Chapter 12

“Ayy, absolutely not right now!”

Hands shoved deep into his pockets, Gong Jio watched Cha Gyuhan tussle with the owner of Boseok Sauna.

Leaning crookedly against the front counter with an arm propped up and hands jammed into his pockets, Gyuhan had one leg crossed behind the other, looking exceptionally thuggish. He looked like a debt collector who’d barged in for shakedown money, but the words rolling off his tongue were as slick, shameless, and richly oiled as grilled rice cakes.

“Ayy, noona. Why be so stingy with me? Alright, next time we settle accounts, I’ll toss in a designer handbag too.”

“Bullshit! You’ll just buy some cheap knockoff from who-knows-where and spit all over the place claiming it’s authentic!”

“Wait, that was a knockoff? Aw, man, I had no clue. But when noona carries it, even a fake looks genuine. You’re the luxury brand here, so what does the bag matter? Whatever you pick up turns the room into a fashion runway. I’m really sorry about that one, though. I’ll beat the crap out of the guy who brought it to me and make him sit here eating hard-boiled eggs until his bruises fade. Can’t you let us slide just this once?”

“If only you weren’t so damn smooth with that mouth. Aigoo.”

“We’ll stay quiet and get out, so if anyone complains, put in a good word for us. Or hit ’em with your honey trap and throw a wink. If that still doesn’t work, I’ll actually leave.”

Rolling her eyes, the owner was already chuckling under her breath, hands busy packing them a generous stash of body wash samples, shampoo packets, and scrubbing towels. “Don’t you go stripping down naked in the sauna just because it’s hot—keep your clothes on! You hear me? Thank goodness your arms are clean, at least.”

“Thanks! I couldn’t survive without you, noona. Stay healthy! Oh, should I bring you some red ginseng next time?”

“Tired of red ginseng. Deer antler!”

“You got it.”

Cha Gyuhan waved a hand and turned around.

Unable to bear an idle mouth, Gong Jio had been sucking on a piece of hard candy while staring fixedly at Cha Gyuhan’s ass, only now slowly shifting his gaze. Because Gyuhan had been leaning forward at a slant, his firm, tight glutes had contoured nicely beneath his clothes. Gong Jio fell silent, lost in the lingering aftertaste of an urge to spank that ass until it was bruised black and blue.

Accustomed to Gong Jio’s silences, Cha Gyuhan looped the two locker keys around his finger, twirling them as he whistled.

The changing room was bustling. Fortunately, most of the patrons were finishing their baths and getting ready to leave. It seemed to be the hour when the early weekend morning crowd filed out in droves, sipping cold drinks and debating lunch menus. Indeed—if that weren’t the case, the owner would never have let Cha Gyuhan inside on a weekend.

Cha Gyuhan unlocked his locker, still whistling. Gong Jio regarded the lockers with cold detachment, grabbed a fresh towel, and used it to grip the handle before opening the door. He despised communal fixtures.

“Man, it feels awesome coming here with you after so long.”

Meanwhile, Cha Gyuhan was so thoroughly giddy that he completely forgot the fact that Gong Jio had popped an erection right before his eyes just days ago. Watching Gyuhan casually yank his pants straight off first, Gong Jio swallowed a sigh. What are you, an elementary schooler?

Yet the sight of those muscular thighs clad in nothing but socks was a turn-on in its own right, prompting Gong Jio to bite his lower lip.

“Take your clothes off slowly,” Gong Jio advised in a flat, monotone voice.

“Why?”

“You’ll scare the people.”

At that, Cha Gyuhan paused with his fingers on his shirt buttons, muttered an “Ah, right,” and nodded in understanding.

Gong Jio undressed at a leisurely pace. Cha Gyuhan also dawdled, looking around to kill time. Stripping off his top first, Jio fiddled with his pant zipper while subtly eyeing Gyuhan beside him.

