The period when the drunken fight incidents, which everyone thought would end in one or two rounds, kept happening one after another, and people who got their pockets picked kept popping up, was especially bad because it was the season for year-end and New Year’s parties.

At the end of the year and start of the new year, customers had nearly been driven away by the crude handwork of a rookie who still hadn’t even graduated high school, so instead of sending someone else, Baek Beomgu went out himself.

Of course, he had beaten him so seriously because he never imagined he’d be that sloppy of a bastard.

Anyway, the guy who had made Baek Beomgu use his own hands kept showing up in exactly one bar every day,the very same bar where he had been left sprawled out in a bloodied mess. So of course that news reached Baek Beomgu’s ears too.

The bar staff who had looked at the unconscious Taeeun back then and asked, “Oh, is this the bastard?” relayed the information and asked Beomgu,

“Should we handle him? Or should we just call the local station and have them deal with him appropriately? He’s young too, so if he goes to detention once, he’ll probably get scared and stop, hyung-nim.”

But Baek Beomgu remembered the bastard who, after getting hit by his fist until his eyes swelled up, had said something like, “Because you’re so handsome……”

He was definitely a weakling, but something about handling him the normal way felt off.

It was like thinking he was a pill bug, only to find out he was actually a leech. If he flicked him away with his finger, it looked like the bastard might suck blood out of him, so it seemed better to properly deal with him early.

And honestly, he was fucking annoyed too. He’d said not to stand out, so did this guy stop listening midway through or what.

So, with his temper ignited, Baek Beomgu went out today as well to catch the bastard who was, as always, loitering by the back door of the shop.

When he suddenly grabbed the head of the twenty-year-old standing on the street wrapped up in a long coat and scarf, the herbivore who hadn’t even noticed someone was coming to screw him over from behind swayed hard.

He had already confirmed that this wasn’t some ‘strong guy’ who could take a beating well while Baek Beomgu went all out without controlling his strength, so he didn’t just start hitting him out of nowhere. Instead, he asked, “Why the hell do you keep hanging around here?”

At that moment, Jo Taeeun had already lost his mind. He’d seen the man from a distance once or twice before, but this was the first time in days he was seeing him this close again.

Wow. I was almost suffering from lovesickness. He swallowed that line and gave another honest answer.

“I came to see hyung……”

Baek Beomgu froze, unable to even think of frowning or reacting for a moment. His thoughts came back one beat late.

Only one thing floated up in his head.

……What the hell is this bastard?

⌗ • ⌗ • ⌗

Is this guy really a total lunatic? It was the first time in his life he’d ever met someone who came looking for him after getting beaten and reacted like this, so Baek Beomgu experienced the feeling of being almost completely speechless for what was basically the first time in his life.

Just like himself, everyone around Baek Beomgu was full of people with empty heads.

Even his father, who always cursed at him for being a dumbass, was like that. So he never had to think deeply about someone’s intentions or strain his brain—he always thought, spoke, and acted simply.

…But what the hell was this guy thinking?

The fact that he had been diligently showing up for two months doing small-time extortion and petty crime, all without even noticing the eyes watching him, meant he wasn’t completely incapable of understanding words. He just seemed to understand only half of them.

Baek Beomgu, who usually opened the ears of people who didn’t get it by using his fists, briefly considered beating this guy once more. But his predator’s instinct, which had always lived by screwing someone over, smashing them, and then forcing the conclusion into them to convince them and settle things, said:

This guy isn’t the type for that.

“When did I ever become your hyung?”

As he first tried to address the most irritating part, Jo Taeeun opened his eyes wide.

“I’m turning twenty this year……, you’re older than me, right……?”

The thug who had planned to snap back and tell him to stop acting familiar got speechless again at the honest follow-up question—_you’re older than me, so you’re my hyung, right?_.

The dumbly answering face looked so harmless that it almost made it seem like the one getting angry was the weird one.

Considering how many people this guy had been robbing around here, it was absurd to feel like he looked harmless, but anyway. Feeling like he was being dragged into this somehow, Baek Beomgu waved his hand.

“Fine, fuck, call me whatever you want.”

He was already used to older people calling him hyung-nim. It wasn’t like he was going to block some kid from calling him hyung.

