By Zephyria 
Oh Seung-pyo was facing Ryu Jae-min.
With eyelids half-closed—neither fully open nor shut—Jae-min’s downward gaze did not look directly at Seung-pyo. That appearance looked both cold and prim.
With a face that seemed carved with precise proportions, down to the position of the eyebrows, and devoid of expression, it felt almost eerie, as if he were facing an actual statue in an art room.
Despite the fact that he would spout crazy things the moment he got slightly irritated, he acted cold, and Seung-pyo found himself wanting to put an expression on that face. Seung-pyo reached out, pulled Ryu Jae-min’s school tie tight to loosen it, and then tossed it aside carelessly.
Jae-min stood quietly without shaking off the hand. While unbuttoning Jae-min’s shirt with rather rough movements, Seung-pyo whispered as if giving an order.
“Take off your pants yourself.”
With his chest fully exposed, Jae-min bent his waist, took off his pants, and revealed his bare legs. Underneath his school pants, he was wearing black drawers and socks. Seung-pyo whispered once more.
“Pull down your underwear too.”
Jae-min hesitated slightly at this request, but eventually, he pulled down the rubber band. Ryu Jae-min’s white lower abdomen was firm and smooth without a single fold of fat.
In the video he saw last year, Ryu Jae-min had been panting and rubbing his cock in a similar state. There was no sound in the video, but Seung-pyo had already experienced—or rather, had been made to experience—what kind of voice Jae-min made when he did that.
Thinking of himself back then, frozen stiff with tension and staring blankly like a mouse before a snake, Oh Seung-pyo’s face still flushed with embarrassment. He wanted Ryu Jae-min to taste the same humiliation. A surprise kiss wasn’t enough to return the emotions he had felt back then. How could he retaliate?
“Stand at attention.”
“Why….”
“Hurry.”
Jae-min bit his lip for a moment as if dissatisfied, but soon placed both hands behind his back without a word. Only then did Seung-pyo take a bold step closer to Jae-min.
Looking down at Jae-min’s lower half from up close, a smirk escaped him. He gathered his thumb and middle finger as if to deliver a finger flick to a forehead, but instead, he lightly flicked Jae-min’s penis—specifically the glans, which had already risen and swollen.
“It’s up? Just as expected of a pervert.”
Even though it was a light hit, Jae-min frowned as if it hurt. Seung-pyo stared intently at that expression and flicked the glans once more. This time, he put a bit more strength into it. The straight cock that had been standing erect swayed and then stood back up like a roly-poly toy.
“Ah….”
This time, a small moan of pain escaped Jae-min’s mouth. Ridiculously, in the midst of that, his cock became even harder and stood stiffly upright.
What would happen if he gave the cock about ten strong finger flicks? Even the great Ryu Jae-min might not be able to withstand the pain and start sobbing. Seung-pyo put strength into his finger again and struck the red glans repeatedly, making a loud thwack, thwack sound.
Ah, ugh. Jae-min couldn’t hold it back and writhed his waist and stomach while moaning, but Seung-pyo’s giggling laughter rang out louder than Jae-min’s cries.
“Hey, Ryu Jae-min. Why does it keep getting harder?”
Seung-pyo gripped the reddened cock tightly. Jae-min flinched. Despite being hit in the cock, Ryu Jae-min didn’t look embarrassed; instead, he was looking at Seung-pyo with an expression of vivid arousal.
This wasn’t humiliating at all. Since his own hand was doing the work and only the pervert was feeling good, Seung-pyo changed his mind. Hmm, swallowing a breath, Seung-pyo rubbed his chin and asked,
“Want to make a bet?”
“What kind of… bet….”
“If I win….”
Before explaining the terms of the bet, Seung-pyo first told him what Ryu Jae-min would have to do if he lost.
“Lie face down and show me you masturbating with your asshole. You said you’ve never filmed that before.”
Ryu Jae-min reacted to those words. Perhaps he was finally feeling some shame, as the corners of his eyes turned slightly red. But then again, one could never tell. Whether he was blushing out of embarrassment, or whether his face was red because he was excited at the thought of performing perverted acts in front of an audience like before.
“The condition for the bet is….”
Seung-pyo stroked Jae-min’s penis upward with his hand. Jae-min began to breathe heavily.
“From now on, if you cum before I tell you to, you lose.”
It was an absurd condition with zero fairness, one that Seung-pyo was bound to win. However, before Jae-min could protest, the bet began.
Seung-pyo handled Jae-min’s cock with utmost sincerity, more diligently than he had ever done when masturbating himself. The hands of a boy in a growth spurt were much larger than those of his peers, and compared to the rough appearance of the protruding knuckles, the youthful skin was soft.
The smooth palm gripped the straight-standing penis. He carefully stroked it up and down, adjusting the speed from fast to slow, and diligently rubbed the glans where transparent fluid had already pooled.
“Haa, nngh.”
When his thumb pressed firmly on the narrow urethral opening, Jae-min momentarily lost his balance and took a stumbling step backward. Seung-pyo liked that he still hadn’t broken the ‘stand at attention’ posture.
Was it because he had lived his whole life as a model student? Even though he would glare at him with sharp eyes and never lose a single word in an argument, the fact that he wouldn’t break a given condition even if he were to die…
‘It’s hot.’
Seung-pyo defined the emotion tightening in his chest with that one word and increased the speed of his hand stroking the penis upward.
As the soft touch suddenly became rough, Jae-min gasped in surprise. Looking down at his lower half, he let out impatient, flustered moans.
“Ah… Ah! Ha-eu, aaah!”
While Jae-min, still with his arms crossed behind his back, twisted his waist, Seung-pyo stared at him as if to pierce through him.
This kind of expression suits you better. A frowning face, looking lost and as if you’re about to cry at any moment. A pervert who can’t even run away because it feels so good to have his cock touched, throwing away his sky-high pride in the face of erotic acts.
Seung-pyo also let out rough breaths as he moved his hand faster and faster. Jae-min’s voice rose as he panted. The penis trapped in the palm twitched, tensing as if about to ejaculate.
“Hey, does it hurt? Why are you whimpering like this?”
In the next moment, Seung-pyo blinked. It seemed he had fallen asleep while watching game videos on the sofa. His older brother, who was in his room, must have heard Seung-pyo talking in his sleep, as he was looking out toward the living room.
“…Uh, no. I think I dozed off for a second.”
“You’re late. If you’re sleepy, go to your room and sleep.”
The head that had peeked out the door quickly vanished. Seung-pyo looked up at his hand, which was curled ambiguously as if gripping an invisible object.
