MUL - Chapter 43

I don't know what I was so sad and upset about, but tears kept streaming down, and later, even when I wanted to stop, they wouldn't. A disgraceful sound of gulping sobs escaped my throat.

I think I cried until the inside of my eyes ached. Probably for about an hour, or maybe 30 minutes.

Nam Kangwoo held my body in his arms and kept whispering, "I'm sorry", but every time I heard those words, tears would fall shamelessly. Just when they were about to stop, they would start again, and when they were about to stop again, they would stream down once more. Nam Kangwoo looked at me with a somewhat pitiful gaze.

He bent down, met my eyes, and his sorrowful gaze scanned my face.

"Stop crying."

"The tears won't... won't, hic— stop, shit..."

At my sob-filled answer, Nam Kangwoo laughed with a somehow dumbfounded expression.

"I'm sorry."

"Hic, stop, haah— stop, saying, sorry."

"Why."

"Every time you, say that... the tears, sob, shit... they keep coming—"

To my absurd answer, Nam Kangwoo soothed me in a low voice, saying, "Is that so." But then, in a voice tinged with laughter, he said, "I'm sorry", once again.

As if it were some kind of button that stimulated my tear ducts, that one phrase filled my emptied eyes with tears again.

Thanks to him constantly rubbing my feverish cheeks, Nam Kangwoo's hand became a little warmer than usual. As his silk-like soft palm wiped all over my face, my eyes closed reflexively. Nam Kangwoo pressed his thumb firmly on my closed eyelids and then.

"You're so swollen you look like a fish."

"What...?"

"Like a goldfish."

He said in a serious voice. "A goldfish", one more time.

At that, I laughed while crying. Shame spread through my body, but even the absurd burst of laughter wouldn't stop at my will. It was similar to the tears.

"If you laugh."

"…What?"

"If you laugh while crying..."

As I, who had been dabbing my tears on the chest in front of me, lifted my head to meet his eyes, Nam Kangwoo gave a soft smile. He whispered the rest of the saying into my ear.

It was something I knew well, but I didn't understand why I got so worked up over it. It was too unromantic a phrase to make my heart pound, yet it did.

What is this? To say it was beating from fear, the atmosphere wasn't scary at all, so I was just flustered.

"I think you're getting a fever again. Maybe the fever reducer isn't working well."

Nam Kangwoo looked at my flushed face and muttered as if it were strange. I had taken two pills, so of course, the fever had gone down. My body, which felt much lighter after entering the bathroom, proved that the fever had subsided. But I pretended it hadn't, pretended I was still feverish, and ducked my head again.

"...Uh... I'm dizzy..."

The end of my small, muttered voice cracked at the right time. A nosebleed would have been the icing on the cake, but I hadn't been getting them lately. It was another moment where the lotus root that Seo Jaehoon had enthusiastically blended for me to eat shone. I vowed that once I came to my senses, I would definitely throw away Seo Jaehoon's blender.

I closed my eyes and slowly exhaled. Nam Kangwoo slowly stroked my back in time with my breathing.

"I was angry."

At an unexpected moment, Nam Kangwoo's voice echoed softly, as if in a confession.

"That I wasn't the first to find you."

"..."

"If I had been first."

Nam Kangwoo stopped patting my back and cupped my face.

"Would you have cried a little less?"

Wrinkles formed on Nam Kangwoo's forehead. Whether he didn't like it, or because I had cried so sorrowfully, Nam Kangwoo's face, when I met his eyes to check, looked a little, a little too upset. Just like that day.

The temperature of the hand rubbing my cheek became cooler than before. My eyes closed on their own at the soft touch and cool temperature, and in that fleeting moment, lips softer and warmer than a palm landed on mine.

"It's a shame."

A whispering voice echoed softly from between the lips that had lightly touched and parted. Instead of pushing Nam Kangwoo away, I moved my trembling hands and hugged his neck. I felt like I didn't know what was what anymore.

Stiffening for a moment at my action, Nam Kangwoo quickly wrapped his arms around my waist, tilted his head, and pressed his lips more deeply against mine. The flesh that pushed through my lips quickly entangled with my awkwardly moving tongue. It was a kiss filled with an uncharacteristically urgent feeling.

Inside the enclosed shower stall, the wet sound of lips touching and parting echoed continuously. My body, pushed further and further towards the wall, was pressed against it with nowhere else to go.

"Hngh..."

"Yeoul."

"Hngh— wait...!"

A cool touch dug into my clothes. "Not yet, wait", my urgent voice swirled inside Nam Kangwoo's mouth.

I unwrapped my arms from his neck and patted Nam Kangwoo's shoulder. "Calm down..." I opened my closed eyes wide and pulled my head back, but Nam Kangwoo's lips followed persistently and kissed me.

"Wai—t..."

The lips that had barely parted were crushed again before they could finish the word. Instead of pushing Nam Kangwoo away, I grabbed the hand that had slipped into my clothes. My head wouldn't move well, but I managed to shake my head slightly.

"Why."

Lips that held a lingering sense of disappointment touched and parted from mine lightly several times. At a distance where our lips would brush if I moved them, Nam Kangwoo met my eyes.

"...Today..."

"You don't want to?"

I nodded at Nam Kangwoo, who asked back. 

"I don't want to." 

His feverish eyes were burdensome, so I lowered my gaze and gave my answer, and a smile formed on Nam Kangwoo's lips.

"Is there ever a good day?"

I wasn't sure about that either. But looking at the current atmosphere, I thought it might be sometime soon.

Nam Kangwoo gently brushed my hair back and bumped his forehead against my exposed one.

"I like you."

"..."

"Ha Yeoul."

My face filled the dark, glossy pupils. As his thin-lined lips curved, a wonderful smile appeared on his cool face.

"I like you so much that it's all about you."

A sweet confession followed, and feather-light kisses fell on my lips several times.

***

Nam Kangwoo personally washed me and sat me on the bed. My body was truly limp, and I just blinked my eyes. F*cking life... I had realized again and again in the past few days just how sensitive my body was.

In contrast to me, who sat in a daze, Nam Kangwoo had an endlessly bright face. He briskly dried my hair with a dry towel, then took out a hairdryer and began to dry my hair meticulously, strand by strand.

Whether my hair was wet or not, I just wanted to lie down, but this clueless bastard dried my hair so thoroughly, as if he wouldn't leave a single drop of water. My eyes closed on their own from the drowsiness. When he hooked his fingers into my hair and scratched gently, a languid moan escaped my lips against my will.

"Sleepy?"

Nam Kangwoo's voice flowed through the sound of the wind. Instead of using my voice, which I thought would be buried by the wind, I nodded my head.

"Should I put you to sleep?"

This crazy bastard... I forced open my heavy eyes and met Nam Kangwoo's gaze. The hair, now dry, slipped smoothly through Nam Kangwoo's fingers and rustled down.

"Only your cheeks are pink, just like a peach."

Nam Kangwoo's metaphors were terrible today. I opened my eyes wide at the somehow creepy metaphor, then closed them again because my eyes felt stiff.

"My eyes hurt..."

"Of course they do, you cried so much."

Nam Kangwoo answered as if I was saying something stupid.

"Sleep."

"...Mm."

Drowsiness washed over me, and I gave an answer that was a beat, no, half a beat late. Nam Kangwoo carefully laid my body on the bed and pulled the blanket up to my neck. He patted my chest at a steady pace and muttered, "Sleep well".

"...Mm."

This time, too, I gave a late answer. I wished Nam Kangwoo would leave, but at the same time, I wished he would stay by my side a little longer.​