Page 55 of Love of the Egoist
Yugo’s face darkened as each hit-mark tainted Kuon’s body. Several times he voiced his concern, but the detective never explained anything. He evaded questions with jokes, asking him not to pay attention.
“Enough” Yugo snapped, giving Kuon an aggravated look. He hooked the towel from the floor and threw it at Kuon’s face. Not wiping his own sweat, he stomped out of the gym, leaving Kuon alone.
Lowering his eyes, Kuon rested his gaze on the white soft terry cloth fabric. It looked as soft and white as the crystallized water behind the window.
With the white snow, covering the ground, he felt buried alive under the pressure of his own existence. The existence he didn’t know how to stop without making things worse. Chasing for survival, he adapted. Fake smiles and expressions he’d worn as a mask for too long, bled into his nature, turning him into a coward, a man-slut, subduing his will.
Kuon wiped his sweat-drenched face. His body ached, his muscles trembled, his head pounded. He felt no stronger than a beaten dog as he followed Yugo out of the gym.
“Yugo!” A cheerful voice rang through the mansion and a boy, who looked no older than sixteen, sprinted toward the man and jumped into his arms, passing Kuon on his way. The faint smell of fresh bread followed him in a thin trail. His tiny arms wrapped around Yugo’s shoulders, ankles digging in his hips as he buried his face in the muscular neck, inhaling. His extremely sharp alabaster elbows, sticking out looked painful as if broken.
Kuon frowned, examining the boy. Draped in summer clothes, his frame was frail and bony. The boy looked weak, underfed, anorexic even, but that didn’t spoil his morbid beauty. His white skin bore a bluish tone caused by the net of slightly visible veins beneath. The mope of flaxen hair curled around his neck, cascading onto his angular shoulders in soft half-waves. He looked alien to this world, ghostlike.
The boy looked up. His intense gaze pierced Kuon’s soul; his azure eyes big but not childish. They brought to his little feminine face an unnaturally predatory expression. The way he scanned Kuon was arrogant, as well as his downturned, capricious mouth.
“Oh my, what happened to your face?” the boy said, shifting his attention to Yugo and the red bruise on his cheekbone.
“Mio, what are you doing here?” Yugo asked, supporting the skinny bottom with his hands.
“I missed you.” The boy blushed and his index finger touched Yugo’s nose, trailed down to the clean shaved chin. “You haven’t come in a while.”
Yugo grinned, his eyes lit up with pure adoration when he looked at his possession. But the boy’s attention had already switched back to the detective.
Kuon swallowed, feeling like a trespasser. He had never seen this look on Yugo’s face before. And the way Mio’s intense eyes examined him up and down left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. This scene wasn’t made for his eyes, for anyone’s eyes. It felt intimate and belonged to privacy.
“Yugo, who is he?” Mio’s shameless glare kept groping Kuon’s half-naked body.
“This is…” For the first time since Mio’s arrival, Yugo’s eyes wandered back to Kuon. His expression…puzzled? Yugo opened his mouth in an attempt to say something, but changed his mind, smiled, shrugged then added, “I don’t want you to worry about unnecessary things.”
Yugo’s words stung. The powerful need to leave at that second knotted Kuon’s gut, but his legs refused to move, glued to the floor.
“A new toy, right?” The boy fidgeted in Yugo’s arms, his interest in Kuon vanished into thin air.
A new toy?Echoed in Kuon’s head; his stiffened chest made it painful and hard to breathe as if the words kicked him in the solar plexus.
“Yugo, take me to the bedroom,” Mio demanded and pouted. His plump lips were full and unnaturally red on his pale face. For someone this young, they looked sinful, kissed, experienced. Kuon felt wrong.
“Mio, it is not a good time.” Yugo tried to reason with him, but the azure eyes welled with tears.
Kicking the air with his small foot he exclaimed, “You… you haven’t had time for me and haven’t invited me over for months and now you are telling me that you are busy? You have plenty of time for your fuck-toy and not for me? I have been good for too long, I am tired of waiting!”
His breathing became shallow and fast and erupted out of his mouth in sharp, hoarse sounds. The fragile chest rose and fell and Yugo gave in. He laughed and shook his head.
“Of course not. You are always my number one priority,” Yugo whispered in the small ear of hishand luggage. The boy melted; his smile soft and longing right until the moment his eyes met Kuon’s. His expression hardened, eyes lost all tenderness and picked up a cruel, triumphant look.
Even though Yugo’s words were meant for Mio’s ears, Kuon heard every word as if they had been whispered in his own ear.
“Greg, take Kuon to the library,” Yugo ordered, switching the weight in his hands. He didn’t meet Kuon’s eyes. Looking only at Mio, he marched straight to the master bedroom.
The remains of tears dried on the azure eyes, and Mio once again granted Kuon with a contemptuous look. His lips stretched into a saucy smile revealing pearly sharp teeth.
“Greg… who is this boy?” Kuon asked dumbfounded, unwilling to accept what happened in front of his eyes. The only thing he understood—this boy was special to Yugo.
“It’s Mio, boss’s nephew. He looks young, but he’s twenty.”
“Twenty?” Kuon faced Greg, his jaw dropped. He kept silent for a while, thinking about what happened before asking in a weak and guilty voice. “Are they… close?”
“Boss thinks the world of him. He is spoiling him too much. And the boy could be a brilliant actor if he ever wanted. He twists Boss around his little finger. One second, he is crying and the next laughing like crazy. Boss sees through him, but he still lets Mio do everything he wants. But as to how close they are, you’d better ask Boss that yourself.”
