Healer

Cha Yiseok was sunk back in the sofa with his unfocused eyes. The body hidden under black pants and a thick striped shirt would have looked much stronger and more stylish if it hadn’t been stretched out lazily like that. Sungjae, who was following Yaba, also stopped and asked.

“You said you wouldn’t come. When did you come?”

Cha Yiseok answered in a voice as sleepy as his eyes.

“All the people I used to play with were here, so there was no one to play with.”

“Since you’re here, why are you crumpled up here instead of enjoying yourself?”

“I am looking for pleasure in the midst of disappointment.”

Sungjae pulled out the phone Yiseok was looking at and asked.

“Looks unfamiliar. Who is it?”

“I asked him to show his face in return for standing me up, and he sent it. I thought it was because he wasn’t confident enough because he was refusing so insistently before.”

“So who is he?”

Sungjae asked again. Cha Yiseok took his phone back.

“It’s a pity that I lost the pleasure of imagination in return for solving my curiosity.”

Yaba’s eyes widened. He rubbed it for a moment, but what was in the phone was clearly Cocaine. Even though his expression was stiff and awkward, that face was still beautiful. His heart pounded at the fact that Cha Yiseok had captured the beauty of Cocaine without breaking the rules. At that moment, he stiffened. Only then did Cha Yiseok notice Yaba.

“I forced Cocaine to do what he didn’t want to. Keep it a secret.”

He dazzled Yaba’s eyes with a slick smile. Yaba looked away. He wanted to hide from the light.

“I can’t be picky about what I can’t say. So make me unable to speak to Giha.”

Cha Yiseok’s eyebrows furrowed deep.

“It’s difficult.”

The expression on his face was calm compared to his tone of voice. In Paradiso, the customer was a God. You don’t have to ask for forgiveness from God, and you can ignore things like discipline. Yaba lowered his head. At the same time, Yiseok bent his upper body forward and made eye contact. Yaba looked at him from afar under his gaze. The other person’s eyes ran across his scratched thighs and became entangled in Yaba’s eyes again.

“There’s never a day when your skin is in good condition.”

It was an unexpected line. It meant that he remembered the last time Yaba’s cheek was bleeding, and that he knew that the person in front of him was the same person. Then, the time in which he remarked the correlation between his nipples and lip colour filled Yaba’s head once again.

Except for Cocaine, all the singers wore the same clothes and the same mask, so how… Then, looking at his reflection in the glass opposite him, he realized how stupid his excitement was. He had twice as much flesh as other people, and there was no way he could not recognize him.

“If you’re done greeting each other, why don’t you come over here?”

At that time, Han Sungjae grabbed Yaba’s head and turned it around. When someone else’s hand touched his head, it felt like his nerves were torn.

“Don’t touch my head!”

Yaba instinctively slapped Sungjae’s hand.

“Ha, what is this? This thing?”

Han Sungjae was confused, then pulled out a cigarette with the hand that was slapped and asked.

“What is your name?”

“Why do you ask when you won’t even remember even if I tell you? Troubling people.”

“Look at this? Don’t you know who I am?”

“Does the whole world need to know who you are?”

“Ha! What is this… You have no friends, do you? Seriously, who would be friends with your bad personality?”

“Even so, I won’t have to make any.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I said, even so, I won’t have to make any.”

Yaba continued speaking in a voice like a typewriter.

“If you get betrayed after getting close to someone for no reason, who is responsible? No doubt friends will be asking for a guarantee, of course then you will lose all your fortune and become a credit defaulter. Do you know where credit defaulters go and how they get treated? If you get hit in the head by a falling brick while wrestling with cement powder on a construction site, it’s convenient to die numbly. What’s the fault of the person who dropped the brick? And what about the constructor? Why do you have to pay compensation and suffer from guilt when all you did is give a job to a loser in life? Do you still want to make friends?”

“…”

“…”

Cha Yiseok just stiffened with a cigarette, and Han Sungjae’s mouth was open. Then, Sungjae stretched out his hand with an ugly face.

“I heard that bullshit well. Shall we look at that face first?”

“Why should I?”

“If I beat it up, I’ll have to look at the face.”

“P-put your hands away!”

