Chapter 33
"Minseo. I'm home."
"Yeah. Welcome back."
Hyunwoo coming home had become part of my daily routine.
Since he always got home at a time that barely varied from around seven, even if I was lying on Hyunwoo's bed, I could greet him as soon as I heard him.
The one thing I could do to be of some use to Hyunwoo.
That would have to be acting like his pet, the way he wanted, and nothing else.
Pat, pat, pat, pat.
I close my eyes tightly as I accept Hyunwoo's touch, which had become part of my daily routine in just a few days.
It wasn't scary.
Because I knew that hand wasn't reaching out to attack me.
It was just that the more familiar I became with the sensation, the more it added a subtle stimulation that seemed to burrow into my brain. If I kept my eyes open, I felt like a laugh might escape me.
Even if I'd decided to be honest with my feelings now...
Feeling so good when he petted me that I started purring really did make me feel less than human.
"Hehe..."
Well, it seemed impossible to keep the sound from escaping completely.
But what can I do? It feels good.
It's not that I'm weird; this rotten world made me this way.
And since Hyunwoo's smiling now, maybe that's enough.
After petting my head for a long while with a smile, Hyunwoo stopped and held something out to me.
"Ah..."
That sigh-like sound that came out of my mouth was surely just an illusion created by my brain.
"Cake. Let's eat it together. I bought some yesterday too, but I dropped it, so we couldn't eat it."
The white bag had the logo of a nearby bakery printed on it. When I took it and looked inside, I saw two individually wrapped slices of cake.
Hmm... But I don't like cake, do I?
Was it that it felt greasy, or that the overt sweetness was too much?
Anyway, strawberry whipped-cream cake like that was the worst of the worst.
"What? Have you tried cake since you got that body?"
"...? No..."
"Then I think you'll like it. I'll put one away, and we can share the other for now."
Saying that, he took the bag back from me, put one slice in the fridge, and carried the other to the table.
...Come to think of it, should I have folded the table away? There was no reason for it to stay open all day after breakfast.
"Minseo. Come here."
Hyunwoo sat down, patted the spot beside him, and motioned me over.
It would've been strange to keep standing there, so I went and sat beside him, and...
"Eek...!"
Hyunwoo lifted me up easily and sat me on his lap.
I turned around with a displeased look, asking what he was doing, but Hyunwoo merely stroked my head calmly.
"It's easier to eat together this way. If you're beside me, it's hard to reach over."
"No, that's not it. There are two pieces of cake and two forks... You can just get the other one from the fridge, right?"
Even if I'd become less resistant to being held or petted...
I still wasn't comfortable being placed on Hyunwoo's lap.
Maybe it was uncomfortable because I could feel something there that I no longer had...
It made its presence known so insistently that I couldn't tell whether it was because my body had gotten softer or because it had always been so prominent.
"And sharing a fork and putting our mouths on it is unhygienic..."
"You were fine eating tteokbokki off the same one last time, though?"
"......"
I had no answer.
Come to think of it, hadn't Hyunwoo fed me most of the things that were hard for me to pick up at every meal?
It was too late to start worrying about hygiene from sharing utensils when I'd been so indifferent about it before...
That wasn't an excuse.
I really hadn't cared about that sort of thing.
We were both 21-year-old guys, after all.
"Besides, if we take the other fork from the fridge, what will we use when we eat the other one tomorrow?"
"We can just use chopsticks or a spoon..."
"Minseo. There's a reason food comes with utensils. This slice of cake is sold with a fork because it tastes best when you eat it with a fork."
In the end, every excuse to get off Hyunwoo's lap had disappeared, and it looked like I'd be stuck there, adrift, for the entire meal.
I wanted to argue that if one utensil could be replaced by another, it didn't really matter which one we used, but...
When it came to cooking, Hyunwoo was so far beyond me that I couldn't hold a candle to him.
Since there was a good chance I'd get nowhere if I argued, I had no choice but to accept it with an "I see."
"Minseo. Say ah."
As always, Hyunwoo naturally picked up a piece of cake with his fork and offered it to me first.
It always felt as if he were taste-testing it for me before eating anything himself.
It was probably consideration... but did he need to take care of me this excessively?
"You always give me some first. You should take care of yourself sometimes, too, Hyunwoo."
The fact that Hyunwoo had bought two slices in the first place meant he'd planned to eat some himself, too.
In other words, Hyunwoo must like strawberry whipped-cream cake.
But was it really right for me to take the first bite of even that?
