BW Ch 2.5: Phone Call

The pharmacist who handed him the items couldn’t hide his suspicious gaze for a moment. Lee Shinwoo, pretending not to notice the gaze, paid for the items with a calm face and hung the plastic bag containing the items on his wrist. He was afraid that the pharmacist might say something, so he was terrified and left the pharmacy without looking back. Cold sweat formed on his forehead, which had already turned pale.

I should change pharmacies next time. Lee Shinwoo wiped the cold sweat as he walked away from the pharmacy he had visited for the third time, resolving to do so. Kang Tae-eon had sex with Lee Shinwoo three or four times a week, sometimes five, sometimes as few as two. It had only been a little over a month, but if he were to count every time they’d done it in one night, even counting on his fingers multiple times wouldn’t be enough.

What he gained in return was the ability to clean up after. Kang Tae-eon would just leave after they were done, and Lee Shinwoo had grown accustomed to taking care of it himself. As such, the increased expenses cost him a considerable amount. For Lee Shinwoo, who had continued his studies solely with the support of the Scholarship foundation, without any help from his parents, even that level of spending was a burden. Surprisingly, it was Kang Tae-eon who lessened Lee Shinwoo’s worries.

Once a week, he would throw a considerable amount of money onto Lee Shinwoo’s bed, an amount that was more than enough to buy the things needed for sex. Lee Shinwoo understood the money as incidental expenses. So, with that money, he bought medicine when he got sick after their encounters, and when he ran out of Enema, he bought Enema, and when he ran out of Sanitary pads, he bought Sanitary pads. And the money that was left over, he put on Kang Tae-eon’s desk. Like now.

Kang Tae-eon looked at Lee Shinwoo with a face that said he was being a nuisance, but without saying anything, he swept the remaining money into a drawer. He wondered if it would be better to put it in the desk drawer from the start, then shook his head. He thought he should at least show Kang Tae-eon how much was left.

Lee Shinwoo, recalling the pharmacist who had looked at him with suspicious eyes, lowered his gaze for no reason. His fingertips were red as he neatly put away the things he’d taken out of the plastic bag into the bathroom cabinet. It seemed like it was also because of the cold air from the air conditioner.

He must have looked suspicious. After the bruise that had been exposed by chance under his sleeve was noticed, the pharmacist’s suspicious gaze had become even more intense. It was only the third time he’d visited, but the fact that he remembered his face must be because of the strange combination of things he bought.

Enema, ointment, Diaper, Sanitary pad.

He started using Sanitary pads after his third night with Kang Tae-eon. The next day, after finishing practice, he took off his clothes in the bathroom and found blood on his underwear. Not only blood, but also whitish semen was mixed in. It was fortunate that the training suit he had worn that day was black; if it had been another color, he would have been in big trouble.

Lee Shinwoo stroked his chest and washed the wet underwear with a gloomy face. The moment he saw the blood-mixed semen, he felt strange and thought about throwing it in the trash, but then he thought that he wouldn’t have any underwear left, so he compromised by washing it thoroughly. After much deliberation, the solution he came up with was adult diapers. But he ran into an unexpected obstacle. Adult diapers left many marks on his figure-hugging training suit, and made loud rustling noises every time he moved. So, as a last resort, he chose Sanitary pads. Lee Shinwoo, who didn’t even think about asking Kang Tae-eon to be gentle, stiffened and barely opened his mouth in front of the pharmacist.

One day, at dawn, Kang Tae-eon, who had suddenly entered and pulled down Lee Shinwoo’s underwear while he was half-asleep, laughed when he found the diaper, and Lee Shinwoo felt so embarrassed that he wanted to die. On the one hand, he also felt despair, as if he had been caught trying to cut corners. But Kang Tae-eon didn’t scold him, and made him take off the diaper in front of him.

When he switched from diapers to Sanitary pads, Kang Tae-eon found out without fail. Even then, Kang Tae-eon showed that he was annoyed, but he didn’t scold or punish him for trying to cut corners. He just took off his underwear with a bothersome touch and entered the ragged hole.

Since Kang Tae-eon didn’t take it seriously, Lee Shinwoo was able to find convenience without being conscious of it. Now he was more or less used to it. It was especially useful when he was in a hurry, that is, when Kang Tae-eon didn’t let go of Lee Shinwoo until the morning and he didn’t have enough time to clean up. Of course, at those times, he felt very uncomfortable all day, and he couldn’t help but be conscious of other people’s gaze, but he tried to get used to it. If he worried about every little thing like that, he wouldn’t have any energy left.

