Chapter 10: Scarf

“That’s a pretty one.”

Yi Jun, who smiled with his gentle eyes curved into circles, complimented the scarf.

Bodam showed no reaction.

He didn’t put down the bag slung over his shoulder, showing his intention to get up as soon as his business was done.

The fatigue right after guiding made his whole body heavy.

His body was weary enough without being tormented by them.

“Hyung.”

Yi Jun’s voice, calling Bodam who had been ignoring him since a while ago, dropped slightly.

Bodam, who had been staring straight ahead while ignoring his side, turned his body ever so slightly in Yi Jun’s direction.

Provoking the bipolar b*stard for no reason would only prolong the circular conversation.

“Take it off.”

“What?”

Bodam scowled deeply at the younger guy who was telling him to take off his clothes without any warning.

Seeing this, Kang Yi Jun just laughed mischievously again.

“What are you thinking? Not your clothes, the scarf.”

Yi Jun, pointing to Bodam’s neck with his chin, acted as if someone else’s precious gift had been entrusted to him.

Bodam, of course, refused.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s something I treasure.”

“Oh. Now I’m even more curious.”

It was becoming difficult to sit and listen to that slick tone any longer.

Bodam, turning his head towards the front door, left his final words with a sigh.

“I sat for a bit, so I’m going. You said you didn’t need guiding first.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t need it.”

Bodam’s body, which hadn’t even fully stood up from his seat, was grabbed by Yi Jun’s hand and forced back down onto the sofa.

Due to the even closer distance than before, the Esper’s energy was felt more clearly.

Bodam, who shook off his hand after checking Yi Jun’s still fine wavelength, said.

“You don’t have to get it now. It doesn’t seem like you used much of your ability.”

“Why are you the one to judge that? Are you a doctor, hyung?”

“…”

Bodam, whose eyes rolled up to the ceiling, bit his lip tightly.

Kang Yi Jun would recklessly read other people’s minds and tease them as he pleased.

He read all of Bodam’s thoughts, not just when they were talking, but also when Bodam was with other people.

Right now, he was imitating the inner thoughts he had had in front of Lee Tae Hwan.

‘Making a person feel like sh*t.’

Bodam, who emphasized the words in his mind for him to hear, tried to get up again.

As expected, Yi Jun, who had no intention of letting him go gracefully, intertwined their fingers tightly, digging between them.

“It hurts…!”

“Being a crybaby is also a habit. I told you. Hyung, you need to cultivate patience.”

“Don’t grab me so recklessly.”

“I can hold your hand anytime. Read the contract again.”

“I can’t do guiding right now!”

“I don’t want to receive it right now either.”

Yi Jun, who snickered and buried his nose in the back of Bodam’s hand, took a long breath.

He paid no attention to the struggling resistance of his flailing limbs.

“I’ll get it when you’ve washed up cleanly, hyung. It feels like I’m kissing Tae Hwan hyung. You’re caked in his wavelength.”

“I won’t! F—”

“Looks like our Dami hyung doesn’t want to earn his money anymore.”

Yi Jun, who widened his eyes with an exaggerated expression, pulled on their intertwined hands.

Bodam propped one foot on the sofa to resist being pulled by the force.

His neck stiffened as heat rose, and ragged breaths passed quickly through his mouth and nose.

“Ah, cute.”

Yi Jun, who maintained the standoff without continuously pulling on the hand he held, burst into laughter.

He watched with amusement as Bodam struggled to get away, swinging his arms.

He laughed brightly like a child as he watched Bodam’s face turn red.

As Bodam, whose leg strength was failing, clenched his teeth, he barely held back his laughter and continued.

“Feels fcking shtty, right? I’m telling you to go wash up when you’re sick to death.”

A vein stood out on the slender neck of Bodam, who was coughing while clenching his teeth tightly.

He shook his body, trying to get his captured hand free, and even put his weight into it, pulling like it was a tug-of-war.

Watching this, Yi Jun’s smiling face grew even brighter.

“Just give me the scarf and let’s end this. Stop playing around.”

He said in a tone that was like placating a child.

Bodam’s face, wet with a liquid that could be either sweat or tears, was on the verge of exploding from high blood pressure.

He wanted to watch more, but the cheap scarf hanging under that good-looking face was an eyesore to Yi Jun.

‘While you won’t accept anything I give you.’

‘Playing around?’

Bodam felt his energy drain away.

It seemed that any situation where a person was serious and angry was just a game to him.

Like the act of pouring rain on him in front of people and standing by as he was sucked into a gate.

“If you give me that, I’ll skip today’s guiding.”

“…”

Looking down at Yi Jun, who spoke as if doing him a favor, Bodam felt his body grow cold.

