Swallow Hunting - Chapter 35.1
Thump. A sound like a clap of thunder erupted from somewhere. Hae-jun craned his neck and looked around, only to realize the roar had burst forth from his own chest. His heart was pounding, pumping blood and radiating heat. His cheeks were burning, the area under his eyes was flushing, and his ears felt muffled as if he had been struck hard across the face.
“…You said you didn’t like romance movies.”
“Yes.”
How could a man like that say something like this? Hae-jun desperately tried to hide his racing heart and leaned his forehead against the table, pretending to be exhausted. Even the back of his neck was likely crimson. It seemed Lee Kang-ju possessed a natural talent for seducing people—even more so than Hae-jun himself, who had spent his entire life doing exactly that.
“Can I borrow that line you just used? I think it would work really well on customers.”
“I believe we agreed you wouldn’t take other customers while you’re with me.”
“Later. Much later.”
Because the heat wouldn’t subside, he pressed his water bottle against his face. Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to meet Lee Kang-ju’s eyes. He had never been like this with a customer. Even when he took his very first client, he might have been nervous in bed, but his heart had never raced like this.
It was a sensation akin to fear. His head felt dizzy and his heart felt chilled, just like the feeling of looking down from an infinitely high place.
“Did your heart flutter?”
Hae-jun jumped at the sudden, preemptive question. His face, which had barely cooled, flared up hotly once again. He covered his mouth with one hand and turned his head away. Not knowing where to look, his pupils darted here and there like the blanket tumbling inside the washing machine.
“No.”
He finally answered, though his expression was saying something else entirely. Feeling that discrepancy himself, Hae-jun rubbed his face with both hands as if he were trying to peel off his skin.
“It was just because I was flustered.”
“Aha.”
Hae-jun fanned himself with his hand to drive away the lingering heat. He wanted to move on to another topic, but his thoughts were stuck on those words—the words that treated him like a hobby. Deciding it was better to stay quiet until he calmed down, Hae-jun stared at the washing machine. In the meantime, the blanket that had been rolling inside the drum was now thoroughly soaked.
Once the conversation cut off, the only sounds echoing in the shop were the mechanical hum of the washing machine and the rhythmic thumping of the blanket hitting the curves of the drum. That steady noise felt just like a lullaby.
Hae-jun, who had been sitting upright in a state of high tension, soon found his head nodding downward. Although he had caught some sleep at Yohan’s place, it was nowhere near enough to relieve his fatigue. At some point, his eyes closed completely.
Then, his head tipped forward toward the table. Just before the impact, Lee Kang-ju reached out. Hae-jun’s small head came to rest in that large palm.
Startled, Hae-jun straightened his upper body. He looked down with eyes half closed, weighed down by sleep.
“Thank you.”
If it hadn’t been for Lee Kang-ju, he would have ended up with a lump on his forehead. He sat up straight, but within a few minutes, he began to slide down again.
This time, he was the one who leaned his head into Lee Kang-ju’s palm first. As if searching for a comfortable spot, he rubbed his cheek against the calloused palm and then leaned on it peacefully. If he had been fully conscious, he would have jumped up immediately, but in his current state of drowsiness, a place to seek sleep took priority.
“I’m just so sleepy. I’ll borrow this for a moment. Thank you.”
A sound of incredulous laughter drifted down from above his head. Despite this, Hae-jun’s eyelids did not lift. The palm cupping his cheek felt incredibly warm and cozy.
***
He was surviving day by day on energy drinks, but since he was losing sleep every night, there was no way for his accumulated fatigue to recover. The shadows under Hae-jun’s eyes grew darker, and his head often dropped like a sickly chick’s.
On days when he felt he couldn’t go on, he would seek a honey-like nap at Yohan’s house, but that was merely a temporary fix. Since Hae-jun was someone who had strictly maintained proper sleep hours even while working as a host, this was an incredibly miserable situation.
It felt as though he hadn’t even reached ten hours of sleep for the entire week. Every dawn, the sound of banging on the wall or the ringing of the doorbell was incessant. If he ignored it, the man would keep pressing it until he opened the door. Even when other people in the hallway came out to scream at him to stop and fights broke out, the madman next door persistently targeted only Hae-jun.
“Why don’t you just mess him up?”
Talk was cheap. Hae-jun gazed at Yohan with half closed eyes. Soon, deciding that even those few seconds of keeping his eyes open were a waste, he closed his eyelids completely and sought a light sleep. Even so, he answered faithfully.
“I want to, obviously. But I don’t want to cause trouble. The house isn’t in my name, either. What if the police come while we’re fighting?”
“What do you mean, ‘what if’? You’re the victim. If it really bothers you, should I go and help?”
“No. I can’t let you be sent to jail.”
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