Honbul: Flame of the Soul

“Want to kiss...?”

Yoon Taehee froze in front of the drawer just as he was about to open it.

“...”

The moment the words left Jaegyeom’s mouth, a heavy silence settled over the room. His ears were already burning red. With Taehee saying nothing, Jaegyeom absently scratched at a scorch mark on the heated floor.

“When? Right now?”

After a long pause, Taehee finally spoke without turning around.

“Yeah.”

Jaegyeom nodded, wiggling his toes.

Even faced with this strange impulse that had come over him for the first time in his life, Jaegyeom was honest about it. The problem was that he didn’t understand it. He had no idea why he wanted to kiss Taehee. Did he have some hidden inclination he’d never known about? The urge itself was undeniable, but its source remained completely unclear.

“...”

Taehee stayed silent for a long while, still facing away from him. Then, with a dull thud, he shut the drawer. °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° Slowly, he turned his head and looked at Jaegyeom.

“Alright.”

At Jaegyeom’s request, Taehee didn’t ask why. He didn’t ask for a reason.

Kissing, in a way, was an inherently meaningless act. It wasn’t instinct necessary for survival, nor was it essential to being human. And yet people kissed. They pressed their mouths together and lost themselves in it.

Now Taehee understood why.

“We can kiss.”

He rose smoothly and crossed the room, sitting down in front of Jaegyeom. Faced with him at such close distance, Jaegyeom leaned forward awkwardly, hesitating like an animal unsure whether to approach or flee. Slowly, he stretched out his arms and moved closer.

Even though he had been the one to ask first, tension was written plainly across his face.

Their faces drew nearer and nearer. Finally, staring at Taehee right in front of him, Jaegyeom carefully brushed their noses together like a wary cat. Taehee’s eyes drifted shut.

Jaegyeom slowly tilted his head.

Their lips were just about to meet.

Then suddenly, something Taehee had once said flashed through his mind.

I regretted kissing you every day. No matter how I thought about it, there were more reasons not to do it than to do it. I understood all of them. Accepted them. Agreed with them. But the moment I actually saw you, it was like my head went crazy again. I couldn’t understand why I was doing this. I thought, fuck, I’ve finally lost my mind.

The words Taehee had spoken when he first confessed to him.

Jaegyeom faltered.

Back then, he hadn’t understood what Taehee meant. But now he thought he might.

Yesterday could at least be blamed on alcohol. But he was completely sober now, and he still wanted to kiss Taehee.

Was he going insane too?

He couldn’t understand himself. He wanted to kiss him without even knowing why. But one thing was certain.

He wanted to kiss Yoon Taehee.

That day, Taehee had said he regretted kissing him every single day.

What exactly had he regretted?

Maybe I’ll regret this too...

God, this island really was strange.

And maybe the strangest thing on it was himself.

The thought only distracted him for a moment. Like a bee lured toward a flower, like a butterfly drunk on scent, Jaegyeom drifted toward Taehee again as though bewitched. That sculpted face filled his vision completely.

At last, their lips met.

“...”

“...”

Their mouths touched softly, then slowly parted again.

They stared at each other with their eyes still open.

Taehee lowered his lashes slightly and murmured against his lips.

“Is that enough?”

“No...”

This time, Jaegyeom grabbed both of Taehee’s ears in his hands. Carefully adjusting the angle of his head, he hesitantly stuck out his tongue and lightly licked Taehee’s lips. Then he tried nibbling at Taehee’s lower lip with awkward little bites.

Taehee watched him quietly through half-lidded eyes.

Jaegyeom was just about to kiss him again when Taehee’s hand suddenly slid across his waist and slipped beneath his T-shirt.

Cool fingers brushed over his bare skin, tracing slowly along his spine.

Jaegyeom flinched hard and jerked back, glaring at him.

“Don’t touch.”

His warning came with a fistful of Taehee’s hair. He gripped it tightly.

“I’m doing this, so stay still.”

A faint flush spread across Jaegyeom’s face.

Taehee looked up at him dazedly. The skin around his eyes had already reddened where Jaegyeom held his hair.

“You just stay still.”

Steadying his breathing, Jaegyeom caught both of Taehee’s ears again.

“Okay...”

Taehee obeyed immediately. The hand beneath his shirt slowly withdrew.

Jaegyeom pressed their lips together again.

Yesterday’s kiss, tangled up in alcohol and chaos, had been fierce. This one was timid.

“O-open your mouth.”

At the awkward command, Taehee slowly parted his lips.

This was Jaegyeom’s first kiss while fully sober. It was unbearably embarrassing. Every sensation felt so vivid that his mind kept going blank.

He sucked lightly at Taehee’s lips, bit them, kissed him again and again, but eventually lost his way. He wanted more. More than this. But he had no idea what “more” actually meant or how to do it.

