By Zephyria 
Even as I headed towards the study on the second floor after my shower, Hyung and Noona were still deep in conversation. Though their voices were more animated than usual, the details of their discussion about study abroad plans were surprisingly specific, making it hard to believe they were tipsy.
To avoid disturbing them, I quietly approached the living room window and looked out. The table was piled high with empty beer cans. With music playing from their phone, the two of them were clearly finding hope rather than anxiety in an uncertain future, just as he had said.
It wasn’t a matter of reckless optimism. Because they didn’t know what awaited them, the future was an object of anticipation, something to be prepared for and planned.
Had he, in the past, felt such a desire to explain himself and be understood, defining that period of life as a time when one wants to do both?
Pushing aside my widening curiosity, I left the living room and went upstairs.
The second-floor hallway was entirely dark, but thanks to the moonlight filtering through the full-length windows of the living room that reached the ceiling, the corridor leading to the study wasn’t too dim.
When I knocked, a voice called out for me to enter.
He was sitting at the large desk positioned to face the door. The study, illuminated only by two desk lamps – one on the desk and another near the sofa set where we had been talking – was dim, much like the day I had sought his help here. However, it wasn’t so dark that I couldn’t distinguish objects. A cozy, orange glow, like that of candlelight, was serene.
“You’re here? Sit over here.”
He gestured to the long chair in front of the desk. Instead of a backrest, it was a wide leather bench, adjustable at one end like a deck chair.
As I awkwardly sat on the chair, rubbing my arms, he soon finished what he was doing and came over. By then, he too must have finished showering; the scent of shower gel, reminiscent of a deep blue color fitting for summer, was refreshing.
As he sat beside me, he handed me a slender, rectangular object. Its sophisticated and beautiful wrapping caught my eye, making me hesitant to open it.
“Congratulations on the move. It signifies a new beginning, so I thought it was something to celebrate.”
“…Thank you.”
“Save your thanks until after you’ve opened it. You might not like it.”
Listening to his low chuckle, I slowly untied the ribbon and peeled off the wrapping. My hand paused once before a simple box that appeared from within the wrapping paper. I gently bit and released my lower lip, then carefully opened the box, designed to unfold on both sides.
“…”
Inside were sunglasses.
If my eyes didn’t deceive me, they looked like the same design I had tried on in his car a few days ago.
“You found it inconvenient not having these in Hong Kong, didn’t you? I thought one would be useful. Summer’s still long, after all.”
He said this, leaning his elbow on his thigh and resting his chin on his hand, looking up at me as he sat beside me.
“Ah… uh…”
Frozen in surprise, I couldn’t react quickly to the gift before me, my mouth agape, unable to speak.
He let out a light laugh. Though we were alone in the room, he straightened his back, leaned his upper body towards me, pressed his lips close to my ear, and lowered his voice.
“But were you perhaps… expecting a different kind of gift?”
“…”
Had he known all along and deliberately played a teasing trick? The skin from the base of my neck to my scalp flushed red.
No, rather than expecting it, there was something I had anticipated or braced myself for. He had kept talking about ‘that.’
But it was different from being disappointed because it wasn’t that. This gift, unlike my expectations, contained no sexual undertones, and for that reason, it felt even more like a gift.
The sunglasses he always kept in his left chest pocket. Of course, they were almost always a different design.
It was true that I was the only one not wearing sunglasses in the car traveling from Hong Kong airport to the city. Had he remembered that incident, coupled with the time I impulsively snatched his and tried them on a few days ago? He might not know, but it had meant a lot to me.
Shaking my head several times, I denied it. He let out a low laugh, as if melting against my ear. His sharp nose gently brushed against my ear.
“Open the right drawer.”
“…”
As I turned my head, his nose touched mine. Our gazes, at such close proximity, pulled at each other. For a moment, he tilted his head ever so slightly and kissed me, our lips barely brushing. My eyelids fluttered at the brief, slow, and almost cautiously deliberate kiss.
The moment his body touched mine, I stiffened with tension and excitement, swallowing audibly. But he didn’t laugh this time.
As he indicated, I reached out and opened the drawer of the small table in front of the bench. Another wrapped box lay diagonally inside the empty drawer. Perhaps due to the pause, I unwrapped it with a surprisingly calm hand and opened the box.
Nestled on fragrant potpourri and shredded paper for decoration lay a thin, delicate black lace undergarment.
He leaned his chin on my shoulder, pressing down. Together, we looked down into the box resting on my lap.
“I want to be clear: this is definitely men’s underwear.”
His voice was even serious. Listening to him, I noticed there was ample space in the front to accommodate a certain volume. Even so, by any measure, it wasn’t clothing designed to comfortably hold male genitalia. It was less a necessity and more… an adult toy to create a different kind of thrill between us.
When he had brought up the topic of sexy underwear, I had imagined perhaps a small pair of briefs. Maybe with a slightly deeper cut in the crotch than usual. Expanding my imagination further, I might have thought of men’s thongs.
What lay before me now did fall into the category of men’s thongs, but the material was so sheer that it would clearly reveal the contours and color of the wearer’s genitals, and the design, with long strings on either side that could be pulled to make the underwear slide off without needing to remove one’s legs… the extremely narrow crotch that seemed like it would let the testicles peek out… it all far exceeded my expectations.
Was my imagination lacking, or were the people who made this and he who found it incredibly imaginative?
“You’ll wear it, right? You promised.”
He whispered, resting his chin on my shoulder and pouting.
I didn’t think I had ever made such a promise, but I knew it was as good as a promise. Though I hadn’t eagerly anticipated it, I had subconsciously braced myself. Perhaps this resolve had been growing little by little since he first said, “It would suit you,” on the bed.
Looking back at the sex we had shared so far, refusing to wear these underwear seemed more absurd. Like insisting on not kissing after having already kissed.
The line had been crossed long ago.
I let out a short breath. He lowered his chin from my shoulder and kissed me through my t-shirt. His lips moved, kissing along my shoulder, then pulled away. He gently cupped my chin with his long fingers and turned my gaze, which was fixed on the box, back to himself.
Then, his thumb traced up my chin, gently caressing it, and he repeatedly flipped my lower lip slightly.
The friction, like a biting kiss, continued, just as it had in the garden. I wondered why he was substituting kissing with this pinching, rubbing motion when we were alone, but I couldn’t question the fact that this new form of intimacy was as dizzyingly thrilling as a kiss.
“Mmm…”
As I marveled at his ingenuity in creating acts that evoked kissing, not just kissing itself, and drawing stimulation from them, a groan escaped me, pierced by a thrilling pain.
His eyes, watching me, narrowed.
His gaze, slowly and deeply looking into my left and then my right eye, seemed to be searching for something within me. He sometimes looked at me this way, scrutinizing my eyes and face.
It was as if he were a completely unfamiliar being, and he, feeling both distance and curiosity towards me, was confused yet unable to turn away due to his curiosity about the secret of that gap, lingering hesitantly.
But to me, his eyes, which sparkled blue and then shattered white, were far more bizarre and mysterious, as if he doubted my existence yet sought to explore it.
Smiling faintly, his face drew closer. My lips met his fingers, which were tracing my lower lip. For a while, our lips and fingers traced the surface of my lips together.
Lost in the new kind of stimulation he was applying, which was like a kiss yet not, like an caress yet not, I completely surrendered my lips to him. The thrilling pain from his fingers and the soft, enveloping sensation of his lips reminded me of the harmony between sweet and salty flavors.
However, today, he lingered on my lips for a long time, rarely venturing his tongue inside. His kissing style, different from usual, seemed at first merely for stimulation, but with each time we had been intimate, I could sense his hesitation.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to enter. I could clearly feel his desire to invade, stir, and squeeze beyond the barrier he had set for himself.
Even though he had prepared underwear like this…
Whatever Noona and Hyung had said (though they were targeting In-woo Hyung, not him), regardless of their experiences or ages, it wasn’t that the ‘innocent Seo Yi-hyun who knew nothing’ was swept away by the atmosphere or techniques orchestrated by the seasoned him.
I had wanted it first.
Moving up, down, left, and right, I first licked his lips, which were merely brushing against my fingers, with the tip of my tongue. His large body stiffened for a moment, and he firmly grasped my shoulders.
But the stillness, as if refusing, lasted only an instant.
As if breaking down the barrier he had built for himself, his tongue sliced into my mouth, and his two fingers, which had been rubbing my lips, dug in. As he pressed my tongue down, the movement of his fingers, rubbing back and forth slowly, deepened my moans.
“Ugh… Ughm… Ng.”
