By Zephyria “Because Hong-seo was passionately defending me. I enjoyed listening to that.”
“……”
“But when it came to a word like ‘slut,’ I couldn’t let it slide anymore.”
Rubbing the inside of Choi Hong-seo’s wrist with his thumb, Lee Hae-sung’s lips tightened. It was clear that he still harbored anger, even if he wasn’t showing it to Choi Hong-seo.
This time, Choi Hong-seo took Lee Hae-sung’s hand. The four hands intertwined as they faced downwards.
“If I had studied harder, I would have spoken more eloquently… but as you heard earlier, I don’t know how to speak elegantly, and I have a sharp edge. I’m not the pure Baby you talk about.”
Lee Hae-sung tightened his grip on their clasped hands for a moment. Pulled helplessly towards his chest, Choi Hong-seo buried his lips near his exposed collarbone. Lee Hae-sung’s dry lips pressed against his temple.
“I had to develop that sharp edge. How could I have endured that hell without it?”
Death was a way to shed the past once. It was a choice made with the expectation that all situations connected to that past would conclude. However, now that he had been resurrected, even if the involved parties had met their deaths or faced punishment, the wounds left by those times within Choi Hong-seo remained.
When Lee Hae-sung’s words seeped between the cracked and chapped wounds, filling the gaps warmly and healing them, Choi Hong-seo realized the wounds within him still remained.
To be healed meant there were wounds in the first place.
But it didn’t matter. The fact that those events had ended on their own, that they were literally a past life, remained unchanged. In this life, Choi Hong-seo’s sole interest was Lee Hae-sung.
“Even when they insulted you with vulgar words, you thought of the insult to me first.”
Unlacing his fingers, his hands, which had been intertwined, traced the spaces between his fingers as they rose to cup Choi Hong-seo’s cheeks broadly.
“That kind of affection you give… it’s what saves me.”
“……”
“The Vice President is a good person, just as that blind affection was precious to me.”
From a close distance, Lee Hae-sung’s eyes gazed deeply into Choi Hong-seo’s eyes, one after the other. Like a secret witness who had discovered an unbelievable treasure, his eyes were filled with wonder. Through the same kind of affection, he could tell that he was now feeling the reality of his lover’s return from the dead.
The moment he felt his gaze become more complexly tangled and waver, his face with its distinct features tilted sideways, and their lips met. The kiss, where they took turns holding and drawing each other in, was intense from the start. Their noses pressed together, and his lower lip flipped back, revealing its soft inner lining. He scraped that inner lining, drawing it in, and bared his teeth just enough to leave a slight wound.
“Nnngh.”
He loved even that stinging sensation. He didn’t want to resist. Choi Hong-seo moved closer, pressing his body against him, and continued to stroke the strong, beautiful curves of his bare upper body.
As if a wild beast, unable to gauge the difference in their physiques, pounced on the caretaker who had shown it affection, Lee Hae-sung kept pushing Choi Hong-seo back. With a thud, as Choi Hong-seo stumbled backward under his weight, his heels and the back of his head hit the closet. Only then did Lee Hae-sung rub the inside of his lower lip one more time against Choi Hong-seo’s before releasing his lips.
“Haa, hhh… ha…”
Choi Hong-seo gasped for breath, his lips instantly sensitive and flushed. Tap, Lee Hae-sung’s forehead touched Choi Hong-seo’s.
“From now on, always.”
His voice was deeper than usual, thick with the lust ignited by the kiss.
“Even after this honeymoon period passes, promise me you’ll shower with me every night.”
Choi Hong-seo smiled silently, scratching his lower lip with his teeth.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Honeymoon?”
“Why? Isn’t it? Should we have a grand wedding in secret? If Hong-seo wants it, I can do it.”
As Choi Hong-seo lowered his gaze while laughing, Lee Hae-sung tilted his shoulder and bowed his head deeply to meet his eyes. Even as he did so, his hands gripping Choi Hong-seo’s sides and his lower body pressed tightly against him never separated.
“Or, is it just for now, and you plan to live with another man later?”
“There’s no way.”
As he shot his head up in defiance, Lee Hae-sung’s satisfied expression, having met his eyes as he desired, awaited him.
“Hooray.”
Glancing down at Choi Hong-seo’s hands, which were pushing against his chest as if to refuse, Lee Hae-sung spoke. Choi Hong-seo hesitantly removed his hands from his broad chest and raised his arms awkwardly.
Lee Hae-sung quickly stripped off the hooded t-shirt and the white t-shirt underneath. Choi Hong-seo’s exposed stomach was flat, but unlike when Yoon Hye-an had been its owner, distinct abs were etched on either side. Tracing those curves, which were like proof of his existence as Choi Hong-seo, Lee Hae-sung whispered against Choi Hong-seo’s lips.
