.”

“Not me, you.”

Go San grabbed Geumseo’s hand tightly and pulled him.

“Bring up Go Unha just one more time at any random moment. Then you’ll really get one hit.”

He didn’t know how many times he’d heard ‘get one hit’ by now. To Geumseo, Go San’s words had no credibility.

“There weren’t any bastards bothering you at work?”

Go San asked as if he were Geumseo’s guardian or something. Because Go San was like this, it was awkward. Geumseo scratched his frozen cheek. He thought of the manager addicted to mini gambling games, the senior employee younger than him who barked in casual speech, Haeju hyung who was supposedly only there in words to protect the employees, and the boss who wore sunglasses even indoors. But they were such a common crowd of humanity that could be seen at every workplace Geumseo had been through, so they didn’t particularly feel like harassment. Then what about Heo Sangmuk?

‘How did he harass me…?’

The time spent serving in Heo Sangmuk’s room was dreadful and hard, but it was difficult to say in what way Heo Sangmuk had harassed him. Even though he did play some pranks, unlike the manager’s worry, he never told him to take the food back because it was cold, and he gave tips generously. Even though he felt like a trash can, that was just a matter of his own feelings.

After quietly thinking it over, Geumseo shook his head.

“No one.”

Geumseo’s life was like a sandbar of accumulated minor misfortunes. Even large misfortunes were ground down fine by the waves that repeatedly rushed in, becoming indistinguishable from the rest, losing their specialness. For example, the event where his father’s business went completely bankrupt and his life flipped over like the back of a hand now just felt like a distant past. So it meant that whether a piece of glass fell in or a piece of plastic fell in, it didn’t stand out enough to catch Geumseo’s eye.

“It’s just ordinary.”

So the manager, the senior employee, Haeju hyung, and Heo Sangmuk were all ordinary things.

Just then, the elevator arrived. Go San leaned against the wall, and Geumseo pressed his body close to the other wall. Go San, with his hands shoved in his pockets and his head against the wall, looked tired. The ends of his shortened hair were slightly frozen. He came out without even drying his hair.

“Yang Geumseo.”

Go San called Geumseo with his eyes closed.

“Yeah?”

“You lie to me and you die. You get a spanking, really.”

Geumseo didn’t think he had lied. So he nodded. That much, whatever.

It had been barely a week since Go Unha told Geumseo that Go San was going easy on him. He hadn’t forgotten, but Geumseo was bad at grasping reality. Or maybe the problem was that his threshold for fear had shot up sharply. Anyway, Yang Geumseo had a knack for knitting his own fate. Indeed, knitting is in season during winter, after all.

∞ ∞ ∞

At Geumseo’s place, you had to leave the water running for ages before hot water came out, but Go San’s place wasn’t like that. Geumseo washed up squeaky clean in no time. A moist fragrance came from him, and his skin, which had been frozen and then thawed, was visibly soft and tender. Go San drank water, ice and all, for what might have been appetite or might have been lust. Even after crushing the ice in abundance with his molars, the tickling at the roots of his teeth didn’t improve. He felt like he needed to properly bite into that supple, delicate skin for it to get a little better.

“Come here.”

So he called him.

Geumseo, utterly steeped in fatigue, obediently listened without suspicion. Go San giggled, finding Geumseo amusing, acting as if a screw had come loose somewhere. He pulled the body standing before him and sat him on his lap. The moment Yang Geumseo’s clothes were taken off for washing, they were put in the washing machine. Even though there was no real need to go that far, he deliberately did it because he liked the sight of him completely stripped, barely wrapped in just a towel. Dressing him in a slightly oversized gown might be nice too. Go San thought as he fiddled with Geumseo’s nipple.

“I’m tired.”

“Oh. So?”

“I can’t do it today.”

“I wasn’t planning to either.”

“Why?”

Geumseo asked back with pure curiosity. There were times when Go San didn’t want to? Was he sick somewhere?

“What. Disappointed?”

But because Go San retorted like that, his curiosity vanished in an instant. If he asked further, Go San seemed poised to say let’s do it then, since he seemed disappointed.

Resting his chin on the shoulder of Geumseo, who had shut his mouth, Go San was still thinking about clothes. Buying him some slightly oversized pajamas might be nice. Geumseo’s bone structure was pretty. If the sleeves fit just right, he probably wouldn’t roll them up, but if the sleeves were long, he would go around rolling them up over and over. Then he’d be able to see his round wrist bones and ankle bones.

In the meantime, Geumseo was nodding off, drunk on the dry touch of Go San fiddling with his nipple. Go San came to his senses at the shoulders suddenly lurching forward. As if startled himself, Geumseo turned his drowsy head.

“…Did I doze off?”

“Looks like it.”

“Then… if we’re not doing it, can I go in and sleep?”

“If I don’t give permission, you won’t go in and sleep?”

That wasn’t it, but he was so sleepy… anyway, wasn’t Go San the owner of the house? When Geumseo couldn’t answer, Go San turned Geumseo around in his seat. The crotch barely covered by the towel spread apart as his legs slipped out to either side of Go San’s body.

“Then don’t sleep until I give you permission.”

Go San’s eyes sparkled. He was like a boy. If a boy, then an innocently mischievous boy. His glossy eyes were so inhuman that Geumseo gulped.

“I… I’m so tired though. So sleepy…. You were tired too.”

“I was, but while touching you, the tiredness goes away. What on earth is it?”

If he slept with him, his records got better, and if he touched him, his tiredness went away. To Go San, what was Yang Geumseo? Even Go San was a little confused. But it was a rather pleasant confusion. He didn’t like clinging to routines, yet before he knew it, Yang Geumseo seemed to be becoming both his routine and his jinx. That should logically lead to the conclusion that it would be troublesome if Yang Geumseo disappeared, but perhaps because Geumseo was someone who didn’t have the gumption to dare vanish out of his sight and domain, such thoughts didn’t occur to Go San.

“Try making me feel good. Then I’ll let you sleep.”

Geumseo was tired, and he didn’t even have the energy to get angry at words like these. Blinking his eyes, which were even hazier with sleepiness, he asked.

“Should I suck you?”

He absolutely couldn’t do insertion. Go San was dreadfully long at the beginning, middle, and end of insertion, and if they did just a little, just a little longer, the sun would rise. His jaw would ache and his lips would tear again, but sucking him was the maximum compromise.

That’s what he thought.

Until Go San shook his head.

“Then…?”

Geumseo asked, cautiously reading the mood. Go San actually thought just that alone was somewhat nice… Because it was quite satisfying that Yang Geumseo paid every ounce of attention to his mood, his look, his eyes, a single word from him.

However, Go San decided to tease him a bit more.

“Isn’t there anything more creative than that?”

“Creative…?”

In Geumseo’s life, the only creative thing was workbooks that claimed to foster creativity but only made him solve the same problems repeatedly. Methods to satisfy Go San and get sent to the bed as fluffy as a cloud, unlike the thin mattress in his rented room, were not in those workbooks. Geumseo, who had been blankly thinking what to do, suddenly shivered from his chilled body. Then, without realizing it, he clung right onto Go San’s body.

“What’s this.”

Go San asked as if dumbfounded.

“Are you acting cute?”

“No, I was cold….”