Lee Shinwoo, who had showered and finished the now-familiar enema cleanly, came out of the bathroom. He rubbed the goosebumps that had popped up on his arm. He should be used to it by now, but he still had a hard time adjusting to the indoor temperature, which was close to freezing. Even now in October, the air conditioner was set to 18 degrees. Kang Tae-eon really hated being hot, and the fact that his mood was good was good for Lee Shinwoo as a result.

So, he tried to match his mood as much as possible. Nevertheless, he still had difficulty figuring out Kang Tae-eon’s mood. There was one thing that Lee Shinwoo vaguely guessed. The more Kang Tae-eon’s mood was twisted, the more beautifully he smiled. So, the deeper his smile became during sex, it was a danger sign.

Of course, he couldn’t be sure of that either, but it was probably right. Otherwise, there was no way a smiling face could be so scary. Lee Shinwoo, who had overlooked the effect that everything about Kang Tae-eon looked scary once sex started, was about to put on his top after putting on his bottoms.

Kang Tae-eon entered through the door that was suddenly opened. He wasn’t alone. Song Woojae followed behind him. Lee Shinwoo, reminded of the marks Kang Tae-eon had left on his body last night, quickly put on his top. But neither Kang Tae-eon nor Song Woojae paid any attention to Lee Shinwoo. It was something he was used to, so Lee Shinwoo found his place and sat down, but he couldn’t help but blush with embarrassment.

“Kang Taejoon must be grinning from ear to ear.”

“…With the by-election not far off, and this thing blowing up, he must have no one to cling to right now.”

Song Woojae, who glanced at Lee Shinwoo sitting in the corner before speaking, said everything he wanted to say at Kang Tae-eon’s glare that said he didn’t need to worry about it. Kang Tae-eon, who was leaning on the desk, took out a cigarette. A long, dark shadow fell under his lowered eyelashes.

Playing nanny to a delinquent son.

“It’s the perfect time to make Kang Taejoon sweat, there’s no reason we can’t.”

After making a simple decision, he looked at Song Woojae.

“Clear out a room on the second floor. Put a good TV in there, and if possible, one with killer picture quality. If we’re going to screw over our big brother, we have to show that much sincerity, right?”

Kang Tae-eon, smiling faintly, snapped the unlit cigarette and headed for the refrigerator. He took out two bottles of water, threw one to Song Woojae, and looked at his wristwatch while holding the other.

“15 minutes.”

Song Woojae, understanding that he was being told to wait outside, left the dormitory room without showing any particular questions. Rather, it was Lee Shinwoo who didn’t understand right away. It was only after seeing Kang Tae-eon put the unopened bottle of water on the desk that Lee Shinwoo, belatedly realizing, asked a stupid question.

“With my mouth…?”

Instead of answering, Kang Tae-eon leaned against the desk. Lee Shinwoo, who had been sitting huddled in the corner, got off the bed on his knees. He touched his dry lips with his fingertips and approached Kang Tae-eon.

His lips were almost always swollen these days. If they occasionally got chapped, the supervising teacher would jokingly scold him to practice a little less, and had been giving Lee Shinwoo suspicious glances for four weeks now. He knew what that gaze meant, but Lee Shinwoo had no choice but to look away.

From the supervising teacher’s perspective, it was understandable that Lee Shinwoo’s lips, which had recently become increasingly lazy, were chapped from fatigue. Lee Shinwoo had been skipping his early morning practice and late evening practice, which he had been doing consistently on his own, for a month now. The supervising teacher knew Lee Shinwoo’s routine, which he had never missed except when he was sick.

It meant that Lee Shinwoo, who had not been faithful to his practice lately, was wearing himself out with other things, but no one tried to look at the other side of it. The supervising teacher, and the other dancers who had noticed Lee Shinwoo’s laziness, rather looked at him with suspicion in another direction.

It looks like he’s finally fallen apart. He had stubbornly clung on, scraping together his non-existent talent, and now he finally knows his place. Lee Shinwoo had even heard them whispering behind his back. It wasn’t a coincidence. They sometimes said those things out loud without a care. As if such honesty was a virtue. Without any guilt. They said he was foolish, and that he should get out of the way before he held others back.

