DD 3.1 Desire for change

I don’t know why I came here.

It wasn’t a judgment made with consideration for the outcome or consequences in a normal state of mind. My steps towards this place, which I had only visited once before, were guided by my subconscious.

Like an ant or a moth that instinctively changes direction towards a safe place upon sensing the approach of cruel fingers trying to crush it. I walked frantically, desperately, and found myself here.

It hadn’t even been two hours since we parted at the bus stop across from the church, and it was only after arriving before the heavy, firmly shut gates that I realized he must be out enjoying a second round with others.

After ducking under the brick roof above the gate and setting my umbrella in a corner, I hugged myself, my trembling, wet body swept by my arms. Despite having used an umbrella to get here, my hair and my entire body were drenched. I had only unconsciously held onto the handle, without even thinking of properly shielding myself from the rain.

I took my phone out of my jeans pocket and made a call. In a normal state, I wouldn’t have even come to this house, let alone dared to call after showing up unannounced.

But my fingers, as they dialed ‘Representative,’ sweeping down my wet face, were devoid of my usual hesitation or consideration for polite formalities. When cornered, humans omit such courtesies to survive and can act entirely out of character.

Politeness, the personality I know as myself, was not the solid form and substance that constituted me.

That wasn’t the only vulnerable, flimsy part.

No matter how much I pretended to be stoic, I wanted to mock myself harshly and curse my own social and mental weakness, which could only falter when safety and peace were threatened by external intervention.

I had mistaken the dullness of nothing happening for peace.

Becoming numb was also a completely different concept from becoming strong.

I hadn’t known until now.

I thought I had merely chosen to be defensive rather than aggressive, but I had simply been hiding myself in a situation where nothing could happen, where aggression was impossible. How could I defend myself if there was no attack?

My daily life was, at best, based on an infinitely unstable, thin glass floor that could only be maintained if nothing happened.

I was no different from the sixteen-year-old me, who was exposed to external attacks in a defenseless state and was tossed around, leaving scars. The metallic coldness of the thick iron gate against my back felt chilling to the bone.

I don’t know how much time passed. It felt like five minutes, and also like an agonizingly long time.

The headlights illuminating the rain from the alley below, facing the road, entered the area. Before the car, which had driven straight up without turning, had even properly stopped at the gate, there was the sound of someone hastily jumping out.

I slowly raised my head.

Before I could even fully lift my head, a figure who had run under the roof draped his jacket over my shoulders. This was before he asked anything or spoke a greeting.

The thin summer jacket covered my wet shoulders, and he pulled me into an embrace without a word.

His presence, undeniably clear and free of any uncertainty, held me. The solidity and warmth of his chest and shoulders, pulling me away from the coldness at my back, spoke of his strength, different from mine, the condensation of his solitary time spent forging himself.

As he opened the garage door with the remote and asked the valet to park, I repeatedly mumbled within his arms, “I’m going to draw,” and “Help me.” Like an unknown actor, with no talent but full of desperation, who participated in an audition with only one line prepared.

He adjusted the jacket several times, holding me tighter. The hands that wrapped around my waist, across my back, and over my shoulders were like a rope, pulling me taut to prevent me from falling further into unproductive self-loathing and sentimental self-pity.

Feeling the overwhelming anxiety subside just by the sound of his voice, murmuring curses softly as he buried his face in my shoulder, pressing my head against him, I closed my eyes tightly.

He must have been curious and surprised, having been called out from outside when I was at his house. Yet, he did nothing but drive away the coldness within me with his own body heat, asking no questions.

Still holding me, he paid the valet and, tightening the jacket around me, led me inside the gate. I felt the driver’s curious gaze glancing at us, but I didn’t care.

His dark garden, where the rain poured down, smelled of air and moisture thick and settled, like a deep forest. It felt like a different place from the garden on that day when I enjoyed a picnic reminiscent of the March Hare and the Mad Hatter’s tea party with Yooni Noona and Juhan Hyung.

Passing through the eerie garden, where a monster in a raincoat might jump out from behind the dark bushes at any moment, we entered the house, where I felt a soft air distinctly different from the outside.

With a look of realization, he furrowed his brow and bit his lip slightly.

“Wait here for a moment.”

I knew what he was worried about as he hurried to disappear towards the living room. At first, I thought he was going to get a towel, but his face, full of dismay, suggested otherwise. The painting. He was clearly trying to hide .

As he tried to move towards the hallway from the entrance, I grabbed the side of his shirt near his hip and shook my head.

The painting itself isn’t the problem. My reaction then was about all the past events the painting brought to mind when I encountered it completely unprepared.

“It’s okay. It’s… really okay now.”

“……”

Despite being drenched, my voice was dry and raspy.

He stopped and looked down at me. Then, with a touch that was almost too gentle, he put his arm around my shoulder again and said, as if soothing a child,

“Then let’s go to the study. It’s warmer there.”

Water dripped from my t-shirt and jeans, and my wet socks left marks on the clean wooden tiles, but he pulled me by the shoulder, telling me not to worry.

Going up to the second floor, he led me not to the study, but to the bathroom. It was the bathroom attached to his bedroom, which I had used before.

“Warming up is the priority,” he said to me, standing stiffly at the bathroom entrance, clutching the hem of the jacket he had draped over me. “You don’t have to use soap, just soak in the warm water for a bit.”

Bending down, he lightly stirred the water filling the bathtub with his fingertips as if gauging its temperature, and then, turning back to me, he added,

“The cold that has seeped into your body won’t return quickly unless you do this.”

I didn’t want to be more of a burden than I already was, but I also didn’t want to worry him. I nodded.

He dissolved a subtly scented bath salt into the tub instead of bubble bath, adjusted the dial to lower the bathroom’s lighting, and then carefully removed the jacket I had been clutching as if it were a lifeline from my shoulders.

As his gaze swept over my entire body, I became self-conscious about my clothes, which were soaked and clinging to me. I pulled the front of my t-shirt away from my body with my hands, and he chuckled.

“Make sure your head gets properly warm too,” he said, lightly ruffling my wet hair, and then went outside, closing the bathroom door.

I was bewildered, as if a part of my memory had been cut out, wondering how I ended up in his bathroom, but for now, it seemed best to follow his instructions. My meager pride wouldn’t help me in a situation I couldn’t handle without assistance.

With difficulty, I took off my wet clothes and hesitantly stepped into the bathtub. As my frozen body sank into the slightly hot water, my skin tingled. It was a sensation I would only feel in winter.

I scooped up water with my palms and poured it over my face and hair. My body was relaxing, but it couldn’t melt the rigidity of my mind. As I straightened my body, trying to ward off the returning threat, I shook my head. Then, a short knock, and the door opened about half a foot.

“May I come in?”

The door opened towards the shower stall, not the bathtub. I could only hear his voice, not see his face.

I was self-conscious about being naked, but I couldn’t make a fuss and ask him to leave.

“Yes…”

He came in with clothes to change into and a mug. After placing the clothes on a shelf mounted on the wall near the door, he approached me. I awkwardly drew my knees up to cover myself, and he chuckled softly from above me.

“What’s with the formality…”

“……”

Feeling my earlobes heat up at his amused voice, I accepted the mug he handed me. It was warm milk.

“Drink some. It will warm you up and calm you down.”

“Thank you…”

Whether he had deliberately warmed the mug as well as the milk, the ceramic surface was hot to the touch.

Holding the mug and taking a sip or two of the milk, I looked up at him, still standing there.

With his hands on his hips, looking down at me, he had the expression of a owner looking at a dog that had run away from home, caused worry, and only returned after sunset.

It was an expression like one who wants to be angry at the dirty, injured appearance of a dog that had rolled in mud, rummaged through trash, and fought with other dogs, but at the same time, feels pity and can’t bring themselves to be angry.

Feeling like a runaway dog with nothing to say, my gaze naturally fell downwards again. He let out a long sigh.

“Come out when you’re warm enough. And change into these new clothes.”

My initial negative impression and harsh judgment of him felt like a distant memory. Though not as much as Yooni Noona and Juhan Hyung, he had gradually begun to show me his kindness. I didn’t know how much our personal relationship, having shared intimacy, had influenced it, but it was clear that his current kindness wasn’t just because we had slept together.

After a long bath until the mug’s warmth had faded, I emerged, clutching the wet towel I had used to dry myself, and hesitantly walked out of the bathroom. He was sitting on the single sofa in the bedroom, drinking whiskey. In many ways, the situation was similar to the first day I came to this room, and my mouth felt dry.

He stood up at my approach and came closer, rubbing the tips of my wet hair with his fingers, and said it would be good to dry my hair. Fearing he might offer to dry it himself, I obediently agreed.

Sitting in front of the mirror by the bathroom entrance to dry my hair, he leaned against the wall behind me, watching me through the mirror.

Thinking it was completely dry, I placed the hairdryer on the vanity and looked at him in the mirror. He uncrossed his arms, approached silently, turned the hairdryer back on, and deeply intertwined his fingers to thoroughly dry my scalp. It seemed he wasn’t satisfied with how I had done it.

Putting down the hairdryer, he placed his right hand on the top of my head and gazed at me in the mirror for a moment. When our eyes met, he tightened his grip, pressed my head once, and then disappeared from the mirror first.

It was a touch like one who, unaware of how worried they had been, would finally pinch a dog that had returned home looking nonchalant, eating and playing with toys as usual, finding it annoying.

Rubbing the top of my head where his hand had touched, I got up from the mirror.

We moved to the study.

Even though it was now the height of summer, the floor had a faint warmth, as if the boiler was on. Yet, my body didn’t feel hot. I couldn’t gauge how long I had trembled with tension and fear, or what time it was in the early morning.

His study, furnished with a heavy mahogany bookshelf and decorated with somber colors and furniture, was antique but not authoritarian. It felt less like a space solely for reading and intellectual pursuits and more like a small reception room that also served for discussions and socializing with acquaintances.

He invited me to sit in a chair with a high back and plush cushions, then walked over to a small bar-like cabinet and turned on the electric kettle to boil water, pouring whiskey and tonic water into glasses.

Sitting awkwardly in the chair, I looked at his back, turned away from me, as the dehumidifier hummed and whirred. I gathered my courage.

“Um… I’m sorry.”

He turned his head and looked back at me.

“For contacting you so suddenly and making you come over… You must have been surprised.”

He approached me with a teacup on a coaster and a rocks glass, and instead of reacting to what I said, he told me he wouldn’t give me alcohol, handing me a white teacup with a pale green tea gently steeped in it.

“I need to hear what you have to say with a clear head,” he added sternly, like a growl mixed with a hint of playfulness, and sat in the chair opposite me. I actually wanted to borrow the help of alcohol, but given my current position as a misbehaving dog, I obediently nodded and wrapped my hands around the warmth of the teacup.

After sipping the tea slowly, as if savoring it, he slowly turned the cup in his hand and said in a softer voice,

“While the sudden contact surprised me, coming home was my decision, so you don’t need to apologize. If you hadn’t wanted to, I would have told you to go back.”

He was not the kind of person I was getting to know through my own experiences, yet he evaluated himself as quite cold-blooded.

“I’m glad you want to draw… but I didn’t expect you to show up looking like someone being chased by a ghost and surrender like this.”

He placed his glass on the small table next to his chair. His gaze, which had been angled towards my shoulder, slowly moved up to meet my eyes.

“You asked for help, didn’t you?”

“……”

“How can I help you? Tell me what kind of help you want.”

I had said that at the gate. That I would draw, and that I needed help. It was a subconscious mumble, but I knew why I had said it.

Fiddling with the teacup and only twitching my lips, unable to speak, he looked at me and sighed, “Hmm.”

“I’m not God, but I can resolve most practical problems that occur in the secular world to some extent. Probably. So, trust me and speak.”

In fact, I believed in his abilities more than he thought. It was almost an absolute faith, like a child’s belief in a superhero, so much so that I was surprised myself when I realized it. If I hadn’t vaguely believed that there were no problems he couldn’t practically solve, I wouldn’t have run here like a mad person through the rain in my subconscious.

The hesitation was because, to ask for his help, I would have to reveal the stories of others, not just my own.

Taking a deep breath and exhaling the air I had inhaled, I began to speak with a slight tremor.

“That I’m being chased. That I have to hide.”

“……”

His eyes flickered, narrowing slightly. As if he hadn’t expected me to bring that up.

“To be precise, it’s the situation of my Hyung and Noona, who I lived with.”

From what I knew from working together, he and the manager had a relationship that went beyond mere business partners, almost like family, having been connected since Hong Kong. Yet, they did not share each other’s secrets.

When asking for favors to accommodate my somewhat complicated situation in the process of becoming a Phantom employee, the manager had not told him the details of that complicated situation, and he, in turn, had not demanded an explanation, citing that he couldn’t hire me without knowing the full details.

His not asking about my reaction to was probably for similar reasons.

He doesn’t easily touch upon the difficult parts of others that they clearly don’t want to reveal. Not out of shallow curiosity, but even if he had genuine interest, he would still refrain.

If I wanted him to know about myself, if I needed him to, I had to open my mouth myself.

It wasn’t easy to speak, like forcing a rusty spring that hadn’t been used for a long time.

“That it could all be over, today… I realized that.”

In the dim shadow of the umbrella, the moment I recognized Great Uncle standing there like a phantom, I intuitively knew that we had been playing house until now, on their terms, or at least on Morae’s Father’s palm.

Morae’s prediction was correct.

They already knew our whereabouts, and were merely waiting for the right timing, letting us have one move.

I had grabbed Great Uncle’s hand and blindly descended the stairs. Our household didn’t have the money to hire someone to tail us. It was obvious that Great Uncle was merely a messenger bringing word from Morae’s Father.

We entered a run-down skewer restaurant, about a two to three-minute walk from the bus stop. Under the dim light, made even more pallid by the stained lampshades, I examined Great Uncle’s face closely and could tell that he had been severely harassed after we left.

It wasn’t an unexpected turn of events. Though we hadn’t spoken of it, Hyung and Morae were clearly aware that they had made this choice by hurting and sacrificing many things, and they were prepared for the lifelong guilt that would follow. I had anticipated the pressure they would exert on our household from her home, but in their words, they had “selfishly chosen” to feign ignorance.

When we took over the boat, our household, like all the others in the village, had taken out a loan from Mr. Im’s household. There were likely smaller debts accumulated even before that. Great Uncle paused his lips tightly, his mouth forming a thin line, making the deep wrinkles around it even more pronounced, as he spoke of the dunning that began about a month after we left, and the final ultimatum they received a week ago.

“Either repay the debt within a month, or bring Seo Yi-han, who spirited away my daughter, and make him kneel before me and apologize.”

That was Mr. Im’s demand, no, his command.

Just as water droplets were dripping from my hair, though I was wearing an umbrella, similarly, water droplets pooled at the brim of Great Uncle’s hat, which he wore pulled down low, and fell with a heavy plop onto the table, despite him also wearing an umbrella.

After canceling the draft beer and ordering soju, Great Uncle downed two glasses in quick succession, then rubbed his wet face with his thick, rough hands. Those hands, which seemed impervious to being pierced by nails, were powerless against the task of merely surviving day to day.