In reality, his fever hadn’t gone down at all, but that’s how Bodam felt.

The facial muscles that had been trying their best to make a fierce expression slowly returned to their original places.

‘You find it fun when I scream my head off.’

“Take it.”

Bodam, whose expression had been wiped clean from his still-red face, said.

With the hand that had been scratching and hitting the back of Yi Jun’s hand to get it free, he untied the scarf and threw it.

“There. Now let go.”

The thin scarf fell onto Yi Jun’s thigh.

Yi Jun, who didn’t even glance at the scarf he had been nagging for so persistently, also gradually hardened his expression.

His face, devoid of its bright smile, exuded an aura as fierce as Lee Tae Hwan’s.

Bodam emptied his thoughts and faced him.

Having lost interest, Kang Yi Jun stood up from the sofa and let go of Bodam’s hand.

“Ugh.”

Bodam, who was yanked and stumbled by the force of him roughly untangling their fingers, fell face-first onto the sofa.

Yi Jun looked back and forth between Bodam on the sofa and the scarf on the floor with his head tilted at an angle.

Then, fixing his gaze on Bodam, he stepped on the wrinkled scarf and crushed it.

“Tell me if you need it.”

He even pressed the scarf into the floor, as if trying to scrape gum off the sole of his slipper.

“I’ll buy you a better one.”

Yi Jun, who spat out the words bluntly, walked past Bodam.

Bodam, who was frozen face-down on the sofa, clenched his fists as he listened to the fading footsteps.

It was a truly familiar situation.

His fallen body, and the Esper who left him to go on his way.

It was so familiar that he didn’t even feel angry.

“F…ck…”

It wasn’t that he couldn’t get angry.

Not at all.

***

Bodam leaned his arms on the windowsill and watched the darkening view outside.

He was in a guiding room exclusively for high-class Espers, complete with a queen-sized bed, a neatly designed tea table, and a small bathroom.

His small, round, brown head moved left and right, following the figures outside the window.

The gukbap he had forced down for lunch felt like it was sitting in his stomach.

Even after walking for an hour to digest the food, the heavy, blocked feeling from his throat to his navel wouldn’t go away.

Because he had to wait until 9 PM, he couldn’t go home and had been killing time in the guide common lounge.

While waiting for sleep to come after popping some cold medicine, he habitually turned on a resignation vlog on his phone.

When even that didn’t register, he rubbed his stomach and even searched for ‘reviews after throwing my resignation letter’.

Then eventually,

“Ah… my eyes hurt…”

He pressed his puffy eye area, like overcooked udon noodles, against the window.

The cool glass pane cooled down his sausage-like eyelids.

At this point, he wondered if there was something wrong with his tear ducts.

While wiping away the tears that had pooled from using his phone while lying on his side, he suddenly burst into tears.

‘It feels like it’s about time I just ignore this level of bullsh*t and move on.’

‘Why do I react every time they poke me, get beaten in a war of nerves I can’t even win, and then cry alone?’

‘Once I’ve made up my mind to endure, I should just live as if I’m dead.’

He had once been scolded by Jo Yeon for voicing such self-reproach out loud.

He had gotten angry for him, saying that it wasn’t that he was weak and being swayed, but that those sons of b*tches were putting him in a shaker and shaking him.

But after being treated like this as if it were a matter of course for so long, he was gradually—.

Bzzzt. Bzzzt.

The vibration of a text message sounded from the phone placed on the tea table.

Bodam, who took his eyes off the window, listlessly walked to the table and picked up his phone.

[My dependable son… thank you for your help… a million hearts]

He let out a sigh looking at the time, which read 8:51, then chuckled after reading the text from his mom.

With lightened fingers, he immediately sent a reply.

[I’m a heart millionaire now lol next week is payday so I have plenty, so tell me if you need more~ Don’t go borrowing from my aunts for no reason!]

While waiting for a reply after sending a bunch of emoticons, he sat in the chair and leaned back.

His ever-drooping body sought support like a magnet.

When a reply didn’t come from his mom, who was usually a fast typer, he scratched his chin and just stared at the screen.

Just when he was wondering if Ms. Moon, who usually replied faster than him, had learned to leave him on read,

[Mom is sorry]

“Ah, seriously…”

‘Is today the grand opening of a water park or something?’

Bodam, who flipped his phone screen down, covered his eyes.

He rubbed his eye area with his arm, trying to brush away his emotions.

‘I can’t take a “Mom is sorry,”’ he thought, and forcibly swallowed the tears that had burst forth.

His feverish body ached, and his chest, heavy with gukbap, felt suffocated.

Using his mom’s text as a digestive aid, Bodam once again just crumpled the resignation letter he had cherished in his arms.