Side Story 1. Private Rescue (5)

"Hey, you don't think I'd be scared of bugs, do you? After all I've been through."

"It'll be a level Seoul people can't even imagine."

"Still, it can't be scarier than mutants, right?"

"..."

Tae-un just slightly raised the corner of his mouth without answering. Since he was someone who didn't know how to exaggerate, it felt like a real warning. Soram added glumly.

"Well..., I probably won't be able to leave the capital area except during holiday vacations anyway."

But inwardly, he made plans to visit this place again someday when that white mountain was completely covered in green, and not just then, but also when spring flowers bloomed and autumn leaves turned color.

Though the first visit had unexpectedly discovered traces of trauma, there were still plenty of good times.

If he kept coming back, wouldn't new memories cover over the old ones, like how "the place where I was dragged to Seoul" had just changed to "the place where I suddenly got a kiss"?

Before that, first, he needed to finish this outing well. With no more strange behaviors.

Soram, who had strode across the ditch first, turned around. From here, he was planning to suggest flying back to the annex. Tae-un was the type of person who would agree without hesitation if Soram said, "It's cold, I want to go inside quickly."

As it passed four o'clock, the surroundings quickly darkened. As the sunlight lost its strength, the brightly shining snow also yielded its light to the approaching night sky. The shadowed areas became even darker.

Because of that, he didn't notice the ice frozen slippery on the sloped surface.

"Oops."

Fortunately, it was just enough to slightly shake his balance, but the moment Soram stood upright again, his eyes widened. Tae-un, who thought Soram was going to fall, had come close to try to catch him.

"Ah..."

As if zooming out a camera, Tae-un's figure standing at the center of his vision came into clear focus.

Tae-un approaching this way, and the slippery slope where one could roll down. The conditions were met again.

Wait...!

The first thing to tense up was his elbow. As if touched by electricity and shocked, with a tingling sensation, his elbow bent and raised his hand.

Stop. Stop it.

By the time he thought that, he had already pushed Tae-un with both hands. It had more force than the previous two times. Tae-un, who hadn't budged before, took a step back to regain his balance.

Their eyes met. Tae-un also looked a bit surprised.

"..."

Soon, Tae-un slowly turned his head to look behind him. Behind him, who had just crossed the bridge, was the ditch covered in white frost. Looking now, it was Tae-un's side that had the more dangerous back.

Tae-un's body, after closing his eyes tightly and opening them, leaned in that direction.

"Huh?"

There was the sound of ice breaking, a splash, and rough friction with water. The man who had the strength to stand firm, or even the ability to fly up if he lost balance, tumbled headfirst into the ditch.

The thin ice broke immediately, and his lower body sank into the cold water flowing underneath. The water was about two hand-spans deep, but he was soaked up to his waist from the splashing water.

"Cough."

He got up from his spot, wiping the muddy water splashed on his face and coughing roughly. Ice fragments fell off his body in a shower.

He looked up at Soram and came back up the slope without saying anything.

***

With a click, the bathroom door opened. Small water droplets were dotted near the neckline of the gray T-shirt he had changed into after showering.

Tae-un, who had shaken off the remaining moisture in his hair by rubbing it with a towel three or four times, approached the living room. Soram, who was curled up on the sofa hugging his knees, was watching him but turned his gaze to the window when the distance narrowed to three steps.

Tae-un's steps stopped right in front of the sofa.

"Why are you doing that with your hands?"

Tae-un separated Soram's overlapped hands. The backs of both hands were full of marks in the shape of fingernails. Unable to put his hands together again, Soram instead clenched both fists tightly.

An awkward silence, very rare between the two, fell.

After a moment, the spot next to Soram sank deeply as the large figure sat down. His arm came around from behind and wrapped around Soram's shoulder, pulling him close. The opposite shoulder leaned against his chest. His whole body was warm, perhaps from showering with hot water. Originally, Tae-un's body temperature tended to be higher.

He immediately proved to Soram, who didn't know what to do, that he wasn't concerned about that incident.

Han Tae-un was a good lover. Looking back on all their days, he had expressed affection much more often than Soram, and when he didn't know how to handle things with words, he showed it through actions. Like now.

His clumsy but earnest efforts always brought some kind of ripple.

"Why did you fall there? It wasn't even enough force to push you."

"It seemed like you wanted to push me."

"..."

Soram didn't give any other answer. Though he leaned his body as Tae-un pulled his waist, his head was still facing out the window. The sun, half-hidden behind the mountain, was setting, coloring the fields. It was a scene that looked even warmer than during the day.

"Aren't you going to ask why I pushed you?"

"Why bother... when I know the reason."

"What's the reason?"

Tae-un answered while looking at Soram's side profile that wouldn't turn towards him.

"You're angry about the times I saved you, right?"

He wasn't angry at all. He wasn't, but... since he didn't know what emotion it was himself, he chose to stay quiet. Then Tae-un said the words Soram should have said.

"I'm sorry."

I'm not angry. Really.

But hearing those words, something that could be mistaken for anger welled up. He couldn't understand what this emotion was that made him not want to tell Tae-un it wasn't so.

"Doesn't an apology need to include 'I won't do it again'?"

"...I'm sorry."

Tae-un's hand moved carefully on his shoulder and gently squeezed. It meant that though he could make verbal promises any number of times, they ultimately wouldn't be kept.

"Soram-ah, did you keep doing that because memories of me dying after saving you came up?"

"...I don't know, either. My hands just..."

Soram buried his face in the cave between his hugged knees and body.

"We overcame everything, and I'm never going back again. So why still..."

Everything he had tried to hide from Tae-un was completely exposed. Now that everything was revealed, his palms kept tingling. It felt like a black lump was blooming from the empty inside, so he clenched his fists tightly, but that hollow feeling only grew.

"Why, am I still like this?"

"..."

Tae-un, who had lowered his gaze heavily, opened his mouth.

"Let's go back early, Soram-ah."

"...?"

"Let's come again next time, after some time has passed. I think we were too hasty today."

Tae-un let go of Soram and tried to get up from his seat. Soram hurriedly grabbed his arm as he was about to leave the sofa.

"No. I don't want that...!"

It was true that he was trembling in fear. But he didn't want to run away in this newly found life either.

At that moment, the distant sensation disappeared from the hand that touched Tae-un.

Tae-un was pulled hard and sat back down on the sofa. Soram fumbled his way up Tae-un's arm with both hands. Eventually, Tae-un's face was trapped between his two hands. As if wanting to confirm something, Soram traced his face, the contours like his nose bridge and jawline. Even when fingers approached sensitive areas like around the eyes, Tae-un just let him do as he pleased.

While trying to resolve his anxiety, his face contorted painfully, disliking himself for harboring such anxiety. Soram lowered his hands from his face, gradually moving downwards. Chin, neckline, the collar of the T-shirt he was wearing.

After fiddling with the part that started to be covered by clothes for a while, Soram demanded.

"Take it off."

Without another word, the T-shirt passed over his head.

When they first slept together, Tae-un had been at the headquarters for less than a year. He had become firmer since then and his scars had increased. As the relatively cold hand touched and traced downwards, Tae-un's expression, which had been silently offering his body, also changed. The expression that had been twitching while enduring the ticklish stimulation bit the end of his lip when Soram's palm covered his left chest.

"Han Tae-un, stay still."

The hand that came up to meet Soram's back was stopped before it could even touch.

"Am I... being punished now?"

"Yes."

Tae-un put his hands down on the sofa, but they were still tightly tensed. When the hand went down past his waist, following the curves to below his navel, Tae-un squeezed his eyes shut.