‘Why is my hand like this…?’
As he stared blankly at his empty palm, Seung-pyo’s eyes widened as if remembering something he had forgotten. His face, dazed from sleep, quickly turned bright red.
Seung-pyo bolted up from the sofa and walked awkwardly. He felt as if he had returned to elementary school right after his circumcision. Of course, it didn’t hurt like it did then, but his cock, which hadn’t subsided from the erection, stood prominently, and the feeling of the damp underwear touching his skin was unpleasant.
As soon as he entered the bathroom, he hurriedly stripped off his pants and underwear. The front of his underwear was drenched with the semen he had released while sleeping. He turned the faucet on high and began to wash the underwear firmly and violently, as if trying to deny the reality before him.
Even as he scrubbed with soap to erase the traces of the involuntary ejaculation, Seung-pyo’s face remained red. Erasing the traces didn’t mean the fragments of the dream would immediately scatter.
It wasn’t the first time. He had already experienced his first nocturnal emission in middle school, so it wasn’t something to be particularly embarrassed about now. Honestly, the fact that a stark naked Ryu Jae-min appeared in his dream—well, that could happen. He had seen and thought about Ryu Jae-min’s lewd side a lot lately, and he had even shared a formal, consensual kiss with him today.
A kiss….
Swoosh— Seung-pyo stared blankly into space with his hand under the running water, stopping his washing of the underwear.
When they kissed at the karaoke room, it was so sudden that he just felt like his heart would burst, but today, after the kiss, it felt like his cock would burst.
At the moment Ryu Jae-min suddenly made that strange sound, he felt as if all the blood in his body had rushed down below. He had simply followed a tip from an internet post titled ‘How to Kiss Well’ that said stroking the neck while kissing is good.
But even so….
‘Fuck, the dream was too perverted.’
Was he becoming a pervert from hanging out with one? Compared to the erotic dreams he had in middle school, the dream about Ryu Jae-min he just had was bizarre.
Kissing is one thing, and jerking off is another, but although he didn’t remember everything, it seemed he had spouted a lot of strange things to Ryu Jae-min…. And it was absurd that in the dream, Ryu Jae-min was the one who came, but in reality, he was the one who did.
‘Why the hell was I giving his cock finger flicks? I must have been bored out of my mind.’
If it was a perverted dream, it should have just been intensely erotic; the act of flicking someone else’s cock several times felt childish, like the delusions of a young boy, making him even more embarrassed. To think that the bickering over whether to give a finger flick in reality would manifest in the dream like that.
The vivid dream quickly blurred upon waking. Having entered the bathroom, Seung-pyo started showering, and he was now slowly gathering the fragments of the dream he had tried to shake off out of shame.
When he gave the finger flick… what did Ryu Jae-min do? The super-pervert Ryu Jae-min had an extraordinary reaction even in the dream. Far from pushing him away or hating it, he liked it. Since it was just a dream, the real Ryu Jae-min’s reaction might be different, but Seung-pyo marveled at how his dream seemed to reflect reality quite well in that regard.
He thought Jae-min had a very erotic expression when he gripped and shook the cock… but he couldn’t remember such detailed images. And also.
The bet.
He had suggested a bet. He didn’t remember the details, but he had set conditions as they came to him, and Ryu Jae-min had accepted them without particular refusal. It was a dream created by mixing various conversations he had with the real Ryu Jae-min at school.
After finishing his shower, Seung-pyo stood before the mirror and pushed his hair back to fully reveal his forehead. He thought he looked his most handsome this way. He decided he should try this style when he went to college.
Once he washed and hung the traces of the dream and cleaned his body, the shame washed away with the water. Returning to his room feeling refreshed, Seung-pyo decided to utilize his clear consciousness—resulting from the clumsy nap—for studying. This was a healthy end to the day.
‘I wonder if I can kiss him again tomorrow?’
It was a bit troublesome that other thoughts popped up as soon as he sat at his desk.
However, the fact that he now had a reason to want to go to school was positive. Seung-pyo was a student who liked hanging out with friends and didn’t dislike attending classes—in short, a student who liked school—but school was still school. Like many students preparing for entrance exams, Seung-pyo, at the tail end of his teenage years, often brooded over the boredom of a daily routine that repeated like a treadmill, as if he had already lived a full life.
How many high school students in the country would feel their heart flutter at the thought of going to school the next day? If there were any, it would only be those dating in co-ed schools.
…Of course, the current relationship between him and Ryu Jae-min wasn’t dating, nor was it even ‘some’ or a relationship of mutual liking. They were just classmates and friendly rivals navigating the boredom of exam prep and the sexual confusion of adolescence together.
Anyway, kissing feels good, so that’s enough. Seung-pyo convinced himself and nodded.
* * *
The classroom was noisy from the morning, and Seung-pyo’s seat was surrounded by several people again today.
The kids who were close with Seung-pyo would often gather around his desk to chat, even if they weren’t talking to him specifically. They didn’t seem to mind whether Seung-pyo was face-down asleep, reading a book, or distracted by his phone; they just played among themselves. It was as if Oh Seung-pyo’s seat had become a public plaza.
Because of that, Ryu Jae-min was hard to see. Seung-pyo glanced at Jae-min’s seat through the gaps between the standing students. Unlike Seung-pyo’s bustling area, Jae-min sat alone, aloof as ever, reading what looked like a book or a notebook.
Perhaps because of last night’s dream, having the real Jae-min so close made Seung-pyo feel an unbearable urge to do something quickly. Suppressing his restless inner thoughts, Seung-pyo pretended to be nonchalant and continued a soulless conversation with the other kids.
I need to get his phone number soon. Despite all the fuss he’d made about the phone, Oh Seung-pyo still didn’t know Ryu Jae-min’s number.
“Where are you going?”
“Bathroom.”
When he suddenly stood up, the kids asked where he was headed. Pretending to actually go to the restroom, Seung-pyo trudged along and passed by Ryu Jae-min’s seat. Tap, tap. He gave the desk two quick, short knocks, and Jae-min flicked his gaze upward. As Seung-pyo continued walking as if nothing had happened, the sound of a chair screeching—skree—followed a few steps behind as Ryu Jae-min stood up.
Seung-pyo went his way, and Jae-min went his; the two walked toward opposite ends of the hallway, looking in different directions as if their destinations were entirely different. However, upon reaching the end of the corridor, without needing to decide who went first, they both glanced around and hurried into the resource room the moment the coast was clear.
Once the door was locked, Jae-min looked at Seung-pyo and asked.
