The Tyrant's Secret fetish-Chapter 55

Ye Jun

I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell him he was wrong. That I could leave anytime. But the words would not come. Instead I just sat there. Close to him. My hand still on his shoulder. His fingers still in my hair. The room felt smaller. The machines kept beeping. Steady. Annoying. But also comforting. They meant he was okay. For now.

I looked at his face. The bandage on his head. The small cut on his lip. The way his eyes looked tired but still sharp. Still him. I felt everything at once. Guilt. Anger. Relief. Something warmer that I did not want to name. I leaned in again. This time slower. I kissed the corner of his mouth. Soft. Careful. He did not push me away.

"Don’t scare me like that again," I whispered.

He closed his eyes for a second. "I won’t," he said. It sounded almost real. Almost like a promise.

I did not believe him. Not completely. But I stayed anyway. My head rested against his shoulder. His hand moved to my back. Weak circles. We did not speak for a while. Just breathed. Together.

The kiss had been messy and desperate. But it felt like something else too. Like we were both saying things we could not say with words. I hated him. I wanted him. I was scared of losing him. And maybe he felt the same. Maybe that was why he pulled me close even when he could barely move.

I stayed like that. Close to him. Not moving. Not leaving. Because right then, leaving felt impossible.

Then the door whooshed open and a nurse marched in like she owned the place. She took one look at us me half on the bed, Si-woo’s hand still fisted in my hair, both of us with matching purple marks blooming on our arms and necks and her face did this whole cartoon freeze. "Excuse me. What is going on here?"

Si-woo didn’t even let go of my hair. He just turned his head slow, still breathing hard, and gave her the dead-eyed stare he usually saved for people who cut him off in traffic. "We’re busy. Come back never."

She didn’t budge. Her eyes flicked over the bruises on my wrist, the ones shaped exactly like his fingers from earlier, then over to the bandage on his head and the split on his lip that I definitely didn’t give him but looked suspicious anyway. "You two are... step-brothers, correct? The chart says..."

"Yeah, step," Si-woo snapped, voice cracking but still mean. "Not blood. Not your business. Mind it."

She crossed her arms, all professional but clearly freaking out. "I’m required to report anything that looks like..."

"Looks like what?" I cut in, because my face was on fire and I was still half-hard from the kiss and this was the worst timing in history. "We’re fine. He’s fine. Go check someone else’s chart."

She wasn’t having it. She actually backed out and thirty seconds later she was back with the doctor, some tired-looking guy in his fifties who took one glance at us and sighed like he’d seen this exact mess a hundred times. "Gentlemen. We need to talk."

Si-woo groaned and finally dropped his hand from my hair, but he kept his fingers hooked in the collar of my shirt like he thought I’d bolt. "No we don’t."

The doctor ignored him and looked straight at me. "The bruises on both of you are concerning. The way you arrived, the story about the fall... this doesn’t look like an accident. And the fact that you’re step-brothers adds another layer. This relationship whatever it is appears toxic. We have resources. Counselors. If you need help..."

"Toxic?" Si-woo barked a laugh that turned into a cough. He winced, grabbed his side, and I automatically reached for the water cup on the tray. My hand shook a little but I held it to his mouth anyway. He drank, glaring at the doctor the whole time. "Step-brothers. Say it with me, doc. Step. No shared DNA. We’re not breaking any laws. And toxic? That’s rich coming from the guy who probably hasn’t gotten laid since the nineties."

"Mr. Choi..."

"Oh you know the name now?" Si-woo’s voice went low and nasty, the one that usually made me want to both slap him and climb him. "Good. Then you know my father runs Choi Advertising. One phone call and I can have your license framed on my wall by dinner. Both of you. So here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna forget you walked in here. You’re gonna forget whatever you think you saw. And if I hear one whisper about this outside this room, I will personally make sure neither of you ever works in this country again. Clear?" 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

The nurse looked like she wanted to argue. The doctor just pinched the bridge of his nose. "We’re only trying to..."

"Try somewhere else," Si-woo said. "Now get out."

