"Jaeha realized that the way Taegun said it, his eyes had flicked down at his fly, and he jolted, twisting his body away. The fierceness of his own reaction startled him too.
Watching him, Jang Taegun let out a short laugh.
"Feels like I’m screwing a brat."
"That’s not…."
"Technically I’m the younger one."
When he added, "Right, Jaeha hyung?" Jaeha’s face flushed hot. He had no idea what that was supposed to mean.
But he pulled himself together at once. This wasn’t the time to be dazed by Jang Taegun’s looks or the atmosphere.
Maybe the warm water had dilated the nearby vessels—blood seemed to be seeping from the wound again.
"…I learned basic first aid in the army."
"Hot. I’m exempt."
With a smile still hooked at the corner of his mouth, Taegun nudged the first-aid kit toward him, as if to say go on, show me.
While Jaeha opened the kit, Taegun rose from the bed, went to the wall cabinet, and opened it.
It turned out to be a wooden unit with a built-in minibar. In the inner sliding drawer sat a crystal bottle of amber liquor; in the other, a perfectly fitted alcohol cellar for the cabinet’s size. Even a fold-out tray was attached—custom-made, by the look of it.
Looking back at Jaeha, Taegun lifted a glass and gave a little wink as if to toast the air. A gesture: want a drink?
Jaeha shook his head carefully. Before the wedding, he hadn’t forgotten what they’d done after drinking together.
Watching Taegun grip the crystal bottle by the neck and pour into a Baccarat glass, he spoke.
"…It’d be better not to drink."
"It’s for disinfecting."
Answering as if it were nothing, Taegun still downed the poured liquor. When Jaeha pressed his lips together and looked at him, Taegun gave a small laugh, took the glass, and came back to the bed.
For some reason, his smile came more easily tonight. Before he knew him, Jaeha had assumed he’d always be expressionless; instead, it was Jaeha himself who kept stiffening up, and that bothered him.
But whether he cared what Jaeha was thinking or not, Taegun only sat slanted on the edge of the bed.
"It’s awkward if I’m the only one half-naked—either get on with it or take something off."
Startled, Jaeha looked up at his face and caught the faint hint of a smile over the blank mask. Maybe he was joking.
People often said they couldn’t read Jaeha’s face, but Jang Taegun was worse. He was curious what the man was thinking to say something like that, but he didn’t ask on purpose.
Silently, he took out antiseptic and a pad of cotton.
He didn’t want to show himself reacting to every little thing, so he kept his mouth clamped shut, but he thought it would still show on his face. He felt especially out of sorts only in front of Jang Taegun, and it embarrassed him.
He also had no idea how to act in front of someone he cared about. Say it’s like thieving—done by those who’ve practiced it. The moment he stood before Jang Taegun, he fumbled in ways that weren’t like him, and even knowing that, he couldn’t stop.
Meanwhile, Taegun ripped open the blister on a disposable syringe prepped with some unknown ampoule and sunk it into the inside of his own forearm. For a second, Jaeha thought it might be drugs.
As if he’d read the suspicion in his eyes, Taegun said,
"Antibiotic."
"…I see."
"You just pegged me as a junkie thug, didn’t you?"
"No…."
He hurriedly shook his head. He couldn’t bring himself to admit it had crossed his mind. All the while, Taegun’s face didn’t change, so for once Jaeha couldn’t tell if it was a joke or serious.
He let out a short breath so he wouldn’t fluster himself, soaked cotton with antiseptic, and bent at the waist. Because Taegun had sat at the edge of the bed again with his glass, Jaeha also had to lean in, which made the angle awkward for a close inspection of the wound.
In the end, he went to his knees to look properly—and then had the odd feeling that Taegun was staring fixedly at him.
"Ah…."
"Not a bad view."
Taegun’s eyes were lowered. His long lashes threw a dappled awning of shadow. Through it, the black of his irises—indistinguishable from his pupils—showed in glints.
From the slight narrowness of his gaze, you could tell he was smiling. The corners of his mouth hadn’t even lifted, but somehow it read as a smile.
He raised the Baccarat glass to those sleek lips and tipped in the amber, as if using the sight of Jaeha kneeling between his thighs as a snack to go with the drink.
Heat shot into Jaeha’s face, but he really had to disinfect the wound now. The seepage looked like it was increasing.
Holding his breath, he took the forceps with a pad of cotton and moistened the wound gently. Even though it must have hurt, Taegun only kept looking down at him and wetting his own lips with liquor.
That gaze was hard to bear. As if he noticed, Taegun offered the drink.
"A sip won’t kill you."
Another flat, familiar tone.
Jaeha looked at the proffered glass, sighed, took it with the hand not holding the forceps, and tossed it back in one go.
From the nose of it, it was a single malt made purely from malt. The taste was good—separately from the hot trail down his esophagus.