His fingers, his tongue, and my tongue, the three of us tangled together like people making love, engaged in a messy kiss. As it progressed, my tongue writhed in bold curves, and my shoulders and chest heaved irregularly. As his hand slipped under the short-sleeved t-shirt I wore as pajamas and began to caress my lower back, I too instantly burned and craved his bare skin.
Leaning against his body, pressing my chest close, I gazed at him with blurred eyes. I didn’t hide my ragged breathing.
His fingers, wet with my saliva, withdrew from my mouth and slowly traced over my lips. At a sweet distance where our noses brushed, he looked at me and shook his head.
Hesitating, stopping, shaking his head in denial.
It was different from his usual distancing, which was intentionally to elicit honesty by making me wait. As I returned the box, precariously perched on my lap, to its place, I asked,
“Why are you…?”
Though it was in a passive form, it was likely the first question I had ever asked him, demanding an explanation.
“…”
Looking at me without a word, his eyes stroking my waist were indeed different.
“If… if you don’t want to…”
As if he didn’t want to hear such words, he scowled and covered my mouth with his hand. Then, as if to apologize for his brief, rough action, he gently stroked my lips with that same hand. He whispered to me, mixed with a sigh,
“More saliva… can you give me?”
“…”
He wrapped his arms around my waist from under my t-shirt, pulling me close, and then pushed his tongue behind my upper lip, tickling the mucous membrane.
“Don’t swallow… let it all flow into me. Inside me.”
His voice, whispering like that, sounded desperate, like a drug addict’s withdrawal symptoms seeking medicine or alcohol to forget their pain.
“Because I want it all… because it’s mine… I want to swallow it all, without leaving a single drop…”
As soon as he finished speaking, he wrapped his arms around my neck with somewhat rough movements. Gripping the very top of my neck, just below my jaw, with one hand, he tilted my chin up and demonstrated by letting his saliva flow into me.
“Huk, heuk… Heo-euk…”
As I tilted my chin up and swallowed his saliva with gulping sounds… I looked up at his face through my blurred vision, my intraocular pressure rising.
The scent dissolved in the saliva he poured into me was richer and more intense than usual. The scent, which had already become a symbol of sex for me, caused excitement to vibrate within my body from consuming too much of it.
As he slowly released the grip on my neck, he pulled away, touching his forehead to mine. He rubbed our noses together and then kissed me again. Tilting his chin at an angle, the contact of our lips deepened, and he impatiently inserted his tongue, touching my palate.
As long as I didn’t swallow, saliva naturally pooled in my mouth. Without needing to attempt anything, the moisture on my tongue was completely drawn away by his suction as it became wet.
“Eueu, eum. Eueung… Heuk.”
His suction felt like he was trying to pull me myself into him… as if he were hungry and thirsty for my saliva. The sensation of being firmly held and thoroughly explored by him drew a moan from deep within my throat.
Tightening the arms around my waist and running his hand down my neck, he furrowed his brow and the bridge of his nose. In his blue eyes, which filled my vision, excitement, hesitation, and guilt were pushing against each other. It was an expression I had never seen before.
I slightly separated my chest, which had been pressed against his, and carefully withdrew my tongue and lips, which had been suctioned to mine. Instead, I looked at him, my fingers tracing the t-shirt over the rounded, bulging muscles.
“Are you really… not catching a cold? You barely ate anything. If your nose is blocked, you lose your appetite…”
That was the only reason I could come up with.
He quickly erased the contorted expression from moments before and, with a playful, teasing tone, took my upper and lower lips into his mouth at once and bit them lightly.
“Why? If I have a cold, will I be a weakling who can’t have sex and just mopes around?”
He pulled me close again, intending to kiss me, his voice complaining, “Did you stop kissing just to say something like that?”
“That’s not it…”
“Ah… Come to think of it, you do seem a bit sick.”
“…”
He interrupted me with an exaggerated, joking tone and slowly lifted the edge of the underwear using only his index finger and thumb. The underwear held in his hand looked several times more… alluring than it had in the box.
“If Seo Yi-hyun wears this, I think I’ll be completely cured.”
“…”
He was trying to brush off my question with a joke.
The underwear… I hadn’t really intended to refuse it from the start, so I would have worn it even if he hadn’t made such an excuse… but if he had acted sicker in a more plausible way, it would have been less awkward for me to pretend to be fooled.
He seemed to have no intention of helping me, as he dangled the underwear he had picked up above his face, swaying it up and down, and cast a languid gaze from beneath the lace.
With his face veiled by lace, he pressed his cheek against mine. As we rubbed our skin together through the slightly rough yet smooth fabric, my senses immediately heightened. There was a texture that caused tension, different from that of a cotton t-shirt.
Recalling that this single piece of fabric, designed not to hide or protect but to reveal most provocatively, was the underwear I was about to wear… my breathing became heated with curiosity and excitement that was hard to feign. His breath, rubbing against my cheek, was not much different.
“You’ll wear it, right? You said you were very grateful to me. Wearing this…”
My shoulders flinched at the heat of his tongue tracing my earlobe. He brought my hand to his lap, pressing it down gently, and continued speaking.
“If you rub it here…”
He whispered, mixed with a sweet sigh, as if painting a picture of a blissful dream before his eyes.
“What would it feel like?”
What I felt in my palm had already begun to swell, becoming full and warm. Feeling the temperature and volume of his penis directly with my hand made my insides churn once more. I had to bite my lower lip with my upper teeth several times.
“Hmm, am I the only one curious…?”
“…”
At his dejected voice, I buried my forehead in his shoulder and shook my head.
“Don’t be shy. I’m not going to tease you after you put it on… I just want to see you look sexier… see you seduce me… okay?”
As he stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head, I nodded this time.
The voyeuristic pleasure of watching the entire process of changing, piece by piece, was good, but the shock of facing the completed form immediately, without seeing the process, was also hard to give up, he said, looking back and forth between me and the underwear, pondering for a long time.
“It’s the first time, so asking to see everything… would be too barbaric, right?”
Seeing his serious profile as he spoke, as if choosing the latter option for my sake, I let out a soft chuckle. Perhaps he felt awkward about his own statement of barbarism, given that he had just handed me this kind of underwear, the corners of his eyes curved with embarrassment as they met mine.
“I won’t look. Because it’s the first time.”
Emphasizing ‘because it’s the first time’ as if to preemptively set the rules for the second and third times, he voluntarily turned his back. His hunched posture, sitting with his hands covering his eyes, conveyed an anticipation close to innocence.
I wondered if I could truly be as sexy or provocative as his anticipation… I had no confidence at all, and with sluggish movements, I slowly pulled down my pajama pants, hearing a soft, stifled laugh. He raised one hand over his shoulder and said,
“Ah, it’s because I like the sound of you undressing, so don’t mind my reaction.”
With him showing such anticipation, how could I not mind…. I let out a silent sigh, careful not to let him notice.
I folded the discarded pajamas and briefs, placing them on the table, and then stepped into the underwear, whose front and back were tied with ribbons. It seemed to be a high-quality item, as the lace wasn’t rough or stiff. However, the sensation of its slightly scratchy texture brushing against my legs as I pulled it up made me feel a little strange.
As the fabric touched my penis, I felt like I was about to let out a groan, so I suppressed my voice and hunched my shoulders.
No matter how hard I tried to pull the edges of the fabric, the front panel barely covered my penis, leaving most of my pubic hair exposed. The back panel, which was no wider than the front, dug between my buttocks, covering almost nothing.
I subtly lifted my t-shirt to check the situation below and felt grateful that he hadn’t turned on the bright lights.
Hoo…
Not intending to make a sound, I was startled by my own sigh and opened my eyes wide, fixing my gaze on his back.
“Are you done?”
“……”
I was done dressing, but if the question meant ‘are you ready to reveal yourself?’, then the answer was no.
Even though it was barely covered, my testicles felt like they might pop out with the slightest movement, so I pulled down the hem of my t-shirt and mumbled in a voice that seemed to sink into the floor.
“Uh… it’s really small… and, well, it doesn’t cover everything… you’ll probably be disappointed….”
Before my rambling excuse was even finished, he turned on the bench and sat up.
“Hmm… what is that?”
His narrowed, questioning eyes, looking displeased, pointed to the hem of my t-shirt covering the area between my legs.
“Uh… well, this is….”
As I hesitated, he gently wrapped his hands around my wrists and pulled them close to my thighs, fixing them in a standing position.
“……”
He was silent for a moment, his gaze fixed on the penis and testicles visible beneath the tautly puffed lace.
“Hnnngh…”
He leaned forward, burying his nose in the lace and taking a deep breath, his shoulders trembling, but he didn’t let go of my wrists.
“I think you completely misunderstand the meaning of disappointment.”
