25. CHAPTER 25 #2
“But I…” He glances behind himself and into the dense forest. “I want you to chase me.”
Holy hell.
Again I shake my head and reverse until I’m backed up against a tree. “Not here. Not now.”
“When you threw me over your shoulder yesterday… Then when I ran from you… I…”
“I know… I wanna do everything to you all at once.”
“And I want you to.”
“I know.”
“How long do I have to wait?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not fair.”
“The way you make me feel isn’t fair.”
“That’s exactly how I feel, too. And it’s even worse when you tell me no.”
I gulp down the filthy words that want to spill out of me. “Just please, wait till tonight—for what you’re gonna give me. And… that’ll be the start of things… Okay?”
“As long as you promise you won’t take it back.”
“I promise. This time, once I start, I know I won’t be able to stop.”
The look on Jin’s face is irritation and satisfaction personified.
“Don’t look at me like that, you little shit.” I give him the middle finger, and leave to set up the fishing hole as best I can without the axe.
J in drops the fourth chunk of tree trunk with the others he’s carried while I avoided him.
They’ve all been big.
He’s still as small as he’s always been, so when the hell did he get so strong? That’s meant to be my job. I’m meant to be the one taking care of him.
Stacking two segments of wood on top of each other, I raise the axe high and focus all my pent up frustration into the blade as I force it through the timber.
It helps a little, until I catch sight of him again.
There’s no point denying the inevitable; I’m gonna have an uncomfortable boner for the foreseeable future.
“Is that enough for now?” Jin asks as he drops one log beside me.
“Yep.” Another splintering crack of wood puts a barrier between us.
With no instruction, Jin takes some newspaper and scrunches it into balls.
Crack
Taking some of the chopped segments, he starts laying them out parallel to each other. Then, in a criss cross pattern, he lays another row on top of that. After stuffing the cracks with newspaper and kindling, he makes a third layer before starting a teepee-like stack on top of that.
Crack
I push the last pieces of wood towards him with the axe head. “Where did you learn how to do that?”
“I don’t know.” He looks up at me and my dubious expression. “Honestly. I’ve never built a fire until a month ago.”
I take the matches out of my pocket and hand it to him. “Well, you’ve just made a platform fire.”
“Ah, cool. I guess… Should I light it now?”
“There’s enough wood to burn for hours, so, why not?”
I focus on Jin’s hands instead of his face.
He holds the box in his palm for several seconds before lighting a stick of newspaper he’d rolled.
After the kindling is alight, he stands, and gives me back the matches. “Why don’t you smoke anymore?”
“I didn’t really smoke in the first place.”
“I’ve seen you smoke a hundred times.”
“I didn’t smoke at your party.” I wish I had another round of wood to hack apart to fill the silence.
“Why were you even there?”
“Do you want the truth, or—”
“Yes.”
Squatting beside the fire, I push some of the smaller sticks into the burgeoning flame. “Me and Shawn were meant to be on a double date with Reeze and one of her friends.”
Jin kneels opposite me. “There has to be more to the story than that.”
“She wanted to blow me in the cab on the way to the restaurant, but I said no. Then she wanted me to finger her at the bar while we were waiting for the others to arrive, and I said no… I still don’t know why I didn’t want to.
I mean, the reason we worked so well for so long was because we were always up for whatever the other wanted.
But I just didn’t feel like it… It just…
didn’t feel right.” I shrug, the growing flames warming my face.
“By the time Reeze arrived I’d been given the ultimatum of either screwing her in the toilets, right then and there, or she’d call the night off.
So I called her bluff, except she wasn’t bluffing.
And Reeze walked face first into the full wrath of Shawn.
” Laughing at the absurdity of it all, I brush my hair back and pull up the hood of my jacket.
“I guess he likes crazy. Fuck knows how long they were getting it on behind my back. Maybe it started that night? Maybe the reason she wasn’t at home when I got back was because she was waiting for him at his place? ”
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out in the end.”
I look up at Jin. “Do you mean that?”
His cheeky smirk hits me right in the dick. “No… But keep going.”
“Tek texted to ask about the date, and when I told him Reeze and I were on our way to another bar, he showed up with a car full of beer and told us that if we wanted any we had to go with him to your party.”
“I didn’t want you there.”
“I could tell.”
“You were rude… You didn’t even say Happy Birthday.”
“I know. It was—” I cut myself off with a shake of my head.
“I’m gonna need you to finish that sentence.”
With my head still bowed, I look at him through the fire. “It was the first time I could tell you weren’t trying to impress me.”
“That’s cause I wasn’t.”
“It pissed me off.” My words come out in a harsh growl, and I exhale deeply to level myself out, but it doesn’t totally work. “It made me feel like shit, that you—out of everyone at your party—were the only one who didn’t give a fuck that I was there.”
