Even if you’re a man

‘Ah, it’s him.’

It had happened many times, so now she recognized him immediately just by his profile.

His short hair was slicked back, somehow held in place. Slightly sharp eyes, a prominent nose, a tightly sealed mouth… his stubbornness seemed to emanate from these features.

His eyes slowly moved. As he turned his body in the direction of his gaze, a glimpse of a black tattoo was visible on his left chest through the deeply cut tank top. At first, she didn’t know what it was. But seeing it often enough, she could now tell what pattern it was.

It was a simplified wolf’s head. A black wolf. It was engraved on his chest.

Every time his chest muscles moved, the wolf’s face seemed to come alive. She couldn’t take her eyes off it, mesmerized.

Someone approached from behind him. The approaching person called out to him.

‘No, don’t turn around.’

She screamed, but her voice didn’t reach him. The silver blade in the opponent’s hand glinted in the streetlight.

Thud. The blade sliced into his stomach. His eyes widened, then he grimaced, grabbing the hand of his attacker.

His lips parted as if speaking, but no sound was heard. Whether he pushed or the opponent let go, the blade embedded in his abdomen slid out. Then, thud, thud, it repeatedly plunged into his stomach and was pulled out.

Gulp, gulp, dark red blood poured from the wound, staining his suit jacket and his hands.

As the assailant with the knife retreated, he, who had been glaring at the attacker, collapsed forward. A pool of blood began to form from where he fell. The blood gathered on the ground started to spread further.

She knew it wasn’t real, yet the chilling sensation that his flowing blood was soaking her feet made her whole body tremble.

‘No… don’t die.’

Her scream still didn’t manifest as a sound.

This was a dream. The lack of sound, the inability to move and prevent his death—it was all because it was a dream.

Yet it was reality. A clear reality that would unfold in the near future.

Sana, awakened from her sleep, slowly blinked her eyes. It took a while for her vision to clear.

It was always like this after having a dream. Even while dreaming, she was clearly aware it was a dream, but the moment she opened her eyes, the boundary between reality and dream felt blurry, leaving her dazed.

She slowly sat up and looked around. At the unfamiliar sight, a beat later, she realized this was Doha’s living room.

Despite all the fuss, he had eventually let her stay the night. He didn’t talk much and always had a poker face, but he wasn’t as cold as he appeared gruff.

It was both strange and enjoyable to learn one or two new things about a person she had only ever seen in dreams, from a distant remove.

She looked around and then gasped at the clock on the wall. It was already past 1 PM. To have slept until this hour was unimaginable half a year ago. Muryeong’s abode was deep in the mountains with no streetlights nearby.

Consequently, she would fall asleep early at night, and her day would begin at dawn with the rising sun.

Even after Muryeong was disbanded and she started living in Seoul, her lifestyle didn’t easily change. Sana was accustomed to going to bed early and waking up early, ingrained in her body.

Last night, having practically stayed up all night and working with her body for the first time in a while, she was already at her limit by the time she arrived at Doha’s house.

She had felt her eyelids grow heavy while he was showering, and it seemed she had fallen asleep right then.

‘Where is Doha?’ The house was silent. ‘Did he leave without me?’ The thought that he might not be home made her jump up from her seat.

To have come all this way and then just sleep her heart out—it was a mistake. Even though she thought nothing would happen since it was daytime, she was anxious when he wasn’t in sight.

Sana opened the door to what looked like a bedroom and let out a sigh of relief.

It was a room with just a bed and a wardrobe. Doha was visible on the bed, asleep without a blanket. He had probably given the blanket to her.

She walked into the room and stood in front of the bed. Looking down at the sleeping Doha, she felt strange.

The person she had only ever seen in dreams was now sleeping right before her eyes.

He was someone she could only see when she herself was asleep, but now it was he who was sleeping, not her. It was a truly peculiar feeling.

‘He’s even more handsome than he was in the dream.’

She smiled at the thought that popped into her head, feeling a bit silly.

She sat directly on the bed, gazing at Doha’s face. She had never had occasion to stare so intently at someone else’s sleeping face. It was very different from seeing him awake. Like this, he seemed more upright than gruff.

His disheveled hair from sleep fell over his forehead, covering it. She unconsciously reached out a hand towards his face, wanting to brush it back.

At that moment. Doha’s eyes flashed open, and he snatched Sana’s arm.

“Whoa!”