His mumbled head tilt was more of a soliloquy than directed at me. He meticulously observed the area between my legs, revealed by the t-shirt, from various angles, then picked up one end of the ribbon with his fingers, miming a pull, and looked up at me.
“……”
The thin string, which seemed like it could come undone with the slightest slip, was precarious. He fiddled with the end, looking up at me, and I could read a dull excitement in his eyes, losing focus.
As if hinting that he could pull it at any moment, he held the end of the string, tugged it, and then let it drop. He then silently removed his shirt.
Just watching him undress made my penis twitch inside my underwear. Perhaps it was due to the skinship over the past week, which had only involved padding, but my body was reacting quickly and sensitively today.
Revealing his upper body, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me closer. As I stepped between his spread knees, the low height of the bench meant his lips soon touched my penis. The warm, moist sensation enveloping my skin made my eyes flutter shut. My buttock muscles tensed and contracted involuntarily.
He twisted his chin and parted his lips, taking my penis into his mouth as if kissing it.
“Heeu, um…”
The slow friction, not rushing, seemed to melt the most sensitive skin. Looking down, I saw him tilting his head from side to side, thoroughly using his tongue and lips to trace my penis within the lace… it felt almost like watching him kiss someone else.
Humm… hah….
My penis became wet with the warm breath he inhaled and exhaled deeply, his face buried in the lace. His prominent nose and sensual lips pressed down on my penis through the single layer of lace. Then, he twisted slightly, rubbing his entire face against my hardening penis.
“Heeu, hmm. Hhuk…”
As the caress intensified, my knees pressed together, and my upper body bent. I pulled my wrists from his grasp and clutched my t-shirt as if in pain, as if someone were hurting my chest.
His empty hands swept up my bare legs from my ankles.
“Haa, eu… hhh…”
I pressed the instep of one foot against the other, lifting my heels. I couldn’t straighten my bent back. With one hand, I braced myself on his shoulder, my fingertips scratching across his smooth, healthy skin.
His hands, gently stroking the back of my thighs up and down, lightly jiggled the lower part of my exposed buttocks. The flesh of my glutes vibrated, and at the same time, his hot tongue licked the bulge above the lace intensely.
“Hiahh. Hhuk, hhh…”
I understood why people generally have sex lying down. The core of my body felt like it was collapsing; my back kept bending, and as my penis grew harder, my knees grew weaker, making my legs tremble several times.
“I’ll let you sit up soon. But before that… will you show me your back, too?”
His voice, requesting this, was husky and tightly controlled, as if he were trying to contain his excitement. Using the strength of my hands to push his shoulder away, I straightened my back, clutched my t-shirt, and slowly turned around.
“Hah, I’m going crazy. Disappointed? Disappointed?”
“Heeu, eep!”
With his mumbled declaration of going crazy, his entire face suddenly pressed into my buttocks without warning, forcing me to cover my mouth with one hand.
“Eeuu…”
He held my pelvis, wedging his firm nose between my buttock cheeks and using his whole face to scrape up and down the crevice. I imagined my bare backside, with only the thin string of the back panel of lace digging into the crack and barely clinging to the curve of my waist where my buttocks began, and I bit my lower lip.
“Eeuu, um. Eeum…”
The wet flesh pressing into the hollow of my anus through the thin lace, the penetration, made groans leak from my hand covering my mouth.
“You’re not very interested in yourself, are you?”
He said in a rapid tone, tinged with excitement. It was a sudden question. Not the kind of question one would ask while intensely parting someone’s buttocks and smearing them with saliva.
Clutching the front of my t-shirt, I turned my head and looked down at him.
“……”
“Your own emotions, your body… even your own drawings… you probably don’t know them well.”
Was that his impression after seeing my sketches? My legs swayed as if I were falling from a great height, but he held my pelvis.
Scratching the flesh of my buttocks with his teeth, he looked up at me.
“Do you know that can be quite… cruel, depending on the circumstances?”
Then, with a ppok, ppok sound, he bit into the flesh and sucked.
“Eut!”
Suddenly, my body was pulled back sharply, and I felt my balance crumble. The next moment, I was sitting on his thighs. His arms, with veins bulging up to his biceps, wrapped tightly around my waist as if binding me. He buried his nose and mouth in the nape of my neck, inhaling my scent frantically. In between, as if exercising patience, he bit into my flesh through the t-shirt. Heeum, hah, heeum, hah. He took rapid, deep breaths, like a trained dog searching for the source of a remembered scent.
“You’re fluttering right in front of me… seducing me with your whole body, wanting to have sex with me… and you don’t know it. Isn’t that cruel?”
He bit my neck as if annoyed.
I didn’t know when he had pulled his training pants and underwear down to his ankles and exposed his penis, but I felt his hard penis poking into my buttocks.
With a hurried yet precise touch, he slipped his hand inside my inner thighs, forcing my legs wide apart. Leaning against his thighs, I looked down at my comfortably spread legs. Beneath the black lace, my wriggling penis was visible, and his glans, with its glistening head, poked out. As my legs spread, my testicles half-slipped out of the lace.
“Heeu… hheuk!”
His hand, which had dug into my inner thighs, brushed between my legs, and I jumped up on his knees like someone burned by fire. His large palm, cupped, rubbed and wiped from the deepest part up to my penis several times. The sensation of rubbing through the scratchy lace was entirely unfamiliar.
He brought his hand up to the front of my chest, stretching his neck over my shoulder, and licked and smelled his palm. Deliberately, within my line of sight.
While licking my hand that had just rubbed my lower half… with his other hand, he stroked my waist, as softly and tenderly as if he were a completely different person. His voice, slightly scratched and husky, was thick and sweet, like honey steeped in moisture.
“I think I’ve completely recovered from my cold. What are you going to do, Seo Yi-hyun?”
At his ambiguous words, which I could understand and yet not quite grasp, I turned my head and looked down at his face. His nose was near my lips, and if he tilted his chin slightly like this, it was the perfect angle for a kiss.
As if reading my thoughts, he stretched his neck and kissed me. Did he really read a twenty-two-year-old’s desires like text?
“Hmm… your eyes have a lot to say.”
He said, stroking my penis beneath the lace.
“How… did you know?”
His eyes asked, ‘Know what?’. The hardening of my penis under his touch, wriggling inside the tight underwear, disturbed my thoughts, but I wanted to ask, even if it was while my reason was numbed by excitement.
“That I… want to be with you, Representative-nim…”
“……”
He looked into my face for a moment, then chuckled and kissed me again.
“Golden Alphas know everything.”
“That’s a lie. In-woo Hyung said Betas aren’t affected by pheromones at all… Eut.”
As I spoke, he rubbed his lips against mine, then suddenly bit my lower lip hard, as if to tear it. I instinctively brought my hand to my lips.
“It hurts…”
Muttering as I touched my lips, he lowered his shoulder and let out a short sigh. Then, he stuck out his tongue and meticulously licked the spot he had just bitten.
“You like making things hurt, don’t you?”
“This… wasn’t like that.”
“What wasn’t like that, and what is this like? Ah… you mean it didn’t hurt in a sexy way?”
“……”
“I see. Seo Yi-hyun likes making things hurt, but only if it hurts in a sexy way. I’ll keep that in mind from now on.”
It felt like he was trying to change the subject, but it wasn’t a question that required an answer.
His words, that I had been seducing him with my whole body, wanting to have sex with him, might have been true. I didn’t have the boldness to intentionally seduce, but I couldn’t say I had been so thorough in hiding my feelings and desires that he wouldn’t notice.
“Eu… eut.”
The hand stroking my waist fumbled and entered my t-shirt, searching for my nipple, and my faint doubt quickly scattered.
Without any delay, his index finger and thumb, gripping the nipple, pulled it outward from the areola, squeezing it from the inside out as if to wring something out.
“Heeu, heuk. Heut…”
The caress, where he pulled it sharply until the flesh stretched, then let go, and then squeezed again from the outside of the areola, repeated… made me feel as if something would flow out from my flat chest. Before I knew the pleasure of penetration, my body, which had first learned the intense pleasure of being penetrated, contracted downwards with every surge of excitement, pleading for fullness from within.
I was the one going crazy. With my nipples being squeezed by him and my neck being bitten, I arched my back, lifting my buttocks. Each time, my penis rubbed against the lace, sending a sharp, tingling sensation through my lower body.
“You’re quite proactive today, starting early.”
He said, as if praising me, while biting my raised neck. I agreed with his words. My mouth was already dry from panting, and his voice sounded distant even though he was whispering right by my ear. With trembling hands, I hastily pulled up my t-shirt. All the way, until his hands squeezing my nipples were fully exposed.
Seeing the caress with my own eyes made my mind boil with heat. I bit the back of my hand, trying to suppress my overly sensitive reaction, but the movement of my hips wriggling and twisting on his thighs was beyond my control.