No, did Grandfather or Great Uncle even have the opportunity to contemplate the concept of ‘life’?

For them, who had only focused on pushing each day forward, wasn’t the word ‘life’ itself, which requires a holistic and three-dimensional perception rather than a partial one, a luxurious philosophy?

Great Uncle had not come to us to lead his life in a desired direction, but out of necessity for the bare minimum of survival each day.

“As long as the debt exists, our household cannot be free from that household. And… your Great Uncle’s circumstances are not good enough to live without debt.”

Looking down at the third glass, which had been poured but left untouched, Great Uncle mumbled this, and I felt no resentment or anger towards Morae and Hyung. Instead, his face was pained, as if he were being forced to participate in something he disagreed with. I could easily imagine the mental battle he must have had with Morae’s Father before coming to find us, the hours spent regretting his own incompetence, despairing, and downing soju.

Everyone, in their own position, was making the choices they were forced to make. The misalignment of relationships brought about by each of those choices, and the widening chasm it created, seemed immeasurable by any wisdom.

Except for the fact that Morae was an Alpha, I told him most of the situation.

The vast disparity in the financial situations of the two families, the resulting opposition and conflict, pressure and threats, rebellion and severance leading to an extreme choice. And the repeated pressure and threats that could not accept that choice.

The history of the two people I love was summarized so simply.

Was it possible that the unique essence of Im Morae and Seo Yi-han had vanished, leaving only the archetype of a runaway young couple in love? I resented my own poor speaking skills, which were utterly insufficient to convey the uniqueness of someone’s life in a few minutes of conversation.

I fell silent for a moment, feeling as if I had done something terrible to Morae and Hyung.

“Hmm.” He crossed his arms, exhaled a long breath, his eyes seeming to retrace the content.

“So, you came here after preventing Great Uncle from meeting the two of them, and Seo Yi-hyun is trying to resolve this without their knowledge?”

His question held no hint of criticism, no accusation of it being a foolish act.

“…Yes.”

By some stroke of courage, I had asked for just one day’s time, promising to devise a plan and contact him again tomorrow, and then I had rushed here immediately after parting ways with Great Uncle.

“So, you’re saying you want to prevent them from returning to the village, aren’t you?”

He didn’t show surprise at hearing something unexpected, nor did he display any displeasure at having to listen to such a messy, personal story when he had merely proposed drawing a picture.

He approached the core of the matter directly, like the head of a private investigator who routinely dealt with such situations, excluding unnecessary sentimentality or curiosity. It was I who was bewildered by his attitude.

But he was right. To put it in a nutshell, that was it.

Now that Morae’s Father had started to make a move, the priority was to get the two of them to a safe place as quickly as possible. The extra day I had secured from Great Uncle was ultimately for this reason.

“I don’t want anyone… to get hurt.”

I said this, rubbing the cooled surface of the teacup I held without taking a sip.

He picked up the glass he had set down and, while drinking, glanced at me and smiled.

“Why, do you think I’ll hurt someone to solve the problem?”

“…….”

His subtly smiling face seemed to say that he wasn’t incapable of doing so, that he could approach the problem in such a way if he so chose.

It was a face that reminded me of when he had warned me about my life with the manager, saying, “Safely. Peacefully. I want you to have a safe life. Okay, Seo Yi-hyun?”

“Well, yes. In any case, money will be needed.”

He fiddled with his on-the-rocks glass, his legs crossed, and looked down towards my feet. Then, as if talking to himself, he murmured,

“I’ll draw a picture. Help me. That’s what this meant.”

“…….”

The decision to draw again had been solidifying for some time, but his interpretation wasn’t wrong.

The only painting of mine he knew was a single piece completed several years ago, and I could not assert anything about my current painting abilities. Yet, to ask for help as if my skills held some value… I knew how disadvantageous that proposal must seem from his perspective. But I had no other cards to play. I couldn’t just rely on his kindness without reason and ask for help.

He placed his glass back on the table, resting both arms on the armrests and clasping his hands loosely.

“I’ll pay an advance on the contract fee. Seo Yi-hyun, you’re someone I’m interested in and have persuaded, so I can certainly offer that kind of special treatment.”

It was a refreshingly unhesitating response.

Surprised, I stared blankly at his face, having expected some questions, deliberation, and the presentation of conditions. To me, he asked how much money was needed to set things right.

It might not be a fundamental solution, but a fundamental solution was impossible in the current situation anyway. The harsh days for Grandfather and Great Uncle would continue due to Mr. Im’s anger, but… getting the two of them to a safe place was the priority. We had to prevent this escape from ending in a clumsy act of defiance.

His expression subtly contorted upon hearing the amount, 30 million won. He looked as if he doubted his ears, or as if he had heard something extremely unpleasant.

“Are you saying that household is harassing Seo Yi-hyun’s family so much using a debt of 30 million won as leverage?”

“Ah… that’s not it.”

I explained that what I wanted to resolve first was sending Morae and Hyung to Bali. I wanted them to leave Korea as soon as possible, within the next few days if possible. Their plan had already been delayed enough because of me.

The light from the stand placed between him and me, lit instead of the ceiling lights, cast long, distinct shadows of his eyelashes on his cheek. After tapping the rim of his glass for a moment in thought, he shifted his gaze to me.

“Instead of that, let’s eliminate the root cause together. If Seo Yi-hyun’s family’s debt is paid off, at least the direct cause of the threat will be somewhat removed, won’t it?”

“But that would be too much money….”

For him, 70 million won or 100 million won might not be a large sum. It probably wasn’t. The fact that people’s daily lives could become arduous and their lives swayed by others because of such an amount might be incomprehensible to him, and thus infuriating.

However, that was the reality for Grandfather, Great Uncle, and many others. Even though they sailed every day from dawn till dusk, their hands perpetually smelling of fish, Grandfather and Great Uncle had been poor their entire lives. If they hadn’t bought the boat with a loan, the situation would have been worse. The debt to Mr. Im wasn’t the only one. Money was needed for endless things, like pouring water into a bottomless pit, and taking in Father and me as dependents was one of the misfortunes that followed in a cascade.

“There’s also a way to help them start anew somewhere completely, so they can be completely free from your family’s influence. In Korea, about 300 million won, and abroad, about 500 million won, would be sufficient to lay the foundation for a fresh start.”

He went beyond simply paying off the debt.

300 million, 500 million… The amounts were as unreal as when I heard that the manager’s apartment was at least 1.5 billion won.

Hyung and Morae would leave Seoul entirely, and Grandfather and Great Uncle would live in a place where Morae’s Father’s influence was powerless… Of course, if that happened, all problems except Morae’s Father’s wrath might be resolved. Simply put, yes. But I shook my head.

“I don’t have the confidence to repay that amount.”

“Repayment can be done slowly. I have no intention of rushing you until Seo Yi-hyun decides to stop painting.”

“I truly appreciate your words… but Grandfather and Great Uncle probably won’t leave that village.”

The world isn’t just that one village under the sky. Some people might think that repaying the debt and moving elsewhere is the solution to the problem. But not everyone in the world actively tries to solve life’s problems.

Just as mountains don’t get up and move because one dislikes the bleak scenery or the chilling wind. Some people endure life by steadfastly staying put in the place they’ve always been. Not with active confrontation, but with stubborn perseverance.

Even if it seemed foolish to some, that was how Grandfather and Great Uncle lived.

He took a few more slow sips of the liquor in his glass, lost in thought, and after a long while, he spoke.

“What I want is for Seo Yi-hyun to have an environment where she can focus on painting without any further worries. Even if moving the family elsewhere is too much, at least the debt must be resolved for that to be possible.”

“…….”

I couldn’t deny it.

“I will arrange for Seo Yi-hyun’s Hyung and sister, the two of them, to be moved to their desired location via an untraceable route within five days. And I will also resolve Seo Yi-hyun’s family’s debt. 100 million won. That’s a clean amount.”

Saying this with a faint smile, he stood up to refill his empty glass before I could even respond.

I had money tied up as a deposit for the rooftop room. My initial plan was to send Morae and Hyung first with that money, and then repay him once I got it back. But that was an answer that only considered Morae and Hyung. If I could also pay off the family debt, it was true that the worries about the remaining family in Donghae would be somewhat lessened. While Mr. Im’s pressure wasn’t solely due to the 70 million won, if that debt were gone, the direct pretext would at least fade.

It didn’t feel as insurmountable as amounts like 300 million or 500 million, which I felt I could never repay. If painting didn’t work out, I could return to the moving company and save for three to four years; it wouldn’t be impossible to repay. Calculating it that way, it was hard to refuse the offer.

He returned with two on-the-rocks glasses, the one he had promised not to give me. He took the teacup I had been holding, now cold, and handed me a whiskey diluted with a higher proportion of tonic water, making its color pale. His was a deep color.

“If you put it nicely, it’s an advance on the contract, but since it’s an amount that must be recovered by selling Seo Yi-hyun’s work, it’s essentially a debt, isn’t it?”

Sitting back down opposite me, he leaned loosely against the armrest. His casually tilted gaze held no force, yet I straightened my back with an inexplicable tension.

“I know.”

“Is it okay for you to get so complicatedly entangled with me?”

“Honestly, I’m scared if I can repay such a large sum… but if painting doesn’t work out, I’ll definitely repay it by doing other work in the future.”

He gazed at me for a moment as I said this. His expression was as if I had said something harsh, as if my words had hurt him. But it was only for a fleeting moment.

Quickly regaining his composure, he picked up a cigarette from the side table as if he had just remembered, and lit it.

“This is an advance for the paintings you will create, not a loan where I pressure you like a loan shark. So, once this matter is resolved, don’t worry about anything else and focus solely on your painting. If you neglect your art, then Seo Yi-hyun will be considered delinquent in fulfilling her debt.”

I nodded, with utmost caution.

“Okay.” He mumbled this, exhaling a long plume of smoke, and with a slightly impatient flick of his wrist, he tapped the ash into the ashtray, glancing at me.

“May I ask just one thing?”

And this time, he looked directly at me and asked in a monotone voice.

“I understand that Hyung and sister, those two people, are important to Seo Yi-hyun, but… no matter what, why are you so terrified of their relationship being threatened that you tremble like this and come to me for help?”

I had expected a question seeking information necessary for problem-solving, but it was unexpectedly his personal curiosity. He probably wouldn’t press me if I didn’t answer. Whether to answer was entirely my choice.

Through the slowly rising smoke, I looked into his grey-blue eyes, which were asking, with a sense of bewilderment, why I feared this situation so much, when it wasn’t a direct threat to myself.

He probably doesn’t know the fear of love.

When one of the two people who loved each other so deeply disappears. When they can no longer be together due to external intervention. The consequences of that are not merely sentimental sadness or a few days of tears shed while drunk.

Their humanity will be destroyed and corrupted, and they will no longer be able to exist as themselves.

I was not strong enough to endure seeing Morae and Hyung in such a state. If such an experience were to repeat itself, this time, I too might be irrevocably destroyed. This time, it wouldn’t end with just quitting painting.

I took a large gulp of the liquor in my hand. The rain was still pounding against the window, howling like a demon trying to claim a sacrifice tonight.

“The reason I fear those I love is… probably because their lives can directly affect me as well. If they suffer, I, who see them suffering, will also suffer.”

If love, for him, was merely a fleeting ephemeral thing that arose on the surface of emotions only to fade with time, I couldn’t help but be honest, even knowing this might sound ridiculous.

This was a story about my mother and father, Morae and Hyung, and also about me, hesitating before this feeling that had just begun towards him.

“So perhaps… perhaps I’m doing this because I’m afraid of suffering. No… I probably am.”

Perhaps this was a struggle for myself rather than for Morae or Hyung. But it didn’t matter who it was for, whether it was good intentions or selfish motives. I was determined not to let their escape be dismissed as the fleeting rebellion of a naive young couple, no matter the cost. I was firm on that, and the strength that allowed me to survive, to take human form, was given by those two, so it was not a waste.

He was silent. With a cigarette in his hand, he simply looked at me with eyes lost in thought, as if savoring the meaning of my words.

The reason I decided to suppress my feelings, wanting special affection from him, wasn’t just because he was an unsuitable partner in many ways. If it weren’t for my fear of love, I might have dared to be greedy, using my age of twenty-two as an excuse.

But I was scared.

I was scared of seeing him unable to treat me with the same feelings I had for him, but more than that, I was scared of when this still fragile and tender feeling would grow heavy, immense, and solid, taking hold of me. Compared to the fear of the influence that power would exert on me then, the former fear was nothing.

Because I was now a work created, or rather, ruined, by the destructive power of love.

Finally, he withdrew his gaze from me and uncrossed his legs. Taking one last deep drag, he stubbed out his cigarette in the dry ashtray.

“I think I understand.”

He said that and didn’t speak of it further.

You think you understand. It was an unexpected reaction.

■ ■ ■

The sound of raindrops hitting the window was fierce due to the strong wind. It was an intermittent sound, like someone throwing handfuls of sand at the window with all their might. It felt as if the rain would break through the thick soundproof glass and pour into the room at any moment.

However, the reason I couldn’t sleep wasn’t the desolate sound of rain or the unfamiliar bed. No matter where I lay, it would have been difficult to sleep on a night like today.

He had readily promised the down payment, but advised that keeping this matter a secret from Morae and Hyung wasn’t a good idea. He suggested it would be better to explain the situation, even if only to persuade them to leave quickly.

Having sent a suspicious message saying I had an urgent matter and had to leave for the day, I sent another message to the two of them after my conversation with him, arranging to meet. As soon as morning broke, I planned to meet them first, explain the situation and my plan, and then meet Great Uncle together.

I had thought he would be someone who attributed all choices solely to the individual. Someone who would be extremely cautious about influencing others’ lives with such advice.

But his advice was surprisingly earnest, and therefore, highly persuasive. It wasn’t like a platitude thrown out carelessly based on general theory. It was a careful design, employing his own experience, wisdom, and logic, and it coolly filled the gaps in my own logic, which had been sporadically riddled with fear and anxiety.

Did I properly thank him? There were so many things I needed to properly express my gratitude for tonight alone….

I turned my body, which had been facing the ceiling, onto my side and pulled the warm blanket up to my shoulders. The guest room on the first floor he had shown me was located directly below his bedroom. Looking at the other empty single bed across from me, I imagined him lying in the same spot above me.

My body temperature seemed to have returned to normal, but I felt a chill, as if a coldness remained in the core of my body. I hugged my arms within the perfectly comfortable and warm blanket. I pulled the collar of the loungewear he had given me closer and buried my nose in it. I could only faintly smell the clean fabric softener, unable to catch his distinct scent.

I knew how to fall asleep. My restless heart knew what it wanted. There was no need to go through the troublesome process of being honest with myself.

I threw off the blanket and got out of bed.

I fumbled my way through the dark hallway, where I could only distinguish the faint outlines of objects, and ascended the stairs, my hand on the wall. Barefoot, without slippers, I slowly approached the bedroom located in the deepest part of the second floor.