Gyuhan was propped against the locker in just a dress shirt, socks, and skin-tight boxer briefs.

After a moment’s contemplation, Gong Jio abruptly shifted his clothes toward Gyuhan’s locker.

“Whoa, what’re you doing?”

“Don’t want to use a communal locker. Scoot over.”

To Cha Gyuhan, who had known him for ages, it sounded like a perfectly valid reason. But without even giving him room to budge, Gong Jio pressed right in.

The owner had assigned Gyuhan a corner locker. That meant a solid wall was right beside him. Missing his chance to pivot and slip away, Gyuhan found himself pinned between the wall and Gong Jio’s body.

Gong Jio nonchalantly stripped down right in front of Cha Gyuhan’s face—quite literally inches from his nose. Trapped awkwardly against the partition, Gyuhan tried to shove him aside, only to wrinkle his brow.

A pleasant scent drifted off Gong Jio.

“You’re not even going into the office, so why the hell are you wearing p-perfume?”

“Why?” Gong Jio shut the locker door. With that, their eyes met square on. With the same warmth-devoid gaze and detached voice, Gong Jio asked, “You like it?”

That flat, uninflected tone. A voice laced with a subtle rasp, rough like micro-grit sandpaper that revealed its grain only upon close touch, yet intensely addictive.

Cha Gyuhan had always thought this guy possessed a rather magnificent voice. But he had never realized it could give off this kind of vibe. Wasn’t this the exact gravelly rasp one would hear in bed? Never in his life had he imagined Gong Jio lying in bed for any purpose other than sleeping. Naturally so. They were friends. Who the hell wondered how their friend had sex?

…Though, if that friend slept with another man, maybe you’d be a tiny bit curious?

No way. Cha Gyuhan swiftly denied the thought. Curious? What kind of bullshit is that?

Regaining his composure, Cha Gyuhan said to Gong Jio, “Jio-ya.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not done taking my clothes off yet.”

Gong Jio’s brow twitched with a microscopic crease.

Clicking his tongue, Cha Gyuhan wedged his way out and reopened the locker door. Because Gong Jio had barely given him an inch of room, Gyuhan had to squeeze right between the metal door and Jio’s frame. With his back turned, Cha Gyuhan mentally reprimanded himself for harboring such profane thoughts about Gong Jio, even for a fleeting second.

In the end, as he peeled off his shirt, Gyuhan scratched his cheek and confessed, “Hey. Honestly, just a second ago, I thought your voice sounded kinda sexy. Man, it might not be a big deal, but it was weighing on my conscience. Felt bad.” Tossing his shirt into the locker, Gyuhan lifted one foot to peel off his socks. After tossing them in, he turned around with an unburdened look and clapped Gong Jio on the shoulder. “I mean, a guy can have thoughts like that about a friend, right? It’s not an insult, it’s a compliment. I always knew your voice was great, but I never knew it had that kind of edge to it. Bastard, no wonder you’re so popular, but why on earth would you…?”

Crossing his arms, Gong Jio asked with a faint smirk. “Why on earth? Why on earth do I sleep with men, you mean?”

Cha Gyuhan completely failed to spot the vein bulging on Jio’s forehead.

“I mean, you don’t have the kind of reason I do…”

“Fuck, as if that’s some grand, noble reason… Never mind.” Muttering so rapidly and under his breath that it was barely audible, Gong Jio tilted his head at an angle and asked, “You found out I sleep with men too, and it doesn’t bother you at all?”

“Of course it does. That’s why I’m bringing it up.”

“Not like that.”

Lifting his chin slightly, Gong Jio looked down at Cha Gyuhan. Then, he raked his eyes slowly over him from head to toe.

“I’m asking if it doesn’t make you conscious of me.”