“You can’t stay still, can you? Weren’t you shy? It’s all sticking out, you know?”
He said, touching a part of my scrotum that was peeking out of the lace, and biting my ear. Now… I didn’t care anymore. I wasn’t ashamed of anything, and I clearly knew what I wanted, rubbing my buttocks against his groin. I was already a different person from the one who had waited for him to do something.
As his fingers traced the boundary between my testicles and the lace, I placed my hand over his. Looking down, I saw his face, hungry and fierce, looking at me. Despite his leisurely words, there was no calm on his face.
I stuck out my tongue and licked his lower lip. I licked it several times, exhaling my heated breath. I guided his long, hard finger deeper. Into the space between my spread legs, where he had planted memories of pleasure.
“Aah, eu…”
His fingertips, reaching my anus, traced a circle around the entrance through the lace. I grabbed his arm that was caressing my chest and gnawed on my lips. My upper body slumped, and my breath trembled. He pulled me into his chest and helped me sit up. I clung to his arms, my body wriggling, gasping for breath, unsure if it was due to my actions or his thrusting.
“Shall I… put it in here.”
His voice, muffled and suppressed, seemed to threaten to tear through the lace and penetrate my anus.
“Hheut. Hhh…”
Sobbing like someone crying, I nodded.
“Shall I put my fingers in and rub inside?”
As he spoke, I pushed my tongue into his mouth. I couldn’t stand it; I wanted his scent. I wanted to drink it in. I licked the roof of his mouth, rubbed my tongue against his, and nudged the back of his upper teeth, begging him to suck my tongue.
“Eung, hhh…”
His fingertips, like a thin string, pushed aside the delicate lace and slid inside. At the same time, the sensation of my tongue being sucked with strong suction made my head spin up and down.
Holding his arm that embraced me across my chest, I stroked it and met his eyes with my wet gaze. I revealed my reaction to the penetration, my trembling eyelashes, and my rapidly rising and falling breaths, all to his eyes.
The fingers that had been shallowly probing the entrance for a while straightened and pushed deep inside. My lower body, with legs spread, sucked the fingers in without resistance. I could clearly feel my inner walls clinging to his fingers, as if I had been waiting.
“Don’t squeeze too tight… my fingers feel like they’re going to ejaculate.”
He released my tongue and said, narrowing his brow as if his penis, not his fingers, were inside. I shook my head, wrapped my arms around his neck from behind his shoulder, and clung to his lips again.
“More… more…”
“More?”
“You gave it to me earlier, too…”
“Why do you want to eat my saliva? Hmm?”
“Haa hheuk. Hheup.”
I moaned, clenching his shoulder as his fingers, straight and thrusting up and down inside me, penetrated.
“The smell… it’s a good smell… Hah, hhh…”
In my blurred vision, I saw him, his face flushed with arousal, lifting his shoulders broadly.
“It’s not that… it’s a scent that turns you on. The inside of here, a scent that makes you twitch.”
He grumbled, spitting the words out from between clenched teeth, and twisted the fingers inside me, tracing my inner walls. Then, he slid another hand between my lower belly and my hips.
“H, Hh! Wh-what is this!”
His right middle finger was overlapping with his left middle finger, which was already inside. The unfamiliar sensation, completely different from when two fingers of the same hand entered, made me widen my eyes, stiffen my upper body, and hold my breath.
As I held my breath, his tongue roughly burrowed into my lips.
“Ugh, mm. Hmm.”
While I accepted and swallowed the incoming saliva, the two hands digging into me from different directions were widening my insides.
When the left hand, which had entered towards my groin, dug deep, the right hand, which had entered towards my rear, moved downwards. The next moment, they switched places, creating a rhythm that clashed within me, and that rhythm gradually quickened.
“Hh, Hh… Ugh… Hmm….”
Beneath his knees was a swamp teeming with crocodiles, and I desperately clung to him like a branch he’d grabbed just before falling, flailing. The saliva I couldn’t fully swallow dripped down my lips, blocked by his tongue covering my throat, but I couldn’t even think of wiping it away.
“How does it feel, smelling my scent more? When you kiss me… what happens to you, Seo Yi-hyun?”
He gnawed on my chin, which was panting, urging me to answer. He no longer feigned composure in his tone. The gaze he cast up at me held no firm resolve or rational calmness. It was the face of a man, no, an Alpha, for whom lust took precedence over all values.
The fingers, thrusting in and out alternately like a seesaw, felt like they were drilling holes into my brain. When I kissed him and swallowed his saliva, I became a fool who couldn’t even close my legs to cover my vulva.
To confess this about myself, I lowered my head and rubbed my nose against his. Stroking his left arm, which had disappeared between my legs, I let my hand slide down and fumbled with his glans, which had been erect and throbbing beneath my thighs for a long time. As expected, it was already thoroughly wet, dripping its abundant bodily fluids onto the carpet.
“I… want to put this in.”
“Why, isn’t it enough with fingers?”
“Hhup, Hck!”
The friction created by the two fingers entering and exiting roughly at an ever-increasing speed ignited a fire in my head.
“If it feels this good with fingers, it won’t be with this?”
I repeatedly straightened and collapsed my back, smearing the pre-ejaculate on his glans with my fingers. Just as he had done, I brought my hand, covered in his bodily fluids, to my mouth and inhaled.
“Fingers… can’t do knotting….”
His eyelids were slack as he looked up at me, but his pupils were vividly glistening with hunger and desire. He pushed his tongue between my fingers, stained with his fluids, and licked my lips.
“You get excited by my scent, you thrust your hips wanting me to put this in… and you even want knotting?”
“……”
“That’s very… Omega-like.”
I don’t know why that statement, which could have been a denial of me being a Beta, stimulated me so much.
“Hh, Hh… Hhup….”
My body trembled violently with the surging arousal, and I bucked my hips. I pushed away the hand blocking my lips and directly took his tongue into my mouth, sucking his saliva, the scent dissolved in it.
If only Omega could possess and bind him beyond just having sex, and draw out his Alpha instincts to shatter his rational control and make him run wild… then I didn’t dislike him thinking I was like an Omega.
For him, it would mean that the other person looked infinitely erotic to him and stimulated uncontrollable sexual urges.
“Mm, ugh, hck….”
The two middle fingers, which had been moving up and down rapidly inside me, spread apart, widening my entrance, and I gasped for breath, spitting out his tongue. I ran my hands over his sweat-drenched skin over his shoulders, pushing my chest up high.
My brain, riddled with holes, was filled with a single, clear, simple desire: to have his penis thrust between my legs. It was I who was breaking down my rational control and chasing only primal desires. I desired penetration so intensely that my whole body trembled, strangely, and the urgent need, as if it were a matter of life and death, naturally opened my mouth.
“Put it in, I want you to put it in… If you don’t do it now… I think something terrible will happen… Hck.”
It felt like a huge hole had been punched through my body, and if it wasn’t filled immediately, everything about me would leak out through that hole. I looked down at him, murmuring this with a desire close to fear. I was almost crying.
He licked my chin, which was biting my lower lip and contorting my face, and as he pushed his fingers deeper, he suddenly stopped all movement. His gaze, which had been tracing every trace of my arousal as if licking it with his eyes, was fixed and trembling, as if he had seen a ghost.
“Hh, hck.”
Out of anxiety, as he stopped thrusting, one of his fingers withdrew from me. Then, the remaining hand thrashed wildly inside. Changing the direction of his hand, he fumbled and scratched at my mucous membrane. It was as if he had found something unexpected inside.
Even without my conscious effort, my inner walls contracted, automatically squeezing his fingers tightly. I covered my mouth and trembled from the sensation.
“Seo Yi-hyun….”
His voice calling my name sounded like someone possessed by a ghost. Looking up at him with my mouth covered, my eyes were moist from a desire I had held for too long.
“Seo Yi-hyun….”
He murmured my name once more, and from a seated position, he slowly began to thrust his hips, increasing the speed of penetration. I wanted him so much that my stomach ached.
As he rocked me, seated on his lap, the vibrations grew faster and more intense. He ducked his head under my arm and bit my nipple through my t-shirt, thrusting into me relentlessly. He seemed more desperate now.
Seo Yi-hyun, Seo Yi-hyun, Seo Yi-hyun….
He kept murmuring my name as if it were a spell to ward off tragedy, and with a final whisper of “Fuck, Seo Yi-hyun,” he withdrew his fingers from inside me.
Still seated, he lifted me from behind and laid me on the bench. As soon as my back touched one end of the bench, which was angled at 60 degrees, he pushed his thighs up and buried his face between my legs.
There was no waste of time or motion. Everything happened in an instant.
