Chapter 98

Now, surprised even more, his eyes widened into round circles. Sweet flesh dissolved over the tip of his tongue. When Geum Seoul parted his lips, Gye Do-hyeop fed him the remaining half, then gently bit down on the pouted lips and kissed him. As he busily crushed the strawberry, Seoul lifted his lashes, blinked a couple of times, and continued to chew.

“Look at you eat. Just like a little rabbit.”

“Yes. It goes down easily.”

Even so, Gye Do-hyeop did not let Geum Seoul out of his embrace. Just like yesterday, he could eat well only to regurgitate every last bit. With the back of his bent index finger knuckle, he lightly wiped the juice from the boy’s lower lip.

“Rabbit, cherry tomato.”

This time Seoul accepted it readily too. As he popped the piece into his mouth and chewed until it burst with a soft pop, Gye Do-hyeop caught the rim of his ear between his lips. He mouthed it as though intending to chew it the same way. Seoul made a tiny sound and lifted one shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut, but Do-hyeop ignored the protest and continued licking lazily over his cheek and ear.

“That tickles.”

“You have to eat five before I give you a bath.”

“Give me small ones, then.”

“You love fucking huge dicks anyway.”

“The only one I’ve ever had was big.”

“What?”

“Pardon?”

Having ruffled Deputy Director Gye’s ego in an instant with a single simple sentence, Geum Seoul blinked innocently. It was the truth, after all. It wasn’t that he preferred big ones; it was simply that the only one he had ever swallowed had been massive. Gye Do-hyeop narrowed one eye at Geum Seoul, but that was all. He shoved another cherry tomato forward, telling him to just eat.

Over the past few days, what Geum Seoul had grown to love most was taking a bath. Worried about how bored Seoul was while cooped up resting at home, Gye Do-hyeop had filled the tub with steaming water and carried him in, and Geum Seoul had loved it, melting limp like tissue paper dissolving in water.

The official residence itself was cramped, and the bathtub was endlessly tight for two grown men, but Gye Do-hyeop, with his massive build, squeezed himself in anyway as if oblivious to his own size, clutching Geum Seoul to his chest. His long legs couldn’t even fit, leaving his knees jutting out over the edge of the tub without ever being properly submerged, but the satisfaction of staying glued to Geum Seoul was all that mattered.

Ever since learning about the pregnancy, Gye Do-hyeop had been diligently feeding fruit into Geum Seoul’s mouth one piece at a time. Whether it was the pregnancy itself or the weight he had lost, the kid looked twice as fragile as before. Do-hyeop felt ready to pry open a whale’s jaws if that was what it took to fetch something Seoul could keep down.

Naturally, Gye Do-hyeop had no talent whatsoever for caring for someone. He was a man who hurled things in a temper, broke them, ruined them, or kicked them around at his own fucking whim while laughing; he had never once nurtured, doted on, or tenderly caressed anyone in his life.

Geum Seoul was his first. Thinking back, that had been true even before the pregnancy. However recklessly brutal Gye Do-hyeop was with everyone else, around Seoul he had always watched his tongue in his own distorted way. It was not merely because Seoul was young, harmless, or seemingly insignificant. Do-hyeop had once captured an eighteen-year-old terrorist, squeezed tears, snot, piss, and shit out of the kid until he was nothing but a gasping husk, then dumped him across the border without a second thought.

In the end, Do-hyeop could explain the difference only as instinct. It was not Seoul’s looks; he had hauled the boy off that rooftop and into his arms back when he still thought that face was plain. It was not the pheromones either, because they had been barely there. He had simply been drawn to him. Almost as if some buried part of him had known, even then, that before long he would fall hopelessly, completely in love with the kid.

“I’m full.”

“Unless your throat’s welded shut, one more.”

“I already ate all five….”

“Your tiny-ass stomach is gonna shrivel up and stick together. Say ah.”

Geum Seoul declared surrender after finishing an entire banana before an apple could be shoved into his mouth, but his plea was rejected. When Seoul parted his lips, Gye Do-hyeop slipped in a small piece of cut apple. Between the crisp, crunching sounds, the wet noises of Gye Do-hyeop sucking on his lips sounded in steady succession.

After swallowing the last piece of apple, Geum Seoul rested against Gye Do-hyeop’s chest for around ten minutes, waiting to see whether the nausea would return. Then Do-hyeop scooped him up and lowered him into the bath again. Twenty minutes later, warmed pink from the water and steam, Seoul emerged soft and fair, swaddled in one of Do-hyeop’s T-shirts before being tucked snugly into bed. The corners of his eyes had gone loose with drowsiness, his whole face softened into languid exhaustion.

“Deputy Director. They say terror attacks are rampant these days.”

Geum Seoul spoke with a yawn, his cheek pressed flat against Gye Do-hyeop’s chest.

“Who told you that?”

“The news. They said a department store in Seongtan-dong was bombed today.”

For the past few days, Gye Do-hyeop had left the house for only a couple of hours a day, nothing more. As if how busy he’d been before had all been a lie, he stayed glued to Geum Seoul’s side, and it was the same even after he returned.

“That’s the police’s job.”

“Even though it’s terrorism?”

“Yeah. There’s no clear evidence it’s Node’s doing yet.”