“I hated that you were there. And I hated that Tek brought you without asking.”
“I hated that you wouldn’t look at me.”
“I hated that when I did you were staring back at me like you wanted me dead.”
“I hated that I thought you were beautiful.”
“I hate that all the shit between then and now had to happen for you to tell me that.” Jin stands up, but instead of walking to me like I hope he does, his feet crunch through the snow as he walks away.
My dick’s not hard anymore, but my chest kind of hurts.
Time is something that can never be reversed, so I’m going to have to live with what I did to him for the rest of my life. That’s why I’m trying everything I can to make him smile.
“Are you worried that people will say you’re gay?” Jin asks bluntly as he throws another chunk of tree trunk by my side.
“I’m worried that people will think I’m controlling you, that I’m the reason you dropped out of school, and worse.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I’m scared shitless that it’ll destroy my relationship with Tek.”
“Goddamnit, Eden! Just answer the fucking question.”
I shoot to my feet and glare down at him. “I couldn’t give a flying fuck if people think I’m gay. It’s not true, but let them believe what they want.”
“S—so you don’t think you’ve… um… always been…”
“Gay?” I can’t help but laugh. “No. I didn’t fuck all those women cause I was obsessed with dick.
But do I think I’m bisexual? Yeah, I think I am.
I think I’ve always kinda been curious. I…
I’ve… I’ve thought about guys while jerking off for years.
They were never anyone in particular, though.
Just some random hot guy in a club forcing himself on me.
I’d resist it, but always let him blow me.
But then there was you; at your party. Your smile.
Your indifference. Instead of kissing my ass like everyone else, you made me feel like dirt.
” Against my better judgement, I step even closer to him.
“Fuck, I’ve wanted you so much since then.
I’ve lost count of the amount of times I came to the thought of being inside you.
Or just remembering that smile. I… Goddamnit…
Since arriving here, every single time I’ve jerked off was to the thought of you. And each time I did, I got angrier.”
Jin’s breath hitches just like it did when my fingers first slipped inside him.
“That’s right, Little One. Whenever the hell it was that you caught me. I was thinking about you.”
“What…” he says so quietly I don’t think I’d have heard it if I didn’t see his lips move. “What do you think about?”
“I think about you using that nasty little mouth to make me feel like dirt all over again… The look on your face when I sink my cock inside you… What it would be like for you to make me hurt.”
“But I don’t wanna hurt you.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t think about it.”
“How do you want me to hurt you?”
“You’re gonna be the death of me, Jeon Jintae.”
“You’ve already killed me, Eden van der Hart.”
His lips part like they were only ever made to receive my kisses, but I know that if I give them to him, I won’t be able to stop. So I have to step back. I have to see more disappointment in his eyes, no matter how much it hurts the both of us.
Picking up the axe, I turn and walk towards the lake.
From my first step on its glassy surface, my eyes focus only on the ice pick still sticking out between the two folding camp stools. And Jin just kind of follows behind me, keeping a fair distance between us until I feel him against me, wrapping his arms around me from behind.
“Oh my god, is this safe to stand on?” his voice quavers as he clings to me for dear life, like if the ice did break I wouldn’t drag him under twice as fast.
“Yes, it’s fine,” I sigh, angry at myself for not being able to show him simple affection. “It was a foot thick last week.”
“Then why is it so… clear?” After letting go of me, he walks toward a spot where a large piece of wood has settled on top of a boulder.
Kneeling down, he takes off his glove and runs his bare fingers over the ice like he doesn’t believe it’s real.
“Oh, shit,” he curses in shock as a small school of trout swim beneath him. “What were they?”
“Rainbow trout.”
“Won’t we scare them away?”
“Maybe,” I shrug, pulling the pick out from the ice. “I usually don’t clear the snow.”
“So why do it this time, then?” he asks, putting his glove back on.
“I thought you’d like to see it.”
I drive the blade of the axe into the ice at forty-five degrees. Small shards fly about, but within a few swings I’ve made a big enough dent to change direction.
Using my left hand, I clear away the hole, but right before I start chopping again, I feel Jin kiss my cheek. “Thank you,” he smiles whilst on all fours like a dog, having crawled towards me. “I don’t like trout, though.”
Allowing myself the indulgence, I peck him quickly on the lips. “That was naughty.”
He bares his teeth in a smug little grin. “I couldn’t help myself.”
I point to the furthest stool from me with the axe. “That’s why I’m gonna need you to sit your ass over there.”
“What if I don’t wanna?”
“Then I’ll throw everything back but trout.”
Pouting, Jin maintains eye contact with me as he crawls to the chair. And with a pained groan, I start hacking at the ice again until the shards are hitting my face.