Anyway, there was no need to bicker over a title right now when he could just kick him out. Why the hell was I even holding this guy here and talking to him.

Feeling dumbfounded by himself, Baek Beomgu gave the answer, "do whatever you want", and the twenty-year-old brat replied,

“Yes, hyung…… hyung is really, really handsome.”

In truth, there were a hundred words more accurate than just _handsome_ for what he was feeling, but in any case, after getting hit by a visual shock critical the moment he saw him, Jo Taeeun, whose soul had already been half knocked out, also didn’t want to get hit by that fist again, so he censored his words a little.

But even after leaving out all the words that would’ve gotten him punched—words like sexy, sex, insanely hot, and so on—something still seemed irritating, because the sexy face stiffened dangerously.

“Stop coming here and ruining the mood, and go play where you were originally hanging out, okay?”

If I see you again, I won’t let you off next time.

Taeeun’s baby-gay heart was completely smitten again by the third-rate thug line delivered with an A-list face.

Even as he was dragged out of the alley and dumped on the main road, Taeeun made up his mind that next time he should bring money and sit there ordering drinks.

And so, while he ignored what little guilt he had left for a few weeks—honestly it wasn’t that much, but still a little—and clung to the single-minded determination to leave home, the money he had carefully saved up became his future drink money in one shot.

⌗ • ⌗ • ⌗

Jo Taeeun originally wasn’t very interested in provocative videos or comics and the like, just as is usually the case for people who got real-world experience early.

But he had suddenly realized his sexual orientation, which he had known nothing about, in one single night. So how should he consume this suddenly high-stimulation content that had come into his life?

There was only one answer.

When he was with girls, the feeling of pleasing them and being liked was stronger than sexual stimulation itself. So even if people around him talked about things like, _using your mouth would be good,_ or _squashing your chest together would be amazing,_ he had never specifically felt interested in those experimental acts.

But when two men have sex, the basic method of insertion itself is already experimental to begin with……

Taeeun’s eyes, which had been so clean and clear that you couldn’t tell he had just recently been a test taker, turned murky. It was because he had spent every night exploring videos until his eyes were red.

The thing that should clearly not be able to fit in would open red and wide, and the dick would slide in and out so easily. Was that…… some kind of composite? CGI? Something like that……?

He had even seen two being put in, and even an arm going in. Damn, this is the mystery of the human body? Taeeun was impressed.

Honestly, even while watching, it didn’t really seem like it could actually happen. The act of watching the videos itself was less about getting horny and more just a series of mysteries.

……The real horniness is here.

Taeeun quickly got used to coming into the bar, ordering one drink, and sitting there for a long time. Baek Beomgu, who didn’t seem bothered by the dead of winter, would sometimes show up in nothing but a black shirt or turtleneck that clung tightly to his solid, broad chest.

Black tiger, black lion. It was the kind of appearance that made him think of animals that probably didn’t even exist in the world.

How does a person look like a tiger king?

He was a whole different class from Taeeun, who had only been treated as superior to the pool of male high schoolers around him because of his naturally decent height and forearms.

Every few days when he stopped by the shop, he would sometimes throw a glance at Taeeun that seemed to say his face was a little annoying, but it looked like he had decided he couldn’t keep hassling a guy who just came to sip beer or cocktails quietly.

He didn’t try to kick Taeeun out any more than that.

The insolent pickpocket punk was now known around the nearby bars as the kid who followed Baek Beomgu around. He was even told a few times that instead of doing this stalker shit, he might as well just ask to be properly taken under someone.

They seemed to think Jo Taeeun’s pathetic stalking was some kind of male-to-male respect, admiration—something like that.

No, it’s just that when I see a man stride in like some black beast, the place I never even thought I’d put something into in my life just twitches a little, that’s all. I’m not exactly wanting to become a gangster……

The horniness was too definite to be confused with admiration. There was no room for that.

Like lovesickness, that face appeared in his mind every night. It wasn’t that he wanted to talk to him or date him sweetly. It was just that. Only. Purely. He wanted to do that thing.

The period other guys said they had when just a breeze passing on the street made their dick hard, or when a woman simply breathing on the street made them want sex, or when it was unclear whether their dick was attached to their head or their head was attached to their dick—Taeeun felt like that time had finally come for him now.