Gyuhan’s expression hardened as if insulted. Letting out a short huff of breath, he crossed his arms in return and retorted, “Hey, you bastard. I’m an educated man. Just because you look at guys that way doesn’t mean you’d look at me like that, right? I know thinking that would be completely ignorant. We’re friends, aren’t we? Between friends, come on. I’m not some narrow-minded bigot.”

It didn’t line up at all with what he had said moments earlier. What’s more, it was blatantly obvious he had rehearsed it in advance. Cha Gyuhan stringing this many coherent sentences together in one go? Using words like that, even if slightly misapplied?

Gong Jio licked his lower lip, bit it, and let out a dry, breathy chuckle.

“Right. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Now, let’s head in.”

Cha Gyuhan turned around with a thoroughly unburdened, self-satisfied grin. With his mind cleared, his footsteps were light and bouncy. Grabbing a towel on the way, he pulled it taut, swung it over his shoulder, and snapped it against his back with a crisp thwack. In his high spirits, he didn’t care in the slightest about the wary glances shot his way from patrons all around.

Watching his back, Gong Jio furrowed his brow faintly and ran his tongue over his canine tooth.

“Oh, sweet, a spot just opened up.”

Grinning, Cha Gyuhan carried the basket filled with hard-boiled eggs, sikhye, and coffee toward the interior of the common sauna lounge.

Babbling excitedly about how lucky they were today, Cha Gyuhan looked no different from an elementary school kid. Gong Jio refrained from pointing out that it wasn’t luck, but rather the massive ink plastered across his back combined with a physique that clearly proved the tattoos weren’t for show that had made people scramble out of their way. Instead, he silently fished his coffee out of the basket.

Despising communal drink dispensers, Gong Jio had opted for canned coffee rather than the house-mixed iced coffee. Cha Gyuhan, who had spent the whole time lamenting, The hand-mixed coffee is the real deal, muttered with lingering longing in his eyes, “Boseok noona makes such killer mixed coffee…”

“Why do you keep calling her noona? She’s old enough to be your mother.”

“Hey, punk. A man only has one mother in this world. How could anyone have multiple mothers? Any woman older than me is a noona.”

Gong Jio suddenly thought to himself, If this guy had abandoned whatever bizarre life creed he’d picked up from god-knows-where and instead played to his natural talents and aptitudes, he would have become a legendary gigolo among wealthy matrons. How had a man endowed with such an aptitude and the exact physical vessel for it ended up chasing such an absurdly wholesome dream? Gong Jio gnawed on his straw, staring at Cha Gyuhan—a man bearing the body of a wanton slut paired with the soul of a pure, chaste virgin.

Just as his gaze bordered on dangerous, Cha Gyuhan scrubbed his face with the towel draped around his neck.

“Ahh, so refreshing.”

“It’s just hot as hell. What’s refreshing about this?”

“That heat is the refreshment.”

Though he had used the sauna as a pretext to drag Cha Gyuhan out, Gong Jio hated the heat and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. Watching Jio close his eyes with fingers laced over his stomach as if drifting to sleep, Cha Gyuhan scooted over on his butt toward him.

Gong Jio opened his eyes at the crinkling crunch of eggshells. He saw Cha Gyuhan open wide and shove an entire hard-boiled egg into his mouth in one go. Sensing the gaze, Gyuhan held out an egg.

“Wanna bi’e?”

The muffled “Wanna bite?” came out garbled and weird.

Gong Jio looked down at him through hooded eyes before making an inexplicable request.

“Can you fit another one? Shove it in.”

Oblivious to any hidden intent, Cha Gyuhan bragged that he totally could and popped a second egg into his mouth.

Both cheeks puffed out round. His lips weren’t particularly wide, but the inner real cavity was surprisingly spacious. While Gong Jio bit and sucked on his own lower lip, Cha Gyuhan shamelessly swallowed down the mouthful of eggs, thumping his chest as the dry yolks choked his throat. Chugging half the sikhye in a flash, he immediately whined about getting a brain freeze. Annoying. Gong Jio quietly closed his eyes and pretended not to see any of it.