The door was not fully closed, as if it had been waiting for me.

Without knocking, I gently pushed the door with my fingertips.

It was a rude act, but I had a strong intuition that knocking wouldn’t be necessary. Knocking would feel like an overly conspicuous action….

As the door opened wider, the faint indirect light filtering in from the hallway cast an increasingly long shadow on the dark brown wooden tiles. Following that light, my gaze shifted, and I saw him leaning against the headboard, looking at me.

He was wearing only sweatpants, his legs stretched out, ankles crossed, hands loosely clasped on his thighs. He didn’t look like someone asleep or about to sleep.

His eyes, which looked at me as if he had been certain I would come, were devoid of any disturbance. His presence felt so expectant, as if my coming here was not my own will but a supernatural summons from him.

“……”

“……”

The question of why I was in this room, the seductive words of wanting to sleep together, were all omitted. Such words felt like unnecessary, cumbersome accessories.

“Can I… sleep here?”

My voice was parched.

As if he had just showered, he swept his hair, which had settled down, and propped one knee up, resting his elbow on it. He grasped his swept-back hair and tilted his head slightly, looking at me with a somewhat challenging gaze.

“You don’t mean… just sleeping, do you?”

I took a step into the room, as if to say no.

Strangely, I wasn’t afraid of being rejected. It wasn’t that I was confident in my sexual appeal, but perhaps it was because I had been with him twice before. I felt a degree of certainty that he would accept me, or at least wouldn’t refuse.

Seeing me approach, he released his hair. The strands, fluttering down, were beautiful.

“I’m fine with it…”

“……”

“I tend to lose control when I’m with Seo Yi-hyun.”

I closed the door behind me, as if to say it was okay.

Sitting in the darkness, facing me, he looked, strangely, as if he were afraid of me, of my approach. It couldn’t be.

As I walked to the edge of the bed, the scent wafted up, as it always did. This was it. It was the desire to be enveloped in this scent and entangled with him that had led me to this room. Thinking of myself, crawling up to the second floor in the dark, wanting sex, a self-deprecating laugh escaped me.

Knowing that sex with me could also be a wound for the person I liked, yet here I was, desperate for even just sex with that same person.

Telling myself I had to erase my feelings for him, yet I couldn’t even endure sleeping under the same roof for one night and had crawled into his bedroom myself.

Who was this person? It was me, yet I felt profoundly unfamiliar.

Though moving through my body, it felt eerily like someone else had entered me. Yet, it was undeniably me, just displaying an unaccustomed side.

Bending down, I brought my face close to his bare shoulder. Because I liked him, I naturally had to like his scent.

The scent had been the very first trigger for recognizing him as special. When Morae asked about him, this scent was the first thing that came to mind, the trait that clearly distinguished him from others.

He reached out and touched my cheek as I bent my face down, asking, “Are you not uncomfortable with having sex with an Alpha?”

“……”

Surprised by the unexpected question, I turned to face him. Slowly, I shook my head. His hand, which had been stroking my cheek, moved deeper, tracing my earlobe.

“Or perhaps you feel like you might change.”

If it was something like that, he didn’t need to hesitate. I placed my hand over his large hand that enveloped my ear and cheek and shook my head several times.

“I want to change. I want to be changed.”

At the end of my mumbled confession, or perhaps self-reproach, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me onto the bed.

The next moment, I was kneeling between his legs. With me on his stomach, he held my waist and pulled the back of my head, kissing my lips first. The kiss was sweet and desperate, like a reunion after years, yet astonishingly, it had only been less than a week since we last slept together.

As his kisses began, alternating between fiercely sucking my lower and upper lips, then biting them until they hurt, and then pulling them long and releasing them with a snap, I immediately understood how often I had thought about this kiss in the less than a week that had passed, even amidst the busy aftermath of the gallery work. How much I had wished to experience it again.

It was different from last time, on the party terrace, when I closed my eyes in dizzying apprehension, unsure of what to do. Now, I could clearly sense the rising pleasure from the strong suction and greedy pursuit, and the excitement of the person I liked being aroused through my body, and I was reacting quickly.

Matching my breath to the rhythm of his broad, thick chest rising and falling beneath my chest, I waited, anticipating the layered scents surrounding and consuming me… to swallow me whole.

Leaning against the large pillow propped against the headboard, he rested his forehead against mine, his lips just barely brushing mine, looking into my eyes from an impossibly close distance.

“Me too.”

His breath was mixed with the lingering scent of strong whiskey.

“I want to be changed too. Into something completely different.”

It was astonishing that someone as admired as him could be caught in such a defeated mindset; I was still so young.

Just because they appeared perfect and affluent from the outside didn’t mean they lacked inner turmoil. Yet, looking at him, I felt I could lead everything, even people’s hearts, in the direction I desired, and that was surely the mark of a child.

Even with just that slight touch, his hand entering under my t-shirt and stroking my bare waist, I let out a groan and had to scratch in vain at his bare chest, which offered no purchase. After letting out a moan, he plunged his tongue into my tightly bitten lips. The moment he released my lips, his tongue tip brushed against the mucous membrane behind my lips, sending a ticklish sensation that made my shoulders tremble.

“Will you change me, Seo Yi-hyun?”

His hand, which had been caressing my waist, slipped beneath the waistband of my loungewear, and under the thin fabric of the new underwear he had given me, he gently cupped and massaged the flesh of my buttocks.

On his stomach, on his chest, between his legs, and in his scent. I was already changing.

“How can I…”

The grip of his arms around my waist tightened, and his hot tongue thrust into my mouth, cutting off my words. Ugh, mm, ugh… I whimpered from deep within my throat, like someone whose mouth had been covered by an assailant.

He slid his middle finger between my buttocks and rubbed hard against my anus. Suddenly, the wet flesh that had filled my mouth withdrew as quickly as it had invaded, and he whispered in a heated voice, applying more subtle pressure with his fingertips as he rubbed my anus, “Here, drive me crazy.”

Pushing me up from his chest, he continued to rub my anus. The sensation of his long, straight fingers sliding between my buttocks already evoked thoughts of intercourse. He was the one driving me crazy. What was I, if not crazy, to crawl into his bedroom of my own volition, wanting to do this with someone I wasn’t even dating?

Perhaps it was an unconscious response to his request to be driven crazy from behind, as my hands, which had been scratching his chest, pulled his neck closer.

He tilted his head further and kissed me. When I parted my lips, the flesh, thoroughly soaked in his scent, pushed deep inside. It felt like an insertion with his tongue.

I liked his ungentle kisses. If he kissed me cautiously, as if handling glass, I would die of impatience. I liked his method of filling my mouth with his tongue, as if forcing himself upon me, making my eyes water.

His flexible, wet flesh, thrashing wildly inside me, brushing against my palate, my tongue, and the inside of my teeth, felt like an indicator of how desperately he wanted me, at least in this moment.

His long legs tangled with mine, rubbing against my calves, and he tightened his thighs around me, squeezing me. He was unhesitating in rubbing our genitals together, creating overt friction.

My waist twisted on his body as his hands gripped and moved my fleshy buttocks. It was different from the first or second time, when I needed more time to be honest with my desires. I too wanted it fast, deeper, I already wanted him.

Following his tongue as it filled and then withdrew from my mouth, I licked his lips, and he bit the tip of my tongue slightly. His eyes, looking down at me, held intensity. The hand that had been moving my buttocks also applied strong force, pulling the flesh upwards as if tearing it. Next, he took both my upper and lower lips into his mouth, pushing deeply until my head was thrown back, and sucked. It was a dizzying sensation, as if I were being pulled in.

I wanted this sharp pain. It had probably been since last Sunday, right after he last pulled away from my lips.

With the wet, lustful sounds created by the pressure of him sucking my slick skin, he released my lips and gently rubbed his lips against mine, saying, “You were quite swollen last time.”

“I’m fine.”

I answered, avoiding his gaze and fiddling with his neck. He chuckled lowly.

“Anyone would know what Seo Yi-hyun was up to all night. Don’t you care?”

“……”

Above, our lips met and parted softly, accompanied by low, sweet whispers. But below… his hand was circling and caressing around my anus, and at times, as if he couldn’t stand it, he would grip my buttocks tightly, directly expressing his desire. Because of such actions, I had no room to think of a witty or sexy response suitable for the situation.

“Tell me. What do you want me to do with your lips? What do you like?”

He asked, circling my waist and stimulating my genitals with the bulge of his own, but I, whose frozen core had completely melted, could only breathe heavily, aware of the heat rising from below, unable to think of anything else.

“Just… however you usually do, Representative…”

“……”

For a moment, he frowned, his pupils gleaming from beneath narrowed eyelids.

“Say that again. However who does?”

“…Representative, sir.”

He bit my ear as he gripped my buttocks tightly and pressed down, so our genitals were fully pressed together. He thrust his hips repeatedly, as if he were about to shove his penis in right then and there in this position. My breath trembled with each thrust. I couldn’t understand the reason for his sudden surge of excitement.

“Do you know this is the first time you’ve called me that in bed… You omitted any titles, both the first time and last time.”

Did I?

I was sure I had. It felt awkward to use a title for someone in such a situation.

“Anyway, you get me hard over the strangest things.”

He muttered as if to himself, his fingers not leisurely as they pushed my underwear and panties down.

“What do you mean, ‘however you usually do’? Tell me, Seo Yi-hyun.”

With his voice deliberately calling my name, laced with a playful intent of a lewd nature, I found myself able to understand him to some extent, feeling his arousal from the very act of calling. The sensation of being intimately entangled with whom I was, confirmed with even greater precision by my partner, heightened all my senses.

He skillfully pulled down my lower garments, which had already descended to just below my buttocks, this time using his legs and feet. As my lower body felt exposed, my desire only intensified. In the end, I yielded, and it wasn’t the first time I had whispered lewd words into his ear.

Closing my eyes at the scent his lips spread as they brushed against my ear, exhaling hot, damp breath.

“…A kiss.”

“What kind?”

In an instant, he pulled my lower garments down to my ankles, then, gripping the lower part of my buttocks, he asked, flicking the flesh as if to bounce it.

“Hnnngh.”

The hand that had been shaking my buttocks moved between my legs, and the sensation of his palm rubbing against my core made me flinch, scrambling upwards to cling to his neck as if to escape. Our cheeks pressed together, and his ear was close to my lips. His lips also pressed against my ear, and his pointed tongue delved into my ear, distancing me from all the sounds of the world.

“Biting, sucking… squeezing until it hurts…”

“You like that kind of kiss?”

He asked, his lips pressed against my cheek, with a hint of teasing.

Each time, I would reluctantly open my mouth at his persistent demands… but I had never lied. What he drew out of me was simply honesty. Each time I was honest, the sense of liberation from social etiquette and discipline heated my desire even more. I couldn’t deny it.

My hips writhed to the pillar of fire-like arousal that surged, thick and impossible to suppress. Each time, my genitals rubbed against his bulging penis, his testicles swinging back and forth.

“Anyone would know you kissed all night. Are you planning to go out looking like that?”

“……”

“Why are you so lewd, Seo Yi-hyun?”

I shook my head at his teasing, deliberately enunciating each syllable of my name.

I don’t necessarily think being lewd or promiscuous is a bad thing… but perhaps my former self, who was still indifferent to sex, might want to deny this part of myself that craves to be deeply kissed with lips and tongue.

However, all these actions were happening because I wanted them to. Whenever I felt my lips, which were slightly fuller than usual, close completely, the memory of my encounters with him sent a shiver through my body. I wished my lips would always be swollen from kissing him.

I don’t know if I’m lewd or sexy… but wishing my lips would always be swollen from kissing? I suppose that’s what being promiscuous is.

He whispered soothingly, pressing his lips against my forehead and eyelids as I lowered my head.

“Look at me. You can only suck if you look at me.”

Still moving my hips.

Even though I had asked for it myself, it was difficult to meet his gaze. As I raised my head, feeling almost ashamed, he attacked with his lower lip. The pressure, sucking from the center of my lips, easily swept away my shame and self-loathing for being so promiscuous.

With every rub of lips and mucosa, every exchange of saliva, the scent grew more intense, accumulating within me. The pressure, repeatedly applied to suck the mucosa as if to wring out unknown fluids from the inside of my lips, was accompanied by a dull pain and a throbbing excitement.

Unwrapping my arms from around his neck, I caressed his bare upper body, slowly twisting my hips, buttocks, and legs. The pants and underwear that had been caught around my ankles were completely pulled off, leaving me comically bare below the waist as I rubbed my body against the magnificent curves of his.

“Where else should I kiss you?”

He asked, his eyes burning as he cupped my buttocks with both hands and circled from the outside in, gathering the flesh towards the center and rubbing.

“……”

Meeting his gaze, I slowly crawled upwards. Sensing what I wanted, he smiled suggestively and, in the opposite direction from me, slid his body down from his semi-reclined position against the pillow.

As our bodies crossed paths, he pushed his head inside my t-shirt.

“Ugh… Ughm.”

I bit my lip at the movement of his tongue tip pushing upwards against the hardened nub. Until now, I hadn’t thought much about my nipples, but the moment he first touched them on this bed, they had become as sexually charged as my genitals or lips.

As my nipple, twisted and turned by his tongue, was swallowed into his mouth and compressed until it shriveled in the warm cavity, I could no longer hold back my cry, letting out a moan like a sob.

The itching sensation from deep within my body was unbearable. I swayed my hips from side to side, grinding my genitals against the distinct contours of his abs.

“Hhht, hhhk.”

I shuddered and writhed as his tongue flicked rapidly, scraping against my clit while his mouth was occupied with my nipple. His hands widely enveloped my exposed buttocks, then slipped under my t-shirt to caress my waist and sides.

I managed to support my upper body by resting my elbows on his shoulders, but my strength was fading with the intensifying caress.

“Hahk!”

The moment he bit the base of my nipple with his teeth, my chest collapsed onto his face, which was visible under my t-shirt. I tried to lift my upper body as if to embrace him tightly, but he held my waist and wouldn’t let go.

He rubbed his lips and cheek against my flat chest, his tongue tracing deeply over my skin, his breathing rough with arousal.

I didn’t know what on my chest, which was merely thin from military service and moving jobs, stimulated him so much, but his lips and tongue, which scraped, licked, and sucked alternately from left to right without favoritism, revealed his uncontrolled, hot desire amidst his ragged breaths.

“Eut, huh… hht.”

When he sucked my small nipple with just the pressure of his lips, my shoulders twisted as I pictured the volume of my breast, which was surely protruding even though I couldn’t see it.

A body taking on a different form and purpose, deviating from its usual state.

Without being able to escape the rules and customs of wearing clothes, having polite conversations, and unconsciously restricting myself while being aware of others’ and society’s gaze… sex felt meaningless.

Lips used only for eating and speaking, kissing; a shriveled penis hidden inside underwear, brought out and made erect; an anus, which we don’t even mention as if it doesn’t exist, being sucked by a mouth and used to arouse the penis; nipples, which are nothing, being sucked and licked to become aroused…

In all his actions that changed and inverted my original self, I felt a sense of liberation.

As I moaned, holding his head that repeatedly pulled and released my nipples, he slid further down after licking my swollen nipples intensely.

“Uh, uh…”

I lowered my head and looked down at him with anxious eyes. Through the neckline of my drooping t-shirt, I could see him moving past my lower abdomen towards my genitals.

He cupped my buttocks with both hands, and as I instinctively tried to pull back, he returned my body to its place and immediately took my glans into his mouth.

“Heeuugh, huu… hhk.”

Lying face down on the pillow with his face between my legs, I couldn’t lift my body. He accepted the weight of my body pressing down on him and compressed my glans. The strong suction, as he twisted and sucked my glans like eating an ice pop, even bending his head back, made me pound the pillow.

His way of kissing, as if to devour me, was the same with oral sex.

As he held it, swirling it as if to melt it, then suddenly pulling and tightening as if to swallow it down my throat, my eyes widened and my mouth fell open at the pressure. Just a few sucks on my sensitive genitals, which had no tolerance for such stimulation, brought on the urge to ejaculate. Each time, he skillfully released my glans and loosened his grip.

With every squirm and reaction from me, his breath blowing onto the base of my penis grew hotter, and I buried my face in the pillow, moaning almost sobbing.

The sensation of my wet mucosa approaching and tightening, then loosening and receding, completely jumbled my thoughts. The scent flooded my breath, suffocating me.

“Lift your hips.”

He said, pushing my chest upwards.

With hesitant eyes, I slowly raised my upper body. To maintain balance, I grabbed the headboard, which was made higher than a normal bed. It was a headboard made of black leather with a cushion.

I didn’t know if I was crying, but my eyes and the corners of my eyes were wet. It wasn’t emotional tears from sadness or pain, but physiological secretions, yet I didn’t want him to know that I was crying because I couldn’t withstand the stimulation of oral sex.

Wiping away the moisture haphazardly with my hands, I straightened my hips, naturally ending up sitting on his chest. More precisely, my groin was just below his chin. It wasn’t a comfortable position to look down at him.

His face, looking up at me while stroking my buttocks, was clearly defined even in the darkness. His face, fully exposed as his hair was pushed back from lying on his back, was so unrealistically handsome that presenting my erect penis to that face felt comparatively much more vulgar and crude.

But my penis, glistening with saliva, was what he had been stimulating with his mouth just moments ago.

“Sit on my face.”

I needed a moment to think about what he was asking.

“That…”

As my face froze in confusion, he fixed his gaze on me and slid his hand from behind between my buttocks. Then, between my anus and testicles, he pressed hard with his fingertips on the soft, tender skin and circled. As if he would create a new hole there and dig in.

“Sit down and rub it here as much as you want. Okay?”

“Heeu, hht… But…”

“I want it. Then it’s okay, isn’t it?”

I didn’t know how to respond to his request, which seemed to desire the shame of having his groin pressed against his face. He looked up at me with pleading eyes, rubbing his penis against my cheek and the bridge of his nose. His tongue, extended long from his lips, licked upwards on the hot skin.

“Smell it, wet it… I want to bury myself deep here.”

How could he make such a piteous sound?

Pretending to be weak, impatient, and anxious, like a sweet, gentle, and lovely being. With just his voice, whispering like a plea for the thing he wanted most in the world, my lower body felt like it was melting.

His lust-filled eyes remained fixed on me, and the stimulation from his fingertips circling my perineum continued. My hips jumped at the caress of his entire palm, as if wiping me clean.

“Crush me here until I can’t breathe… Hurry.”

Looking down at his seductive lips, which urged me on, I hesitated several times before slowly lowering my hips in a hunched posture, holding onto the headboard.

To be honest, the moment I heard his proposal, I too felt a wicked curiosity, and even just imagining it sent a thrill through me. It wasn’t a matter of refusal or acceptance, but merely a matter of time.

His high nose tip touched my perineum first. A thrill, more intense than I had imagined, sent shivers through my entire body. It was just a place that wasn’t my penis or anything, yet…

“…Ugh, hhk!”

As my nose tip was crushed and buried to some extent in the soft flesh, he grabbed my hips and pulled me down sharply.

Completely seated on his face, I squeezed the headboard and had to bite my own arms. He opened his mouth and nose, greedily inhaling deeply between my legs. Shame and excitement raged within me simultaneously.

Looking down while biting my arm, his eyes, protruding from between my legs, looked up at me with my erect penis between us. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from those bluish eyes that directly conveyed his desire.

Even the hem of my t-shirt, draped over my erect penis, emphasized the obscenity of this moment. My flushed penis trembled with the slightest movement, brushing against his forehead. Everything I saw became a caress, foreplay.

The visual stimulation alone was already at its limit. Biting my arms harder, I exhaled through my nose with a “hheuuuk.”

His hands, which had been holding my waist, wrapped around my thighs from the outside and moved inward. His fingertips rubbed over my pubic hair, and he tapped my testicles, making my penis vibrate. My whole body trembled, forcing me to bite my arms harder.

Meanwhile, his broad tongue rubbed my perineum, and the slightly raised flesh between my testicles and anus became wet with his saliva. Each time his firm tongue tip pressed deeply into a certain spot, a heavy sensation, similar to the urge to urinate, stimulated my lower abdomen.

The world of pleasure he showed me was endless. He knew my body better than I did. I was going crazy.

“Stop… Stop…”

As I mumbled that, I found myself, contrary to my words, clutching the hem of my t-shirt to get a better look at his face beneath my erect penis.

His arms were no longer pulling me down, but I twisted my hips myself and rubbed my crotch over his face. So that his lips and tongue would touch the desired spot, so that his nose tip would press on the desired area. So that he would rub where I wanted. The pleasure spread from the skin I touched, like a rash of heat blooming all over my body.

I was afraid I would jump and bounce on his face as I writhed. Although what we were doing was already quite unconventional, I could still barely, barely hold myself back from going that far.

Releasing my arms from my mouth, I collapsed my upper body and lowered my head closer to his face.

I don’t know if I said I could control myself, but perhaps my muscles had also softened along with my loosened mind, as saliva dripped from my lips, which had been biting my arms, without me being able to wipe it away. Without the presence of mind to wipe it with my hand, I turned my head and rubbed my mouth on the cotton of my t-shirt, on the arm I had been biting.

With softened muscles and unfocused eyes, I panted, looking down at him.

“Stop… Please stop… Hhhuu, eut!”

At my plea to stop, he instead attacked the area behind my testicles. My penis bobbed up and down with the movement of his jaw, which was biting and chewing it in his mouth.

My erect penis, placed on his upright and beautiful, perfect face, felt like it was ruining the most noble value with the most vulgar desire, making me have the grand delusion that I was rebelling against social norms through this act.

I don’t know what nonsense I’m spouting, sitting on someone’s face and getting an erection… but… perhaps it was because my mind was disoriented by the strong stimulation of my testicles being sucked, in addition to my lower body being thoroughly soaked.

The skilled caress, sucking my testicles with enough force to make my lower abdomen feel full, caused clear fluid to drip from the tip of my glans. It was the largest amount of precum I had ever experienced, as if I had already ejaculated.

The sensation of my lower abdomen tightening with a sharp pain reached a point where I could no longer endure it. As I pulled away his hands that were wrapped around my thighs, my hips sank down once more.

“Stop… I think I’m going to…!”

As I released his hands, I lost my balance and fell sideways onto the mattress.

Curling up on my side, trembling and panting, he sat up and pulled my shoulder to lay me flat on my back.

His face, which I looked up at, was glistening from the saliva I had smeared on my own groin. He sat up straight, then leaned in close between my legs and wiped his chin with the hem of my t-shirt.

Though his expression was impassive, I could guess from his lips, pressed together more firmly than usual, and the muscles of his expanded shoulders and chest, that he was fully immersed in this moment, in my body.

He leaned in closer, having wiped his face haphazardly, and kissed me deeply. It was a kiss that gently explored my mouth, as if to soothe and praise me for enduring moments ago, and moistened my tongue.

His right hand slipped between our pressed lower abdomens and fumbled through my wet, limp legs. My lower body was completely damp, as if I had secreted a large amount of fluid myself, and was more sensitive than ever. Each time his fingertips pressed down like scooping cream, my buttock muscles twitched and contracted.

Even after gently pulling away, his lips hovered right in front of mine. They brushed against my nose and the surface of my lips several times, and pressing down on my perineum with his fingertips, he spoke.

“You don’t know what kind of scent there is, from Seo Yi-hyun’s lips, and from here… do you?”

Nibbling lightly at my upper lip, he cupped my perineum with his entire palm.

“Hnn, hnn… hck.”

I must smell like the cleanser I used after getting out of the bathtub. It was certainly a better scent than usual. But his voice and tone as he asked, and the gaze he fixed on me from so close, carried a strange nuance, as if he were talking about something other than artificial external scents—like the secretions I’d let out from sexual arousal.

It was even more so because of the slick sensation of saliva between his palm and my groin with every stroke.

“It’s a scent that makes you want to bury your face in it all day.”

“Hnn… hnn.”

He began to mimic the rhythm of penetration, not just rubbing, but thrusting upwards from below. As he added pressure, as if he had firmly inserted himself between my legs, now softened by his intense caress… a throbbing sensation started inside me.

A sigh escaped me at the fact that I wanted his forceful thrusting and his reason-abandoning, runaway passion, even though he had only inserted himself once. It was maddening.

The confession that I wanted to change didn’t mean this, yet I was changing with surprising speed in this direction. To think I had such a good aptitude for this. Should I be happy to discover a hidden talent….

“Ugh… ugh….”

As he slid down to my anus, tracing the entrance with his fingertips and thrusting upwards with the force of his arm, I flinched and tried to avert my gaze. He then used his other arm, braced beside my shoulder, to turn my head and meet my eyes. They were filled with lust, yet piercingly clear.

“Is my scent like that too?”

“……”

It felt like my inner thoughts had been read. It wasn’t even a particularly significant statement, but for a moment, my breath caught. It felt as though all my lewd impressions of his scent had been exposed.

“When I smell it, my penis twitches, and here….”

“Hck. Hck.”

His finger pushed a full knuckle deep inside my anus. As the foreplay had been long, the insertion met almost no resistance. As the sensation I had been waiting for arrived, I stiffened my entire body and gripped his shoulder.

He inserted his finger deep inside, then bent the tip to gently prod the delicate lining as he continued to speak.

“Does it feel itchy here, inside? Hmm, yes?”

Breathing heavily like a famished beast before its prey, I nodded vigorously.

He looked down at me with equally hungry eyes, then pulled down the waistband of his training pants and revealed his erect penis. Perhaps because it was an area with a strong body odor, the scent that had been layering around me seemed to intensify.

From the start, it wasn’t the kind of smell that most people would recognize as ‘fragrant’ or ‘sweet.’

Rather, it was a scent that blurred and obscured my mind, grating on my nerves. It wasn’t unpleasant or foul. It didn’t grate on my nerves in that way, but rather constantly prodded and stimulated me, making it impossible to ignore.

I felt hazy, as if floating, and then heavy and languid, as if sinking. It numbed my reason and sharpened my senses. It created a tension, as if I were rendered defenseless only to be suddenly grabbed by the nape of my neck. It was contradictory and abstract, but I couldn’t explain it any other way… it was a heavy, aggressive, and dominant scent.

His penis was thick and erect enough to discern its shape clearly even in the dim light. Looking down at the glans, glistening with clear pre-ejaculate, I swallowed dryly, unable to deny its lewdness even if I were teased about it.

I had done it without realizing, but perhaps he noticed, because he wrapped an arm around my neck, pulled me close, and laughed softly, pressing his cheek against mine. It was a sweet laugh that seemed to melt my hearing. The laugh, as if amused by a younger person’s sexual curiosity, soon turned into panting breaths, followed by an irresistible whisper.

“Want to smell mine too?”

As if he already knew I wouldn’t refuse, he slipped his arm behind my back and lifted me before I could answer. Then, sitting me on his lap, he leaned back against a large pillow, relaxing his body. I placed my hands on his chest and hesitated for a moment before trying to move down, but he pulled me in by my waist.

“No, move your hips this way.”

“……”

I hesitated, but only for a moment. Dizzy from the vibrating scent, I swayed as if I had lost my sense of direction and shifted my position on his lap as he instructed.

Before my eyes, his penis, still half-hidden by his training pants, was twitching, impossibly long and thick even in that state. The hardness of his penis was as excellent as its length and thickness. It maintained an intoxicating angle when erect, so hard it didn’t seem like mere engorgement of the corpus cavernosum. It felt like it would support me without budging even if I rode it.

Because of that hardness, the highly elastic penis poked out, almost lifting the waistband. I bent forward, pushing the soft fabric of his pants down towards my knees. As my pubic hair spread wider beneath his firm abs, his penis sprang out as if to burst forth.

I gently held the base of it with my hands, as if touching a precious treasure. As I bent forward and my hips shifted back, his chin dug into my perineum.

“Ugh. Hck.”

And the next moment, my sides were pulled in, and I was seated on his face again. I knew what people called this. The act of burying one’s face between each other’s legs and sucking. 69.

“You can’t perform a proper BJ (blow job)… anyway. I’m satisfied just with you touching me with your tongue and lips.”

So, hurry, seemed to be the unspoken addition.

His words that a proper oral sex was impossible weren’t an exaggeration or a boast. It was unbelievable that he had penetrated my tightly closed anus so vigorously, and that it had ended only with a dull, stinging pain without tearing or rupturing.

Although I managed to swallow his glans, my mouth was already full, leaving almost no room to move back and forth, to insert and withdraw. All I could do was lick the split in his glans with my tongue, then slide it into my mouth, enveloping it with the lining of my inner lips.

Yet, with just that clumsy caress, he ejaculated. An Alpha, especially a Golden Alpha, produced not only a large amount of semen but also pre-ejaculate. Rumors circulated online that superior Golden Alphas could impregnate someone with pre-ejaculate alone.

I didn’t know about other Golden Alphas, but the amount of pre-ejaculate he leaked during intercourse easily surpassed the ejaculation volume of ordinary men, making even baseless internet rumors strangely plausible.

As I repeatedly swallowed and released his glans, I had to let the copious amount of pre-ejaculate, which poured out like rising tears, flow down the shaft of his penis.

My mouth wasn’t particularly large, but even so, for an adult male, it was a size that made it difficult to swallow anything beyond the glans… My jaw already ached before I could even attempt anything properly.

My surging desire, which had always been piqued by his penis held so close, faltered in the face of realistic, physical barriers.

“No need to push yourself. I’m happy just with you licking it with your tongue.”

I looked back at him as he stroked my buttocks with his hand spread wide, soothing me. His face was hidden by my body.

“Hnnng. Haa….”

Instead, his excited breaths, inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, clung hotly to my perineum and anus, damp with saliva. My anus involuntarily clenched, and I could easily picture the contractions, which must have been laid bare before his eyes. I felt ashamed and wanted to hide it, yet also excited and wanted to expose it more.

“Hnn. Hnnn….”

There was no need to ponder which impulse to follow; the next stimulation followed immediately. When I was with him on the bed, I didn’t need to think about anything. I wasn’t even given the opportunity to think.

He bent his penis downwards, as if hanging upside down, and swallowed the glans.

Crouching down, I buried my nose at the base of his penis. Fumbling with my hands, unsure of what to do, I scratched his firm thighs. An unbearable urge to ejaculate rushed urgently to the tip of my glans.

Before my eyes, he skillfully moved his long legs, becoming completely naked down to his groin. Then, widening the gap between my knees as if demanding a lick, he lifted his pelvis and thrust, rubbing his penis against my face.

His large, erect penis rubbed against my cheek, brushed my lips, and struck my nose. The waves created by his throbbing penis before my eyes were powerful. My desire was stimulated, my lips parted, and my breath grew short… like someone trying to eat a dangling candy without using their hands, I stuck out my tongue and chased his penis.

It was undoubtedly a pathetic sight, but at this moment, even he, with his face buried between my legs, could not witness it.

His pelvic thrusts, reminiscent of intercourse, were a sexual message in themselves. Watching his explicit, desirous thrusts from above, lying on his stomach, made the act feel even more surreal and amplified the strangeness.

With every thrust of his hips, I licked his penis, from the root upwards, with my hands, as it nodded at an increasingly wider angle. The bulging veins made it look like a dangerous object on the verge of exploding.

Its thickness, length, color, and scent. By any measure, it was not a safe-looking object.

But I hadn’t come to this room to protect myself anyway. Hadn’t I told him I wanted to change before climbing onto the bed?

With an immersion far beyond that of my childhood indulgence in sweet ice pops, I savored every part of his shaft. Just as I swallowed saliva while kissing him, the pre-ejaculate that coated and dripped down felt like an essence condensed with his scent. It didn’t matter if it was just a feeling. This sensation, as if I were swallowing the very essence of his scent, was enough.

As I licked his penis upwards and rubbed my tongue, spread wide, over the parted glans… my head went numb, like drinking a very cold beverage in one gulp. When I breathed, it felt as if my lungs were filled with his scent instead of oxygen.

“Haa, hnn… hnnn… huh….”

My breathing had completely lost its steady rhythm and became erratic. Clinging to his penis, gasping for breath with sobs that resembled whimpers, I felt like an addict.

Unlike me, who could barely swallow his glans, he repeatedly lifted and tilted his head, his suction tightening around my penis. Before I knew it, I too was lifting my hips. It no longer felt like a shameful act, but rather a natural flow.

I wrapped my arms around his thighs, tracing the contours of his firm muscles, and with my other hand, I repeatedly pushed his penis upwards from below, enveloping the thick glans with my lips. Tilting my head as if in a passionate kiss, I traced the glans with the lining of my inner lips.

Like a bird that buries its head in the bushes and mistakenly believes it is perfectly hidden, I became bolder because he couldn’t see my face, even though my penis and anus were fully exposed before him.

In the insufficient light filtering through the window, draped with a single, thin curtain to soften the intensity of the light, we explored each other’s genitals in a primal pose.

The rhythm of his pelvic thrusts and the rhythm of my hip movements matched like a seesaw, and the bedroom was filled with the wet slapping sounds of friction against the mattress, making it bounce.

There wasn’t even time to push him away, saying I was about to come. The tightening that pulled his penis deep into my throat, to the back of my throat, turned my vision white, and with a sound that couldn’t even become a scream, I ejaculated.

It felt different from the pleasure I had felt in my anus last time.

The pleasure of ejaculating, enveloped by the warm, wet lining pressing against my penis, made my knees tremble even while sitting. No matter how much I shook my hips and arched my back to push him away, he held me fast by my thighs, not loosening his grip, and didn’t stop sucking my glans.

“Haa, hnn, hnn, hck… Hck!”

My body convulsed as I moved my head and upper body on his stomach, ejaculating wildly in response to his suction. It felt like his penis was being pulled all the way down his throat.

Swallowing my semen with every ejaculation, he skillfully controlled the intensity of the pressure on his glans. Unlike me, who couldn’t swallow all of his pre-ejaculate, even though there was a difference in volume, he could.

I struggled, like someone trying desperately to pull one foot out of a swamp, and was only released by him after I had nothing left to squeeze from my penis.

I crawled forward instinctively, trembling uncontrollably. Like a beast escaping the sharp fangs of a predator just before its life was extinguished. I couldn’t tell if what was flowing from my mouth was saliva or the pre-ejaculate I had held in my mouth while sucking his glans.

But before I could even reach his ankles, he had already sat up and flipped me over.

“Where are you going?”

His eyes, which I met after a long while, were half-lidded. He pulled my waist down, pressing my perineum firmly against his groin, and then slipped his hand between my legs, probing inside my anus as if checking its condition.

“Hnnn… Hnn….”

I twisted the sheets and arched my back at the sudden intrusion, but he paid no mind, pulling his finger out and sucking it. As if he had dipped it in honey.

“It will be much more comfortable than last time. It’s melted just right.”

He wiped the sweat from his forehead and temples with his right arm, then lifted my left leg onto his right shoulder. His red tongue, licking intensely from my inner calf to my ankle, glistened in the darkness.

“Your legs are beautiful.”

He spoke in a low, tight voice, grinding his groin against mine as he twisted his hips. His breath was rough, but there was no pretense of trying to create sexual tension. His voice was even calm.

The fact that he spoke in such an everyday tone in this situation paradoxically showed that he had entered an abnormal trajectory.

His large hand, which had been stroking down from my ankle over my shoulder to my thigh, caressed my penis, which was sensitively swollen after the ejaculation. He paused his kisses on my calf, shifting his gaze down to my penis in his hand.

“Well, yes. Everything is beautiful.”

He placed my right leg parallel to my left, resting it on his shoulder, and murmured, rubbing his glans over the crease of my buttocks.

He looked down at me with hazy eyes, the blue tint fading, like someone drunk. I looked up at him with equally dazed eyes and suddenly thought of Shushu in my mind.

Even if I expanded the scope of what the word ‘beautiful’ could encompass, it seemed unlikely that he would find me beautiful, with someone like Shushu close by.

“Why, do you think I’m lying?”

He bit my right ankle, then circled his glans at the entrance of my anus, further blurring my already muddled mind… and then he smirked, pulling up one corner of his mouth. It was a question as if he had read my thoughts.

“Ah… ugh, ugh….”

The glans, which had been hovering and pressing around the entrance, pushed downwards, widening the opening. With my legs crossed and lifted in the air, it was impossible to push back and apply force.

“I believe you. If you weren’t beautiful…”

He narrowed his eyes, looking down at me as if trying to focus on something far away.

“I would never have asked you to sit on me like this…”

As he flexibly leaned his upper body back, my lower body pressed even more tightly against him. With a slow, distinct grinding sound, his glans penetrated, and my back arched.

As he said, the sensation of penetration was much smoother than last time. I felt only a slight resistance, a gentle push each time. Perhaps it was because I was also not in my right mind.

As the insertion began into a body still faintly thrumming with the sensitive excitement after ejaculating inside his mouth, I found myself focusing on his every movement, this time with tension and anticipation.

Sitting with my knees spread and heels raised, he bit into my calf as he already began to rock his hips, with only his glans inserted. With furrowed eyes, as if gauging something, his gaze swept over my sprawled upper body.

“Your legs are long and slender… they’d look good in some sexy lingerie.”

Because of his expressionless face, calm tone, and hazy, unfocused eyes, it sounded like the nonsensical ramblings of someone high on anesthetic.

He fumbled with his hands, confirming the glans was fully swallowed, then pulled me into a hug, wrapping his arms around my thighs in front of his chest, and smiled faintly.

“When you’re ready, will you try wearing it?”

Following the movement of his hips, which swayed like dancing suggestively, his lower half, which had been pushed back, repeatedly curved back towards me, and each time, his glans wriggled deeper inside. As I gasped at the sensation of his forearm pushing into my abdomen, the speed of his hip movements began to quicken.

The sensation of his thick, hard heat widening my inner walls was distinct, yet the pain was dull, as if anesthetic ointment had been applied inside. It was an impossible situation considering the overwhelming size of his penis.

It was probably due to his meticulous foreplay that dissolved my entire body into a jelly before insertion even began. Or perhaps it was the excessive adrenaline from intense arousal. In any case, the lack of pain was not the problem; the quick reversal of pain into pleasure was not a significant issue. It was strange, but even that was soon completely erased from my consciousness.

“Ugh, nngh, ugh…”

I felt him enter me, his movements dragging as if scraping the floor. The constantly flowing pre-cum was even more abundant than during our last encounter, and his glans, even without lube, was moistening the inside and paving the way.

Though I felt a tearing sensation below, like a giant body being forced into ill-fitting clothes, it was merely the resistance of the closed mucous membranes being forcibly opened, not unbearable pain.

He held me tightly, my legs on his shoulders, and focused on thrusting deeper, his gaze fixed on my expression as if to devour me. Pain and pleasure. He repeatedly withdrew and thrust deeper, sensing the precarious boundary between them through my subtle expressions.

My breath grew short as my insides felt increasingly stretched. He released one of his arms holding my thighs and stroked my lower abdomen as if to soothe me. I overlapped my hand with his. I felt like I needed to hold onto something.

He guided my hand to his semi-flaccid penis, still inside me after his ejaculation, and encouraged me to caress it. As our hands overlapped and I stroked his penis, my breathing began to stabilize slightly.

As if praising me for doing well, he relaxed his furrowed brow, looked down at me, and smiled.

“You’re a model student.”

“……”

I soon understood the reason for his sudden remark. His pubic hair was already brushing against the entrance of my anus.

“Hngh… ugh, hnn.”

As if to confirm he had swallowed me whole, he twisted his hips from side to side, settling completely inside. With every twist of his lower body, the sensation of the hot mass filling my insides pulsed, and I rubbed my head against the pillow, losing my grip on his penis.

As if pushing all my organs upwards, as if to block my throat, he readjusted his grip on my thighs and began to thrust in short, rapid movements while still deep inside.

“Hnnngh… hnn… ugh, nngh.”

The vibrations his body created by shaking me were clearly stimulating his penis in return. Feeling my inner walls, softened by friction, heat, and the slickness of his overflowing pre-cum, he began to move his hips back and forth.

With a dull, numb ache, his penis withdrew and then thrust shallowly several times. With each short, sharp thrust of his hips, a strange itchiness spread inside. My body had opened enough to withstand more intense penetration.

“Mmm… ugh, hnn…”

He seemed to sense even the slightest change in my moans. As soon as my moans, which had been close to barely enduring the pressure, began to mix with pleasure, he continued with more intense thrusts than before.

“Ugh, nngh… hck!”

He pulled back several inches at a time, then thrust forward again, his penis slick with his own pre-cum, gradually increasing his speed. Slurp, slurp, the friction sounds of him pounding on the viscous liquid echoed wetly from our joined area. Whenever sweat beaded and the arms holding my thighs loosened, he tightened his grip several times.

I had only thought the wide-legged position was embarrassing, but I hadn’t realized I would feel such a strange sensation even when my thighs were pressed together so tightly. Although his penis was clearly parting my anus, I felt as if my glans, large and prominent, was about to push against my scrotum and bulge out from between my tightly closed thighs, making even the gap between my thighs, where no direct friction was applied, feel like it was being caressed.

His penis, filling me completely by stretching my inner walls to their maximum, pressed and scraped against sensitive areas within the delicate mucous membranes with every thrust, even without specific intent. Each time, my lower abdomen tingled, and a different kind of orgasm, like carbonation, bubbled up inside me, distinct from ejaculation.

“Hck!”

Fast, very slow, a little faster, shallow, deep. After meticulously paving a path inside me with varying speeds and depths, he suddenly changed his position, holding my thighs and rising onto his knees. My hips were lifted into the air along with him.

As if it weren’t heavy at all, he began to thrust rapidly in that position, stimulating me from within. Thump, thump, his thick, broad glans felt like it was pulsing all the way up to my heart. My chest pounded, my breath caught, and the feeling of climax intensified.

“Haaah, hnn… hck. Hck…”

My throat ached as if I had been screaming for a long time, even though I was just breathing. My panting, open mouth was parched.

Frowning deeply, his brow and the bridge of his nose furrowed, he picked up his discarded underwear from the corner of the bed and bit into it. Then, like a roaring beast, he howled from within the fabric-filled mouth and tore at the cloth.

It looked like he was unnaturally and forcibly trying to block an invading force from beyond a line he had never seen before. Like a person trying to lift a car with the strength of their arms.

Intuitively, I knew he was trying to suppress knotting. I couldn’t understand his intention to prevent knotting so desperately.

But that bewilderment soon faded into a hazy blur outside my consciousness. Ejaculation poured into me like a hose inserted into my abdomen with the water turned on at full force.

“Hh, hhuh, hck…. Hnn…”

I stared with wide eyes, just gasping for breath.

As ejaculation began, he dropped the underwear he was biting and began to sprint towards the peak of his climax, pulling my legs tighter. Trembling with the force of his thrusts, I moaned and tore at the sheets, eventually biting the back of my own hand. My body shook uncontrollably, like being on a violent, dangerous amusement park ride, feeling like I was crashing hard into something. But I wasn’t thrown off, nor did my body break. On an amusement ride, impact doesn’t lead to an accident.

He lowered my legs to rest against his left side. As his hips twisted, I felt his penis press tighter inside me. It was stimulating for both of us.

Without withdrawing his penis, he lay down beside me. Lying on his side, he pulled my chest towards him, and I ended up in a spooning position, facing the same direction. He pulled his hand away from my mouth and instead offered me the back of his hand to bite.

“Haaah, hck!”

I tried not to bite, but the stimulation of him beginning to rub inside as we changed positions broke my concentration, and I sank my teeth into the veins on the back of his neat hand.

Our bodies pressed together made the sensations even more acute. I frantically rubbed his arm around my chest over my tattered t-shirt, and as he lowered his hips slightly, I pushed my own hips forward and swayed to the rhythm of his upward thrusts.

His knee dug between my legs, lifting my thighs. My groin spread, and in this primal position, lying on my side with one leg raised, I was penetrated, rubbed, and thrust against. The force of his determined, rapid thrusts scraped my prostate mercilessly.

“Haaah, uck… hck… kkh. Hck.”

It felt like the bubbles boiling inside my core finally overflowed.

Reaching orgasm without ejaculating, I gripped his arm around my chest as if to tear it, my mouth gaping open as I choked.

He grabbed my chin, which had been biting his hand, and turned it back. Before our lips even met, his tongue plunged deep, engulfing me. My rear was still completely filled with his penis, and though I hadn’t ejaculated, I had reached somewhere. His tongue ruthlessly ravaged my accelerating pulse and shallow breaths.

His heaving hips retreated. As his penis, its contours clearly defined, slid out, dragging its sensual glans over the mucous membranes, semen flowed out of my anus like a tipped-over water bottle with its cap removed.

The sensation of him pushing in and filling me was one thing… but the feeling of it pouring out and leaving was just as erotic.

Shivering, I instinctively brought both hands between my legs. I blocked the opening with my hands and hunched my shoulders. My body, having experienced ejaculation in front and orgasm in the rear sequentially, was now extremely sensitive, as if even a puff of breath on my skin would elicit a moan.

Gulp, gulp, I felt the sticky fluid sloshing through my fingers. I had to cover myself and groan, like someone unsure what to do as they felt the urge to urinate.

“Haaah, n-no… what, is coming out….”

My vision blurred as I looked back at him, begging him to do something. It was from the tears welling up.

He overlapped his hand with mine, which was still covering my rear, and rubbed it firmly. He pressed his lips onto my sweat-and-tear-dampened eyes.

“It’s okay, just a moment… I’ll put it back in soon.”

He pushed my shoulders, making me lie on my stomach, and immediately climbed onto my back. Then, he pulled my body up by embracing my abdomen. I ended up on all fours on the mattress, my knees and hands supporting me.

He placed one hand beside mine, covering my back with his chest, and with his other hand, he turned my chin and met my lips. My head was tilted back as if trying to see something stuck to my shoulder, and I offered him my tongue and lips.

“Nngh, mmm… mmm.”

His penis, rubbing against my buttocks, was still hot and hard. As he twisted his body’s axis from our quadrupedal stance, I felt him raise one leg into an L-shape.

He licked his glans, which had traced the path of his semen down my inner thighs from my anus, and pushed his wet glans into the still-open entrance.

Unlike before, I didn’t even have the luxury to be surprised at how easily I accepted his penis, which forcefully rammed in all at once.

Slap, his sticky palm, which seemed to slap my buttocks, grabbed and twisted the flesh as if it couldn’t stand it. Lying face down like a child being punished, I moaned as I lowered my head, and a deep, heavy groan came from behind me.

He rested his chest on my back again.

On all fours, intertwined, we shook wildly with the recoil of him thrusting in and out, like animals. This was a position where his strength was transmitted most directly and without waste.

Because of the semen pooled inside, the sound of our joining was particularly wet with each thrust.

“Hck, hck… Haaah.”

My dangling penis thrashed wildly, and the chilling sensation of being stimulated simultaneously front and back drove me mad. I felt like I would collapse from the force of his thrusts if I let go of the hands gripping the mattress, so I couldn’t even reach out and grab his penis.

It felt like being a bumper car, cornered and continuously attacked. With constant, strong collisions, and unable to attempt anything else, I trembled as I was shaken.

He rubbed against me with every surface of his penis as he thrust in and out, no longer holding back anything. His hips moved so fast that, covering my entire back, he was like a beast sprinting on all fours. I, too, was not much different, pulled along by his sprint as I moaned as if I would cry.

“You… wanted to be with me this much? Enough to climb onto the bed first?”

“Hnn, hnnn, ugh…”

Feeling his chin pressing on my shoulder, I nodded. As he thrust in and out, rocking his hips and pelvis, he slipped one hand under my loose t-shirt and squeezed my nipple.

“How could you? How could you do that without thinking… what kind of…”

Before he could finish, he pulled his nipple-squeezing hand out from the neckline and turned my chin. Our lips immediately met. The force with which he was thrusting made our lips repeatedly slip and collide, making the kiss, his lips, even more desperate.

My gaze, loosely lowered, fixed on his lips, and through my trembling breaths, I confessed readily.

“I… wanted to.”

He looked at me with eyes that seemed to be burning red. As his completely broken, panting breaths released a scent, I immediately lunged forward and greedily inhaled it.

“Not just today, but all along… I have.”

He frowned as if he had heard something terribly unpleasant and swallowed my lips. It was a kiss that felt like he was literally biting and swallowing the flesh of my lips, as if I were prey caught at the end of a chase.

Even though I was feverish on the bed, this was not a lie to heighten the mood. Even though he didn’t know it, I knew it was a confession of truth, which made my own boldness even more astonishing.

Gradually, sex was becoming a liberation for me.

It was a decadent liberation, a temporary escape rather than a fundamental freedom, but it was clear that while my bare skin was pressed against his, I could forget everything and be honest, focusing only on my own senses.

For years, I hadn’t experienced sensations that struck and resonated with my existence so vividly. I felt like I would get hurt if I felt anything.

But contact with him held a vividness that allowed me to face, touch, and sense myself as a living being. Even if I had to endure the bitter taste of self-reproach afterward, it was undeniably attractive to someone like me, in that it was not an act that harmed or endangered anyone.

I only had to endure the bitterness and hollow sense of loss after the act.

“If you want it, say it. Just say you want me, and I’ll give it to you anytime…”

He pulled away the lips he had been biting, then whispered into my ear, rubbing his nose against it, a story that could be no more fragrant and simultaneously no more cruel.

This act was not about possessing him, and no matter how many times it was repeated, it would not achieve any meaning on its own. Knowing that… if I could possess him, even just his body, for a moment, I would probably repeat this.

I wanted to ask if it was true. If he would do this for me anytime, anywhere, just like now, if I wanted it.

My thighs, stretched taut, trembled, but I gripped the sheets and held on, not wanting to let go of him as he thrust inside me.

“Hnn, hnn… hck….”

His eyes, reacting to my every expression, breath, and the twitch of my inner walls; his sensual lips that loved to move roughly; the movement of his flexible yet powerful muscles; the heat of his penis and the way it rubbed inside. The suffocating, deep fragrance. All the sensations he gave me contrasted with my previous faint world.

My mind blurred and faded, but conversely, all my senses became eerily sharp.

I liked being exposed to that sharpness and letting it break me down. Only he and I were here. Privacy is amazing. Whatever pleasure I indulged in or whatever debauched acts I enjoyed with him on the bed, as long as that one person consented, it was not a sin.

I was free. Even if it was an illusion of indulgence and depravity, at least in this moment, that’s how I felt.

On all fours, trembling with the force of his penis thrusting, even this position of turning my head to exchange a messy kiss… no longer felt shameful, but freeing. The twisted pleasure that came from boldly doing what I shouldn’t, what I wasn’t allowed to do, was also part of the sex.

“I want it….”

I did as he said, that I only needed to ask if I wanted it. My voice, hoarse and lewd, was unclear.

“You have it, right now.”

He slowed the pace of his thrusting, but instead pushed his penis deep, all the way in. Without pulling back even an inch, he thrust his hips wildly.

Shivering at the feeling of his hardness pulsing inside me, I shook my head frantically, no, that wasn’t it.

“What you did last time….”

“…….”

“Do that for me. Knotting… do it again.”

What was I even babbling about?

He grabbed my hair and yanked my head back hard. Biting my swollen lips, he spat out in rapid English, with a stronger accent than usual, about my obscenity driving him mad.

Everything about how he treated me became rougher. He was no longer the man who fought against invading forces, tearing at his training pants.

He grabbed my wrists and pulled them back behind me as if yanking them. He pulled me up and tightly embraced my upper body. It was a position where my chest, and even my arms, were bound by him, leaving me unable to move. An immense force, as if crushing every bone in my upper body, tightened around me. Blue veins bulged on his arms, and the contours of his muscles became more defined.

He buried his face in my neck, above the neckline of my t-shirt, which had stretched so much it exposed one shoulder. The force with which he dug his teeth into the area where my neck met my shoulder was more painful than play or caress. As if he would tear off and swallow my flesh, he bit into my skin and shook his head.

“Ugh, ugh… hng!”

Without loosening his grip on me, he pulled his hips back, leaving only the glans inside, then thrust back in with a force that made a loud ‘pang’ sound, causing the flesh of my buttocks to quiver.

His penis, digging all the way in until I could feel his scrotum pressing against my buttocks, then pulling back halfway, dragging my inner walls… it felt like it was rubbing not just my insides, but my entire body. It was a sex that poured himself into me without reservation, as if trying to transform me into himself.

As the feeling of climax, which had repeatedly surged and receded at the tip of his penis, rushed through my body once more, I felt a swelling sensation around my lower abdomen and buttocks.

Like inserting a hose into my anus, sealing the entrance, and then turning the faucet to its maximum to inflate me. Thump, thump, thump, my pulse pounded as if striking from above my head, and the blood in my entire body felt like it was rushing through my veins at several times its normal speed.

“Haaah, h, th, this… this….”

Staring blankly at the ceiling as if witnessing something astonishing, he sprayed semen onto the sheets. Even as he watched me climax, he didn’t slow his thrusting at all.

There are no brakes for a Golden Alpha knotting. In this moment when the reproductive capabilities of a Golden Alpha are maximized, he exists to impregnate me, whom he holds in his arms.

It felt like being tightly bound with ropes all over my body, the pressure gradually increasing. The intense pleasure, like being trampled all over, like my skin being painfully dug into, made my skin tingle.

“Yeah, it’s knotting… You like it? Did you like it that much?”

As if he wanted to kill me, he bit various spots on my neck, pounding into me with his engorged penis as if to burst me. His penis, which blocked my throat and made it hard to breathe, seemed capable of rearranging my internal organs even without him thrusting wildly. That was knotting.

“You said you were a Beta. You said you were definitely not an Omega. But why are you seeking knotting? Do you want to get pregnant? Huh?”

Insane.

Listening to his voice, scolding me like a threat, I momentarily found myself thinking about whether our relationship might change if pregnancy were possible. Even if it was just a fleeting thought, the direction of my thoughts, so cowardly and pathetic, something I could never have imagined before, was frightening and chilling.

“Why, why do you….”

He mumbled, as if surrendering or collapsing, and then ejaculated with his forehead buried in my shoulder. It was a hot, fierce ejaculation, like pouring boiling water inside me. At first, it shot out like a stream from a showerhead, but then it flowed out repeatedly, gurgling, soaking me thoroughly.

The enormous amount of semen, as soon as he poured it inside me, squeezed through the completely sealed gap between his knotting penis and my inner walls and flowed down between my legs. If it hadn’t flowed out like that, my organs might have been damaged. And, though this was in the case of me being an Omega, even with it leaking out, it was enough to get me pregnant.

I turned my head towards him. Lifting his face from my neck, his eyes, when he looked at me, were completely gone, just like last time.

Though one could find his unfocused gaze, which seemed to look at me but not see me, frightening, it was simply… sexy. Thinking that all this wildness and deviation from reason was directed towards me made me greedy, wanting to hold him in my hands.

I kissed his languidly drooping eyelids, and he immediately came alive, lunging at me roughly and snatching my lips. At the same time, he fell onto the sheets with me in his arms, and climbed onto my stomach.

Lips, tongue, neck, ears, chest, armpits and pubic hair, the back of his testicles and my anus. A thorough exploration followed. He inhaled my scent deeply wherever his lips and nose touched, showing a greed for me that surpassed my own greed for him.

“Whatever happens… just come to me like today. Don’t worry about anything.”

Even if it was just lip service, spoken meaninglessly amidst the heat of the bed, like the whispered “I love yous” of one-night stands I’d met for the first time today, it was the best nourishment for my ravenous heart towards him.

I hugged his head as he kissed my sensitive, swollen red nipples several times, pushing up my t-shirt, and closed my eyes.

Unlike last time, when he had ejaculated with knotting and then, flustered, stopped the act and frantically tried to scrape out the semen from inside me, this time he changed positions and ejaculated inside me once more.

My insides, slickly smeared with his semen three times, and my entire body, I felt, must be exuding his scent rather than my own. It definitely felt like something had changed.

■ ■ ■

Next to the single-seater sofa, the table with a simple vase of flowers and a couple of books was a small, wooden refrigerator. He took out a bottle of water and then gently helped me, who was slumped over, too exhausted to even cover my penis, to sit up.

“Drink some water.”

My lips and even my mouth were parched, but I didn’t have the strength to lift a small bottle of water. I was completely drained and worn out, like a horse that had been tied up and dragged around for a long time.

My left shoulder rested against his right chest. He sat me down beside him and put his arm around my shoulder, propping me up from behind with his knees bent. I tried to support myself by placing my hands on the mattress, but I couldn’t even hold up my upper body without leaning on him more than halfway.

Seeing my arms and hands tremble as I tried to grasp the water bottle, he took a mouthful of water for me. Then, he pressed his lips to mine and let the water flow in.

At first, I flinched and my body contracted in surprise. The cold sensation against my hot body was unfamiliar, and I hadn’t expected him to go to such lengths.

Though we had been entangled in all sorts of awkward positions just moments before, even a messy sexual encounter didn’t necessarily imply a relationship that required responsibility for such delicate kindness afterward.

My muscles wouldn’t obey, and about half of the water he poured in couldn’t be swallowed, flowing down my lips, my neck, my chest hidden by my t-shirt, and my lower abdomen. He patiently gave me enough water over several attempts.

Only when he saw that my eyes had regained some life did he quench his own thirst with the remaining water. His large, cool hand, which had held the water bottle, brushed away the sweat-dampened hair clinging to my forehead.

I was completely spent, but he was not. The muscles in his entire body were still engorged, ready to sprint at any moment, and the gaze he cast down at me still flickered with heat.

That heat traced a path down my body. It was the path where the water had flowed.

Holding me in his arms, he slid his lips and tongue along the path where he had poured the water. Every time his lips brushed against my skin, I trembled violently, as if having a seizure. The sensation of him sucking on my nipples through the wet t-shirt was cold and unfamiliar, making my toes clench.

Even after ejaculating three times, his penis, touching my side, was still hard. It was as fresh as a penis aroused after more than a week of abstinence.

But he accepted the end of the sex with a calm demeanor. He seemed accustomed to situations where he couldn’t have sex whenever he wanted.

To satisfy the insatiable lust of a Golden Alpha, it might be impossible for anyone other than a Golden Omega. I don’t know for sure.

Having tasted the nectar that flowed from the threads of pleasure, I wanted to satisfy him too, but I didn’t have even a shred of energy left to induce sexual arousal. It felt like he had eaten it all if there was any.

I tried to put more strength into my spine and sat up from his embrace. I adjusted the neckline of my t-shirt, which had completely exposed one shoulder, and discreetly covered my tangled penis along with it.

“I think I have to throw this t-shirt away.”

My own voice, unexpectedly hoarse, was embarrassing.

“Hmm, you’re right.”

He agreed and looked down at the chest area of my t-shirt. The thin cotton t-shirt was so stretched out at the neckline that its original shape was unrecognizable; even after adjusting it, my collarbone and upper chest were clearly visible.

He stroked my collarbone and then playfully reached inside the neckline, as if searching for something. His hand, moving from my neck downwards into the shirt, felt strangely erotic, and I looked down at his hand, which massaged my chest muscles a couple of times with his palm spread wide, then looked away.

“It’s easy to touch, and it’s sexy, isn’t it? Let’s keep it as a souvenir.”

He was skilled and natural at keeping the atmosphere from becoming awkward with lighthearted banter after sex.

I laughed weakly at his joke, and suddenly his face hardened with a serious expression.

His gaze stopped at the space between my legs. The large amount of semen he had poured in three times was still flowing out, even as I sat. Just like during sex, his gaze, fixed on the space between my legs, was unreservedly explicit. He even tilted his head to get a better look. Though I wanted to act nonchalant, my thighs instinctively closed.

“Shall we do the aftermath first?”

He abruptly pulled his gaze away, as if cutting off the conversation unnaturally, and got up from the bed. Thinking he was going to do it himself, I unconsciously grabbed his wrist.

“Rest a little… I’ll do it slowly.”

“…….”

His gaze drifted downwards again. As I held him, my t-shirt lifted slightly, revealing the space between my legs even more than before. During sex, I had blurted out all sorts of things without him asking… but now that the sex-induced magic that numbed my brain had worn off, I was mortified by the wetness between my legs, as if I had wet myself.

“If I keep looking at that… I feel like I’ll jump you again. It’s too stimulating.”

He said that, but his attitude as he gently detached my hand and headed for the bathroom didn’t show much lingering desire.

The bathroom light turned on, the sound of water filling the bathtub could be heard, and he returned with a wet towel. He moved naturally, naked, his still-erect penis leading the way.

However, perhaps bothered by his penis bobbing with every step due to its heavy weight, he occasionally gripped its base… and I, who couldn’t even lift a finger, found myself cursing my own lust that made my thighs tingle at the sight. How had I been satisfied with mere mechanical masturbation until now?

“Hng, i-it’s okay….”

He sat on the bed with one leg dangling down and immediately brought the towel between my legs, and I resisted, gripping his wrists with both hands. He paused for a moment, then easily shook off my hands and lifted the hem of my t-shirt.

“I did all of this. So let me do it. I know you overdid it.”

Saying that, he wiped my thighs and penis with the warm towel, his face and hands looking serious, as if performing a medical procedure. Even though his penis was still erect, his expression and touch when he touched me were devoid of any sexual nuance.

He was perfectly kind, without any awkwardness or embarrassment… which made me realize that the sex just moments ago hadn’t unsettled him at all, and that his greed and wildness, which had escaped my control, had ended the moment the sex was over.

I wasn’t resenting his kindness and manners. I wasn’t asking him, like a pervert, to treat me coldly, push me away, and insult me after he was done.

Yet, why did it feel so suffocating to watch him act with such calm, polite manners? I was complaining about having too much.

He said that if I didn’t properly remove what was inside, I would suffer, and then, supporting me as if I were a child, he led me to the bathroom. A generous amount of hot water had been filled in the bathtub in the meantime.

He said it would be easier to remove it in the water, and had me take off my t-shirt and squat in the tub.

I desperately tried to stop him from following me into the tub. I had boasted that I could do it myself, but despairingly, I didn’t even have the strength to support myself while squatting. Moreover, his bathtub was much wider than a standard size, so I couldn’t even brace myself by holding onto the edges on either side.

Watching me repeatedly try and fail, falling on my backside, he sighed and clicked his tongue from above.

“See, you can’t do it.”

Splash. There was no excuse to push him away again as he stepped into the tub. It seemed absurd that I was so weak after sex, but considering the long and persistent caresses that seemed to melt my entire body, and the vigorous, intense penetration and knotting, and the three ejaculations, it seemed like a natural consequence.

“Stop being stubborn. You’ll get bruises in the wrong places.”

Saying that in an anxious voice, he sat down behind me. His arms immediately came around my knees. Lifting me slightly off the tub floor, his chest and shoulders pressed against my back.

I didn’t expect him to be as calm and skilled as he was, but I didn’t want to look like an idiot, and perhaps that was too much to ask. My eyes snapped shut at the pathetic sight of my legs being spread open by the force lifting me from behind.

He placed my right leg over his bent knee to prevent me from closing them and fumbled below.

“I’ll touch you a bit at first so it comes out smoothly.”

“…….”

What could I say?

I closed my eyes, lowered my head, bit my swollen lips, and just wished for this time to pass quickly.

“Hng, hht.”

However, it was not easy to remain silent as his fingers fumbled inside my sensitive, aroused anus. The act of touching my anus for aftercare, after the heat of sex had subsided, made my ears and face burn more than the most obscene positions during sex.

As if sensing my distress, he kissed my lowered neck in a soothing manner.

“Ughhh….”

My fingers, gently scraping the inner walls, carefully parted the entrance, and a slippery fluid gushed out from inside. It was a chilling sensation. When I opened my eyes, I clearly saw the flow of semen spreading hazily in the tub, which was still clear. What is this…

I bit my lip again at the scene I couldn’t handle. I knew, without turning to look, that his gaze was fixed on the murky blur spreading through the water, leaking from the hole.

Even though it was clearly his semen, it felt as if… it was a secretion made inside me… I felt like a stranger to myself, as if I had become another being. My face, and even the nape of my neck exposed to him, must have been flushed red.

“Don’t look….”

As I mumbled in a small voice, he chuckled lowly, his lips pressed against my nape.

“Why not? It’s a shame to miss it. It looks good.”

Then, pressing down on the back of my neck as if to hold me, he kissed me, his lips then sliding down along my shoulder line.

“Apply pressure little by little, then release.”

To apply pressure like this while my legs were spread and lifted. If I did, it would be like… Haa….

I don’t think I felt as ashamed then as I do now, when he lifted my groin to his chest and licked my anus in front of me. My face burned as if it would explode, but accepting the situation and following his instructions was the only way to get it over with as quickly as possible. I had no choice.

He rubbed his lips over my skin as if to encourage me, then used his index and middle fingers to spread the entrance of my anus apart. It was clearly an act to help with the discharge. Perhaps it was because his lips on my shoulder seemed to be smiling, or perhaps because his fingers were creating a subtle, unnecessary friction, but my thoughts kept drifting towards sexual matters.

“You’ve already released a lot. Are you always this quick with everything?”

“……”

His voice held a faint trace of laughter, but I, lacking composure, had nothing to say, just as before.

It was strange even to myself that I, who had been bold enough to beg for knotting first, making him lose the reason he had barely held onto, became a complete fool the moment I got off the bed. But this was the me I was more accustomed to.

“Relax and sit up a little more.”

He helped me sit up and lean against the edge of the bathtub, then walked to the shower stall opposite me. Without any apparent awareness of another person in the same space, he finished his shower quickly. At least, he seemed not to be aware.

Perhaps I was the one being overly conscious. Given his age of thirty-two and his skilled, sophisticated bedroom manners, it seemed unlikely that he would become awkward after every sexual encounter and shrink from his partner’s gaze.

It struck me anew that I was still inexperienced in all aspects. When he showed me kindness or looked at me with a smile, as if I were cute, I sometimes wondered if it was proof that he saw me as a little special. But when I saw his calm and composed demeanor, unlike mine, I wondered if it was just his ingrained manners, and my own delusion.

It wasn’t easy to grasp the inner world of someone ten years my senior. It was even more so when that senior was Lau Wikun.

The water had been murky when the semen flowed out, but as I looked down at the water, now diluted and clear again, he dried himself with a large towel and left the bathroom.

After sitting a while longer, I got up and rinsed myself roughly with the shower, my legs still not fully cooperating. Just then, he returned to the bathroom. He then sat me on the built-in ledge where one could sit and began to wash my hair.

“Close your eyes.”

As I obediently closed my eyes, a stream of warm water poured from above, washing away the shampoo lather. He intertwined his large hands through my hair, rinsing the foam more thoroughly.

It felt pointless now to be conscious of every little thing and to insist on my own way. The water stopped, and feeling like a large, clumsy child, I chuckled and rubbed my eyes. The man standing before me gently cupped my chin, tilted my head up, and washed away the remaining foam from my face.

It was all so natural, as if we had always been like this, or as if he always spent his time after sex this way…

As when he entered the bathroom, I returned to the bedroom, leaning on him for support as if I were being carried, even though my leg wasn’t injured.

The sheets had been changed in the meantime. On the clean, new sheets, my underwear and pajamas were laid out.

Even though I was the one who received penetration and he wasn’t as physically strained as I was, there was no doubt that I was the one who had expended more energy. Whether it was because he was a Golden Alpha or due to his personal abilities, his stamina was admirable. Even now, he showed no signs of fatigue.

“I only have my size at home, so they’ll be a bit… big.”

“Yes.”

My lower back felt heavy and throbbing, and even standing was frankly a bit of a struggle. As I sat on the bed and put on my clothes, he also put on his underwear and sweatpants. Perhaps it was his habit to sleep without a shirt in the summer, as he was still bare-chested, standing beside me and watching me slowly dress.

The underwear felt embarrassing, with the overall circumference being loose, and especially the front part. It wasn’t a matter of pride as a man. In the first place, it was unreasonable to group a Golden Alpha male and a Beta male as ‘the same man.’ While there was no scientific evidence regarding genetic superiority in physical ability or intellect, the fact that Alphas had superior reproductive capabilities was a proven fact.

“I should buy a few pairs in Seo Yi-hyun’s size too.”

“……”

He said that as he turned and walked towards the refrigerator. I raised my head in surprise, but he was no longer looking at me. My hands, which had been buttoning my pajamas, stopped as I fixed my gaze on his back as he bent down to take out a bottle of water.

The whisper during our intimacy, when he said I could have him whenever I wanted, overlapped in my mind. Was his intention to have underwear and clothes in my size ready a confirmation that I would seek him out again? Or was it an expression that he, too, intended to continue this relationship, this sex? It was all difficult for me.

He almost finished the bottle of water standing by the refrigerator, then took out a new bottle, twisted the cap, and approached me. I awkwardly lowered my gaze and started buttoning my pajamas again.

“You look like a child wearing their dad’s underwear, that’s why…”

As he said that, handing me the water bottle, his gaze lingered on my loose underwear. It wasn’t a nuance of showing off his own penis size and belittling me. Rather, even as he spoke, his eyes looking down at the underwear were mixed with a subtle stickiness, making my legs instinctively draw together.

After taking a few sips of water and placing the bottle on the side table, I put on my lower garments while still sitting. He lit a cigarette and sat on the edge of the bed. A simple ashtray made of white ceramic was placed between us.

“Earlier… you said it in passing, but.”

He rested his feet on the bed frame, which was made as a single unit without legs, and rested his elbows on his bent knees. He opened his mouth, exhaling smoke.

“From now on, if anything comes up, you can come to me like you did today. I wasn’t just saying that.”

Was it just a word spoken under the influence of the mood during sex? — It was an explanation as if he had read my thoughts.

He was sitting facing the sofa, so I, sitting at the head of the bed, could comfortably see his profile. He took a slightly hurried next puff, frowned, and exhaled the smoke in a long sigh.

“I know you don’t like relying on or asking others for help… but it’s natural at your age not to have the strength to solve practical problems… and discussing or relying on more mature people for those aspects doesn’t make you weak or dependent…”

I was surprised that he understood me so well. What I was worried about, what I was hesitating about. He knew it all without me ever saying a word. Was the ten-year age gap that significant?

I felt awkward, like a self-conscious adolescent who, despite pretending to be mature, ultimately faced the fact that he was just a child in crucial matters. But more than that, I was grateful for his words.

Perhaps they were words I had desperately wanted to hear from someone stronger and wiser than myself, words I desperately needed to get back on track. That it was okay to discuss and rely on others, and that it wouldn’t make me a burden or dependent… I had waited more than anything for someone with a trustworthy, significant presence to say that, because I couldn’t be sure on my own.

Yet, my chest felt tight, as if pressed down by something.

I wanted to express my gratitude, but it was difficult to open my mouth due to the swirling complex emotions. I opened and closed my lips as if to speak, but ultimately bit my lower lip hard.

In the room, where not even a wall clock hung, only the sound of him smoking continued quietly for a long time.

“Last time, you asked if I liked that painting… .”

“……”

My gaze, which had been fixed somewhere on the sheets, was automatically drawn upwards. My eyes widened, my pulse quickened. I hadn’t expected him to still remember that question.

“My parents divorced because of me.”

And I hadn’t expected the question about whether I liked my painting to lead to a story in this direction.

I had defined him as someone who buried his stories deep within himself, but his voice, as he began to confess a part of his past, was as calm as if he were reading a book.

“It’s a complicated issue, and explaining it would take too long. It’s not something I can tell others in detail, so to put it briefly… they had a sham divorce, even though there were no problems in their relationship, to protect me. They continued to interact discreetly, but how could I not feel guilty about that situation?”

He brushed his hair back with his free hand, tapping ash from the ashtray placed between us.

“No one ever said it was because of me, but as I grew up, I naturally came to know. That I was the cause of separating a set that should be complete only when together, unnaturally.”

His dry tone seemed to waver slightly, but he soon regained his composure, his balance.

“People often described the two of them simply as an ‘ideal couple,’ but as their only child, I felt something more from the closest vantage point. No arguments, their gazes still sweet like lovers after a long marriage, enjoying dates just for the two of them… it was beyond just that kind of relationship…”

I interrupted him as he struggled to find the right words to convey a meaning that was not ordinary.

“I think I understand.”

He looked back at me, gnawing on his lower lip with his upper teeth. The cigarette between his fingers had become short.

He didn’t challenge me, asking what I understood or how I understood. Instead, his surprised, rigid face softened into a relaxed smile, and he chuckled. It was a smile that tolerated his story being received and understood by the other person, ‘in their own way.’

Considering that most people tend to be objective and rational about the pain of others, yet resent their own minor hurts, like a splinter under a fingernail, being easily dismissed, the slightly melancholic, resigned, gentle smile he showed suggested he wasn’t just a prince who conquered the world effortlessly through the power of his circumstances.

However, my gesture of empathy was by no means casually thrown.

Even if I couldn’t be perfectly sure if what he wanted to say and my understanding matched exactly, I too knew couples who shared a relationship beyond what people called an ideal couple in the ordinary sense.

“My father was an admirer and artistic comrade of my mother’s work and the spirit that constituted it, and my mother considered my father, the perfect interpreter of herself and her work, her literal soulmate. Many people think that a perfectly balanced relationship, not leaning even slightly to one side, doesn’t exist… and especially the relationship between an artist and their supporter is an unequal one, with the weight leaning towards the artist, but that wasn’t the case for them.”

He stubbed out the cigarette, which had burned down to the filter, in the ashtray.

“It wasn’t a relationship that depended on simple romantic feelings for the opposite sex or affection built up over time. To implant meaning beyond the basic sustenance of life through the resolution of food, clothing, and shelter… they absolutely needed each other, and those two… had to be forcibly torn apart… because of me.”

He showed almost no demand for empathy regarding his emotions towards me, the listener. Pausing for a moment, he gazed into the air as if recalling a point in the past, bearing his emotions entirely on his own. To me, he was merely telling it as a story, as information.

Perhaps he thought it was ugly to get caught up in emotions and make the other person an audience for one’s unhappiness, saying, ‘I went through this hardship, this suffering.’

While I agreed that such distance was ‘ordinary’ maturity, and I too felt uncomfortable revealing my own vulnerabilities, a selfish desire suddenly surged within me to see him expose his most vulnerable part and force his emotions onto me. But that was, quite literally, a selfish desire.

Lost in thought for a long time, he stood up, took the cigarette pack and lighter from the table, and returned to his seat. Lighting a new cigarette, he exhaled smoke with a practiced motion and spoke.