“Why?”
What do you mean ‘why’? You knew exactly why you followed me. Seung-pyo let out a smirk.
“Do you really think pretending to be innocent and clueless is going to work now?”
“You’re a pain in the ass since this morning.”
“We’re only going to kiss anyway, so why wait until lunch?”
If they disappeared together every lunch break, the other kids would quickly grow suspicious. Especially since Oh Seung-pyo was a popular guy whom many people looked for.
Ten minutes of break time was plenty for just a kiss. Or a gap of time like this, before the homeroom teacher arrived. Seung-pyo added,
“Doing it now is better for focusing in class.”
If he didn’t do it beforehand, it was obvious he wouldn’t be able to concentrate because he’d keep glancing at Ryu Jae-min, haunted by the afterimage of last night’s dream. Seung-pyo’s hand was just about to touch Jae-min.
“Why is the door locked here?”
Rattle, rattle. At the unexpected sound coming from behind them, Seung-pyo jumped and withdrew his hand. Jae-min also widened his eyes in surprise and clamped his mouth shut.
“Is someone in there?”
The sound of knocking followed—tap, tap. Jae-min bit his lip slightly and hurried to open the door. A teacher was standing there.
“Ryu Jae-min, why are you here? Oh, Seung-pyo too?”
“We just had something to talk about… the classroom was too noisy. Sorry for coming in without permission.”
“What could you possibly be talking about that required locking the door? Are you done? Unless you came to get something, get back to class quickly.”
“Yes, sir.”
They left the resource room pretending everything was normal, but both their hearts were thumping wildly, neither able to say whose was beating harder. As they walked side by side with sullen expressions back to the classroom, Seung-pyo muttered.
“The resource room is out of the question now.”
Instead of answering, Jae-min gave a short nod. Seung-pyo let out a barely audible sigh.
To think it was this hard to find a place for a kiss that would take only a few minutes; he felt he now understood why Ryu Jae-min chose the internet as a stage for his secret perversions. Satisfying adolescent sexual curiosity safely was truly not easy. Jae-min grumbled in a low voice.
“That’s why I asked why you called me out so early in the morning.”
“Doing it in the morning helps me focus in class.”
I had a dream about you last night. That’s why I wanted to do it quickly. Naturally, he couldn’t say those words, so Seung-pyo swallowed them along with a dry gulp of saliva.
They were classmates in the same school, the same room. They had already kissed, and even now he was right beside him, yet the only thing they could do was walk forward, pretending nothing had happened.
“See you during break.”
Jae-min nodded at Seung-pyo’s whisper before they entered the classroom, but luck was not on their side today.
After the first period, a teacher wanted to see Seung-pyo, forcing him into a long conversation. After the second period, something came up for Jae-min, requiring a brief visit to the faculty office.
After the third period, several kids clung to Jae-min’s seat to talk, refusing to budge. During the fourth period, a classmate spilled cola on Seung-pyo’s desk, keeping him trapped there while he cleaned it up. During lunch, Jae-min had a prior engagement with his reading club.
For hours, they couldn’t carve out a single moment for just the two of them.
‘This is bullshit.’
Seung-pyo’s insides were seething. In the end, without so much as a brush of fingertips, let alone a kiss, the fifth period approached. It was joint PE class.
Having rushed through lunch and digested it by moving around the playground or hallways, PE scheduled for the drowsy fifth period was usually unwelcome. However, a joint class with another section was a different story. This was because there was a set way to spend joint PE.
It started similarly to a regular PE class. Today, they were to practice dribbling, which would be evaluated in the practical performance test later.
But the students’ real interest wasn’t in the dribbling practice—which wasn’t even part of the evaluation—but in the inter-class basketball game that would take place 20 minutes before the end of class. Whenever it was a ball game day during joint lessons, the PE teacher always used these inter-class matches to pique the students’ interest. Today it was basketball, but sometimes it was soccer or volleyball.
“How should we set the strategy?”
Thump, thump, thump. With students from both classes bouncing balls everywhere, the wide gymnasium echoed with a noise that made one’s ears feel muffled. It was to the point where you couldn’t hear what someone was saying unless you were speaking right in their ear.
Even while practicing passes and dribbles in groups, the kids were diligently holding strategy meetings for the match. Since basketball is a five-person game, not everyone could participate. Many students didn’t want to step forward, so despite the teacher’s intention to include as many different students as possible, the players who actually took the court were usually the same faces.
One boy said solemnly,
“First off, Oh Seung-pyo and Ryu Jae-min have to be in. Ryu Jae-min! You’re playing, right?”
“Huh?”
“You’re playing in the match later, right?”
Jae-min, who had been practicing dribbling with another group, blinked in confusion as if caught off guard by the unexpected question, then gave a vague nod.
“Then come over here. Let’s talk!”
Jae-min moved over to Seung-pyo’s group. He stood there with a slightly awkward expression and asked cautiously,
“I’ve only played in one basketball match last year. Is it okay if I play?”
“You were damn good back then. We all saw it. Since you and Oh Seung-pyo are in the same class, our team’s strength is at an all-time high. We have to use you.”
Jae-min bounced the ball on the floor with a mysterious expression. He looked both happy and shy—an expression he had never once worn in front of Oh Seung-pyo.
Seung-pyo pouted for no reason. Who was the one who had pissed off this model student until he saw red and dragged him onto the court? Looking back, Oh Seung-pyo was Ryu Jae-min’s basketball mentor. He’d even given him a brief special lecture on the 3-point shot.
“Oh-Seung, what should we do?”
While he was grumbling to himself, a boy standing next to him asked. After all, whenever there was a basketball game, Oh Seung-pyo was always the most reliable asset, everyone’s ace, and the de facto manager.
Hmm. Seung-pyo pondered briefly and then spoke.
“First, Kim Kyung-won, you take center.”
“Me? Either you or Ryu Jae-min should do it. You guys are taller.”
The boy assigned the heavy responsibility of center asked back in surprise.
“Ryu Jae-min’s shooting and scoring ability are great. It’s a waste to just park him under the hoop.”
It wasn’t wrong, but strategically, it wouldn’t have been bad for the taller Jae-min to be the center. The center position is also crucial for shooting and scoring.
However, Seung-pyo recalled the matches from last year when he and Jae-min had each taken the center position. Since the center is responsible for defending the hoop, physical contact is essential.
Considering how much he and Ryu Jae-min had rubbed against each other while fighting for position… he reached the conclusion that there was no need to let some other guy rub against Ryu Jae-min like that. Even though he and Ryu Jae-min weren’t officially “anything,” they were, at the very least, kissing.