“Hey. I saved two for you, so eat ’em in a bit.”

“…”

“Huh? Got it? You gotta eat ’em.”

Ah, seriously annoying.

Gong Jio didn’t answer.

He felt Cha Gyuhan flop down right beside him. Gong Jio’s eyebrow twitched; his Adam’s apple bobbed. Both were subtle micro-movements, practically invisible. At least to Cha Gyuhan’s dull observation skills.

Lying there, Cha Gyuhan smacked his lips in longing, babbling happily to himself about how awesome it’d be if they had comic books right now. Hey, remember those comic books we used to pass around back in the day…? Blah blah blah.

Frankly, Jio didn’t remember. Cha Gyuhan had read plenty of comic books, sure. Not hentai manga, though. And definitely not netorare. Gong Jio couldn’t suppress a dry chuckle. Thinking Jio was laughing in agreement with his nostalgic reminiscence, Gyuhan turned his head excitedly, only to clamp his mouth shut when his eyes landed on Gong Jio’s nape.

Sniff, sniff.

The sound resembled a dog sniffing around. Still keeping his eyes closed, Gong Jio cocked a brow.

“Man, you don’t even sweat. Why the hell does a dude smell so good? Seriously, what kind of cologne did you put on to smell this nice?”

“Maybe it’s because you like me.”

What made it impossible to tell whether Gong Jio was being serious or joking was that utterly uninflected tone of his.

Cha Gyuhan asked right back. “Yeah, of course I like you. But what does that have to do with anything?”

Suppressing his churning exasperation, Gong Jio answered, “They say people perceive the body odor of someone they’re attracted to as pleasant. Because of pheromones or whatever.”

Well, it was something along those lines. Even if it weren’t, he was more than willing to fabricate facts on the spot without hesitation. This wasn’t a courtroom, after all.

Cha Gyuhan sucked in a startled gasp, glanced around, and leaned in close toward Gong Jio. Jio grew irritated by Gyuhan’s warm breath and hair tickling him. Gyuhan smelled of an incongruous baby powder scent. God only knew what kind of body wash that Boseok noona person had given him.

“Gasp—hey, aren’t pheromones, like, dangerous as hell?”

“You know what pheromones are?” Gong Jio asked, genuinely impressed. Turning his head, he saw Cha Gyuhan nodding with dead-serious gravity.

“Of course I know. That stuff is seriously dangerous. But anyone can smell it as long as they like the person? Is that even allowed? Was it something just anyone could sniff?”

Gong Jio tried to make sense of Cha Gyuhan’s words for a moment before his brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?” He literally couldn’t comprehend.

Still wearing that dead-serious face, Cha Gyuhan explained, “I saw it in a manga Gyuwon was reading. Looked super dangerous in there. Guys’ eyes turned bloodshot, and they got all furious and horny.”

Still had zero clue.

“I’m asking what on earth that’s supposed to mean.”

“They buried their faces in each other’s necks, sniffing like crazy, swearing and shit.”

“No, how does olfactory… What the hell did you read?”

“Was that not it?”

Swallowing a heavy sigh, Gong Jio turned his head away again. Gazing up at the red-clay ceiling, he spoke in an exhausted voice—the tone of someone completely drained after babysitting a nephew or younger cousin for hours. “Stop reading weird stuff. Actually, no. Tell your brother to stop reading weird stuff. Tell him to study English instead.” Massaging the bridge of his nose between the inner corners of his eyes seemed to bring slight relief to his dry eyes, parched by heat and exhaustion.

Beside him, Cha Gyuhan muttered in bewildered confusion. ”Weird stuff? He told me it was educational…”

Educational, sure. An educational comic for Cha Gyuwon, that is.

Gong Jio rolled over onto his side, turning his back to Cha Gyuhan.

“From now on, have a guardian present whenever you consume media.”

