TTOA Chapter 77
by Volare“Apologize. Say you were wrong.”
Seo Eui-woo dazedly repeated the words.
“…Love? Like the love in ‘love handles’?”
*Of all things,* Kwon Jae-jin thought, and replied.
“Yes, there is such a thing. Once it starts, it’s irreversible, malignant.”
“……”
“Aren’t you going to apologize?”
“What I did… was it violence? Was it?”
A hand, considerably weakened, reached out. Seo Eui-woo carefully cradled Kwon Jae-jin’s cheek, touching it with utmost care. Like a feather that would blow away with a breath. Like a soap bubble that would burst if touched.
“To the point that Jae-jin looks like this?”
This reddened expression shook Seo Eui-woo’s heart in a way he had never experienced before. It delivered a greater shock than a hundred words.
“Don’t look. Turn your eyes away. I’m well aware that my face is a mess.”
“How can you ask me to turn away from this… I’m sorry.”
“……”
“I was wrong.”
“……”
“I just, I wanted to be like this with Jae-jin. We were sleeping comfortably together, and I didn’t want to send Jae-jin anywhere alone, and I didn’t want to take out my dick, and I wanted to express my affection. I thought it would be cute if Jae-jin peed while being held by me. It actually was cute. I felt really good. To the point that I wished we could do that every day… I want to see it again.”
“Seo Eui-woo……”
“No, I know. I know I’m a bit strange. I swear I’ve never had such dirty thoughts about anyone else. It feels like it would smell, ugh… unclean. But Jae-jin… I just, I can’t seem to get a grip on myself when Jae-jin is involved.”
Seo Eui-woo desperately babbled, staring at Kwon Jae-jin’s face from close range, as if engraving it into his retinas. His grey eyes were fiercely directed at Kwon Jae-jin.
As if he would tear apart and devour every bit of Kwon Jae-jin’s expression, his appearance, and the emotions contained within.
The dark obsession and blind devotion towards Kwon Jae-jin grew endlessly, swelling like a shadow lengthening at sunset.
“At first, I thought it was because I was an Esper and Jae-jin was my Guide. I thought strange desires arose from chasing my instincts. But as Jae-jin knows, that’s not it. Even if there’s no Guiding effect at all, regardless of that, I’m just like this when it comes to Jae-jin.”
Seo Eui-woo, who had been gradually getting closer, finally touched Kwon Jae-jin. Seo Eui-woo’s high, straight nose bridge touched and pressed against Jae-jin’s cheek. His thin, long eyelashes also brushed against the corner of his eye, tickling him.
“It was the first time I… I seriously thought about killing someone from the bottom of my heart.”
“……”
“I don’t know how Jae-jin took my statement about killing Ma Tae-o… but it wasn’t something I said lightly. I’ve killed countless creatures, and I’ve seen many comrades die in battle, but even so, killing a living person with my own hands… do you think I could make such a decision easily, if it weren’t for Jae-jin?”
Seo Eui-woo silently embraced Kwon Jae-jin. He approached and held Jae-jin in his arms without him even noticing when.
Warmth was transmitted from their touching faces and overlapping bodies. Seo Eui-woo’s whole body was stiff and cold. As if every capillary in his body had frozen over with cold blood just because Kwon Jae-jin had said one word about breaking up.
“That’s how I am. Now I can actually commit murder if it’s about Kwon Jae-jin. Before I even properly realized that fact, it had already become that way… Jae-jin, do you understand? This weight.”
“……”
“But, if Jae-jin tells me to break up… I feel like I’m a real crazy bastard.”
Seo Eui-woo let out a rough breath and trembled his large body like a wounded beast. The meticulously carved muscles, like a cut diamond, heaved and pressed against Kwon Jae-jin each time he gasped.
Jae-jin remained still, embraced by Seo Eui-woo. He neither pushed him away nor embraced him back.
“…I understand how Seo Eui-woo feels. Then please understand how I feel too.”
“Jae-jin’s feelings, what feelings.”
Seo Eui-woo lowered his eyes fiercely and murmured quietly.
“You don’t want to date? You don’t want to be my lover? You think I’m… what, that Seo Eui-woo is a disgusting pervert who does obscene things, and it makes you sick…?”
“It’s not that far. It’s just…”
“Just what!”
“Haa, I, I didn’t want to have this kind of relationship with Seo Eui-woo.”
Seo Eui-woo is ignorant of common sense in general society.
He doesn’t know romance.
He doesn’t know at all what Kwon Jae-jin wanted to do with Seo Eui-woo.