Do-hyeop insisted that every bite Seoul ate pass under his eyes. He monitored even a single sip of water, and whenever he left the apartment, he made Seoul line up the empty bottles on the table so he could count them later. He wanted to know exactly what Seoul ate, how much he swallowed, and whether his body managed to digest—or reject—every scrap. Nausea earned no exception. Seoul would push at his shoulders and beg to be allowed into the bathroom alone, only for Do-hyeop to hold him tighter and ask why he was trying so hard when he could simply throw up into his arms. Once, cornered by that stubbornness, Seoul had vomited clear bile directly over his shoulder.

When that happened a couple more times, Geum Seoul finally burst into tears. He declared that he was too ashamed and humiliated to live like this, that he wanted to stay separately, and Gye Do-hyeop, thoroughly shaken by those words, had no choice but to let him go to the bathroom alone from then on. Even so, he stood right behind his back, ready to catch him by the waist and pull him into his arms the instant he swayed.

‘Why the fuck are you being so stubborn over this shit?’

‘People are supposed to go to the bathroom by themselves.’

‘You leak all over me just fine when we’re fucking.’

In this regard, Gye Do-hyeop couldn’t understand Geum Seoul at all. Not only right after meals, but whenever Seoul lay on the sofa or bed looking like he wanted to retch, Gye would cup his palm under his mouth, yet Seoul shook his head, insisting that was too humiliating. When Seoul chewed food during meals and spat it out because he couldn’t force it down, Gye caught it in his own palm anyway—so he couldn’t comprehend how vomit was any different or any dirtier.

From his perspective, letting an unstable Geum Seoul out of his arms was far more dangerous. Holding him close every day, even if Seoul threw up over his shoulder, changing clothes and cleaning up was his own problem; all Geum Seoul had to do was rest quietly in his embrace.

‘It’s humiliating. I’m not a child.’

‘If you’re not a kid, then who the fuck is?’

‘……’

Yet before Geum Seoul’s silence, Gye Do-hyeop could push no further. Narrowing his eyes slightly, he drew a breath and gave a nod.

‘Fine. I get it.’

‘Promise me.’

‘Yeah. I promise.’

There was another reason Gye Do-hyeop refused to compromise on the bathroom. The image of Geum Seoul with his head over a toilet felt as though someone were snapping the bones in Do-hyeop’s body one by one. Whenever Do-hyeop was gone, Seoul must have slipped away from other people’s eyes, sprinted to the bathroom, bent double over the bowl, and endured it alone. That fucking picture replayed in his mind until it drove him half-insane. Still, Do-hyeop kept his promise and stopped at carrying Seoul to the bathroom door. Naturally, the character for patience was piling up inside him like matchsticks, layer after layer, until it had practically become a monument.

On the other hand, setting aside the bathroom issue, Geum Seoul felt deeply comforted by his protection. Having never experienced this level of concern within anyone’s boundaries in his entire life, his inability to judge what constituted a reasonable degree played a part. If Yu Jeong-ham or the other team members had heard of it, they would have clamored that this was severe overprotection bordering on fanatical obsession and control, but Geum Seoul himself felt as snug as if wearing a safety harness, leaving him with no real complaints.

“Still, aren’t you busy? I’m doing much better now.”

“Bullshit. Today’s the first day you didn’t throw up.”

“It’s true that I’m getting better, though.”

“You bragging?”

“A little bit, maybe.”

Smiling at the soft, steady reply, Gye Do-hyeop gently swept back Geum Seoul’s hair. Geum Seoul was worried. Having talked with Yu Jeong-ham before Gye returned, he knew full well that the situation was bad. Furthermore, the news had been relentlessly broadcasting reports about the attacks breaking out day after day. Rumors were even circulating that police response alone had reached its limit and the Special Security Department would have to intervene, yet the Deputy Director remained right in front of him for all but a few hours each day.

“What about the A-rank gem?”

“The broker handling it was already dead. I threw out the bait, so once we catch a lead, we’ll get started.”

“Then you can’t do anything until then?”

Squinting one eye slightly, Gye Do-hyeop stared down at Geum Seoul squirming in his embrace.

“Did Yu Jeong-ham say something to you?”

“…Pardon?”

“Did that fu—did that bastard ask you how long it takes to pop out a Grade-A gem?”

“No, he didn’t?”

Geum Seoul’s reply was astonishingly quick. Trying his hardest not to blink, he stared up at the man. Suspicion filled Do-hyeop’s eyes. Geum Seoul knew by instinct that giving the wrong answer here would land Yu Jeong-ham in serious trouble. “It wasn’t like that. I just asked because I was curious,” he added, then buried his face into the man’s chest. Only then did Gye Do-hyeop stroke his back with reluctant indulgence.

He thought he had barely managed to skirt past it, but his opponent was Deputy Director Gye, the demon of the Special Security Bureau. Thrusting his face in close, Gye Do-hyeop nudged Seoul’s shoulder with the tip of his nose, then parted his lips to nip at his flesh. Muttering, “Go ahead, keep covering for him,” he stripped Seoul clean and set about biting him in earnest, sending Geum Seoul scurrying in shock beneath the duvet. Behind them, the curtain above the headboard remained parted by a single handspan, letting a faint sliver of light seep into the room.