Wearing the sheep-head folded towel that Cha Gyuhan had rolled for him, Gong Jio peeled an egg. The person Cha Gyuhan would confidently pick as the most unenthusiastic eater in the world was Gong Jio. True to form, Jio popped the egg into his mouth and chewed listlessly. Thick veins corded along his arms as he propped his upper body up, long legs stretched out. Because both wore the sauna’s standard ochre t-shirts and shorts, their sculpted physiques were on full display, drawing appreciative glances from passersby.

Yet neither of them paid any attention. Cha Gyuhan because he hyper-focused on one thing at a time, and Gong Jio because he couldn’t care less.

Having finished his egg, Gong Jio glanced over at Cha Gyuhan reading a comic book. In the meantime, Gyuhan had fetched it from Boseok noona‘s husband, Wonseok hyung-nim. Everywhere he went, the world was packed with acquaintances, noonas he knew, close hyungs… Gong Jio looked at Cha Gyuhan’s nape—still a flushed grapefruit pink beneath his matching sheep-head towel—and made an offer.

“Want me to pick out a perfume for you?”

“Huh?”

“I’ll pick one that suits you.”

“Oh, for real?!”

Thrilled, Cha Gyuhan shot up from his stomach to sit upright. Gong Jio nodded.

“I’ll look over your clothes too, so do well this time.”

“H-how’d you know I had a date coming up?”

Feeling sheepish, Cha Gyuhan scratched his cheek. Gong Jio took a sip of iced water and replied nonchalantly, “You said you signed up with the matchmaking agency. You’ll probably meet someone soon enough. Go ahead and have a good date.”

“So if someone says I smell nice, that’s a green light, right?”

“If you’re wearing perfume, pretty much anyone would say you smell nice.”

“Still, there’s gotta be a scent that smells exceptionally good, right? Like, what d’you call it, hor… hormones?”

“Enough about that.”

Setting down his cup of water, Gong Jio crooked his finger. As Cha Gyuhan leaned forward without a fuss, Jio grabbed the nape of his neck and hauled him in, pressing his face right into his shoulder.

“Well? Smell nice?”

“I told you it does.”

Grumbling about how many times he had to repeat himself, Cha Gyuhan dutifully inhaled Gong Jio’s scent again. It smelled great. But it wasn’t the perfume scent he had smelled earlier.

“Oh, smells really good.”

“Since I took a bath, the cologne washed off. If you still think I smell good, that means you like me.”

“I get it now.” Cha Gyuhan pulled his head back. A solemn, determined expression settled over his face. “So you’re saying I should use cologne to make a good first impression, and then find someone who also likes my natural scent.”

“Are you an idiot? You said you’re looking for your destined soulmate. Then you need to find someone you like too. What I’m teaching you is just basic manners.”

One could reasonably ask why Jio had made him smell his neck in the first place, but Cha Gyuhan was a man who couldn’t even grasp it if Jio spelled out that he slept with men instead of women because Gyuhan wanted to marry a woman. Such delicate suspicion was far beyond him.

Besides, attraction wasn’t that simple. Scent factored in cleanliness and all sorts of complex variables. But for Cha Gyuhan, teaching him in such simple terms was best—even if it took a wild leap of logic toward the wrong answer.

“Try to find someone as good as me. Use me as your standard.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m sick of watching you waste money doing this bullshit. Let’s put an end to this once and for all. I’ll help you, Cha Gyuhan.”

“Really…? I thought you were pissed at me…”

“You talk too much.”

“Yeah. Thanks, man.”

Watching Cha Gyuhan answer promptly, the corners of Gong Jio’s lips curved upward in a slow, relaxed smirk.

Gong Jio genuinely intended to see this farce through to the very end. After all, all roads lead to Rome, don’t they? If the end goal was finding a lifelong partner anyway, he was determined to make it happen. Gong Jio gladly decided to step up for the sake of his friend.

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