“Ugh.”
His sharply pointed tongue pushed aside the thin lace-like string and dug straight into my anus. Licking inside like one would lick ice cream, he rolled the tip of his tongue in a circle, tracing the mucous membrane. Later, he even pressed his lips to the entrance and sucked loudly, making an embarrassing sound. It was as if he wanted to insert a straw in there if he could. Looking down between my lifted legs, his face as he licked my anus had no trace of refinement or dignity. It was ravenous. It was like an animal’s obsession with the last remaining prey during a long winter.
I, who hadn’t even had enough with fingers, was on the verge of madness from the caress of his softer, wetter tongue and lips on my anus. I felt like I wanted to shove my fingers inside and scratch vigorously. I pushed his shoulders away, rubbing against them with my toes. I reached out, flailing, and pulled his neck closer.
“I don’t… I don’t want it anymore, please….”
He looked up at me, his mouth still pressed against my anus. His pupils, which had lost their faint blue hue, were glinting with madness.
As if enduring a desire to bite me but holding back, he showered my anus and penis with a series of loud kisses. He wiped the glistening saliva from his lips with the back of his hand and sat up. His exposed penis also glistened as if coated with polish. The fact that he was delaying penetration was itself a miracle; his was so engorged it dripped with pre-ejaculate. It looked like it was melting.
He slid his thighs under my hips, positioning himself. His chest muscles and abdominal muscles were harder than usual, looking as if they were angry. Grasping the shaft of his penis, he pushed the string covering my anus aside with his glans as if it were bothersome, and then rubbed his glans widely around the entrance, marking his territory.
“Hh, hck. Hhck.”
Even lying still, I panted as if I had run a marathon.
He positioned his glans and leaned forward, cupping my cheeks with both hands and pressing his forehead against mine.
“Seo Yi-hyeon… Seo Yi-hyeon….”
He called my name, drawing out the vowels, with a strange expression that seemed both extremely happy and tormented. He looked like someone pleasantly drunk, or someone who had thrown themselves into intoxication due to hardship. His current state, which never broke down his usual composure, was unfamiliar and, by not being clearly definable, made me feel he was a human being.
I gently wrapped my hands around his wrists, which were cupping my cheeks, and rubbed my nose against his.
“What’s wrong…. Did I… do something wrong?”
With our foreheads touching, he shook his head firmly. Interspersing small kisses, he continued speaking with difficulty.
“No. You’re too good…. Seo Yi-hyun, you’re too good at everything, you do everything well… You’ve done nothing wrong. You’re too… good. What should I do? Because Seo Yi-hyun is too good?”
Slurp, finally, our lips met more deeply, and below, his glans began to open me and enter.
“See? How good Seo Yi-hyun is.”
He narrowed his eyes and smiled.
“Hck, hck. Haah.”
With no room to spare, filling me as he parted me, the thick and heavy presence of his penetration finally relieved all my itching, and a sense of fullness washed over me. I tightened my grip on his wrists and rubbed the back of my head against the bench behind me.
“It just slides in so smoothly… do you understand? Does that make sense?”
As he said this, he paused his penetration for a moment, as if to confirm the fact, and created a fluid motion in his hips, caressing me below. Every time he rocked his hips, my entrance opened up and down, and as his shaft rubbed against my entrance, a sharp pleasure coursed through my entire body.
Feeling the urge to ejaculate, which was building up with each thrust, I pulled one of his hands down and touched myself.
Because he had pushed aside the string at the bottom while penetrating, my underwear was askew overall, and both my penis and testicles were sticking out messily. His hardened penis protruded at an angle. It was no longer functioning as underwear.
“Don’t touch. Don’t finish too quickly. Let’s go together in the anus. Okay?”
He pulled my wrist up. Even after stopping me, his gaze remained fixed below. He kindly explained the stimulation of the insertion scene, with the ribbon precariously hanging below my pelvis and the string pushed aside, as he entered my anus. He smiled faintly and shook his head.
“Just looking at it… I’m going to finish soon. Seo Yi-hyun, what doesn’t suit you, anyway?”
“My name….”
“……”
“Like before, just… Hck, Seo, Seo Yi-hyun, is what you said….”
I barely managed to speak, panting, feeling like I was suffocating as he reached the very end. He looked at me with a thoughtful gaze and smiled softly.
“If you like that, shall I call you that again?”
“Hhup, hck.”
I nodded towards him, who was asking while twisting my hips and rubbing against the pubic hair around my anus. His upper body leaned closer, and he kissed my cheek.
“Seo Yi-hyeon, do you like my scent?”
His call was slightly different from before, coaxing and soothing. I nodded in response. While showering my cheeks with delicate kisses and whispering sweet words in my ear, he kept his hips pressed deeply against me below, making shallow, wet thrusts.
It felt like his wet glans, the shaft of his penis, the pubic hair of his groin, the entrance of my anus and inner walls, and something deep within were being showered with shallow kisses. It felt more obscene than violent penetration.
It felt like his hips were shaking not only the inner walls of my anus but also all the pieces of education and socialization that constitute humanity.
“Why do you like it? What happens when you smell my scent?”
“Haah, Hh… Hh, hck….”
My voice, dry and cracked, stammered out contradictory words: that only the senses of the body existed, making me forget everything; that I felt like I was suffocating to death, and then felt like I could breathe again.
My screws were all loose in my head… I could only think about sex, his penis and penetration, unwithering erections, and knotting that felt like it would burst my insides… I confessed, my voice hoarse.
“When you drink my saliva, you want to be knotted… Shall we? Shall we knot again today? Seo Yi-hyun, you like knotting.”
Every time he thrust his hips, the sticky liquid met the air, creating a messy squelching sound that made me dizzy. I wrapped my arms around his neck and bit my lower lip, and he lunged forward and bit my lips as if to snatch them. Then, changing his attitude from before, he murmured pleadingly.
“I’ll do whatever you ask… I’ll do everything, give you everything… So… let me knot. Okay? I’m dying to do it to you.”
Since the first time, he wasn’t the only one who wanted knotting. Rather, it was I who had urged him or subconsciously prompted him to knot, even as he hesitated. Yet, he was asking for permission, making an unnecessary request. He was never someone unaware of gains and losses, but his head, his penis, was so overheated that he was making an error.
I was also in an abnormal state.
“Then… I hope you only do it with me. Kissing, fingers… sex, knotting… only with me….”
“……”
He slowed his hip movements, looking as if he had heard something unbelievable.
We had whispered unconventional things countless times due to arousal during sex, but I had never asked him for anything, no matter how heated the situation. It felt like an excessive action, not reading the mood, and like it would cool the heat of the bed.
But now, I just… felt courage welling up from somewhere.
He looked me over slowly, and his thrusting gradually began to speed up again. He fiddled with the back of the neck I was holding and added.
“You said you’d do anything….”
He grabbed the end of the bench above my head and readjusted my spread thighs, deepening the penetration.
“Since the first time with you, it’s been… only you. You know that.”
It was true. I just lacked certainty, but I had vaguely guessed that he wasn’t involved with anyone else. And at this moment, that guess was cleanly confirmed as fact. The impact of that was beyond imagination.
Was it another surge of copious pre-ejaculate from his glans? A mass that wet my inner walls felt inside my belly. He furrowed his brow, his broad shoulders trembling. The penetration, not shallow thrusts and withdrawals, but a full withdrawal and then a deep, forceful thrust, pounded me relentlessly.
“If I kiss and have sex only with Seo Yi-hyun… can I knot? Can I keep doing it to Seo Yi-hyun?”
Despite him holding me, the bench rattled, but neither of us had the leisure to care about such things.
“Do it to me, keep doing it… Fill me up to my head. No, I shouldn’t. I have to stop. What do I do? If we keep having sex and knotting like this… and I become completely stupid… then what do I do, CEO?”
I nodded and then vigorously shook my head… I couldn’t even tell what I was saying myself, spouting utter nonsense.
My eyelids, under my eyes, temples, cheeks, lips, philtrum, and the bridge of my nose… his kisses rained down on my entire face.
“If I said I’d rather that… am I a bastard?”
“……”
I knew his words weren’t sincere. We were both not ourselves right now.
I pulled his neck closer and met his lips, lips that made me dream a blissful dream, as if we had already shared a deep kiss just by looking at them. Even the regret at the moment of parting felt like an extension of the kiss.
I slowly shook my head, saying no. He lightly bumped his forehead against mine and let out a low curse.
He threaded his arms under my bent knees, extended them to my back, and then lifted me up.
My body was lifted so lightly, and the next moment, I was floating in his arms. Naturally, my arms tightened around his neck, but he smiled with his sweat-drenched face, as if telling me not to worry.
