Chapter 26

As soon as he asked, I answered urgently.

“That’s all right!”

The memory of the kiss was revived again and my face heated up.

Seeing my reaction, the corner of hyung’s eyes slightly wrinkled in a frown.

“Did it feel bad? I was pretty confident with kissing.”

“It’s not that…”

While muttering, I eventually sighed and confessed.

“It felt good. I felt good… Hyung, I’m very sorry.”

It was uncomfortable to think that because of me, he was forced to kiss someone he didn’t even like.

The kiss itself was really good. Regardless of whether I was thinking of Kang Ji Seok or not, it was so sweet that the unpleasant kiss I had experienced before was washed away all at once.

That’s why I was even more afraid. I felt good, but I was afraid that hyung, who forced himself to kiss me, might have felt awful about kissing me. I thought he just wasn’t revealing it on the outside because he promised something, but in fact, he was actually brooding over it and thinking that it was the worst.

Feeling anxious and sorry, I couldn’t make eye contact with him at all, but for some reason, he let out a small laugh.

“Woo Seo-ya, you’re really cute.”

When I saw a smile spread across his relaxed face, the lump of anxiety seemed to quickly break up and disappear.

“You and Kang Ji Seok are the only ones who think I’m cute.”

I didn’t know why this person said I was cute at this moment, however, his mood was so relaxed that I could make a little grunting sound.

With a small smile, hyung raised his left hand and showed me the red ring.

“Did you learn more about the rings?”

“For now…”

“Do you remember the part related to physical contact?”

While I was searching for a part related to the ring in my head, wondering what he was talking about, I realized too late.

Skinship1 with the ring’s match conveys a pleasant comfort, and the deeper the depth, the closer one feels to ecstasy. This was related to a good night’s sleep but it was more deeply related to sex.

When I remembered that, my face heated up again. I only thought about sleeping in moderate contact with each other, but I completely forgot about other “deep” forms of skinship.

Ji Geon-hyung’s eyes narrowed.

“As long as the ring is connected, it would never feel bad.”

His face drew closer as he whispered with a low voice. Even though I knew what he was trying to do, I didn’t turn my head or push him away.

“Think of me as Ji Seok again this time.”

A furtive whisper filled my head.

Maybe he wanted to test it out. I wanted to know whether the kiss was sweet because I was drunk, because I thought of Kang Ji Seok, or because of Ji Geon-hyung who was connected to the ring, who was the match.

His lips touched mine gently. The sweet scent that seemed to already be addictive filled my mouth.2

With that, a strange sensation crept up from the depths.

It was a faint feeling of immorality.

The fact that I was embracing the older brother of the person I liked. That I was using this person by projecting the person I liked onto him. And that he was kissing someone who wasn’t even his lover because of the ring.

Blaming myself, a sense of immorality of immense size weighed down on my shoulders.

However, why that feeling of immorality was being considered an irresistible stimulus, I didn’t know.

++++++++++

It was around ten A.M. when I arrived home from the hotel.

Standing in front of the door, hesitating, I soon entered the password on the keypad of the door lock. I heard the mechanical sound of the door unlocking.

“Shin Woo Seo!”

As soon as I opened the door, I was startled by the voice I heard. At this time, Kang Ji Seok would be at the gym, but he stayed at home. I purposely chose a time when he wouldn’t be home, but I couldn’t get away from this predicament.

However for some reason, his clothes were not the comfortable clothes he would wear at home, but the clothes he wore yesterday. He was like someone who waited without changing clothes so that he could run out whenever he receives a call.

My heart skipped quite a bit beyond excitement that Kang Ji Seok waited for me without sleeping or even thinking of changing clothes.

But the excitement was short-lived.

As he strode closer towards the front door, Kang Ji Seok didn’t have a smile on his face unlike usual. Glaring at me with furious and brutal eyes, he grabbed my wrist painfully.

“Ugh! Ya, that hurts!”

“Do you know how worried I was?! Why couldn’t I contact you?!”

“The battery died…!”

“I know you saw the messages! You should’ve replied when you checked!”3

After madly insisting, he hurriedly pulled my wrist and headed to the living room. He was so strong that I couldnt even take off my shoes completely and was dragged helplessly with one shoe still on. Then, he pushed me down as if throwing me onto the sofa.