A short scream escaped her as his tugging force made her body lean forward. When she regained her senses, she found herself collapsed on Doha’s chest.

“Why are you here?”

Doha asked with a sleepy, raspy voice, frowning. He seemed displeased, apparently thinking that the person he let sleep in the living room had crawled into his bedroom.

“The sun’s high in the sky, and you weren’t waking up, so I came to wake you… Ugh.”

She whimpered as she tried to make an excuse, her grabbed arm hurting. Only then, realizing he hadn’t controlled his strength in his sleep, Doha frowned.

However, instead of loosening his grip, he pulled harder, completely laying Sana down on the bed, then rolled over, climbing on top of her. With the sudden reversal of positions, Sana blinked her wide eyes, looking up at Doha.

“Still no sense of danger, even in this situation.”

It was a low voice, like the growl of an animal.

“You shouldn’t just casually enter a man’s room when he’s sleeping alone.”

Doha gazed intently down at Sana, warning her quietly. Sana still couldn’t understand what was happening and tilted her head with a clear expression.

“But I’m a man too.”

Still, she understood what Doha was warning about. She just couldn’t understand why it was a problem for her, another man, to enter his room.

“It’s the same even if you’re a man.”

Doha’s warning, Sana’s eyes, looking up at him, were excessively clear. Even with all this, she couldn’t imagine that something might be done to her.

Doha raised a hand and untied the knot around Sana’s waist.

He parted the front of her top and slid his hand inside, and even when his hand touched her bare skin, Sana had no idea what was being done to her.

“Did you forget what I said yesterday? There are people in the world who find men sexually attractive.”

Only then did her body stiffen with a jolt. Her eyes, which held Doha’s face, were still clear but began to waver subtly.

Doha swallowed a sigh. Fortunately, Sana didn’t seem utterly foolish or embarrassingly innocent.

So, if he scared him a little more, perhaps he would retract his absurd request to be allowed to stay by his side.

“So you have to be careful.”

He deliberately lowered his head, moving closer. The distance between them dramatically decreased, and Sana’s expression was no longer visible.

“Even kindergarteners know not to just follow strangers.”

Now, only a precarious distance remained, almost to the point where their lips would touch.

He thought that since she didn’t know how scary the world could be, she needed a little experience to come to her senses.

“Since you followed me on your own two feet, you won’t resent me for whatever I do to you, right?”

He tilted his head and covered Sana’s lips with his own.

The moment their lips met, he felt her body stiffen with a jolt, but he didn’t pull back. He bit her lower lip lightly, and a gasp escaped her lips from the pain, parting them slightly. Taking advantage of the opening, he pushed his tongue into her mouth.

He had expected Sana to forcefully push him away by then. No, to be precise, she should have pushed him away right before their lips met.

However, instead of pushing him away, Sana tightly gripped the hem of Doha’s shirt with trembling hands.

Since she didn’t push him away, he couldn’t find his bearings on where to stop. His tongue, already pushed inside, met Sana’s bewildered tongue, which didn’t know what to do.

‘Ah, damn it.’

He swallowed a curse. The heat that had suddenly spread didn’t easily subside. He hadn’t intended for this to happen…

Had he been abstinent for too long? Because this guy wasn’t pushing him away. He tried to come up with all sorts of excuses, but it was all useless. From the start, this guy himself was quite to his taste.

Aside from being strange, that’s why he couldn’t take his eyes off him from the beginning, and he even meddled unnecessarily when Kim Sinhak intervened.

‘This is dangerous, indeed.’

He collected himself and pulled his lips away. Looking down, Sana was panting, breathing heavily.

“Do you get it now?”

He spoke more gruffly than before and moved his body off her.

“Even if you’re a man, anything can happen to you. If you don’t want anything worse to happen, go back right now.”

“Bad things…?”

Sana mumbled with a blank expression.

“Why is this a bad thing?”

His head felt fuzzy as she asked back so brightly.

“I didn’t harm anyone, or cause any damage.”

It was a calm answer. Her head even tilted, as if genuinely not understanding what the problem was.

If one defined ‘bad thing’ as she did, then a kiss itself wasn’t a bad thing. It was only his own bad intentions that made him touch her.

“I guess you don’t care about something as trivial as a kiss.”

He covered his face and answered with a sigh. He clearly understood that a kiss hadn’t been even a slight threat to this guy.

She looked innocent, but was she not? He seemed to have seen her as too young and naive.

He had probably been mistaken because of that clear face and pristine white hanbok.