Page 58 of Doubts of the Egoist (Egoist #3)

A vague silhouette behind the fogged glass made Yugo’s vision throb and narrow. For several long seconds, he watched Kuon standing under the stream, his back flat against the glass, shoulders rounded, and palms covering eyes.

Yugo knew he should leave him alone. With his mind poisoned by alcohol, he could only bring ire upon Kuon, and the former cop wasn’t fit enough to take it.

At least not yet. A few days apart would mend his bruised pride enough to devise a rational punishment and have a conversation.

It would also provide Kuon enough time to heal.

Still, he didn’t move, watching the water caress Kuon’s body in the same way Yugo had touched him.

The same way the dog did… He growled in frustration. I should have cut off his fingers one by one and stuffed them in his mouth to teach him not to touch other people’s property.

Poisoned by the mercury balls of rage coursing through his veins, he clenched his fists and drove his nails into the cigarette burn on his palm, trying to relieve his mental anguish with physical pain.

It didn’t help. Instead, a nerve in his tooth twitched, setting off a chain reaction.

His knuckles whitened, jaw locked, and the inferno in his mind erupted, demanding sacrifice.

On an impulse, he tore off his shirt, threw it on the floor, and stepped into the shower cubicle.

The warm jets of water soaked through his pants in an instant, irreversibly ruining the fine wool that clung to his thighs.

Kuon stiffened, turned around, and backed up against the opposite glass wall, fists clenched, feet staggered. He still looked Yugo in the eye with the clear defiance of the righteous.

This annoyed and mesmerized Yugo, making him want both to kiss his eyes and gouge them out. The duality of his feelings infuriated him.

Kuon scowled, growing more alert, tenacious.

Separated by the cascading water, they scrutinized each other with acute intensity.

Droplets beaded on Kuon’s skin, trickling down his toned body, rippling over the raised scars.

In places, the crystal drops acted like tiny magnifying glasses, highlighting the juicy, purple hickeys.

The sight was worse than the toothache. Yugo huffed in contempt and disbelief.

Kuon squared his shoulders, and this tiny gesture rekindled Yugo’s murderous intent. He lowered his chin. His unforgiving heart, intoxicated with black jealousy and alcohol, invented one cruel punishment after another. A mere glance at Kuon was enough to unleash Yugo’s visceral wickedness.

As he studied the passion map on Kuon’s body, drawn by another man, Yugo felt the layers of his reality crumble—volcanoes erupting and rock formations shifting, redrawing the contours of his world and making it an unfamiliar, hostile place.

His mind had long accepted that loyalty could be bought for the right price.

That was why he liked Kuon. He was different, or so Yugo believed. Yet he slept with the dog.

The thought his mind refused to digest boomeranged into his teeth.

It was too square to fit his rounded skull, so it scratched the inside of his head with sharp angles, leaving deep grooves.

If only Kuon hadn’t fought for his friend, Yugo would have gladly believed that Rick had raped him or spiked his drink, because sleeping with another man was too out of Kuon’s character. But the evidence said otherwise.

Kuon’s words, tossed amidst the heated argument, came to mind. “How do you know? Maybe this is exactly who I am. Or do you mean I don’t act the way you want me to—docile, passionate, grateful?”

Perhaps I really don’t know him, and it was all an act?

A sense of betrayal shot through him, shrapnel ripping his insides apart. He wanted to howl in impotent rage, but more than that, he wanted to kill in cold blood.

And still… Still…

“Wash up. Scrub every damn inch of yourself.” He grabbed the loofah from the corner shelf and flung it at Kuon’s face.

The former cop caught the pale sponge without looking at it.

An edge of his mouth twitched in annoyance as he turned to the body wash dispenser on the shelf and squeezed some liquid onto his palm.

He lathered the sponge in his hands and dragged it across his chest, down his arm, and back up again to his collarbone.

Soapsuds trickled down his powerful hips and thighs.

Every time he squeezed the sponge a little harder, foam ran down his toned abs, as if the damn thing was making love to the kiss marks, lavishing them with caresses, cumming at the touch.

Under his gaze, Kuon’s face flushed, and his muscles tensed.

Despite the growing migraine and a twitching nerve in his jaw, Yugo’s blood warmed at the sight. That irritated him even more. Why do I want him so badly?

He wanted Kuon to apologize. Nothing would ever be the same again, but maybe if he punished and humiliated Kuon, this corroding, soul-smoldering anger would die out. “Tell me, didn’t I fuck you hard enough? Didn’t you moan under me every night, begging me to give you more, to fuck you harder?”