“You didn’t even think about me?! I stayed up all night waiting for you…!”

Staring down at me threateningly, Kang Ji Seok suddenly flinched and stopped talking. Because of him, I couldn’t think about anything, so realized later that my shoulders were trembling.

It was pathetic and funny to feel this way towards a friend, but honestly, I was afraid.

It was the first time Kang Ji Seok was so angry at me, and it was the first time he grabbed me without consideration as if he would break my wrist. But what was scarier than anything else was the fact that I was hated by Kang Ji Seok.

Pathetic.

I was so pathetic that I couldn’t even speak.

It’s just that Kang Ji Seok was shaken to drive me to say why I was late.

He clenched his fists with his head down. The wrist that was tightly held by Ji Seok was also squeezed with force4 and became painful, but I had no time to pay attention to it.

‘Why are you angry?’

Why did I drink so much like that? Why didn’t I want to come in? I’m the one who wants to be angry…

‘You have a girl you liked but you didn’t say or make it obvious. If you made it obvious, I wouldn’t have been this sad.’

Even though I knew Kang Ji Seok liked women, I was vaguely relieved because he had never actually had a girlfriend. I didn’t want Kang Ji Seok’s ideal type to appear for the rest of my life, and I thought it’d be nice for the both of us to spend our entire lives as friends without anyone else sitting next to us.

However, six years ago, no, it was said that there was a woman he liked since before that. The person who he referred to as his ideal type without hesitation actually existed, and was not a fictional ideal. Kang Ji Seok’s ideal type is… She got along well with him.

‘What’s making you angry?’

Do I have the right to be angry with Kang Ji Seok when I’m just falling apart by myself because I couldn’t control my feelings?

‘Fuck…’

I bit my lower lip tightly because I thought the scornful curse would slip out. I could feel the tingling pain of my teeth digging into my lip.

It’s just that I was a fool. It’s my fault that I had continued to keep a friend in my heart for such a long time without knowing the issue. As soon as I saw ‘Kang Ji Seok’s favorite person,’ who was sure to appear someday, the problem was that I couldn’t control the emotions I had been suppressing so far, and the problem was that I couldn’t quickly give up.

Even if it was too difficult and tiring, I just had to pretend to be calm.

Even now, I could’ve done that, but I couldn’t stop my vision from blurring.

“… Woo Seo-ya”

Kang Ji Seok’s voice softened with a sigh. Even if I didn’t raise my head, I felt that the harsh and heavy air had gotten a bit better.

“I want you to…haa…Woo Seo, raise your head for a second.”

Choosing his words, Kang Ji Seok reached out to my face.

Tak!

Kang Ji Seok’s hand was mercilessly slapped away. It must’ve been quite painful because my hand was tingling.

I didn’t want to show him. From Kang Ji Seok’s perspective, I would seem like an incomprehensible jerk who was crying or dragging his feet after he got a little angry for making him worried. If I had to say anything about why I was crying over something like this, my heart would be so frustrated and painful that I couldn’t stand it

Kang Ji Seok reached out to me again even though he was thrown away. This time, I tried to hit his hand away so that he couldn’t hold my face, but I was caught by my wrist in the air. Of all places, it was the wrist that was tightly squeezed earlier, even though he didn’t hold it as tightly this time, the pain spread and my shoulders shrank.

“Woo Seo-ya, why do you keep…!”

“Release that hand, Kang Ji Seok.”

I turned my head to the sudden voice. I didn’t know if the door was closed or not because I was rushed in earlier, or if Ji geon-hyung came in without the mechanical sound of the door lock.

I couldn’t see clearly because of my watery [vision]5, but hyung’s eyes were as scary as Kang Ji Seok’s earlier. His cold face seemed to have been distorted threateningly.

He looked at my face and my hand that was held by Ji Seok, and walked in with a large stride. Then, he removed Ji Seok’s hand holding my wrist at once with force.

Hyung looked down at my wrist that he was holding. The corners of his eyes were terrifyingly raised when he saw my wrist, which turned red as if a band was wrapped around it.