The time when Lee Shinwoo’s talent shone was only a fleeting moment. Some despised Lee Shinwoo for clinging on stubbornly, unable to forget that fleeting moment. It was common for Lee Shinwoo’s desperation to become the subject of their mockery. They didn’t hesitate to disparage Lee Shinwoo’s physique, which was very suitable for dancing and naturally attracted attention, as a pearl on a pig’s neck.

Lee Shinwoo thought that their words were not kind, but they were not wrong. It was a stroke of luck for Lee Shinwoo to even be included in a place where promising talents from the province, or perhaps even the country, were competing. He knew that fact very well himself.

If they were dancers as talented as them, Lee Shinwoo’s desperate efforts, which were worse than mediocrity, could sometimes look ugly. This empty shell of a body should have gone to a dancer who was much more talented than Lee Shinwoo. It would have been used more effectively then.

From the time he entered puberty, Shinwoo was already nothing more than a worn-out stuffed doll. Even his parents ignored Lee Shinwoo’s efforts. No, in the first place, they were indifferent to the existence of Lee Shinwoo. Lee Shinwoo, recalling the heated gaze of his mother when she had looked at him for a brief moment when he had shone, suddenly raised his eyes. Kang Tae-eon was looking down at Lee Shinwoo with a bored face.

Oh… he’s upset.

His lips were drawing a soft curve, but Lee Shinwoo could tell that he was in a bad mood. It was a look that was watching to see what he would do to Lee Shinwoo, who wasn’t focused. He didn’t want to go against Kang Tae-eon, who could suddenly strangle Lee Shinwoo’s neck or slap his cheek until it burst, even with such a warm gaze. Lee Shinwoo put aside his other thoughts and quickly focused on sucking Kang Tae-eon’s.

Although it wasn’t excellent, Lee Shinwoo did his best with a skill that wasn’t as bad as when he would cry and get scolded like the first time. He could feel Kang Tae-eon laughing from above. It seemed that if he hadn’t come to his senses on his own, he would have made him come to his senses by force.

Lee Shinwoo internally sweated at the feeling of a chill running down his spine. Pretending not to notice, he closed his mouth even harder, which was already torn open. The wet sound picked up speed. His red cheeks repeatedly puffed in and out, revealing a hollow dimple. The dimple that his grandmother had pointed out, saying it was sweet and pretty, must not have been like this.

Lee Shinwoo rubbed and rubbed his inner flesh against Kang Tae-eon’s genitals without rest until thick semen poured into his throat. It was only when his jaw was numb that Kang Tae-eon, who had finally come, poured semen into his mouth. Lee Shinwoo kept his mouth open with a blank face until he was finished.

Kang Tae-eon lowered his gaze with his limp genitals still in Lee Shinwoo’s mouth. It was a gaze that was examining Lee Shinwoo’s expression. It was also a gaze that seemed to be measuring the limit of how far Lee Shinwoo would be dragged along by his will. Lee Shinwoo swallowed the semen, receiving the lingering gaze, which he couldn’t understand.

Gulp, a large amount poured out, making it difficult to swallow in one go. He swallowed it in two or three times. Kang Tae-eon’s eyes widened with a smile, confirming the last of his throat movements. He looked amused. Lee Shinwoo didn’t understand that reaction. He just flinched slightly at the movement of the flesh that was slipping out of his mouth.

Lee Shinwoo took off his ballet shoes and placed his bare feet on the floor. The cold sensation stuck to his skin and spread throughout his body. It felt like he was finally relieved of his fatigue. It didn’t actually have that effect, but it was one of his long-standing habits.

In the quiet space that no one visited in the early morning before dawn, the dance floor, which had been heated by the passion of the dancers as they took each step, was the most pleasantly cool in the early morning. Lee Shinwoo, who had enjoyed the coolness on his bare feet for the first time in a long time, gave himself over to the languid sensation that was washing over him.

Kang Tae-eon, who had ejaculated in Lee Shinwoo’s mouth, left the dormitory room without spending any more time. He didn’t return until the next morning, let alone the night. The old building strictly controlled the comings and goings, as well as the outings and overnight stays, of the dormitory students, but the new building was different. They came and went as they pleased, and even outsiders were allowed in without any restrictions. The laughter of women and the noises of unknown origin that often echoed from the half-open doors as he passed through the corridors were vivid. That noise was similar to the sound that Lee Shinwoo made when he was under Kang Tae-eon, the sound that his crushed body made.