“And you guys know I don’t play center. So, Ryu Jae-min will be the small forward, and I’ll be the point guard.”
“You’re the point guard?”
The point guard focuses on passes and defense rather than scoring directly and must be able to read the path and flow of the game, so the position is often filled by a relatively shorter, quicker player.
Wasn’t it a waste of physique for Oh Seung-pyo to take that position? The kids looked skeptical when Oh Seung-pyo—who had grown rapidly in his second year and was now only a few steps away from 190 centimeters—decided to be the point guard.
“Ryu Jae-min, you just focus on finding open spaces and scoring. I’ll read the path and pass to you.”
“Uh…”
“The rest of you just run and read the flow with me. Let’s go with that as the main strategy for today.”
Once Seung-pyo finished speaking, everyone nodded. They were puzzled at first, but it was certainly a strategy the other class wouldn’t expect. Since Jae-min had played center in last year’s match and Oh Seung-pyo was also there, the opposing team would likely assume Jae-min would focus more on defense than scoring.
While the kids secretly admired him, thinking he was indeed smart for consistently ranking second in the whole school despite appearing to do nothing but play, Jae-min’s eyes darted around as if he were slightly nervous.
“I haven’t practiced once since last year’s match. Will it really be okay?”
“I don’t play that often either. It’s fine; your body remembers. It’ll come back to you as you play,” one of the boys replied, soothing Jae-min’s anxiety. Seung-pyo watched Jae-min quietly and then gestured.
“Come here.”
The two moved away from the other kids toward the hoop. Seung-pyo handed him the ball.
“I taught you how to shoot last year. Do it as you remember.”
With a nervous face, Jae-min’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he lifted the ball. He was careful not to put too much tension in his hands. With a determined face focusing on a single point, he glared at the hoop, bent his knees slightly, and then jumped low and lightly, silently extending his arm.
Before they knew it, the other kids were also staring at the two standing before the hoop. Carried by the gaze of the spectators, the ball flew cleanly, passing through the hoop without hitting the rim once and dropping smoothly.
While the ball bounced a few times on the floor and rolled to a stop, Jae-min, having succeeded in his first goal in a long time, stared blankly at the hoop. Seung-pyo asked in an indifferent tone,
“You remember. You can do it now, right?”
“…Yeah.”
“What are you doing? Go get the ball.”
As if snapping back to his senses, Jae-min immediately ran to retrieve the ball. Watching his back as he dashed away without a single word of protest, Oh Seung-pyo felt a secret sense of satisfaction.
“Alright, enough practice. Let’s start the match. Everyone’s been waiting, right?”
“Yes!”
“Have the players for each class been decided?”
“Yes.”
The teacher announced the end of practice and set the stage. The fact that Seung-pyo and Jae-min—who shared the top two ranks in the school and had shown the most exciting performance in last year’s freshman inter-class matches—were on the same team drew the crowd’s interest. Even the kids who would normally sneak glances at their phones to avoid the teacher’s gaze were heading toward the court today to watch the game.
As they took their positions on the court, the opposing class’s players already looked flustered. Just as Seung-pyo expected, the opposing team had clearly built their strategy assuming that either Ryu Jae-min or Oh Seung-pyo would be pulled back.
But there was no time to dwell on it. As the teacher threw the ball up in the center of the court to signal the start, the kids moved quickly to find their roles.
“Don’t lose sight of Oh Seung-pyo!”
The person the opposing class feared most was, needless to say, Seung-pyo. When the ball, which had been wandering for a moment, finally landed in Seung-pyo’s hands, a fairly large boy clung to him to mark him more closely. The other kids also shouted for them to block Oh Seung-pyo, raising the alert.
However, stealing the ball from Seung-pyo was no easy task. The defense waved their arms this way and that, aiming for the ball, but each time, Seung-pyo changed direction and dribbled around the interference. Then, instead of finding an open space to avoid the defense, he dove in the opposite direction where another opposing player was.
“Block him!”
As Seung-pyo drove the ball forward, another boy standing in the path clung to him. But again, Seung-pyo didn’t lose the ball and headed toward where yet another boy was standing. Eventually, with about three defenders clinging to him, even the great Oh Seung-pyo found it difficult to protect the ball.
Only then did Seung-pyo throw the ball. It wasn’t toward the hoop. In the open space that had naturally been created because three defenders had swarmed Seung-pyo, Jae-min was already standing in the most advantageous position to receive the pass.
The ball Seung-pyo threw arrived in Jae-min’s hands without hindrance. The panicked opposing players turned to block Jae-min, but Jae-min threw the ball without a moment’s hesitation. The ball in the air passed through the hoop accurately, just as it had during practice.
A cheer erupted from the watching students. The tension finally left Jae-min’s face, and his expression brightened instantly.
“That’s it!”
“Oh Seung-pyo’s aggro is insane today.”
With the first goal scoring quickly, the kids from Seung-pyo and Jae-min’s class were thrilled. Since they were in the middle of a game, they couldn’t fully indulge in their joy, but they expressed their excitement by shouting at Jae-min or reaching out to him.
“You’re still good! Why were you worried?”
“You said you didn’t practice, but if you’re this good, you’re a genius, a total genius.”
“No, I just got lucky this time.”
At the kids’ praise, Jae-min smiled brightly and gave high-fives to the hands reaching toward him. As he ran through the high-fives, Oh Seung-pyo stood at the end like a final destination. Jae-min, who had been smiling, suddenly looked awkward and lowered the hand he had been holding up.
Seung-pyo smirked. It was funny that he felt bashful about clashing hands when, in private, they were biting and sucking each other’s lips.
“Why aren’t you doing it with me?”
As he asked and raised his hand, the corners of Jae-min’s eyes turned faintly red. Only Oh Seung-pyo in this place could tell if the light blush on that pale face was due to the excitement of the first goal or because of the words he had just spoken. Seung-pyo shrugged and continued.
“You just keep doing exactly what I tell you.”
Instead of answering, Jae-min gave a blunt, short tap of their hands and turned back to his position. Seung-pyo lightly shook his hand.
The game resumed. The opposing team had likely figured out Seung-pyo’s strategy by now, but even knowing it, it wasn’t easy to avoid being lured in. The kids gathered for PE weren’t basketball team members; they were just ordinary boys who liked basketball. Even knowing that Seung-pyo was using a lure strategy, their eyes and bodies instinctively followed the ball when it passed by. They couldn’t just leave him alone, as it might actually be a drive for an attack rather than a lure.