“Promise me you’ll stay by my side forever.”
“I promise.”
Choi Hong-seo answered immediately. So that Lee Hae-sung wouldn’t be anxious.
He knew well that this question wasn’t asking for a vague promise of ‘eternity’ exchanged between ordinary lovers, not seeking a mere sweet and romantic pledge. He knew what Lee Hae-sung feared.
Swallowing Choi Hong-seo’s lips, and showering him with another ravenous, meal-like kiss, Lee Hae-sung unbuttoned Choi Hong-seo’s jeans, zipped them down, and plunged his hands from his lower back down to his buttocks.
“Heeu, hht.”
His buttocks, too, were more muscular and firm than before. His tongue, which had traced geometric lines on the smooth palate, scraped the back of his upper teeth and emerged from his lips.
With a look of dissatisfaction, still hungry, he gasped for breath and looked at Choi Hong-seo. Wanting to say something, his lips, with their sexy thickness and curve, trembled chaotically. After completely distorting one cheek, he laid down his words heavily between his panting breaths.
“Promise me this too. That from now on, we’ll never watch a movie that doesn’t have a happy ending again.”
He was smiling playfully amidst his rough breaths, but Choi Hong-seo, who knew the hidden meaning behind why he asked for such a promise, found it hard to smile back.
Love Story, City of Angels, Eternal Sunshine.
Perhaps their previous ending had happened because they had only watched movies without happy endings together.
Even Lee Hae-sung, who believed in no religion or superstition, feared such things.
If being healed showed that wounds existed, then wanting many promises meant anxiety.
A man like Lee Hae-sung feared. He wanted confirmation, wanted promises through empty words. Humans sometimes needed the power of words even when they knew their meaninglessness, and a man like Lee Hae-sung ultimately wanted that in the face of fear.
Choi Hong-seo mimicked him. Cupping his cheeks in his hands, he met his eyes directly. Without minding the scratchiness of the stubble that had appeared faintly at the end of the day, he kissed him first. He did so several times.
“I won’t watch them. Never.”
Thump, this time it was the sound of Lee Hae-sung lifting Choi Hong-seo and slamming his back against the closet. With his legs wrapped around Lee Hae-sung’s waist and his tongue entwined with Lee Hae-sung’s, Choi Hong-seo was moved into the bathroom with his feet off the ground.
Inside the shower stall, the two completely naked, like innocent children who knew nothing about sex, washed each other’s hair and bodies with foam. But of course, they weren’t real children, so their genitals remained hard and erect the entire time.
Kissing Choi Hong-seo’s nape from behind, Lee Hae-sung washed the foam off Choi Hong-seo’s body with the showerhead. Despite the strong water pressure, which felt like needles piercing him, the stream hitting his chest felt only ticklish. Choi Hong-seo turned his head from side to side like someone being tormented, his face contorted.
“You’re living together, thinking of eternity. Then it’s already a honeymoon.”
“Hngh, hck… uum, hmm.”
The water stream, which had moved from his chest, passed his lower abdomen and navel, concentrating on his genitals and pubic hair, drenching them thoroughly. Choi Hong-seo rested his head on Lee Hae-sung’s shoulder and shook it.
“We’ve already been on something like a honeymoon, too.”
The water stream, digging deeper, crawled between his legs, turned upside down, and struck his perineum from below.
“Haaaeu, hhh… hhhk…”
Choi Hong-seo, holding onto Lee Hae-sung’s arms, tried to brace himself by digging his fingertips into his slippery skin. It was harder to keep his knees strong because of Lee Hae-sung’s voice, which echoed sweetly in the humid air.
“Like a honeymoon, we had sex day and night, without condoms. It’s strange we didn’t get a honeymoon baby.”
As if surrendering, Choi Hong-seo led Lee Hae-sung’s hand, not the showerhead, to his own groin. Clatter, the showerhead was thrown down and coiled on the tiles, and the water streams that had scattered everywhere were pushed to one side, becoming subdued. Then, all that could be heard in the stall was the squelching sound of wet skin sticking together and thick moans.
It had been a few days since they started living together in this house. There hadn’t been a night they slept without touching each other’s bodies. Even if it didn’t always lead to anal sex, they weren’t so chaste as to let the other sleep peacefully beside them.
It wasn’t so much for the release of sexual desire as it was for a lull in their anxiety. Just like the sex in Malibu.
Something might be lurking in the darkness of the unseen future. To forget that fear, even for a moment, they had no choice but to cling to each other. And Lee Hae-sung’s theory was that there were two ways to confirm each other’s existence, to understand it, and to delve deeper into it.
Conversation, and sex.
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