Even though they were under the same pretense of being in the same dormitory, the two spaces had different purposes. If the old building was for maintaining the minimum living standards for poor special talent students, the new building was for tolerating the moral decay of wealthy donation scholarship students to a minimum.

The old building was strict, and the new building was lax. The old building was poor, and the new building was wealthy. In addition to the different levels of facilities and the rules that were actually applied, there were countless imbalances between the two buildings. The reality was that there was not a single voice criticizing the absurdity. It was a deformed structure where balance could not exist in the first place. It was a fact that all the dormitory students who relied on the old building and the new building had learned with their heads and bodies.

The special talent students in the old building pursued art and dreamed of the future with the money of the scholarship students in the new building. It was none other than the parents and grandparents of the new building scholarship students who allowed the old building special talent students to draw, dance, and perform. Even the cost of clothing, feeding, and housing the old building special talent students was paid for by the generosity that came from their pockets. In exchange for giving to the old building special talent students, they demanded understanding of the new building scholarship students.

Don’t question, don’t complain, and don’t protest.

That was the only thing they demanded, who had invested in their future and present by feeding, clothing, and housing them. They easily obtained absolute obedience and silence, more absolute than the command-and-obey relationship.

Special talent students who didn’t understand were kicked out of the dormitory. Later, they were kicked out of school, and were excluded from ever setting foot in that world. The opportunity to learn, the opportunity to show their talent, were all blocked. The young and powerless special talent students who had dreamed of becoming artists, who had shown their unique spirit and opposed injustice, sooner or later took the path of self-destruction.

The poor special talent students in the old building took that failure as a lesson. No one opened their mouths, no one questioned, and they conformed to the absurd. They were accomplices who understood the relationship between the new building and the old building better than anyone else. And to the general students, the dormitory students were as distant as a pipe dream.

The outstanding appearances of a few, the awards they received every time they went out, and the names that were often featured in the media were all either special talent students from the old building or scholarship students from the new building. Although they were students of the same school, there was an unbridgeable distance between the general students and the dormitory students, which was divided by whether or not they were admitted to the dormitory.

Go Yohan didn’t belong anywhere. He was an art special talent student but didn’t belong to the old building, and he was wealthy but didn’t belong to the new building either. He was born and raised in an artistic family, and had a former ballerina mother and a current cellist father. Like the luxury sedan that picked him up and dropped him off every morning and evening, his life was well-organized without any obstacles.

Go Yohan didn’t need the minimum level of accommodation provided by the old building, nor did he need the protection of the new building for the lax scholarship students. Like his talent, which didn’t require a desperate amount of effort, his environment and background were also perfect without a single flaw.

Some people disparaged that even Go Yohan, who was so talented, would not have been able to shine if he had been poor and had unfortunate parents. But Lee Shinwoo knew. The reason Go Yohan shone was unrelated to his background and environment. He was a person who shone on his own. The person who disparaged him must know it too. There was no way they wouldn’t know. Go Yohan was very special among the outstanding people. All the brilliant modifiers for him, who spared no effort and investment as much as his innate talent, were well-deserved. Rather, they were insufficient.

Lee Shinwoo didn’t have the ambition to narrow the distance with Go Yohan, which was widening day by day. He would take another step ahead every time he breathed. It was an unbridgeable gap. Lee Shinwoo didn’t dwell on it and just watched.

To Lee Shinwoo, Go Yohan was dance itself. He was happy just to follow his movements. If he could one day leap lightly and fly freely like him, he felt like it would be okay if he could never dance again. But he and Lee Shinwoo had different sizes of vessels that they could contain from the start. There was a moment when Lee Shinwoo had also mistakenly thought that he had large wings like Go Yohan. In reality, what Lee Shinwoo had on his back was a pathetic wing, a talent that was worse than ordinary, and that was all.

The pain began from the gaze of his mother, which was moving away from him. As if it had never reached him in the first place, his mother had withdrawn the gaze she had given him for a moment without a trace. She never looked back at Lee Shinwoo again.

“No wonder you get cursed for your looks.”