Whenever a gap appeared, Seung-pyo threw the ball with perfect timing, giving Jae-min scoring opportunities. Jae-min, in turn, didn’t waste a single opportunity and converted them into goals.
By this point, complaints began to emerge even from their own teammates.
“Hey, Oh Seung-pyo! Why do you keep giving it only to Ryu Jae-min!”
“We’re open too!”
Seung-pyo waved his hand and replied,
“I know, I know. But it’s also your fault. It’s because Ryu Jae-min has the best positioning.”
At those words, Jae-min’s lips seemed to curl up slightly before he quickly pulled them down. He pressed his lips tight as if trying to suppress a smile. Seung-pyo pretended not to see that face and shouted at the other kids to hold their positions.
He had been surprised by Ryu Jae-min’s talent last year as well. For someone who had just learned basketball, his sense of the game was too good. However, in the last match, Ryu Jae-min had been the opponent—a cheeky brat who had made an arrogant bet and was grinding his teeth to beat Seung-pyo. He had no intention of praising him, nor any particular reason to be happy that his skills were improving by leaps and bounds.
But now, Ryu Jae-min and Oh Seung-pyo were on the same team. The words Seung-pyo had tossed to the other kids weren’t just empty talk. Every time Seung-pyo lured the defense away and looked for someone to pass to, Jae-min was ghost-like, occupying the most perfect spot.
‘Does this bastard seriously excel at everything?’
Despite feeling a slight, inevitable prickle of annoyance, Seung-pyo couldn’t suppress the surging thrill as he sent the pass. After all, Seung-pyo truly loved basketball, and being on a team with a talented classmate who was perfectly in sync with him was exciting.
“Now, seriously, hold your positions. Don’t get caught up in Oh Seung-pyo’s game.”
As they continued to fall for the same strategy, the opposing team’s attitude shifted. They began to keep their eyes wide open to avoid leaving any gaps and focused intensely so as not to be lured in by Seung-pyo.
As the opposing players began to grit their teeth and exercise self-control, Seung-pyo’s strategy hit a snag. Once the path from Oh Seung-pyo to Ryu Jae-min was blocked, the streak of consecutive scores slowed down.
Tight defense was now applied not only to Seung-pyo but to Jae-min as well. Jae-min struggled to find an open space to receive the ball, sprinting to shake off his defenders. Shouts warning others to keep an eye on Jae-min echoed throughout the gym.
“Hey, block Ryu Jae-min properly! He’s the one doing all the scoring right now!”
To prevent further points, the opposing defense chased after Jae-min. Seeing this, Seung-pyo once again timed it perfectly and sent a pass.
“Whoa!”
Another cheer of admiration erupted from the spectators.
Seung-pyo’s pass hadn’t gone to Jae-min, but to another teammate. The classmate who received the ball shot quickly, piercing through the gap left by the defenders who had been focused on stopping Jae-min, and scored.
“Ryu Jae-min just faked it, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, he intentionally went to the wrong spot to lure them away.”
Knowing that Jae-min was actually a basketball novice, the classmates watched the game with great interest. The same went for Seung-pyo, who was currently standing on the court.
He had only told him to receive the pass and score; he hadn’t given any instructions to deceive the opposing team with a fake. He had never taught him such a strategy. Ordinary guys could never come up with a play like that on their own after only two games. The corners of Seung-pyo’s mouth twitched upward.
‘Fuck, this is so much fun.’
Today’s game, where they were in perfect sync, was incredibly enjoyable. Despite that, Seung-pyo found himself wanting to end the game quickly.
Because he wanted to kiss Ryu Jae-min—who was exchanging “fighting” cheers with the other kids with a bright smile, unlike his usual self—even a second sooner.
As someone who enjoyed watching sports, Seung-pyo had often seen athletes kiss their high-contributing teammates in a burst of joy after winning a match. It was a common sight, especially in European football, but no matter how happy they were, kissing a male teammate had always looked like madness to Oh Seung-pyo.
Now, he felt he understood why those athletes did it. Just the thought of ending this amazing game with a victory made Seung-pyo want to pull Jae-min into his arms and kiss him right now. Although he played basketball often because he loved it, games rarely unfolded this interestingly; thanks to Ryu Jae-min, today’s match was truly exciting.
Driven by an even stronger desire for a victory kiss, Seung-pyo’s synergy with the other classmates—who were swept up in his momentum—became even more seamless. The flow of the game was surprisingly smooth, and the pace of scoring did not slow down.
In the end, the game ended with an overwhelming score difference, showing no sign of a comeback, until the teacher stopped the match five minutes before the end of class.
Some of the watching students cheered and ran onto the court to share the excitement. It wasn’t a sports day or a practical evaluation, just a class-vs-class match during PE, but the raw joy of the boys who had run their hardest and cheered for victory was real. The disappointment and gloom of the losing students were equally genuine.
The PE teacher, who had organized the match solely for the enjoyment of the lesson, blew his whistle loudly and made a decision to mediate the emotions.
“Alright, alright. The winning class cleans up the balls and equipment today.”
“What? We won, so why?”
“Because you won. It’d be too depressing if the losers had to clean up too.”
“Since when is that a thing?”
Though the students grumbled, they complied with the teacher’s instructions, picking themselves up to start tidying the area. The students who had been sulking after the loss cheered up slightly, as they could now return to the classroom early.
The PE teacher sighed, looking wistfully at Seung-pyo as he carried the balls.
“Oh Seung-pyo, if only you weren’t so bad at studying, I would have pushed you to play basketball no matter what…”
“Ah, I told you, sports are just a hobby. A hobby.”
The basketball boxes were divided between two carts. Seung-pyo grabbed the handle of one.
“I’ll take this to the storage room. You guys go ahead.”
“Really? But there are two, so I think one more person needs to go.”
“Ryu Jae-min, you want to come with me?”
Jae-min looked flustered, just as he had when first asked to join the basketball game, but soon nodded.
“Yeah.”
Grateful that someone was taking over the tedious cleanup, the other kids quickly patted the two on the shoulders.
“Right. The teacher said the winner cleans up. You guys did all the work today, so you do the putting away too.”
“Got it. Go on ahead.”
“Good luck!”
As the students exited the gym, joking and laughing, the space quickly fell silent. Of the two standing side-by-side holding the cart handles, Oh Seung-pyo was the first to speak.
“Hey, let’s just put these away quickly.”
Seung-pyo led the way, pulling the cart. Jae-min followed silently behind him. Rattle, rattle. The sound of the old wheels sliding across the smooth floor was quite loud.
