Romantic Gangster

#54

Ji-woo, who fell asleep after 2:30 AM thinking about Hyun-joon, struggled to open his eyes to the morning alarm. He really wanted to sleep just 10 more minutes, but he knew if he closed his eyes now, he might sleep for 10 hours instead of 10 minutes.

With his eyes closed, Ji-woo got up and went to the bathroom, grabbed his toothbrush, and fell asleep leaning on the sink. Only when his head suddenly drooped did he realize he had dozed off, and he hurriedly squeezed toothpaste onto his brush. As the mint flavor filled his mouth, he felt a bit more awake.

Until recently, warm water had felt too hot and he preferred cold water, but now warm water was more welcome. Ji-woo rinsed the soap off his body with lukewarm water and looked at himself in the mirror with fully awake eyes.

He had always thought he should keep himself clean, but he hadn’t paid much attention to his appearance. Today, however, he found himself examining his features. He wondered how he looked in Hyun-joon’s eyes.

Although he thought he just had an ordinary face, he hoped he looked okay to Hyun-joon. He wondered what he could do to improve… He thought he should casually ask Choi Young-jae, who was more interested in grooming than him. With these thoughts, he dried himself with a towel and left the bathroom.

Checking the time, he realized he was 10 minutes later than usual. Realizing he had dozed off standing at the sink for 10 minutes, Ji-woo shook his head and quickly dried his hair and prepared for school.

By the time he finished getting ready, it was exactly time to leave. Before going out, Ji-woo went to the bathroom one last time to check the mirror. He fussed with his bangs and checked if his hair was messy in the back. Then he took out a stick lip balm and applied it to his dry-looking lips.

“……”

Why do I look so plain today of all days?

As Ji-woo was thinking thoughts he had never considered before, his phone vibrated, and he quickly looked down at the screen.

[Hyun-joon: You’re not still sleeping, are you?]

Hyun-joon seemed worried that Ji-woo hadn’t come out even though it was time. Smiling at just seeing the message, Ji-woo quickly left the house. His feet were very busy going down the stairs.

When he reached the first floor, he saw Hyun-joon standing by the wall where he always waited. Suddenly, memories of what they had done here last night came to mind, making his ears burn.

“Hey, take it easy. It would be terrible if you fell on the stairs.”

“I wanted to see you quickly.”

Hyun-joon was lost for words at Ji-woo’s smiling response. “I wanted to see you quickly”… It was unexpected. In fact, after exercising all night and only getting about an hour of sleep, he was so exhausted and dazed that he had been worried that everything that happened last night might have been his own delusion. But now Ji-woo had confirmed that it wasn’t a delusion or a dream.

“…Hey, who told you to say such things so suddenly? I almost died.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I’m happy. Are you going to keep suddenly saying everything on your mind without warning from now on?”

“Hmm… Isn’t that what I should do? It’s good to express a lot, right? If I just think about it alone, the other person won’t know. I’m going to say everything. I’ll say when I like something, and when I don’t like something. Do you not like that?”

Hyun-joon looked down at Ji-woo, who was speaking softly as they left the alley, and pressed his tingling fingertips hard against his uniform pants, feeling another sudden surge of excitement.

Fuck, to think this adorable thing is mine.

He wanted to forget about school and everything else, take Ji-woo to his house, and carefully devour him from head to toe. Just thinking about how Ji-woo would probably just let him do as he pleased if he started kissing him all over made Hyun-joon feel like he might die from cuteness.

“No, of course you should say everything. I’ll tell you everything too, so you tell me everything. Tell me the good things and if there’s anything you don’t like, tell me that too.”

“Okay. If there’s anything you want me to change… tell me everything like that too.”

“There’s nothing like that about you.”

“Come on, that’s just because you don’t know me well yet. As we date, you might see some flaws.”

“Why would you have any flaws? You don’t have any. What, did some bastard point out flaws to you? Who was it? They’re gonna die.”

Ahaha. A clear laughter spread. Hyun-joon took in Ji-woo’s laughing face as if enchanted. When he laughed out loud like that, his eyes usually closed, which was so cute it made Hyun-joon’s heart tingle.

“What if you want to say something later?”