He probably can’t even guess…
“…This time, I wanted to live without regrets. Starting from small, very trivial things with Seo Eui-woo, little by little, step by step… The circumstances and various conditions haven’t allowed it, so I haven’t been able to do anything yet…”
He wasn’t hoping for anything grand.
Going on dates, wearing matching outfits, counting anniversaries, giving gifts, writing and exchanging love letters, matching rings, giving each other nicknames, just…
The kind of thing common couples do…
Nothing special like that…
In the first timeline as well, he hadn’t been able to do it, that, ordinary and insignificant thing, he had mulled over in his head about how it would be if he did it with Seo Eui-woo.
He didn’t want to just get fucked and pee… No matter how he thought about it, it seemed that Seo Eui-woo was the one at fault. Kwon Jae-jin furrowed his brow with difficulty.
“It’s not that I really want to break up with Seo Eui-woo, but that I don’t want to have this bizarre relationship that Seo Eui-woo has arbitrarily twisted and distorted. I also didn’t like that you ignored my wishes to the end and did whatever the hell you wanted, even though I told you not to…”
“Then, you’re not going to break up? That’s what you’re saying now. That Kwon Jae-jin is my lover.”
“Wait. I haven’t finished saying everything I need to say yet.”
Jae-jin let out a bitter sigh and leaned his upper body towards Seo Eui-woo. He entrusted his weight to him and then let out another sigh.
Seo Eui-woo, Seo Eui-woo, Seo Eui-woo is…
The worst of the worst.
Kwon Jae-jin, who had been beyond the point of no return for a long time, reluctantly embraced his back loosely. He raised his arm and gently grabbed his curly, transparent black hair.
He ran his hand through his hair, making eye contact with him.
His grey eyes were wavering unstably. Seo Eui-woo looked pained. His outstandingly seductive face was blackened as if he were a person on fire and burning to death.
“…Seo Eui-woo.”
“Yes.”
“Dating, matching rings, matching outfits, love letters… Is there even one of these words that I just said that Seo Eui-woo knows?”
“No. What are those?”
“Things that Seo Eui-woo and I will do in the future. …To be precise, things that I want to do.”
“Jae-jin wants to…?”
“Things that I couldn’t do even before the regression, that is, even after four years… things that I couldn’t do.”
Seo Eui-woo blinked his long eyes once. A slight gap formed on his frighteningly stiff face. Kwon Jae-jin gazed at the twenty-year-old Seo Eui-woo with a complicated heart, pushing the dry and sticky emotions rising in his chest to the bottom.
It’s only been four months.
This Seo Eui-woo had only met Kwon Jae-jin four months ago.
But, for Kwon Jae-jin, it was four years.
For a full four years, he had constantly seen, heard, fought, endured, pushed away, hated, loathed, thought about, understood, tried, coexisted, accepted, believed, allowed, and finally died, regressed, and was betrayed by the first timeline’s Seo Eui-woo…
Having gone through such a difficult process, he was now holding the hand of this young Seo Eui-woo again. Even if there were holes in his memories, he had decided to stay by his side for as long as he lived, and he had resolved to date him. That was Kwon Jae-jin’s mindset.
Seo Eui-woo said that he could even commit murder because of Kwon Jae-jin, but Kwon Jae-jin would stay by his side even if Seo Eui-woo became a murderer. That was Kwon Jae-jin’s heart.
“They are common actions that ordinary couples do in general society, but before the regression, there was no room to do such things. A Gate exploded and I died, but even if that accident hadn’t happened, I couldn’t have… I couldn’t have brought myself to suggest doing them together to the first timeline’s Seo Eui-woo. I didn’t even think about it.”
“……Why? Why was that?”
“I wonder. Why was it.”
Perhaps it was because the place where he stood with the first timeline’s Seo Eui-woo was a mud pit.
He couldn’t have done such fresh and cute acts of affection with that Seo Eui-woo. It meant that even after four years, he couldn’t be frank with him. Unlike the second timeline’s Seo Eui-woo, the first timeline’s Seo Eui-woo started from a relationship where they hurt and were hurt by each other…
“Seo Eui-woo asked me to properly date him, didn’t he.”
“Jae-jin and I, let’s really, properly date.”
“Yes, good. Let’s try it out.”
He will see it through to the end.
Kwon Jae-jin and Seo Eui-woo,
Truly.
“Let’s properly date and see what happens.”
Jae-jin’s dark and straight eyes found their place. He gazed at Seo Eui-woo steadily and met his eyes straight on. He collided fiercely with the swirling, ferocious grey eyes, the raw, rough eyes of a wild beast. Blue sparks seemed to fly from their gazes.