His lips wandered clumsily around the corners of Taehee’s mouth.

Then, after fumbling helplessly for several seconds, Jaegyeom abruptly bit down hard on Taehee’s jaw.

“Ah—”

One of Taehee’s eyes squeezed shut involuntarily.

The bite was hard enough to leave teeth marks behind.

Jaegyeom slowly loosened his grip on Taehee’s hair.

“N-now you do it.”

Taehee, who had been following Jaegyeom’s lips the whole time, slowly lifted his gaze. His eyes looked hazy, unfocused, as though he still hadn’t fully woken up.

Jaegyeom added awkwardly,

“If you don’t want to, then don’t. I’m done now.”

As though nothing had happened, he suddenly pulled away and sat down cross-legged.

“...”

Taehee said nothing.

Then, without warning, he stood up.

He strode out of the room and flung the door open behind him.

Left alone, Jaegyeom stared blankly after him.

What the hell? Why’d he leave all of a sudden?

As he sat there in confusion, he heard faint running water outside.

A moment later, Taehee returned.

Jaegyeom whipped his head around toward him. Water dripped from Taehee’s fingertips. Taehee walked over, bent down, and smoothly untied the towel wrapped around Jaegyeom’s neck before carefully drying his hands with it.

“You washed your hands?”

“Yes.”

“Why all of a sudden?”

“...”

Without answering, Taehee tossed the towel aside carelessly and reached back to shut the bedroom door.

Click.

The lock slid into place.

Then Taehee crossed the room in long strides, sat down in front of Jaegyeom again, braced one hand against the wall behind him—

and kissed him.

Jaegyeom slid helplessly down the wall. Taehee slipped his hands beneath his arms and lifted him easily. Before he realized it, Jaegyeom was sitting across Taehee’s thighs with both hands pressed against Taehee’s chest.

Large hands closed firmly around his cheeks.

“Mmph...”

Neither of them gave way.

It was a kiss of blind exploration, each trying to learn the other by touch alone.

Outside, evening darkened into night, and rain began to fall.

On their way back from dinner at the owner’s house, a few drops had started coming down. Before long, the rain turned violent. Now it poured so heavily they could barely see a few feet ahead.

The sea surrounding the island roared in the darkness.

Trapped by the storm, the two of them had no choice but to stay shut inside the warm mud house.

After dinner, they spent the evening watching television in the heated bedroom. Jaegyeom held the remote, flipping idly through channels until he landed on a daily drama he liked watching.

Taehee knew nothing about television dramas, so Jaegyeom explained the plot to him in brief. It was all meaningless, ordinary stuff.

By the time the episode ended, the two of them had drifted into a shallow sleep without even realizing it, their legs tangled together.

Taehee woke at the sound of wind rattling the windows.

Turning his head, he found Jaegyeom sprawled halfway across the floor.

Quietly, Taehee spread out a blanket beside him and carefully lifted him up.

After laying the sleeping Jaegyeom down properly, Taehee pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. He slipped a pillow beneath the back of his head, pulled the blanket over him, then lowered his lips one by one against his brow, cheek, the corner of his eye, the bridge of his nose, his lips, his chin.

Jaegyeom’s face scrunched slightly, as though he might wake.

But soon his breathing steadied again.

Taehee quietly slid the door shut behind him and stepped out onto the wooden porch.

He sat down heavily where the rain couldn’t reach and stared up at the eaves. Water dripped steadily from the edge of the roof. When he lifted the back of his hand into the rain, a cold drop landed against his skin like a tear.

Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply.

The damp scent of rain.

The salt of the sea.

Taehee sat there blankly for a long time before finally lowering his head and pressing a hand lightly over his chest.

His heartbeat had been unsteady all day.

It had already been two days since they arrived on the island, and there was still no contact from Shin Jihye.

“...”

Taehee gazed out at the distant, heaving sea.

Then suddenly, an overwhelming sense of gratitude washed over him.

On a night like this, Jaegyeom was asleep in a warm room.

Unable to contain the emotion flooding him, Taehee unconsciously clenched and unclenched his fist.

He hoped Shin Jihye would return soon.

At the same time, he hoped she would never contact them again.

And then—

“Hey, Seonoh.”

Taehee’s eyes snapped open.

He jerked his head up.

His gaze dropped to his wrist.

Undoing the strap of his watch, he revealed the hidden snake tattoo beneath it.

Sisi.

The snake that usually slept around his wrist like a black thread bracelet.

Its eyes, always tightly shut, were open now.

Taehee stared into the red pupils in shock.

“It’s been a long time, hehe.”

Flicking its tongue, Sisi looked up at the now-grown Seonoh.