“As I grew up, I had to ask myself many times. Was I… worth it?”

I felt an urge to answer for him. But of course, I had no right to speak on that answer. He wasn’t looking for the answer from me.

“It’s strange. They sacrificed their most precious relationship for me, yet why didn’t I become a human filled with love, but instead began to doubt my own existence? Even though I knew they didn’t make that decision to make me feel guilty… as time passed, my feelings towards them were more of apology than gratitude… and knowing that their project would be a failure if I wasn’t completely happy, my guilt only grew… I grew up in such a vicious cycle.”

He deliberately delivered the last sentence in a light tone and took a short puff of his cigarette. He rested the half-smoked cigarette on the ashtray, placed his arms on his knees, clasped his hands loosely, and cracked his knuckles one by one with a popping sound. He then glanced at me and smiled.

“So, the moment I saw that painting, I doubted. What is this? Did I ever paint something like this?”

But I couldn’t even smile back, let alone move. He was talking about a cell that made him who he was, a secret that, at least to me now, was the most curious in the world, and by mentioning , that cell was now trying to connect with me.

The sense of alienation he must have felt for reasons that were not ordinary.

The child who was born between ideally loving parents and raised with sacrificial love, and who was ‘supposed’ to be happy within that embrace.

Even if it wasn’t a perfect match, it didn’t feel like a forced delusion born from my eagerness to find common ground with him, even if I thought it was quite similar to my own story.

He picked up the cigarette again.

“It means I empathized that much. Because the words I wanted to scream at my parents, or at the world, were all there. I could immediately understand what the artist wanted to say.”

He looked at me as if asking for confirmation whether he had interpreted the painting correctly, but I had never thought about how to accept another person’s interpretation of my work.

If he felt that way, and if it was a strong conviction, then perhaps he was that painting. Perhaps that was enough. I could only vaguely surmise.

“I was born between parents with excellent talents who loved each other dearly and was raised with sacrificial love, so naturally, I should be happy. Everyone said so, but why couldn’t I be? Was I the one who was strange for not being happy? Later, I became angry at the people who forced happiness upon me.”

The coercion of happiness. A coercion of perfect happiness, as if drawn, like the ending of a fairy tale or a Hollywood family movie, from those around me. I, too, knew a certain degree of that suffocating feeling.

Around the time I painted , my friends were all pursuing only what they didn’t have. A friend with neglectful parents envied friends who received warm attention from theirs, while conversely, a friend with overly involved parents felt it was interference and envied their freedom. That was the age.

The reason I painted is not due to the bitter resentment people imagine.

I loved my parents and was happy. It was simply not a flawless, perfect happiness, unlike the one some people tried to force upon me, solely because I possessed something they did not—a purely relative reason.

To me, who was already grateful and already happy, they had said with sullen faces, “You should be more grateful, and happier.”

The air in the room was still warm from the heat we had poured out, he and I, but I suddenly felt a chill and slowly ran my pajama-clad arm down my leg.

Taking another drag, he ran a hand through his hair with the hand holding the cigarette and turned to me, his face tilted askew.

“But that painting was telling a different story. —You’re not the only one who’s strange. I’m strange too.”

At his theatrical, playful mimicry, the words of Teacher Suki Kim came to mind amidst my subsiding laughter.

The story that was a comfort to him.

It wasn’t just because he highly valued my talent as a collector or dealer… it was because he personally felt empathy from my painting that could hang in his living room, a fact I was now hearing clearly through his words.

The fact that at least a part of the alienation he had lived with was with my painting… evoked a special emotion I had never felt before. Believe it or not, it was a more captivating feeling than the sex we had shared just moments ago. I wanted to know more about him.

“That’s why I want Seo Yi-hyun to paint again. I want to see that artist’s next work.”

“…….”

His eyes spoke to me, telling me he wanted to see the paintings I created.

I couldn’t have been more shaken even if he had said he wanted to see my naked body.

“Seo Yi-hyun’s question was brief, but my answer was a bit… quite long, wasn’t it?”

Perhaps embarrassed by his own lengthy story, he rubbed his eyes with a slightly bitter smile. I thought he might finally be a little tired. Why wouldn’t he be? After spending hours… holding my not-so-small self and expending so much energy.

“Could I have one too?”

“…….”

He looked at me silently, and after a pause, handed me a cigarette without much reaction. Seeing that he only gave me the cigarette and not a lighter, I looked at him, and he gestured with his chin as if to say, “Put it in your mouth.” I awkwardly put the filter between my lips, and he brought the lighter’s flame to the tip of the cigarette.

Flustered, I pulled back slightly, then slowly tilted my head, meeting his eyes over the flame. He, too, didn’t take his eyes off mine as he lit it.

It didn’t cause the same physical rejection as the cigarettes I smoked in his room in Hong Kong. I didn’t cough, and the stinging sensation in my throat and lungs wasn’t severe. It almost felt like this level of pain was necessary for me now.

But still, less than half the smoke was something I could swallow. The remaining half slowly diffused into the air. Ironically, I found myself thinking it resembled the way my bodily fluids had spread, flowing out of me and clouding the bathtub water earlier.

I was the first to break eye contact.

“Teacher Suki Kim… is the CEO’s mother, isn’t she?”

It was a question asked for confirmation, as he no longer seemed to have any intention of hiding that fact.

He looked at me smoking, observing me with a curious gaze, then chuckled and turned his head. He handled the cigarette with the practiced ease of someone handling a part of their own body, drawing in smoke.

“That’s right. I don’t like the jealousy that comes with saying I owe everything to my parents, but I dislike flattery just as much, so I don’t make a point of it.”

Although his mother was of Korean descent, he was from Hong Kong, and it didn’t seem like any of his close family members were settled in Korea. Yet, I could vaguely understand the reason he started a gallery in Seoul, a place with no ties to him, by connecting it to the stories he had told me earlier.

“Everything that has constituted me from birth until now has already been a benefit of my background, so to refuse the benefit of influence now would be… a childish stubbornness. Honestly, I’m embarrassed even talking about this.”

He spoke as if half to himself, then took a self-deprecating sip of his cigarette.

“Because it’s obvious they’ll whisper about it being a prince’s shallow show, wanting the title of self-made. Even if that were true to some extent, it’s never the whole story… and I grew tired of being the subject of gossip from people who like to simplify and judge others’ lives.”

Having said that much, he seemed to have revealed more than he intended, a look of dismay crossing his face before he quickly took a drag, as if to shut his mouth.

It’s not shameful to try to counter the inertia of maintaining one’s current state. Even to deviate just a little from one’s original position, or even to create or change a single habit, requires immense effort. Therefore, any intention to conduct new experiments through oneself should not be treated lightly.

Countless words swirled in my mind, but I couldn’t utter any of them.

Would it sound like superficial empathy? Would my words, coming from someone as cowardly as myself, who had made no effort to break free from inertia, carry any sincerity? Such fears froze my tongue.

“Ah, about my mother, the kids don’t know. Manager Han knows, though.”

It was an unexpected statement.

Perhaps it just happened that way, and he hadn’t necessarily tried to keep it a secret from his older sister and brother. He wasn’t someone who would blab about his own affairs without being asked. He hadn’t specifically asked me to keep it quiet either. But the way he smiled sheepishly at me conveyed a message of secrecy.

I didn’t feel a sense of relative superiority from him confiding in me, something he hadn’t even revealed to his sister and brother.

When he revealed the decisive card of Suki Kim to persuade me to paint, he had likely anticipated that I would learn of their mother-son relationship.

Considering his desire to be just Lau Wikun, regardless of his origin and background, it felt like a remarkably unconventional choice. That’s why I found it surprising.

He was willing to take the risk of revealing a part of himself he didn’t want to show, all to make me pick up a brush.

Not just out of a business mind to discover an artist as a dealer or collector, but because he himself was someone who had created paintings that he kept close for a long time, finding resonance and comfort in them.

He knew, and was convinced, that I, who did not paint, would lose my individuality and drift like colorless dust buried in universality. As if he had known me intimately for a very long time.

After taking the first drag, I slowly brought the cigarette, which I had only been holding between my fingers, to my lips.

He, leaning back loosely on the mattress with his hand behind him, watched me and brought a cigarette to his lips at the same time. Though we were each smoking our own cigarettes, perhaps because of his gaze or the atmosphere directed at me, I had the illusion of feeling his lips and tongue through the smoke. My skin tingled with a sharp sweetness, as if I were physically connecting with him.

A fragrance filled the air. Not the intense, breath-catching sensation like during sex, but a subtle, languid one.

He exhaled a long stream of smoke with a slow breath and spoke quietly.

“You said before, in front of Shushu’s work, ‘I feel like painting.'”

I had indeed said that. But back then, he had seemed to have almost no interest in me, so I never expected him to remember that conversation until now.

“…….”

“Paint.”

It was the concise core. Stripping away all grand justifications and persuasions, this was the final essence he wanted to convey to me.

“I don’t know what made Seo Yi-hyun stop painting… but for someone like you… the only way to walk, run, and breathe again is by painting, so think only of reclaiming your language… fighting for your life.”

Like the previous time he told me to eat for my own sake even if I had no appetite, his words urging me to paint for my life captured my heart like a striking passage in a song.

The more I got to know him, the more he seemed like someone who wanted me to pick up a brush not for his business or for ‘Phantom,’ but for my own sake. His words, his earnest gaze at me, said as much.

Teacher Suki Kim’s words, that he pretended to see art only in terms of economic value, were, in other words, equivalent to saying that he could never weigh art solely by its economic value.

He might be someone who could only approach artists and their creations with pure artistic sensibility.

He claimed it was difficult for works to be recognized solely for their value without marketing, and that he readily collaborated with the most secular media for promotion, but that wasn’t the entirety of his attitude towards art and artists.

Perhaps I was trying too hard to defend him, but it felt as though he was trying to suppress his pure affection for art with that very businessman-like demeanor.

I drew out the courage and asked him, flicking the already long ash of my cigarette, which I had only smoked twice, into the ashtray.

“How can you be so sure that I am someone who speaks through painting… based on just one work?”

He looked at me intently, then averted his gaze and repeatedly ran his hand through his hair. The faint smile on his face looked shy, like a boy about to reveal a secret.

Looking down at the cigarette in his hand, which had already burned short, he said.

“Whether you’ve noticed or not, there are hardly any paintings hanging in this house. But has been hanging in my home since before I came to Seoul. I’ve lived with it, looking at it every day, for five years. Not just the theme or composition, but the brushstrokes and texture… If this were a movie, I’d know all the lines of every character. I probably know that painting better than you do now, Seo Yi-hyun.”

Heat rose from within me, and my face felt flushed.

When I read his review of Shushu’s work, I felt the high praise for Shushu’s capabilities as an artist and the personal impact of Shushu’s work on him were like a passionate confession, but this, this was even more…

Suddenly, he tilted his head and looked at me, while I, conversely, dropped my gaze to avoid his. As if fleeing, I brought the cigarette to my lips and inhaled.

“So I can’t help but know that the artist of is someone who can only live by painting.”

However, I couldn’t resist my curiosity about the expression on his face as he spoke about me and my paintings. When I raised my head, exhaling smoke, his eyes held a different kind of heat than those seen during sex.

Earnestness that stripped away all pretense, lies, probing, and self-protection; honesty that laid bare his inner self, making it impossible to dismiss with a laugh.

“I’m not someone who speaks through painting, but I was born to someone who couldn’t live without it. Genetics? You can’t ignore that.”

He said it with a laugh, as if it were a joke, but I couldn’t.

“I thought something inside me had died, and that’s why I couldn’t paint anymore… but one day, I realized that perhaps it was because I stopped painting that I died…”

His words, urging me to paint for my life, resonated with Teacher Suki Kim’s story. As he said, the power of genetics was indeed undeniable.

I remembered clearly, as if I had recorded it and listened every day, what Teacher Suki Kim had said about a time when she had to put down her brush for about two years, thinking she had to prioritize painting over other things, or that she had to temporarily give up painting for things more important than it.

Perhaps that two-year period was related to the process of having to get a divorce by deception to protect him, but that was just speculation.

Just as I couldn’t explain why I stopped painting, I couldn’t ask him what his most vulnerable point was.

He looked at me smoking intently, then reached out and traced the surface of my lips. My lips, swollen and sensitive from our deep kiss.

In the dim light, his eyes, which seemed paler than usual, meticulously traced my face. He sometimes looked at me in this way. From the perspective of someone attracted to him, it was a gaze difficult to meet comfortably. If it was a habit, it would be good to correct it. Especially if I didn’t want to invite misunderstandings and get caught up in affairs like passionate quarrels.

“Did it hurt?”

“…….”

Was he asking about my lips, since he was touching them, or about the inside where the knotting had occurred, or about the sex in general? The scope was ambiguous. But whatever the question, my answer would be the same. I shook my head.

He slightly pulled down my lower lip, as if turning it inside out, then withdrew his hand, but continued to gaze at me for a long time. It felt like a ritual, imprinting a face he wanted to remember before embarking on a long journey.

His gaze and expression were calmer than when he spoke, but the rippling waves of atmosphere emanating from him conveyed agitation.

Vaguely, I felt an urge to confess everything to him. If confessing about myself meant I could hear about him, it felt like a profitable transaction.

Had I ever wanted to know someone this much? And about their most private, darkest places, their most personal and cruel wounds?

As if sensing that I had noticed his agitation, he forced a smile and grasped my shoulder.

“It must have been a very long day, so go to sleep. I actually have somewhere to go… I need to get ready and leave in a bit, but don’t worry about it, sleep as much as you want.”

He got up from the bed and prepared the covers for me. It seemed fatigue was finally setting in, as he pressed his eyes several times with the inside of his wrist during that time.

I felt guilty that we had been so intensely entangled when he had somewhere to go early in the morning, but it wouldn’t have been appropriate to apologize now by asking him to have sex.

By now, the sky outside was already brightening to a deep purple. It was still raining, but it had subsided somewhat from how it was in the middle of the night.

As if he had no time to sleep at all, I asked him apologetically as he drew another layer of blackout curtain, but he smiled as if it were fine, approached, and lightly pressed my shoulder, urging me to lie down.

“I’ll bring your phone here. I’ll call, so even if you’re sleepy, answer it.”

He was probably referring to a call to discuss the progress of the task he had requested, but still, his words, “answer it,” sounded like a trivial promise between lovers… for a moment, it was sweet, and more than that, it was frightening.

I was not prepared, either situationally or internally, to handle things like dating or love without problems.

The person who was supposed to give me the rice cake wasn’t even thinking about it, yet here I was, contemplating my lack of preparation… My own anticipation tasted bitter and ridiculous, so I pulled the blanket up to my lips and nodded.

It was hard to believe that it had only been a few hours since I had trembled with such intense fear the moment I saw Great Uncle’s face at the front gate. If he said it was okay, then everything would truly feel okay.

That, perhaps, was a capability as great as whether the problem was actually resolved or not. Thinking this, I closed my eyes, which were growing heavy.