Upon entering the sports storage room, Jae-min tried to take the box off the cart immediately, but before his hand could even touch the box, Seung-pyo, who was standing behind him, suddenly wrapped an arm around his shoulder.
“You…”
Before he could finish his sentence, Seung-pyo’s lips crashed onto Jae-min’s. However, he didn’t succeed in the kiss on the first try. Because he had rushed recklessly, Seung-pyo missed his target slightly and ended up kissing the bridge of Jae-min’s nose.
“What are you—ah, hey!”
Jae-min shouted, startled. If he had missed the mark, he should have moved away, but instead of pulling his lips back, Oh Seung-pyo played around by nibbling on the tip of Jae-min’s nose. Then, he whispered in a low voice.
“You really have a talent for basketball.”
His small voice was thick with heat. The opportunity to kiss, which he had been eyeing since morning, was finally within reach, and the excitement of victory that had kept Seung-pyo wired throughout the game had not yet faded.
“I know.”
However, Jae-min’s voice was as cold as ever. When the classmates had praised him, he had been uncharacteristically shy, unable to stop a timid smile, but toward Oh Seung-pyo’s evaluation, he was blunt, as if he didn’t care. Seung-pyo’s eyes narrowed displeasedly.
“You got good at basketball thanks to me, so why are you being so prickly?”
“Why is me being good at basketball thanks to you? It’s because I’m talented.”
“I kept pushing the passes to you today so you could score.”
“You said it yourself—it’s because I positioned myself well.”
“Fuck, you really are…”
Seung-pyo frowned and suddenly leaned his face in again. This time, their lips met accurately.
Again, neither of them closed their eyes. It was simply that the strength left the eyes of Jae-min, who had been fighting back against Seung-pyo. Even before tongues were involved, just the touch of their lips made him look like someone who was dizzy.
This was insane. Seeing Ryu Jae-min’s face, which looked like it could turn erotic at any moment, made Seung-pyo feel like he was going to get hard before they even started. Even the way his usually straight eyebrows were slightly furrowed, like someone in pain, was sexy. Instead of using his tongue, Seung-pyo lightly bit Jae-min’s lower lip and murmured even more mischievously.
“I just have to shut your mouth.”
“Hng…”
“So you… can’t talk…”
He wanted to threaten him more, but at the strange, barely audible sound that leaked out, this time Oh Seung-pyo was the first to close his eyes.
Then, a soft sensation touched the back of Seung-pyo’s neck. It took only a few seconds to realize it was Ryu Jae-min’s hand.
Last time, he had stood still like a scarecrow, just receiving whatever Seung-pyo did, but today was different. As fingers lightly brushed his nape, a chill ran down his spine and the area around his shoulder blades tingled.
“Mmm…”
Letting out a low moan unconsciously, Seung-pyo slowly opened his eyes. Jae-min now had his eyes closed. Because they were pressed so close, facing each other, everything looked blurry, but the sight of his long eyelashes trembling was clearly visible.
With his hand still on Seung-pyo’s neck, Jae-min was now the one moving his tongue first. His tongue, stroking the tip of the tongue, the inside of the gums, and the roof of the mouth slowly and evenly, would occasionally become stiff with too much force, then quickly soften as if he realized his mistake.
This was something Seung-pyo had been mindful of while kissing Jae-min. Advice to not put too much force into the tongue and to keep it soft was repeatedly emphasized in “How to Kiss Well.”
Then again, since Ryu Jae-min was a cyber-whore, his real-life kissing experience might be less than expected. Since he was the type to be anxious that someone might recognize him even at an arcade, he must have been very cautious about dangerous things like offline meetups. If so, there might not be a huge difference in skill between Jae-min and his first partner, Seung-pyo.
Thinking this gave Seung-pyo more confidence. He placed his hands on Jae-min’s cheeks instead of his neck and pushed his tongue deep into his mouth. Remembering that Jae-min had enjoyed it last time, he gently sucked on the tongue that was moving diligently, and sure enough, Jae-min’s voice grew louder.
“Mm, hng!”
At that sound, Seung-pyo’s lower abdomen and pelvis throbbed with a painful ache. A heat different from the one during the basketball game spread feverishly through his body.
Suddenly, he remembered last night’s dream. In the dream, for some reason, he had stripped Jae-min completely naked, forced him into a “parade rest” position, and was touching him. He wondered how the real Ryu Jae-min would react in the same situation.
Seung-pyo pulled down Ryu Jae-min’s hand, which was still resting on his neck. He arbitrarily twisted both of Jae-min’s arms behind his back, creating a posture just like in the dream. Jae-min’s diligently moving tongue paused for a moment in surprise, but it was only for an instant. He didn’t particularly resist and continued the kiss in the parade rest position.
Seung-pyo’s excitement surged rapidly at the way he complied so readily. His movements became rougher as he suddenly dug deep into the mouth.
“Hng, ah!”
A moan from the unguarded Jae-min escaped between their overlapping lips. Seung-pyo leaned his body into Jae-min as if putting his full weight into it. As if trying to avoid it, Jae-min stepped backward, and after a few steps without breaking the kiss, Jae-min’s back was leaning against the storage room wall.
With nowhere left to retreat, their bodies pressed tightly together. Seung-pyo licked the inside of the mouth even more viscously than before. Saliva spread outside their lips, creating more wet sounds than the last time they kissed.
Jae-min’s wrists, gripped tightly in Seung-pyo’s hands, twitched as if trembling. Because both of them were panting and exhaling rough breaths regardless of who was who, it was quite noisy despite their attempts to keep their voices down.
“Mmm, hng.”
How long had they been kissing? As his jaw and lips began to ache, Jae-min belatedly shook his head, trying to pull away from the kiss. Instead of letting go of his hands, Seung-pyo let go of his lips first. Haa. Both of them let out a deep breath. Jae-min was panting with his head slightly bowed.
“This…”
He probably tried to say “let go,” but Jae-min’s mouth closed again. It was because Seung-pyo’s lips covered the outer rim of Jae-min’s ear. The strength left Jae-min’s face once more.
“Ah…!”
As if trying to avoid the lips biting his ear, he jerked his head to the opposite side, letting out a sound that was half-sigh, half-erotic moan. His still-captured wrists twitched again. It was a gesture that seemed to be debating whether to firmly push Oh Seung-pyo away or receive a few more kisses.
Seung-pyo traced the line of Jae-min’s side profile down to his jaw with his lips. At that, Jae-min truly shuddered and tried to shake Seung-pyo off.
“Just… keep… your word, hng…!”
“What word?”
“In school… this kind of thing.”
Actually, even without those words, Seung-pyo couldn’t do anything more. There wasn’t much time left in the break.
With a lingering sense of regret, he let go of Jae-min’s wrists. Leaning against the wall, Jae-min panted with a half-dazed expression, unable to snap out of it immediately. Seung-pyo stared at that face, bit the inside of his cheek hard, and snapped his fingers in front of Ryu Jae-min’s eyes.
“Hey, wake up. We’re out of time. We have to go back to the classroom now.”
“Fuck, you should’ve known when to stop. You went on for too long…”
Trailing off as if embarrassed, Jae-min looked down at both his wrists. He didn’t think he had gripped them that hard, but faint finger marks remained on the white wrists. Seung-pyo felt awkward too.
“Did it hurt?”
“Forget it. Let’s just go.”
Perhaps because they were short on time, Jae-min pulled down his shirt sleeves to hide the finger marks instead of blaming Seung-pyo.
How long does he have to be like this? While the kissing was great, the more Seung-pyo did it, the thirstier he felt. If kissing Ryu Jae-min was water, it was certainly seawater, not fresh water.
He wanted to strip Ryu Jae-min’s clothes off and stroke his bare skin, just like in the dream. He was dying to see and touch the heat held within his pants, just as he was now, and to see Jae-min’s reaction to see if he truly liked it as he did in the dream.
“Hey, Ryu Jae-min.”
“What? Hurry up. You said there’s no time.”
“When are you okay with things other than kissing?”
Jae-min looked at Seung-pyo with an expression that asked why the hell he was asking that now. A hint of the awkwardness typical of someone who had received a difficult-to-answer question was also mixed in.
“I told you, I don’t know.”
This was probably the first time in the life of the top student, Ryu Jae-min, that he had given a series of “I don’t know” answers to a question.
Perhaps last night’s dream was a precognitive dream. Or maybe it was a revelation from heaven to lead Oh Seung-pyo on the path to achieving his goal. Seung-pyo spoke, just as he had in the dream.
“Then you want to bet?”
“What bet?”
“I don’t want to just wait blindly until you say you’re okay with it. We’re not dating, and it’s not like I’m chasing you because I like you, so do I really have to go that far?”
“Then what do you want to do?”
Neither of them lacked a competitive streak. Ryu Jae-min was someone who had even placed a bet on basketball, a sport where he was far behind in skill. He was a guy whose pride was as much the top in the school as his grades. Seung-pyo believed that Ryu Jae-min would accept this bet one hundred percent.
“Midterms are next month, right?”
“Yeah.”
“If I beat you, let me move further in progress.”
Jae-min’s eyes widened at Seung-pyo’s unexpected proposal.
Perhaps it was too out of the blue, as an immediate “yes” didn’t come from Jae-min’s mouth. Thinking that he was being too cautious for someone who had monopolized the top spot in the school all year, Seung-pyo continued provocatively.
“Why aren’t you answering? Not confident?”
“No.”
Jae-min, finally speaking, still had a bewildered expression.
“I was just surprised that you’re so out of touch with your own reality.”
“Isn’t the possibility of me getting one more test question right than you higher than the possibility of you beating me in a basketball game?”
He was referring to the reckless bet Jae-min had placed first last year. Jae-min snorted.
“Still, that was a team game, so there was a possibility. Though the probability was low.”
“The difference between first and second in the school is just a hair. Your grades and mine aren’t that vastly different.”
“That ‘hair’—you couldn’t catch up to it once last year.”
Threat for threat, provocation for provocation. One wondered if Ryu Jae-min’s life manual was the Code of Hammurabi. His expression as he spat out those annoying words was as detached as ever.
Seung-pyo’s eyes narrowed. He really did need to shut him up. In the past, he would have wanted to throw a punch at that obnoxious face for mentioning “reality” to someone’s face, but perhaps because they had become a couple who kissed from time to time, he didn’t feel like hitting him even after hearing those nerve-wracking words. If he got a bruise, Seung-pyo would only lose out by having to look at an ugly face every time they kissed.
“Since you put it that way, I really want to make this bet.”
Rather than dampening his spirits, it only served to fuel his competitive fire. No joke, the fight for the top spot in any field is truly a matter of a hair’s breadth. If Seung-pyo got just one or two more questions right, the name written at the very top of the poster could be replaced at any time.
When Seung-pyo answered with a feigned smile, Jae-min tilted his gaze slightly, lost in thought, and then spoke.
“And if I win?”
“Since you’re the one who wins, you should set the conditions.”
“I don’t really want to do anything else with you yet, other than kissing.”
“Then you set a different condition.”
At that, Jae-min nodded, looking as if he had just remembered something.
“Send the video.”
“Video?”
“At first, you said you’d send a photo, but then you changed your mind. Send that. Since it’s the condition for losing the bet, a video would be better than a photo. Film it so both your face and voice are in it.”
“Do you really want to see me jerking off that badly?”
“Saying it like that isn’t going to make me change the conditions.”
Seung-pyo had seen a masturbation video of Ryu Jae-min before. However, that video had vanished when Ryu Jae-min’s SNS account was deleted, and since it was a video without a face or sound to begin with, there would have been no way to identify it as Ryu Jae-min even if he saw it again.
But Ryu Jae-min was demanding something far more extreme. A masturbation video—not even a photo—with both face and voice included…
“I don’t need to do these trashy bets, so if you don’t like it, just drop it.”
Before he could even seriously consider it, Jae-min decisively cut him off. Of course, Seung-pyo knew. The reason Ryu Jae-min was making such high-level demands wasn’t because he actually wanted a masturbation video of Oh Seung-pyo, but to make him give up on the bet proposal altogether.
Contrary to his words, it meant that Jae-min wasn’t entirely confident in his own victory. Then again, there was no way the top student wouldn’t know something the second-ranked student knew.
Just as Seung-pyo was about to answer, his phone vibrated. The group chat he shared with his classmates was noisy.
Oh Seung, what are you doing? Hurry up.
Teachers are coming.
Are you locked in the storage room?
Break time was almost over, and the conversation was dragging on. Seung-pyo put his phone in his pocket.
“Class is starting, so let’s go back to the classroom first. We can finish this conversation later.”
“I told you to drop it if you lack confidence.”
“It’s not that I lack confidence, it’s that I don’t have time.”
When Seung-pyo grabbed his hand and pulled, Jae-min frowned. Seung-pyo continued talking as they walked.
