The Villain Hunter Only Lets the E-Rank Healer Touch Him novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Both Palms
Seon-ho washes the palm for an hour, skin on skin, and Tae-hwan falls asleep sitting up for the first time in two years; at dawn the Association calls him to Gate 15.
Seon-ho washed his hands twice before he touched it, once for habit and once for nerves.
Tae-hwan watched him do it from the other side of the long table.
He had laid his bare right hand on a folded white towel, palm up, and kept his left hand in its glove in his lap.
He looked like a man at a dentist's.
"Does it hurt if I do this?" Seon-ho asked, and hovered his fingers over the wound.
"Everything hurts."
"That's not an answer."
"It hurts less than before you came."
Seon-ho decided that was the most honest thing the man had said so far, and he took the hand.
It was large and long-fingered, with a hunter's calluses at the base of each finger.
It was also warmer than it should have been, almost feverish.
Seon-ho turned it gently under the lamp, and Tae-hwan's whole arm went still.
"Tell me when you want me to stop," Seon-ho said.
"I won't."
"Then I'll stop when it's clean."
He laid his own palm over the split in the skin, and the green light rose out of him, slow and warm.
The black thread caught in it, and pulled.
It came out of the wound.
Tae-hwan's fingers curled.
"Sorry. Does that sting?"
"No." His voice was strange. "Go on."
So Seon-ho went on.
He worked his thumb along the heel of the hand, slowly, because the light seemed to move better when he touched with patience.
Each time the black thread rose, he let it pour into the green and dissolve, and then he moved a finger's width on.
It took a long time.
The rooftop was quiet.
A bus passed on the street far below, and the lamp buzzed, and somewhere in the building a pipe knocked.
Seon-ho became aware of Tae-hwan's pulse under his thumb, at the wrist, strong and quick.
It was going faster than it should.
He glanced up.
Tae-hwan was not looking at the hand.
He was looking at Seon-ho's face, steadily, from very close, with dark eyes that did not seem to know what to do with themselves.
"What?" Seon-ho asked.
"Nothing," said Tae-hwan. He lowered his gaze at once. "No one has touched me in two years. Not without a glove."
"Not even a doctor?"
"They used tongs."
"That's the saddest thing I've ever heard."
"It was practical."
Seon-ho laughed before he could stop himself.
He felt Tae-hwan's hand jump in his, startled, and then slowly relax.
"Hold still, Hunter Yoon," he said.
"Tae-hwan."
"What?"
"If you're going to hold my hand for an hour, you should use my name."
Seon-ho's face went warm.
"Tae-hwan," he said carefully. "Hold still."
"Yes," Tae-hwan said, very quietly. "All right."
An hour went by.
By the end of it the wound had stopped weeping.
The edges, which had been raw and gray, had turned a faint pink.
Across the heel of the hand a thin new line of skin lay closed, shiny as a scar.
It was about the width of Seon-ho's thumb.
It was the first piece of him that had mended in two years.
Tae-hwan stared at it.
He turned his hand over, and back, and over again, and then he made a sound that was not a word.
His eyes were wet.
He turned his face away at once and stared at the window.
"I've been checking it every morning," he said, rough. "For two years. It's the same every morning."
Seon-ho did not say anything.
He kept his hand where it was, light and warm on the new skin, and let the quiet sit.
After a while Tae-hwan's head tipped forward.
"You should sleep," Seon-ho said.
"I don't sleep."
"Okay."
"The wound spreads when I sleep." His voice went slow and thick. "I'm not going to sleep."
"Okay."
"I mean it."
"I believe you."
Seon-ho kept his hand on his, and the pale light still glowed faintly through his fingers.
Within five minutes, Yoon Tae-hwan was asleep with his chin on his chest.
The S-rank, the Deserter, the man every crew in Seoul crossed the street to avoid, lay with his bare hand in Seon-ho's.
Seon-ho did not move.
He sat for the rest of the night, upright in a hard chair, with a cramp in his back.
Once, near three, he looked down at his own palm and saw a thin dark shadow in the lines of it.
He watched it fade under his own light and decided it was gate dust.
Then he looked at the sleeping man's face instead.
He looked a long time.
Dawn came gray at the window.
A phone buzzed on the table, hard, three times.
Tae-hwan woke all at once.
He pulled his hand out of Seon-ho's and the glove back on in one motion, and his face closed up.
He read the screen.
"Association," he said. "Gate 15 has broken open in Gangseo. They're calling every S-rank in the city."
He looked at Seon-ho, still in the chair, with creases from the table on his cheek.
"Get your satchel," he said.
← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend