HH | Chapter 3.2

Leehyup ate that without a word as well. In that way, he ate a variety of the side dishes Eunil passed over, including the braised yellow croaker, meat pancakes, and salad, and finally drank down the pu’er tea Eunil set out last. Even if it wasn’t Eunil’s own cooking, seeing him eat well made Eunil feel proud, almost as if he had made everything himself. Eunil said, slightly brightened, “Did you enjoy it?”

There was no reason for Leehyup to say anything else, not with the bowl of rice swept clean like that. Eunil was looking at him, inwardly hoping he’d say it tasted good, when Leehyup set down the tissue he had used to wipe his mouth and said something unexpected.

“What did you do in my bed?”

His calm manner and bored tone left Eunil blinking in confusion, not even understanding what he meant, until Leehyup’s next words made him suck in a breath. His embarrassment was several times greater than the softness of his mood.

“There was a strange smell on the blanket, so I threw it away… Turns out it was your smell, Oh Eunil-ssi.”

Unlike his casual tone, his eyes as he stared at Eunil were sharp. Eunil forced himself to stay calm and opened his mouth.

“I cleaned… I cleaned. I just took the blanket off, shook it out, and aired it, that’s all I did. What else would I have done?”

“Ah. Took it off, shook it out, aired it…”

Leehyup repeated it as if it were nothing, then looked at him sharply.

“You haven’t been cleaning only for a day or two. You think I wouldn’t know the difference? The smell was all over the place.”

As he said that, Leehyup grabbed the hem of Eunil’s shabby T-shirt and shook it. “This smell,” his sly smile seemed to say, with the unspoken question of who did he think he was fooling.

The good mood he had been in suddenly felt like standing on thin ice. He needed to come up with some kind of excuse, but Eunil’s brain had turned to plaster and wouldn’t let a single thought in.

That day. The day he had called out to Leehyup while masturbating on Leehyup’s bed. The day he had felt more than ever and spilled so much.

In the end, Leehyup, who had seemed like he would keep digging until he got an answer, unexpectedly left his seat. He stood in front of the window with a cup of pu’er tea in one hand, moving at a leisurely pace.

Eunil hid how flustered he was and cleared the table. He wanted to run away without caring about the dishes or anything else, but he couldn’t do that, so he just moved faster.

Normally he would wipe the moisture off the sink counter two or three times, but today he finished in one go and wiped his wet hands on the waistband of his pants.

“Sir, then I’ll be going. Take care.”

He said goodbye to Leehyup, who was now staring absentmindedly toward the bed, and hurried toward the front door. In the middle of that, Leehyup’s low, clear voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Did you lie down?”

“What?”

“If what got soaked up was a smell floating in the air, why would it have to be your smell, Eunil-ssi?”

Eunil couldn’t move, as if his feet had been stuck to the floor. Leehyup kept doubting him, and Eunil didn’t have anything to say back. He wondered if maybe, once he got away from this moment, it would all be forgotten, but Leehyup’s steady gaze seemed to say that wouldn’t be the case. Even his slippered feet slowly circled around the bed.

“I… I have another part-time job next.”

“I’ll give you extra pay. Lie down?”

“If I don’t leave now, I’ll be late…”

“That’s not my problem. I asked what you did.”

Leehyup’s tone was flat, his usual dry expression unchanged. Leehyup himself hadn’t changed at all, and yet Eunil felt as if he were being tightly bound in iron cords. He loosened his lower lip, which he had bitten hard. He couldn’t bear to meet his eyes, and the lowered corners of his eyes had turned red.

“I was sleepy… I just laid down for a moment because I was sleepy, and then… I fell asleep. I’m sorry.”

“Ah.”

“The blanket you threw away, I, I’ll pay for it. If you tell me to quit… I’ll quit.”

Eunil forced the words out with difficulty. Even while adding lie after lie, he couldn’t help feeling regretful that he might have to quit the helper part-time job. It wasn’t just because of the pay, either, but because he wouldn’t be able to see Leehyup. Because he wouldn’t be able to pull Leehyup’s panties out of the laundry and breathe in their scent.

But there was no other way. He had to smooth this over as quickly as possible and avoid any more interrogation. Yet Leehyup didn’t seem to have any intention of letting him off. He tipped his chin toward the bed.

“How did you sleep?”

“I, just… like people usually sleep…”

“Like people usually sleep… now I’m curious. What does ‘usual’ mean?”

Leehyup let out a small laugh. The corner of his mouth twisting made his mockery obvious.

“How do you sleep for the smell to soak in that deeply?”

“Yeah… kind of.”

Eunil gave a weak laugh in return. He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, praying this would be enough to make him seem like an idiot and be done with it, but Leehyup’s gaze only grew colder.

“Show me.”

“…What?”

“Lie down. Do it like you did when you fell asleep.”

His tone was so calm it was as if he were asking Eunil to water a potted plant, and Eunil realized he had no room left to back away. His mind was going white, to the point that he couldn’t think of anything else.

He wiped his sweat-soaked palms against the fabric of his pants and walked toward the bed. Slowly lowering himself onto it, he said carefully, putting his last hope into the question, “I… my smell might cling to it. Is that okay?”

“That’s not for you to worry about.”

“Yes…”

Right. Maybe someone like him, a struggling student, would worry about that, but why would a successful president of a major conglomerate’s subsidiary care about one blanket? But if that was the case, then it didn’t make sense for him to corner Eunil this far either.

For someone in Eunil’s position, material compensation was the harshest punishment of all. If he hated it that much, he could have just made Eunil pay a huge sum and kicked him out.

Eunil laid his head on the edge of the pillow and stretched out on the luxurious bedding. If Leehyup would only stop here, it would be more than enough. Compared to what he had done, it wasn’t even enough to count as an insult, but Leehyup raised one eyebrow as if he couldn’t accept it.

“That’s all?”

At that short question, the certainty that it definitely wasn’t enough was plain to see, and Eunil’s hands, neatly folded over his chest, began to fidget.

“So…”

Please, let this be enough.

“I, I had my clothes off. The T-shirt…”

As Eunil went on hesitantly, a pair of calm eyes like a deep lake bored into him. Since Leehyup still showed no sign of backing down, Eunil fiddled with the hem of his T-shirt and chose his words carefully. “When it’s too hot, I sometimes take my clothes off. That day was like that too…”

After a slight pause, Eunil looked at Leehyup. When Leehyup still didn’t move at all and just kept looking at him, he slowly pushed his upper body up. The low breath that leaked out was so damp it startled him. It stood in stark contrast to the goosebumps rising where his T-shirt had been.

Eunil lay back down properly again. Being watched through every tiny movement made him feel like a corpse left behind by an undertaker. He almost wished he were a corpse. Then he wouldn’t feel any shame or emotion at all.

This didn’t feel ordinary. If it were only humiliation, then it would be fuel to help him endure this time, but what he was feeling was heading in an entirely different direction. It was awkward, anxious, uncomfortable, and made him shrink back, and yet, strangely, he was getting excited, his breathing turning quick and shallow.

He felt like he could get up right about now, but there was still no response from above. The dead silence instead awakened a sensation that tickled at his skin. Eunil slowly opened his tightly shut eyes and met an unexpected face, not one he’d thought would look displeased. It seemed faintly stiff, maybe even appraising.

“Sir…”

By then, the words leaving Eunil’s mouth had become almost pleading. It wasn’t clear what he was pleading for, and that was the problem, but no matter how it was interpreted, it didn’t seem like it would get any worse for Eunil, so he let the words keep coming.

“Sir…”