Honbul: Flame of the Soul

For the past several days, Jaegyeom had barely slept.

The reason he had gone up the mountain at dawn was simple: he needed to clear his head. Thoughts he could not sort through kept tangling together in his mind. Ever since returning from # Nоvеlight # the cave, the same thoughts had circled endlessly, refusing to let him rest.

Even when he finally managed to drift off, a lingering voice would wake him again.

I dreamed about you every night. I kept imagining us rolling around together like animals.

Even someone as emotionally dense as Jaegyeom understood what that meant.

So Yoon Taehee was a sodomite.

That was the conclusion Jaegyeom had reached after several sleepless nights.

The problem was that it raised even more questions.

Not long ago, when Jaegyeom had directly asked whether he was a sodomite, Taehee had denied it without hesitation. So what was that supposed to mean? Had he lied? Or had he somehow become one over the course of a few days?

But the bigger issue was this:

Why him?

No matter how long Jaegyeom thought about it, he could not understand why Yoon Taehee would like him in the first place. If anything, they had spent more time clashing than getting along.

Thoughts like that kept him awake until dawn crept in through the window.

The reason he could not sleep was both complicated and absurdly simple.

Yoon Taehee loved Jaegyeom.

It means I love you.

That one sentence explained everything.

Jaegyeom had climbed the mountain because Yoon Taehee loved him.

He could not sleep because Yoon Taehee loved him.

For years, Jaegyeom had lived buried beneath lethargy and apathy. Even doing nothing exhausted him. Simply continuing to exist inside the endless misery called forever was unbearably tiring.

Maybe that was why.

As time passed, Jaegyeom grew sleepier and sleepier.

Sometimes suffering arrived in the form of sleep. For some people, it came as insomnia. For others, it came as overwhelming drowsiness.

Jaegyeom was the latter.

Sleep was the easiest escape from reality.

As the years piled up, the amount of time he spent asleep gradually increased until eventually he was sleeping through more than half the day. What had once been a light dusting of drowsiness slowly became a blizzard.

Whether awake or asleep, his life remained empty either way.

For a very long time, he had grown used to nothing ever happening.

Until recently.

Jaegyeom had met Yoon Taehee in spring.

Since then, they had exchanged a few punches, a few conversations, and a few kisses. Somewhere along the way, spring quietly turned into early summer.

To Jaegyeom, Yoon Taehee felt almost like a mail carrier.

Ever since meeting him, news had begun arriving in Jaegyeom’s life. Things started happening.

Before, nothing ever happened.

And then suddenly, things did.

Along with that, the constant drowsiness weighing him down had started to recede little by little. Something kept gently dragging him back toward reality. A faint, unfamiliar vitality had begun seeping into his life without Jaegyeom even realizing it.

Not much had changed, really.

He still wanted to die. He still preferred sleeping to eating.

And yet—

ever since the day he pulled Yoon Taehee out of the past and heard that confession, he had not been able to sleep properly.

For days now, Jaegyeom had been deeply confused.

He had no idea what he was supposed to do with the fact that the sodomite liked him.

Fortunately, Yoon Taehee had been immediately thrown into another operation after returning from the cave and was apparently too busy to breathe. They had not run into each other even once since that day.

There had been no calls or messages from him either.

Honestly, that was probably for the best.

Jaegyeom wanted Yoon Taehee to slowly fade from his thoughts.

Today’s hike had been part of that effort. He thought maybe moving his body and doing something productive would help clear his head.

Fortunately, it had worked to some degree. Thoughts of Yoon Taehee had quieted somewhat.

Though maybe that was not entirely thanks to the hike.

Maybe Yoo Namsaeng deserved some credit too.

“Let me tell you! Back then, I fought a duel against that damned carp—!”

Ever since getting home, Yoo Namsaeng had not stopped talking once.

If Im Hyomun talked a lot, then this turtle was somehow even worse.

While inhaling food, he continuously spilled out stories from his childhood in Deoksatgol, old mountain tales, and endless anecdotes from his life without anyone even asking.

“Hey, Yoo Kkaengal. Stop making a mess when you eat.”

Jaegyeom finally interrupted him.

Yoo Namsaeng was shoveling food into his mouth with his clawed feet so enthusiastically that rice grains had flown all the way into Jaegyeom’s own bowl.

“Hm? Ah... but my name isn’t Yoo Kkaengal. It’s Yoo Namsaeng.”

Even while correcting him timidly, he kept stuffing food into his cheeks.

“Whatever. Just stop spilling.”

“Okay...”

Yoo Namsaeng nodded meekly and immediately resumed talking.

At some point, his story shifted toward how he had been blown from faraway Deoksatgol all the way to that mountain.

“Wait a second. Kkaengal.” Jeongju narrowed his eyes. “So originally you lived in Deoksatgol, but then a typhoon swept you all the way to some mountain in Chungcheong Province?”

“Yes! Though my name is Yoo Namsaeng, not Kkaengal...”

“Sounds rough. Don’t you ever want to go back home?”

“Absolutely not! This place is paradise compared to there!”

With one extra mouth at the table, breakfast had become unexpectedly lively.

***

After breakfast, Jaegyeom watched his usual morning drama.

“Kkaengal, I’ll show you around the house. Follow me.”

Mesan carefully wiped the corners of Yoo Namsaeng’s mouth with a wet tissue while grinning brightly.

“Good heavens, how many times must I tell you? I am Yoo Nam-saeng, not Kkaengal! You know my real name perfectly well and still insist on calling me such a sorrowful nickname...”

Muttering gloomily, Yoo Namsaeng toddled after Mesan on his short legs.

Meanwhile, Jaegyeom sprawled lazily across the sofa and watched television.

Maybe it was because of Yoo Namsaeng’s nonstop chatter. Or maybe it was the effect of the hike earlier that morning.

Either way, thoughts of Yoon Taehee had faded enough that he could actually focus on the drama for once.

After the episode ended, Jaegyeom stretched out across the floor and glanced at the wall clock.

There was still plenty of time before work.

He casually picked up his phone.

At some point, playing Friends Pang had become part of his daily routine.

The moment he logged in, a notification popped up.

“Yoon Taehee sent you a heart. (Just now)”

The instant he saw it, something inside his chest twisted strangely.

...It was probably because of the hike.