The drink did seem to loosen him a little. He thought he could feel the man’s gaze glued somewhere near his cheek, but he didn’t check. He focused again on the disinfecting. Thankfully, the wound wasn’t as deep as he’d feared.
Without meaning to, he murmured in relief.
"That’s a relief."
"I told you it was a graze. You wanted to play hospital; satisfied?"
For a moment he wondered if this Alpha was treating him like a kid.
The eyes beneath those long lashes were as black as the night sea, giving no hint what he was thinking. He didn’t offer anything of his own, just made you heave—like the sea at night.
He refocused on treatment. At this length, maybe it should be stitched—but the man acted as if it were nothing.
If Jaeha hadn’t come in with the kit, the man might have just poured his whiskey over the wound and called it done.
Thinking of that, he couldn’t help but be even more meticulous. He wanted to give proper care to this beast of a man who’d just lick a wound and be done with it. Knowing that was his own desire made him feel it all the more.
In concentrating so it wouldn’t hurt, he forgot how compromising his posture was. He pressed fresh cotton onto the wound with hemostatic spray and laid a bandage over it.
Then, as he went to wrap the bandage, he realized he had half-risen from one knee and was essentially embracing Taegun’s torso.
"…Ah."
The second he realized it, a small, foolish sound escaped him. He could feel even his ear-edges burning.
His body flared hot. Still, he couldn’t stop wrapping. If he took his hands away now, the cotton he’d set on the wound would just fall.
Steadying his shaking hands as best he could, he wrapped again. A small laugh brushed his ear.
"How long did you wait."
"Wait… for what."
"I said let’s have dinner together and then didn’t come. You didn’t wait for me?"
No. He had waited—badly. He’d looked forward to it like nothing else. But he finished what he was doing without a word.
Once again, he couldn’t bring himself to say that he’d waited so much for Team Manager Jang, that he’d been worried when he didn’t come.
He’d already done enough foolish things. It wasn’t only that it was hard to bare his feelings; he thought such sincerity might make Taegun uncomfortable.
He’d already lost points over Jang Changsik. Jaeha really did want to get along with him. It wasn’t that he wanted Taegun to look at him the same way he looked at him; he wanted to take his place as a reliable spouse.
And then, as time passed, he’d hoped their places would start to feel natural. But Lee Jaeha didn’t know how.
He’d received countless trainings, but nothing that taught what to do at times like this.
"Guess you didn’t wait."
"……"
"I’m so hurt my stomach aches." You are reading on g.com, the official source.
"Does it hurt…?"
Startled by the word, he lifted his head. Only then could he see the Alpha glancing down at him with a small smile.
Somewhere, there was the scent of wild rose and sea salt. He might not even have known that he was staring blankly at Taegun.
The scent was getting stronger—so sweetly floral. The flower that blooms on bare rock along sea cliffs.
He tried to steady his foggy head. The bandage was almost done. He tore his gaze away with effort and clipped the fastener to finish.
Then he started to stand. If not for the sudden vertigo that crashed into him.
"Ah…."
"Well now."
For someone who’d just let out that kind of exclamation, his tone had a trace of odd laughter in it. His arm snatched Jaeha’s waist, hard and fast.
…Strange.
He groped for the thought through the haze. Was it the alcohol? But he’d had less than a shot, and his tolerance wasn’t that poor.
Something was wrong. He blinked, dazed.
Some unknown heat… As if blossoms of fire were opening wherever his thoughts couldn’t reach—hot.
"Ash."
Taegun whispered at his ear. The random word raised goosebumps.
"No. Winter jasmine?"
Because that was Jaeha’s pheromone scent.
Somewhere, there was an extremely sweet smell. The name of a flower that becomes most showy only where the ground is harsh. Wild rose. He heard a faint sound like waves. A hallucination conjured by the thick sea-salt smell.
Jaeha shut his reeling eyes.
His body felt wrong.
For a moment he wondered if it was rut, but even during rut, heat didn’t boil up in such a jagged, abnormal way.
He shook his muddled head. He wanted to lift his slumping torso, but all he could do was cling to Taegun’s shoulder and try his best not to let his cheek fall against that chest.
The man whispered. His voice held a smile—as if, for at least one of them, this situation was welcome.
"Why do you keep leaning on me."
"……"
He wanted to say that wasn’t it. That he was just a little dizzy and would like to go to his room and rest now, and to call him if it hurt—and then leave this room.
Sirens wailed in his head. Heat flooded over him like a tide.
Why is everything like waves? Why is everything like the sea?
Jang Taegun’s eyes, blacked out to give nothing away. The unending scent of sea salt. The wild roses on the sea cliff. And this heat, surging like a storm tide.
Jaeha went limp, as if submerged in the sea. In the end, his cheek touched that hard chest.
"You did this last time too."
"……"
"Do you know something?"
Director, you turn Alphas on.
It was as if someone whispered that to him, but he couldn’t tell who. Jaeha thought even his sight was being eaten away by the heat, flickering at the edges.