“From now on… should we do it like this? Go to work like this, go to meetings, eat meals… I wonder if we should.”
As he walked a few steps while holding me, as if to actually practice, I let out a laugh even in this situation at his joke.
“Hng, hngh.”
But the laughter didn’t last long. He stopped near the foot of the bench, moved his hips, and as he lifted me, he pushed his exposed penis further in and began thrusting his hips.
Without even having time to marvel at his strength as he held and moved me without leaning on any object like a wall or desk, I had to endure the sensation of all my body’s orifices widening as if from the unfamiliar intensity of the stimulation in this new position.
“Haaah… Hng… Hngh….”
The force with which he pushed me with his hips, combined with my own weight, doubled the recoil. Each time I collided with him in that state, his penis, thrusting deeply, felt as though it were carving grooves within me according to its own contours. The intensity of the impact was entirely different from when lying down or standing.
The friction of our sweat-drenched bare skin hitting each other was more viscous than usual. We hadn’t used lube since our first penetration in Hong Kong, but today, his pre-cum seemed to be overflowing more than ever. As my body was pushed back and met his groin, I felt the fluid being pushed out of my body along the circumference of his penis with each insertion. Even so, the viscosity inside didn’t dry up.
As I slipped due to sweat, he pulled me closer, holding me, and rubbed his cheek against mine.
“Do you know… what it feels like inside right now?”
His voice was soft, unlike the violent motion of his hips pushing me away.
“Hnghng, hng….”
Unable to form sentences, I could only meet his eyes, letting out a hoarse, dry moan.
His eyes, as we met gaze, held the undeniable rapture of a man in love. Whether it was physical or spiritual ecstasy, his eyes gave me the impression that he was, at this moment, utterly captivated by me.
“It feels so good, being wrapped snugly and warmly, pressed together without any gaps… For the first time since my manifestation at twelve, I feel glad I was born an Alpha. Right now.”
He was clearly extremely aroused, but it didn’t sound like mere lip service spoken in the heat of sex. He wasn’t the type to spout such platitudes anyway.
I thought that while he might feel pleasure as a man during sex with me, a Beta, it would be difficult for him to find satisfaction as an Alpha… But knowing he wasn’t someone who enjoyed sex through pheromones, his words felt like the ultimate confession to me.
“Hngh, hck. Hck!”
The thrusting, which had seemed to momentarily subside, gained speed. He lowered his hips slightly, thrusting upwards from below to increase the recoil, and I tightly embraced his neck until our chests met. There was no dignity in this position, with my knees bent, legs spread, and only my hips bobbing as he held me. But dignity had been excluded from the sex he taught me from the beginning.
His thrusts, which pushed me back rapidly while he stood firm like a rock, were almost a roar. As if pouring something from within himself into me, as if he couldn’t bear it otherwise, he was relentless, fast, and intense.
“But I’m like this, and you’re not. For you, this is…”
The voice muttering this was not that of someone immersed in the pleasure of feeling glad to be born an Alpha for the first time.
I loosened my grip on his back, which had been holding him tightly, and looked at his face. His eyes, as he looked at me, seemed to be in conflict between pleasure and pain. I traced his face with my fingertips, and without him asking, I let my saliva flow into his mouth.
“Don’t say that… I like it too… Don’t you know?”
I don’t know what normal sex is like. For me, I don’t even have other personal experiences to compare it to. What mattered was that I felt satisfaction and liberation from sex with him, not shame or withdrawal.
“I’m sorry.”
He pressed his forehead against mine and whispered, “I’m sorry,” several times.
Then he aggressively sucked at my lips and tongue. We shared saliva, entangled so wildly that it was impossible to tell whose was whose. His rich, sexual scent made every orifice of my body, including my nose, feel wide open.
As the force with which he moved me became more violent, he, lacking any stable support to withstand his own strength, lost his sense of direction and stumbled around the room with me hoisted in his arms like a robot vacuum cleaner.
Thump. He stopped advancing only when my back hit the wall. He pressed against me with his entire body, as if to engrave me into the wall, kissing me deeply and penetrating deeply. I felt his inexhaustible pre-cum seeping out and flowing down below our joined area.
“Ugh, mm. Ughm….”
I scratched his back and flailed my legs, which were suspended in the air. He was knotting, hitting and pounding my mucous membranes as if to leave bruises. The moment I felt the powerful, throbbing pulse of knotting, I thrashed my limbs and ejaculated white semen onto the black lace.
He rocked me up and down as if to soothe me, and I gasped, my voice hoarse, begging him to let go. Even the restraint of being unable to move my limbs freely, of wanting to writhe and twist my body like a madman, ultimately led to pleasure.
The lace tightening around my penis felt constricting, so I pulled one end of the ribbon myself. My underwear, loosened on one side, couldn’t fall to the floor due to my lower body being pressed completely against him; instead, it rubbed between us, between our groins, making my senses even more acute.
This was the longest knotting yet, as I had ejaculated twice while he was knotting. He had to lay me back down on the bench midway until his penis shrunk enough to be able to withdraw.
As he licked my temples with his hot lips and tongue after laying me down, my entire body trembled, and I knew I was crying from pleasure.
“It’s okay, I’m here. Don’t cry… Don’t cry… I’ll do better.”
The continuous kisses on my lips, his earnest whispers, were distorted and distant, like hearing a voice from outside the water while submerged.
I think he said something similar the first time he knotted me. That it was okay because he was here. Though I might have misheard it due to the pleasure of knotting, which felt like it was strangling me almost to death, the words “I’ll do better” were not there then.
Even now, he’s treating me so well that I feel sorry for not being able to do more for him. What more could he possibly do better?
Following my vague thoughts, I heard my name being repeated like a devout prayer.
Seo Yi-hyun, Seo Yi-hyun….
He held my hand and kissed the back of it several times as he called me. This was much more pleasant to hear than his apologies.
As he continued to soothe me so earnestly, I smiled faintly, mustering all my strength, and told him, who still hadn’t withdrawn from me, that it was okay. He looked at me with a pained expression, as if he had hurt me, but I wasn’t in pain; I was at the peak of pleasure. There was nothing for him to apologize for.
■ Concern ■
He was in the study.
The terrace window leading to the garden was wide open, and a river breeze blew in from the Han River, but it was midsummer, just before August. The air in the room, filled with sunlight pouring in strongly along with the wind, was humid.
“You said you’d buy me a delicious lunch, and this is where you called me? At best, it’ll be delivery food,” she complained playfully, leaning against the doorframe of the open study with a smile. The man sitting at his desk, staring blankly at the garden, turned his head and gave an awkward laugh.
“If you come here, you’ll have to eat lunch alone. I called you to eat with me.”
The man was wearing sunglasses. Although it was indoors, light streamed in even to the entrance of the room where she stood, so the sunglasses didn’t look out of place.
“It’s a sandwich, is that okay?”
On the low table in front of the sofa by the desk, which he indicated, sat a plastic bag with a logo and an iced coffee in a paper carrier. It was from her favorite sandwich shop.
Whether he used a delivery app or a courier did the work, the ice in the coffee hadn’t melted at all despite the room’s temperature, suggesting he had bought it just before she arrived.
“If it’s a sandwich from here, that’s a different story.”
She happily settled onto the sofa and took a sip of the cool coffee.
Lately, he had been coming to work here, not the gallery, occasionally. This was unusual, but since his absence from the office didn’t cause any particular trouble, she hadn’t raised any complaints. Yuni and Joo-han were even welcoming, saying that the newly hired staff were less uncomfortable without him.
He offered her the sandwich, telling her to start eating, and then sat in his chair, playfully rolling the wheels back and forth. He didn’t look very hungry.
“You showed interest in the Renaissance exhibition among the pamphlets I gave you last time. It seems you don’t have much interest in contemporary art. It might be difficult to go far, but please ask the office to look into classical art exhibitions in cities within a four-hour flight. Even new hires should be able to do that much research.”
She had just taken a bite of a sandwich generously filled with lobster meat and looked at him with wide eyes, wondering if she had heard correctly.
“Are you saying you’ll let me go see exhibitions held overseas?”
“That’s what I’ll do. She doesn’t show interest in installation art or experiential art. But we can’t just wait for the exhibitions she wants to be held in Korea.”
He, who had been asked the question, acted as if this measure was obvious and there was no other way. After she stared at him silently for a while, he finally noticed her gaze and looked at her.
“……Why?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
She shook her head, and he furrowed his brow from behind his sunglasses.
“Why, what is it?”
“Just… I thought you weren’t paying much attention to other artists lately.”
“Manager Han is doing a good job. And aren’t I usually in charge of VIP clients rather than artists?”
“Well… that’s true.”