Seeing Ji-woo’s face still full of laughter, Hyun-joon laughed along and lowered his head to plant a loud kiss on Ji-woo’s soft, pretty cheek. His heart tightened at how cute Ji-woo looked, looking up at him with round eyes, probably surprised.

“How can something that doesn’t exist appear?”

Enjoying the soft, fluffy feeling left on his lips, Hyun-joon lowered his head to kiss him again, but Ji-woo’s hand came up to block his mouth.

“Why?”

“People will see.”

“Who will see? There’s no one here.”

“…I saw someone at the crosswalk over there looking surprised just now.”

“That person’s eyesight must have improved. Let’s show them once more to make it even better.”

Hyun-joon said playfully, draping his long arm over Ji-woo’s shoulder. Just seeing Ji-woo shake his head made him feel impatient. Even in this moment of light conversation and joking on the way to school, he wanted to be closer to Ji-woo.

It had only been a day, no, not even half a day since they started dating, but if he was like this already… he wondered what would happen in the future.

“Let’s go to my place after school today. We’ll have dinner together and then go to the convenience store.”

“Okay, sure.”

“And… tomorrow’s Saturday, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to spend the weekend together?”

Although Ji-woo had never stayed overnight, he had come to Hyun-joon’s place quite often to read manga and eat together, so spending time at his house wouldn’t be particularly difficult. But that wasn’t enough.

The thought of wanting Ji-woo to not go home even if it got late while hanging out dominated Hyun-joon’s mind. So he blurted it out, but then he belatedly thought it might make him look like he was coming on too strong right after they started dating.

“Um… I don’t mean it in a weird way, it’s just that we’re going to meet tomorrow and Sunday anyway, so I thought it might be more convenient to just stay over instead of going back and forth, and also…”

“Okay, I got it. Then after we’re done, let’s stop by my place first to pack some clothes to change into, and then go to your house.”

“Really? You’re really going to sleep over at my place?”

“Yeah. It’ll be fun.”

Ji-woo smiled brightly and, as the school gate came into view, he stopped Hyun-joon by grabbing his arm and looked inside the gate first. He was checking if the PE teacher was there or not.

“He’s not there, let’s go.”

“It doesn’t matter even if he’s there. I won’t listen to whatever crap he says anymore. You’re mine now, so who cares about what the PE teacher says. And you got your revenge yesterday, right? By ignoring him.”

“Yeah. I’m not going to greet him today either if I see him.”

“Ah, really, I need to treat Seo Ji-woo well so he doesn’t hate me. Your revenge is scary. I should only do pretty things.”

Ji-woo laughed brightly again as they entered the school gate, his eyes crinkling. Hyun-joon pretending to be scared, even rubbing his arms as if he was frightened when he wasn’t scared at all, was both funny and cute.

“What time did you sleep yesterday? Did you sleep right after we hung up?”

“No… I had trouble falling asleep, so I barely managed to sleep after 2:30. What about you?”

“Me? Around 5:30.”

“5:30? Did you stay up all night?”

“Well, pretty much.”

“Why? Couldn’t you sleep?”

Hyun-joon recalled himself from the early morning. Like a madman, he had jumped up in his room, then on the outdoor deck, done push-ups, then lay down on the rooftop floor giggling, and even laughed while showering later. From past 4 AM, he had lived the life of a dopamine addict, looking at Ji-woo’s messages over and over again.

Although they had agreed to be honest with each other, he couldn’t explain such behavior to Ji-woo as it was.

“How could I sleep? After hearing you say you like me, kissing you, and confirming that we’re dating.”

“…Were you that happy?”

“Yeah. Of all the days I’ve lived, yesterday was the best.”

It was a statement that could be taken as just being very happy, but somehow it sounded like there hadn’t been many good days, which made Ji-woo’s heart ache a little. He understood all too well that living alone wasn’t easy.

Ji-woo entered the main entrance and deliberately walked towards the health room corridor where there were no students. At the end of the corridor, Ji-woo opened the door to the teachers’ lounge slightly and peeked inside to see if it was empty. No teacher would come to the lounge right after arriving at school, so it seemed like a good place for them to be alone quietly for about 30 minutes.

Ji-woo led Hyun-joon inside, turned on the lights, and closed the door. Then he took Hyun-joon’s hand and looked up. Meeting the gaze looking down at him made his heart flutter. Ji-woo voiced the words that had been floating in his mind all the way here.