He'd paid for it with his own money and gone to the trouble of buying it...
At least that first sweet taste ought to be Hyunwoo's to savor, not mine. That was only right.
Squeeeze.
As I thought all that, I felt my cheeks quivering.
When I came to my senses, the plastic fork he'd been bringing toward me hadn't stopped pressing against my lips, smearing whipped cream all over my mouth.
This body has a lot going for it, but not being able to multitask is a real problem, huh?
And yet I couldn't feel something that should've been obvious just because I was thinking about something else.
"...What are you doing?"
"I told you to say ah."
"No... usually, if someone keeps their mouth shut, wouldn't you stop and talk to them...?"
"Why would I do that? If you don't eat it, your mouth will just get messier. Hurry up and say ah."
"......Ah."
Sometimes Hyunwoo can be so unreasonable that I wonder if he's even dumber than I am.
Like right now...
Hyunwoo acted as though I had no right to refuse, forcing me to choose between accepting the bite obediently and eating it only after my mouth was already a mess.
Thanks to him, my mouth was a mess of whipped cream, and it felt unpleasant.
"...I'll wipe this off."
"Whipped cream is delicious. Why waste it by wiping it off?"
"It is delicious, but..."
Maybe because my tastes had changed, but once I put it in my mouth and tasted it, it was sweet and soft, making me feel like I was floating.
It was just fluffy sponge cake like castella spread with whipped cream and dotted with strawberries, but somehow it all came together in harmony.
It felt like some slightly strange but cute scene from a fairy tale had unfolded before my eyes.
In short, if I had to choose, it was a delicious snack I absolutely loved.
Even so, licking the whipped cream off my messy mouth myself felt like something a little kid would do...
"You don't want it? Then I'll eat it."
"Yeah..."
I just let Hyunwoo have it.
"...Yeah? What did you say?"
I answered energetically, but... what did that mean?
How was Hyunwoo going to eat what was on my mouth instead...?
"Eeeek...!"
When I looked up, Hyunwoo had turned me around, and his face was drawing closer to mine little by little.
What the hell... That's what he meant?
He was going to lick the stuff on my mouth off with his tongue? Is this guy seriously a lunatic?!
I was starting to worry about Hyunwoo's intelligence.
He calls me his pet and all that, but the way he acts, he's already the dog here... a big dog...
I have no particular hobby of getting kissed by a 21-year-old guy of the same sex...!
Squeeeze.
"What are you doing?"
"...I'll ask you straight out, Hyunwoo."
"Yeah."
"Are you crazy?"
"No."
In the end, just before Hyunwoo's tongue touched my lips, I managed to push his forehead away with both hands.
I couldn't tell if he lacked common sense or loved whipped cream that insanely, but...
Unfortunately, I wasn't whipped cream, so I couldn't return Hyunwoo's affection.
"Does it make any sense to lick a friend's mouth?"
"Minseo. It's a misunderstanding. I'm just trying to eat the whipped cream so it doesn't go to waste."
"...Don't push your head against me!"
Hyunwoo spouted that ridiculous sophistry and forcibly pushed my arms aside again as he lunged at me.
No matter how hard I blocked him with both hands, the overwhelming difference in strength made the distance close again.
"I'll ask you the opposite. Are you going to say everyone who kisses their pet is a pervert?"
"...No."
"Right. So it doesn't matter."
Squeeeze.
The distance shrank again.
He grabbed my arms and raised them above my head, as if to drive the point home, clearing away the barrier between us.
No... I mean, I get that I'm something like Hyunwoo's pet...
But even so, is this really okay...?
Then a thought flashed through my mind and filled it.
"...I don't like it. It makes me uncomfortable when you do that, Hyunwoo. Let me go..."
Hadn't I decided not to hide my feelings anymore from now on?
Thinking about it, pets also express when they don't like something.
And since problems had arisen because I'd held in my feelings before, there shouldn't be anything wrong with telling Hyunwoo how I felt.
So, whereas just a few days ago I would've accepted Hyunwoo licking my face, convinced myself it was fine, I'd now learned to say no.
"...I'm sorry. I didn't think about how you felt again, Minseo."
When I said that much, Hyunwoo surprisingly let me go without a fuss.
He pulled out a few tissues and gently wiped my mouth.
"And... thank you for always looking out for me and being considerate..."
Communicating my honest feelings still seemed a little embarrassing.
"...Minseo. Can I hug you?"
"If it's just that..."