"My brother isn't my brother. My brother isn't human, either."
Jiang Yi has a secret.
He has always coveted his brother Jiang Chutian, the only family he has.
They look very alike. The most obvious difference is the tiny red mole on Jiang Chutian's earlobe.
Whenever Jiang Yi sees Jiang Chutian,
he wants to take that earlobe between his lips and kiss the little mole.
He wants to see whether his brother's usually impassive face can ever lose control.
Jiang Yi likes to shower after his brother has finished bathing,
so he can take the clothes Jiang Chutian just changed out of, bury his face in them, and breathe in as deeply as he likes.
Jiang Yi has no parents. His brother raised him from childhood.
His brother treats him well, but if he misbehaves, he gets a harsh beating.
At some point, Jiang Yi began deliberately provoking his brother, just to get hit.
Because before the slap comes the unique scent on his brother's hands.
Then one day, he suddenly came upon Jiang Chutian's body melting into a mass of writhing tentacles as it devoured an aberrant creature.
Only then did Jiang Yi learn the truth:
His brother was a terrifying, clammy, cold-blooded monster.
The body scent he was so enamored with was merely the smell the creature gave off when its hunger to devour was roused.
His brother wasn't his brother, and he wasn't human.
His brother wanted to devour him, too.
When Jiang Yi held Jiang Chutian in his arms,
the night outside the window was deep, and the bedside lamp cast a small circle of warm, yellow light.
The air was thick with humid heat.
The brand-new bed, once expensive and sturdy, kept groaning in protest beneath them.
Jiang Yi's ragged breathing fell against Jiang Chutian's ear,
hot and heavy, full of the reckless force of a young body.
Unable to bear it, Jiang Chutian turned his head to dodge. When that didn't work,
he simply lifted a hand and clamped it hard over half of Jiang Yi's face.
His palm sank at once into warm skin, feeling the rapid breaths against it.
Jiang Yi was forced to lean back, his whole body falling into the pillow.
The pressure holding his face tightened, and the air grew thinner.
His wrists were also bound tightly by slick, wet tentacles,
pinned above his head as more tentacles writhed out, leaving slippery fluid on Jiang Yi's skin.
He didn't struggle at all. Instead, a muffled laugh escaped his throat.
The feeling of suffocation gradually set in, but their movements only grew more frantic.
Jiang Chutian suddenly let out a muffled groan, and the pressure of his hand eased a little.
The next moment, Jiang Yi turned and pulled him into an embrace.
That burning breath surged back, more intense than before,
scorching the base of his ear as a hoarse, breathless voice murmured:
"Brother... when you do this... it only makes me want you more..."
Reader's guide:
Nonhuman Lovecraftian horror
Mad, obsessive younger-brother gong × composed tentacled older-brother shou
Forbidden pseudo-incest, a deranged and sanity-shattering love affair
[What is love? The desire to devour the other, a delirious celebration of merging with their body until neither can be told apart.]
Theme: No one knows where love begins, only that once it does, it runs deep.