When Sungjae tried to remove the mask, Yaba protected the mask with his whole body. There was Cha Yiseok right in front of him. At least he was talking to Yaba because he was hiding under a beautiful mask. That made him smile. Yaba clenched the mask. Sungjae was a reckless looter, and Yiseok was a decadent bystander. It was the moment when Yaba’s mask was about to be removed when Hashish and Methadone ran from somewhere and calmed Sungjae.

“I’m sorry. This guy is called Yaba. That… He’s Thai so he’s still not good at Korean… Sorry.”

“He’s Thai, so why is he so fair?”

“Not all Thais have dark skin.”

“Anyway, he has to be taught Korean properly. Children who learned poorly like this are scarier.”

“Sorry.”

Sungjae showed some fury, but he calmed down a little.

“Hurry up and apologise!”

Hashish held Yaba’s head and made him bend over. In the meantime, Yaba tightened the hand holding the mask. Soon after, a sensual woman came and wrapped her arms around Sungjae’s neck. He smiled softly and disappeared with the woman. Hashish muttered.

“I told you to keep your mouth shut? I think they let you go because they have good manners.”

“I tried to keep my mouth shut. They started it first.”

“You really… ! If a complaint comes in, figure it out yourself!”

Hashish and Methadone glared with pitying eyes and then disappeared into the crowd. When the small commotion was settled, Kim Kyunghwa walked out of the center of the living room, sobbing. In her drama, she monopolised the role of a lawyer or professor, and she began to throw away the elegance that was wrapped around her body. The Paradiso youth retreated to one side. It was from this time that people showed their savagery.

As the actress stretched out her breasts and twisted her body, the young men full of vitality dipped into it. People returned to animalistic nature and became entangled. The colourful gangbang made even the Venetian masks and costumes look plain. Suddenly, the cabin was engulfed in a stinky smell and erotic voices. These people may wander through the night like this, unable to contain themselves. Yaba looked at this familiar yet unfamiliar feast with a blank look.

Cha Yiseok rested his head on the sofa, drunk on booze. The mysterious potion that would lead to pleasure was rich in amber liquid. A woman in a miniskirt followed the music. She approached Cha Yiseok, unzipped his zipper and climbed on top.

“Haa…”

The round buttocks under the rolled up skirt rode to the rhythm on Cha Yiseok’s lower body. Involuntarily, his eyes focused on him. There must have been hard testicles and scrotum under the woman’s buttocks. As the stench mixed with pleasure vibrated from all directions, Yaba felt sick. He thought he’d vomit violently if he stayed a little longer. He wanted to get rid of the woman who was riding on him. After pushing the woman lying on the floor far away, he wanted to tuck Cha Yiseok’s genitals into his pants and zip it up. He wanted to do it like crazy.

At that moment, Yaba averted his eyes in a strange sense of discomfort. He looked at the unfolding scene, clearing his mind. It took him a while to figure out why he was now in front of Cha Yiseok, why the woman who had been on top of him was now lying on the floor, and why his open zipper suddenly fastened, all of which took a while.

The woman laid face down like a dog with her hair hanging down. A muscular man approached and pushed his penis behind the woman. The woman moved her waist no matter who the other person was. The moans of the two were mixed with the surrounding. Sweat dripped down Yaba’s back. It’s because Cha Yiseok’s eyes, which were out of focus, were stuck on Yaba. He squinted his eyes.

“Sly Thai.”

Yaba clenched his fist, not knowing what to do with the sensation of the touch. His damp eyes were entangled all over his body.

“What is your name?”

Yaba slowly closed his eyes and opened them.

“Yaba.”

“Yaba, Yaba. It’s a cheap drug. If you eat it, you will get a headache and the aftereffects will last for a long time. Are the songs cheap too?”

He rolled Yaba’s name on his tongue.

“Yaba is a drug, but it originally had a different purpose.”

A flash of light flashed through his eyes.

“Estrus that drives horses crazy.”

It was like that back then too. Back then, he asked for his name, told him the meaning, smiled like that, and…

It was probably okay. After this time of pleasure, he will forget everything again… His meaningless actions kept making him fall. And when he managed to climb up, he was dropped off the cliff again. As a result, calluses grew in his heart. Yaba thought every day.

If he is the first face that comes to mind when he wakes up tomorrow morning, he will love him forever.