They left. Actually left. The door clicked shut and I let out this shaky breath I didn’t know I was holding. My hands were still on the water cup and Si-woo’s forehead was sweaty, so I grabbed a corner of the blanket and wiped it without thinking. My fingers lingered a second too long on his temple, right next to the bandage. He watched me the whole time, eyes half-closed again like the threat had taken the last of his energy.

"Pillows," he muttered. "Too flat. Fix it."

I rolled my eyes but I did it. Fluffed the stupid things, lifted his head gentle even though every part of me was screaming that I was the reason his head needed fluffing in the first place. My fingers brushed his hair careful around the stitches and I hated how natural it felt. How much I wanted to keep touching him just to make sure he was still breathing. "You’re such a demanding asshole even when you’re half-dead."

"Half-dead and still hotter than you," he shot back, but his voice was thinner now. "Water again."

I gave him more. Wiped his mouth with my thumb after. Lingered there too. The room got quiet except for the beeps and his breathing, and that’s when the guilt hit me like a truck. I was the monster here. I’d pushed him. I’d watched his head crack open. I’d sat here crying because I was scared I’d lost the one person who could ruin me and fix me in the same day. My chest started doing that tight thing again, like someone was squeezing my ribs. I stood up too fast, chair scraping loud.

"I need air," I said, but my feet didn’t move.

Si-woo’s hand caught my wrist weak, but he held on. "Don’t."

"Don’t what?"

"Don’t do that thing where you spiral and decide you’re the villain of the century. I said shit that started it. You pushed. I fell. We both suck. Now sit down and be my nurse or whatever."

I laughed but it came out wet. "You almost died because of me and you’re still ordering me around. God you’re impossible."

"Yeah well you’re still here, so who’s the real idiot?" He tugged my wrist again until I sat on the edge of the bed. "Fix the blanket. It’s scratching my leg."

I fixed it. My hand stayed on his shin longer than it needed to. He was watching me with that half-smirk, half-pain face, and I wanted to scream at him and kiss him again and maybe shake him until he promised never to scare me like that. Instead I just said, "I hate you so much right now."

"Good. Hate keeps you here."

We went back and forth like that for what felt like hours. Him demanding water, me wiping sweat off his neck and muttering insults under my breath. Him calling me a crybaby for the tears that kept sneaking out. Me telling him he was lucky I didn’t smother him with the pillow. Every time I stood up like I was finally leaving, he’d grab my shirt or my wrist and say something sarcastic that made me sit back down. "You owe me blood, remember? Can’t leave until I’ve drained the rest of you emotionally too."

I laughed so hard I snorted, then immediately wanted to cry again because the laugh turned into this ugly hiccup-sob and I had to press my face into his shoulder for a second. He didn’t push me away. Just let me stay there, his hand in my hair again, loose this time. "You’re such a mess," he mumbled into my temple. "My mess."

Eventually the nurse came back different one, thank God and said he needed to rest, no more visitors. Si-woo told her to buzz off but his eyes were drooping so I stood up for real this time. I adjusted the blanket one last time, tucked it around his waist like I was some kind of boyfriend instead of the guy who put him here. My fingers brushed his stomach and I felt him flinch, not from pain but from something else. He caught my hand before I could pull away.

"Stay close," he said, voice already thick with sleep. "Don’t go far."

I nodded because I couldn’t speak. Then I walked out.

The hallway smelled like nothing and everything at once. I leaned against the wall right outside his door, arms crossed tight over my chest like that would keep all the pieces inside. My head was spinning. I kept replaying the kiss, the way his fingers had pulled my hair, the moan I couldn’t hold back. Then I replayed the blood on the floor, the way his chest barely moved, the sound his head made when it hit the table. I was the one who did that. Me. And still he’d kissed me like he needed me to breathe. Still he’d threatened doctors for us. Still he’d looked at me like I was worth keeping around even after I almost killed him.

I stared at the floor tiles, counting the scuff marks because if I didn’t I was going to walk back in there and either punch him or climb into the bed with him and I didn’t trust myself with either. My legs felt shaky. My eyes burned again. I could just leave. Right now. Walk out the front doors, call Titi, disappear for a week, let the hospital deal with him. He had money. He had people. He didn’t need me hovering like some guilty shadow.

But my feet didn’t move. I just stood there, back against the cold wall, wondering if I should just leave.,