“Give me your number. We can talk about this over the phone.”
“I don’t want to talk about this over the phone.”
How picky. But he didn’t have the luxury to grumble further. Leaving the gym, the two began to sprint across the playground without needing to decide who would go first. Seung-pyo was slightly ahead, but their short-distance sprinting speeds were nearly identical.
Arriving at the classroom, the two caught their breath and sat in their respective seats.
* * *
Today, he was unlucky until the very end.
There were distractions all day, and even after PE class, minor interruptions kept coming, so he ultimately couldn’t finalize the bet. No matter how much he lowered his voice, it wasn’t the kind of conversation to have in a place with other people.
‘That’s why I told him to give me his number.’
After showering, Seung-pyo flopped onto his bed and opened his messenger app. School friends, middle and elementary school alumni, cousins, Dad, Auntie, aunts, Grandfather, Grandmother…
Inside the palm-sized device, small rooms where he could talk to close people at any time were huddled together. Communication channels with people he barely contacted anymore were still open, yet the only chat window missing was the one with Ryu Jae-min, whose lips he had touched just this afternoon. It felt strange, like a hole punched through a puzzle that had been perfectly fitted together.
Classmates usually exchange phone numbers easily, even if they aren’t particularly close. He could find out quickly if he asked the guys who used to practice basketball with Ryu Jae-min in the first year, but if he contacted him using a secretly obtained number and got blocked, it would only make him furious.
“Hm?”
A notification popped up on his phone.
betting_1_2 has started following you.
Seung-pyo had grown indifferent to the SNS he used to be active on in middle school, so he only occasionally browsed his friends’ accounts. Because of that, his follower list had stopped updating long ago, but a new follower had suddenly appeared on his neglected account.
“Betting?”
Is it an illegal gambling ad account? Just as Seung-pyo was about to hit the block button, his hand paused.
He clicked the ID that followed him and went to the main link. Only a large picture of a lock greeted him. It was a private account that could only be unlocked if the owner permitted it.
‘Betting, 1, 2… Betting… A bet?’
No way. Seung-pyo sat up abruptly. As soon as he hit the follow-back button, a message arrived within a few minutes.
Since you said let’s talk over the phone.
The arrogant manner of suddenly finding his SNS through a private account and starting to say what he wanted without an introduction or a greeting. Even without further confirmation, it was definitely Ryu Jae-min. Seung-pyo sent a reply.
Why here instead of the messenger?
I prefer this.
He really was a secretive, gloomy guy who liked to plot things quietly behind the scenes. Tsk, tsk. While Seung-pyo clicked his tongue, an additional message from Jae-min arrived.
If we’re going to bet, I think we need to clearly define how far the “progress” you mentioned goes.
Although he had zero practical experience, Seung-pyo had seen and heard things in his eighteen years of life. He naturally knew that sexual stages were quite subdivided.
And Ryu Jae-min likely had far more knowledge about these things than he did. Since exchanging dirty talk with perverts must have been a daily routine for him at one point. Seung-pyo raised an eyebrow in disapproval and typed a reply.
How far are you willing to go?
What do you want to do?
Sex.
The final boss of words reflexively popped into his head, but Seung-pyo shook his head in shock, pushing away the illicit red word.
While he couldn’t take back the first kiss he had impulsively given away, there was still a vast, unknown world left for Seung-pyo. He had never dated, nor did he have any experience with dating.
There were plenty of people who sent signals that they wanted to date him… but he didn’t know. There were many girls he got along with, but he had never met someone he liked enough to actually want to date. Moreover, he hated the idea of things becoming awkward for everyone if they dated and then broke up.
In the end, in a situation where he hadn’t even had his first girlfriend, having his first experience with Ryu Jae-min—another man—would be a crazy act that he couldn’t even excuse as an impulsive action. He wanted to save actual sex for later, in college, when he found someone he liked. He was already dying of regret for wasting his first kiss like that…
‘This bastard is a whore and I’m a virgin, so I’m the one who’s too good for this.’
He should preserve the new stuff and use the dick he’d already used. Seung-pyo sent a reply.
I want to kiss other places besides the lips.
And
I’ll give you a handjob.
You psycho.
And show me you doing it from behind by yourself.
Even after reading the message, Ryu Jae-min remained silent. Seung-pyo knew this wasn’t the first time such a request had been made.
When he had browsed the SNS Jae-min used to run, he had frequently seen perverts asking him to show himself masturbating from behind, which was why Jae-min could make such a request. For the ignorant Oh Seung-pyo, it was a condition he wouldn’t have dared to even imagine on his own.
It seemed Jae-min had never granted that request. He had only seen replies consistently saying he didn’t have the courage yet; he had never seen a single photo or video of him actually doing it from behind.
If those replies weren’t lies, this might be the first challenge even for the cyber-whore. It was understandable why the deliberation was taking so long. The answer that came back after a long while wasn’t a conclusion, but a question.
Why on earth do you want to see that??
Seeing three question marks, he seemed genuinely curious.
I wonder, why do I want to see it? After a brief internal monologue to a question he had never considered, Seung-pyo answered.
I’ve seen everything else before you blew up your account.
He’d seen photos taken naked outdoors, seen him masturbating in real-time, seen him certify by writing requested words on his bare thighs, seen him wearing strange underwear…
His pure imagination couldn’t possibly surpass the veteran perverts who left comments on that SNS, and making him do things he’d already done would be boring. In the end, only one condition remained that was worth putting as a bet.
Anyway
After sending those two words first, Ryu Jae-min was quiet for a moment before continuing.
You can’t beat me.
Seung-pyo grinned. His fingers moved faster on the keypad.
So you’re saying you’ll take the bet?
You make it clear first. Sending the video.
I’m not even saying I’ll take photos of you, so it’s too unbalanced for you to have a video.
I do it from behind and you do it from the front; is that balanced?
I’m a low-level and you’re a high-level, so this difference is relative equality.
If you don’t want to do it, just quit.
Then we agree to film it without faces?
After another long silence, a single word popped up.
Agreed.
Done. Seung-pyo grit his teeth. Suddenly, it felt as if his whole body was on fire with a longing for victory.
This was no time to be lying lazily on his bed. Midterms were coming in about a month. It was a stinging point, but it was a stark fact that he hadn’t been able to close the tiny gap with Ryu Jae-min throughout the past year, and to overtake Ryu Jae-min in a month, he needed an effort incomparable to last year.
Seung-pyo sprang up and sat at his desk. A motivation qualitatively different from before surged in his chest like a powerful wave.