It was a question about why he was personally taking such a keen interest in only one artist, but he seemed unwilling to explain for any reason. She knew from years of experience that trying to pry into his thoughts when he wasn’t ready would be futile.
As far as she knew, he completely ignored those he wasn’t interested in as if they were invisible (and without much effort), and he hid his animosity towards those he disliked with brutal intensity.
While clients and artists were exceptions, in some cases, these habits extended to them as well. He might compromise for business, but it wasn’t his way to be naively accommodating solely for business. He had his own boundaries.
Given that he had shown interest in Lee Hyun from the start, feigning indifference, it wasn’t surprising to her that he had a special interest in Lee Hyun, whether as a fellow artist or for more personal reasons.
“You mean Seo Yi-hyun.”
“…….”
No sooner had she taken a second bite of her sandwich than Lee Hyun’s name was mentioned again.
“Did Manager Han see talent when she taught him before?”
It seemed the real reason he had called her here today wasn’t the cute excuse of not wanting to eat lunch alone. She drank her coffee, quickly chewed and swallowed the sandwich in her mouth, and replied.
“He was very special. Normally, he was gentle and quiet, and didn’t throw tantrums for his age, but regarding art, he was full of ambition and persistence, and he knew how to enjoy that ambition and persistence. And he was an incredible practice bug. Though he thought of it as play rather than practice.”
As she reminisced with a smile, the man picked up a few notebooks that were neatly placed on his cluttered desk and slowly walked over to her. The scent of perfume wafted from him as he plopped down on the sofa.
His paternal and maternal families were both traditionally wealthy, and by the time he was born, his mother was already rising to become a world-renowned painter. Thus, he naturally exuded the refined stylishness characteristic of the upper class, and his tastes were individualistic yet luxurious. However, he wasn’t the type to spray perfume as the final step in his going-out preparations. Because he extremely avoided releasing pheromones, he had little interest in adorning himself with scents.
Whether he was aware of it to some extent or not, he was certainly doing things he hadn’t done before lately.
“These are ‘practice’ sketches Seo Yi-hyun drew after moving to my place. Please take a look.”
From here on, it was a story about Lee Hyun that she didn’t know. She was also interested in the drawings Lee Hyun, then twenty-two, had made.
She put down her sandwich, wiped her hands with a tissue, and suppressed the excitement and anticipation that made her heart pound for the first time in a while as she picked up the drawing notebooks.
There were four or five notebooks, each filled with over thirty pages, and each page was densely packed with meticulous drawings.
What was in her hands was not an easy magic conjured by innate talent. They were the results of faithful time spent moving her hands and dedicating paper, without lying to her days.
“When I broke up with Lee Hyun, he had just turned twelve. Even then, he had terrifying technique for his age, but not this much…”
Even if he had put down his brush immediately after winning
“The reason Seo Yi-hyun stopped drawing. It wasn’t because he naturally drifted away from art over time, was it?”
She slowly flipped through the notebooks, page by page, and then looked up at him across from her.
“……What do you mean.”
Without touching his own sandwich or coffee, the man asked for permission and lit a cigarette. Then, he bent his waist, rested his elbows on his thighs, and took a deep drag.
“The drawings he did before, I’ve only seen
With his hand holding the cigarette resting on his thigh, he rubbed his forehead and pointed to the notebooks spread out on the table.
“But these sketches.”
“…….”
“They possess not only a surprising level of technique but also a distinct individuality, making it impossible to believe they are the work of someone who had been inactive for years. However… they don’t contain his perspective on anything.”
“…….”
She couldn’t disagree with that statement.
Some sketches were as precise as photographs, and some croquis were filled with unpredictably fresh expressiveness, but Lee Hyun’s drawings lacked the artist’s own voice that had once sent shivers down her spine.
To her, who knew the Lee Hyun of the past, these sketches were like a child refusing to speak.
“For others, perhaps, but for Seo Yi-hyun, this isn’t art. Because he can’t tell his own story at all.”
She had acknowledged his exceptional insight into art and artists since they worked together in Hong Kong, but she couldn’t help but be surprised that he could grasp so much about an artist he had only encountered through one work. She wondered if this was a limited ability displayed because the subject was Seo Yi-hyun, but there was no way to confirm it.
As she felt a moment of confusion, his face, behind the sunglasses, turned towards her.
“Seo Yi-hyun, why did he stop drawing?”
He was wearing dark sunglasses, but looking closely, the faint outline of his eyes was visible.
“Are you… asking me?”
When she asked again, he turned his face away as if to evade, and flicked his cigarette onto the crystal ashtray.
“CEO Ryu, you’re not the type to hear things through others. No, you wouldn’t even ask me. When you found out I was divorced, you probably learned I was married for the first time, right?”
“Whether I was married or not while working together… is unnecessary information.”
He took a deep drag of his cigarette, offering a flimsy justification for the ‘things I don’t usually do’ he was exhibiting in rapid succession.
“The paintings are drawn by Lee Hyun… Do you need information on why Lee Hyun quit painting in the past, CEO Ryu? And to the extent that you’d ask me instead of her directly?”
“……”
It was important to her whether he was truly facing his own changes and the reasons behind them.
As he remained silent, drawing on his cigarette, the ice in the coffee inside the plastic cup melted, creating a clinking sound as the cubes bumped against each other.
“Light that doesn’t know its own worth is bothersome.”
His languid voice, which finally broke the silence after a long while, sounded like a monologue.
“It’s like a superpower user who doesn’t know how strong their own power is, and therefore doesn’t know how to control it, so they go around destroying everything. Even when a storm erupts around them, they have no idea that the phenomenon before them is a result of their own doing. As an artist, and as an individual, such a person is difficult to deal with. Manager Han would know too.”
He paused, took a short, deep drag of his cigarette, and flicked the ash with a slightly anxious gesture.
“Seo Yi-hyun has no idea what a tremendous talent she possesses. Or rather, even if she did, she wouldn’t care. Her relative position isn’t important to her. She’s made the difficult decision to reclaim the painting that was her language and her identity, and she simply wants to exist as herself once more. She’s not complaining to anyone, she’s trying to rise on her own, even if it takes a long time, and she believes that’s the only way to repay the kindness of those who helped her….”
Regardless of how much he was aware of himself, the words he was pouring out without hesitation were proof of how long and how earnestly he had observed and explored Lee Hyun.
It sounded like a confession from Lau Wikun himself, that he was being troubled by the storm Seo Yi-hyun, a young light unaware of her own impact, was wielding…
“To help him find his voice within his paintings… I thought I needed to know everything, including his past. Of course, if Manager Han judged it impossible to discuss… I couldn’t force it out, but.”
Even as he said this, the lingering desire to know, no matter what, was evident on his face as he crushed the shortened cigarette.
“However, can you tell me just one thing?”
“……”
His hands, now empty of the cigarette, clasped tightly as he turned his face towards her. Though half-hidden by his sunglasses, it was not difficult to read the fear-like worry etched on his face.
He hesitated, his lips moving several times.
“Was it… abuse? Or, did she experience something terrible… something like that?”
His expression was pained just imagining such a tragedy. His face was less asking a question and more pleading for her to say he was mistaken.
His unfamiliar demeanor, hesitant and fearful in the face of another’s past, made her somewhat uneasy. A new side to a close acquaintance she thought she knew well often brought more bewilderment than novelty.
The thought that his interest in Lee Hyun might be deeper and heavier than she had anticipated made her wet her lower lip with her tongue. She didn’t know whether to welcome it or be wary.
With his naturally excellent looks, intellectual ability, and background, he had lived a life where he never needed to be desperate to obtain anything.
Even when he first opened a mere 60-pyeong gallery upon arriving in Seoul, he had strongly believed in the results his talent and effort would bring, and despite being the owner of such a small gallery, he always treated customers with a relaxed confidence. There was no sign of him groveling to sell even one more piece, or being anxious for immediate profit.
Among consumers of high-priced art like paintings, there were those who wanted their vanity satisfied with courteous treatment, but there were also those who found fulfillment in associating with a charming person of discerning taste. In truth, it was undeniable that the support of people drawn to his charm and who became loyal customers had been significant as Phantom grew to this point.
And now, Lau Wikun was revealing his anxiety over concerns about past events that might have happened to a twenty-two-year-old affiliated artist.
His demeanor suggested he would kneel if only he could hear that nothing had happened, and out of pity, she felt a momentary impulse to share what she knew. But thinking of Lee Hyun, she couldn’t. If she hadn’t told him, or couldn’t, there must have been a reason for Lee Hyun’s part.
She let out a small sigh and shook her head.
“It would be best for Lee Hyun to hear it directly from her. That way, there won’t be any repercussions later with her.”