He expected Kuon to break down, to grovel at his feet, begging for mercy for his friend and himself.

Yugo wished for that because it would make it easier to stop respecting Kuon.

It would also free his hands. But Kuon held his chin up, and just as Yugo had told him, he wore those damn marks proudl y and never tried to hide them again.

The fire in the dark eyes, the lack of remorse—everything pissed Yugo off.

For the same reason, he couldn’t stop looking at Kuon, wanting him.

“Ahh, I see…” Yugo nodded at Kuon’s semi-hard cock, then said in his most disgusting, mocking tone, “With such a lewd body, it must have been hard for you. That cock-hungry hole of yours couldn’t possibly last a week without being fucked, could it?

My bad. I should have left you a dildo. Makes me wonder how you managed to stay abstinent for so long in Afghanistan.

Or did you lie about that, and spread your legs for anyone willing? ”

“Don’t insult me.”

The calm warning sobered Yugo. Yet he had to go on, to degrade Kuon and destroy everything he had ever cherished and respected about him. No, nothing would be the same. Kuon would still have a place in his bed, but no longer outside of it.

He opened his mouth to call Kuon a whore again, but the direct challenge in the dark eyes didn’t allow him to disrespect him that much.

He wanted to smash Kuon’s scarred face bloody, to cover the man in cuts and bruises, but he couldn’t do that as well because he still remembered the paralyzing horror that had struck him when Kuon’s head whacked against the corner of the bed.

He hated Kuon for making him so weak and despised himself even more for giving Kuon such power, for wanting him so damn much.

Yugo didn’t know how it was possible to hate someone with such passion and still want him. He would have taken Kuon on the cold marble floor, in the puddles of foaming water, if not for Rick’s marks.

Red pulsed in front of his eyes, duplicating the pattern of the hickeys as if mocking him, reminding him of Kuon’s infidelity.

He snatched the loofah from Kuon’s hands, pinned him against the wall, and gripped his throat with one hand.

With the other, Yugo began scrubbing—up and down, again and again.

Kuon’s chest and hips reddened, then dots and dashes of tiny hematomas appeared where Yugo had scratched too hard, writing a painful story of betrayal and punishment in Morse code across Kuon’s body.

Eventually, even those marks blended together.

Kuon’s skin chafed, and the beads of blood swelled to be washed away by the running water.

Kuon’s erection was gone, and the tiny thread of a pulse vibrating under Yugo’s grip on his neck betrayed his pain. Still, Kuon made no sound; only his shallow breathing quickened.

Yugo scrubbed and scrubbed, not fully aware of what he was trying to erase—the presence of another man from Kuon’s body or the unnecessary feelings from his soul. Either way, he failed because both remained.

Pinkish water trickled from under the loofah as Yugo gave up his futile attempts. Fog thickened inside the cubicle, or maybe the alcohol finally hit his head. He couldn’t tell, but even the toothache faded away.

It’s useless…

Kuon’s chafed neck, chest, and hips looked painfully raw. Even his cock was pink and swollen from all the rubbing, yet Kuon didn’t resist.

“Yugo?” He flinched and looked up; his name had never sounded so hoarse. Kuon watched him with a hint of concern, awe, and something else deep and dark. “I don’t understand you. Why are you doing all this? Could it be that you are in love with me?”

The realization that Kuon allowed him to rave and rage made him feel like a lunatic. The question drove the final nail into the coffin of his sanity. The bathroom swam in front of his eyes. Jet-black, poisonous darkness swallowed his heart and clouded his mind. He laughed.

“In love with you?” Yugo echoed the words, tasting them on his tongue, then laughed even harder.

Kuon flinched and scowled, his brown eyes clouded with confusion. He paled before bright red spots bled through his skin. His lips pressed together, jaw set.

Yugo’s laughter stopped as abruptly as it’d started. He locked eyes with Kuon, possessed by a demon of indignation. Unable to suppress the urge, he slammed his palm against the glass beside Kuon’s head. “The audacity. How dare you?”

“You didn’t answer.”

“I despise you. Happy?”

Kuon didn’t reply. A bitter smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. He lowered his face, hiding his eyes behind streams of water.

In white rage, Yugo hurled the sponge aside, slammed open the shower cubicle’s door, and stepped out, leaving a palm print on the fogged glass.

Kuon sighed, leaning back against the wall.