“You can’t even answer that much? Manager Han, you know how tight-lipped Seo Yi-hyun is. I don’t know how much longer it will take to hear directly from his lips what happened… and you want me to carry this weight until then? Manager Han, don’t do that. You can answer that much, can’t you?”
He rested his elbows on his thighs, clasped his hands, and brought them to his lips, shaking his head.
“It’s not… that kind of terrible thing CEO Ryu is thinking of. Beyond that, you really must hear it from Lee Hyun.”
She concluded the conversation with a resolve that she would absolutely not open her mouth any further, and picked up her sandwich again, though her appetite had vanished. He still wore a heavy expression, but seemed to have regained some composure compared to before.
She knew the difference in temperature between his public and private attitudes towards artists and their work, and she also knew that in reality, he supported and loved art, and the serious artistry that sought to embed one’s sincerity within it, far more than he outwardly expressed.
It was because she recognized this that she had clicked with him from Hong Kong, where others considered him difficult to work with, and had readily accepted his proposal to open a gallery together in Seoul.
She had only thought his interest in Lee Hyun was an extension of his passion for art and artists.
While they hadn’t discussed their private lives in detail, as far as she knew, he hadn’t had a serious romantic partner in the past ten years.
He had dated casually a few times, but it rarely developed into a deeper relationship. Whether it was because he didn’t want it to, or because he failed to develop the relationship, she didn’t know.
Whenever such topics came up, he would speak with a tone of regret but inevitability, and that was all. He had never shown desperation towards any partner. It was clear he wasn’t someone who believed a deeply respectful and loving partner was essential for a satisfying life.
This didn’t mean his approach to relationships was immature or that he was a casual person.
Rather… he was quite adept at controlling the distance so that his partner wouldn’t see his flaws or the parts he wanted to hide, and his approach to romance would likely be no different.
He and his partners would never have raised their voices, let alone argued. They would have gone on proper dates, had sex with a density appropriate for the number of meetings, and ended with a polite breakup that didn’t wound each other’s egos.
Meetings and retreats that were polite but lacked sacrifice, where he never changed himself for the other person, and involved no childish emotional turmoil… if that was considered mature love, then his relationships up to now had certainly been mature.
However, in her personal opinion, it was rather immaturity. A state without arguments couldn’t necessarily be equated with peace. In situations without any crisis, one couldn’t even prove maturity.
Whether he felt a lack in the absence of a partner or not, the only way to access the inner world of another human being, another person, most deeply was through love. The only way to fully embrace the presence of another who sought to know oneself was through love.
If one could only see the bottom of oneself throughout life, there would be no greater loneliness, she thought. Only after revealing each other’s depths could true maturity be proven. After all, constant smiles from only good times couldn’t be called strength.
Though she herself hadn’t navigated that stage maturely, her belief remained unchanged that meeting a partner who made you break rules, brought out a new self, forced you to face your unglamorous side, and allowed you to taste various emotions was life’s fortune.
In her eyes, he was now facing a new self that broke his previous rules.
As she glanced at him, still not touching his sandwich and only drinking coffee while smoking, his phone rang from the desk behind him.
He usually used three phones, and when not on vibrate, he distinguished them by different ringtones. Holding a cigarette in one hand, he stood up and walked to the desk, bringing the phone close to his face to check the caller ID. Then, he took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled the smoke slowly.
“Ah… Jeng Shuiyan, I thought you’d finally accepted it since you’d been quiet for a few days.”
He pressed a button to switch the ringtone to silent, returned to the sofa, and leaned his head back against the cushion.
“Are you going to keep avoiding Shushu’s calls like this?”
“Answering the phone could be seen as giving her an opening. Phantom’s position has been clearly stated, and I made it clear that crying on the phone won’t change anything… I really didn’t realize how dependent she was on Manager Han.”
He took off his sunglasses and pressed on his eyelids, then put them back on and looked at her.
Although he had set the initial policy, she herself had been the one practically caring for Shushu, so she had no intention of blaming him solely for the current situation.
“Still, avoiding it won’t solve anything. If she doesn’t understand, you have to persuade her. My words are no use…”
“Ah, sorry. Just a moment, I need to take this call.”
His phone on the desk rang with a different tone, and he sprang up as if propelled and returned to the desk.
A faint, soft smile touched his lips as he checked the caller ID and answered the call.
“Yes, it’s me.”
She felt she knew who it was without needing to ask. Though their time together wasn’t short, she had never felt he was such an easily readable person as she did recently. An easily readable Lau Wikun was an unfamiliar presence to her.
“Yes, I can talk. Let’s talk.”
He held the phone tightly to his ear as if afraid of missing a single word from the other end, and gestured for her to comfortably eat her sandwich as he walked towards the garden.
“Ah, is it that time already? Lunch? Did you eat lunch?”
As if the strong sunlight made the clock hands hard to see, he raised his left wrist close to the bridge of his sunglasses to check the time.
For someone who had compared Lee Hyun to a bothersome light, his expression was as if he were enjoying a pleasant sunbath in that light.
“I’m eating a sandwich. …Ah, no, it’s not that, I’m a bit busy today. …Let’s eat something delicious tonight. …Later… I’ll head over there at the time…”
As he walked further away, she let the fragmented conversation and his occasional laughter drift over her, put down her sandwich, and picked up her coffee instead.
She herself hadn’t had a serious relationship in quite some time, but if that voice wasn’t in love, Lau Wikun should have pursued acting instead of running a gallery.
“No, I’ll get off work on time. …If there’s something you want to eat… Yes, see you later. …Always be careful. …Then.”
After finishing the call, he stood there for a moment longer with the phone to his ear, then put his hand in his pocket and shrugged, laughing.
“You hang up first.”
His voice was full of laughter.
The fact that Lau Wikun was having such a conversation, regardless of who the other party was, shocked her.
Both he and Lee Hyun were precious people to her. She had even hoped for someone to appear who could disrupt his orbit, invade his inner world, and boldly rearrange the things within him.
However, if asked whether the two could maintain a balanced relationship through romance… she couldn’t answer confidently. That was an entirely different matter.
Returning to his seat, his expression was somber, unlike when he was on the phone. She had planned to ask casually, ‘Who was it that had you grinning from ear to ear on the phone? Are you dating someone these days?’ but she had to revise her plan. The atmosphere wasn’t conducive to a lighthearted joke.
She could only make a vague, somewhat anxious guess that something had already begun between the two of them.
She put down her coffee, which she had taken a sip of, and glanced at him as he fiddled with his cigarette pack, as if feeling the urge to smoke again.
“In any case, you need to talk to Shushu properly. No matter how much Shushu relies on me, you are the CEO, Kun… and Shushu is your flagship artist. More than anything else… I want you to prioritize this. Especially if you’ve truly made up your mind this time, don’t run away and resolve it properly.”
She intended to subtly warn him about him, the CEO, directly investing too much attention in a newly contracted artist who wasn’t yet generating profit, but he seemed oblivious to her intention as he lit a new cigarette and nervously ran a hand through his hair.
This was the third cigarette since she had entered this study. His smoking had increased compared to usual. All the changes he displayed made her uneasy. He didn’t look like someone who welcomed change and was adapting to it stably.
“Yes. Manager Han must have many other things to worry about, and I’ve been putting it off too much. I’ll talk to her properly and wrap it up, so please give me about another week for Shushu’s matter.”
His voice sounded tired. As if he had poured all his energy into the previous call. Conversely, it made her think that in such an unstable state, he had managed to sound so nonchalant just moments ago, as if everything were fine and going smoothly.
Neither of them touched their sandwiches after that, and they discussed the lineup and number of works for the artists who had expressed interest in participating in the joint exhibition for the second half of the year. During that time, he smoked two more cigarettes.
As she descended to the underground parking lot to return to the gallery, she thought about the two of them, flowing in a direction she had never anticipated.
She had never expected that he, who had always wanted relationships that could be easily ended ‘politely,’ would choose the naive twenty-two-year-old Lee Hyun as a romantic partner. Lee Hyun was not the kind of child who would want a superficial relationship, and as far as she knew, Lau Wikun was not the type to pick such a person to enforce his ‘mature view of romance.’
“How about you, Manager Han? If Inwoo-ssi is sincere with Lee Hyun, and Lee Hyun likes Inwoo-ssi too, would you object?”
She had answered Yuni, who had asked her that, as if it were not her place to interfere, and she still believed that was the proper stance… but she couldn’t help her worried feelings.
Lau Wikun and Seo Yi-hyun.
When defining them as a romantic relationship, what came to mind wasn’t the soft sweetness of cotton candy.
What if the words, ‘a person who doesn’t know how to control their power and causes storms around them without considering the impact,’ were not just about Lee Hyun as an artist, but a metaphor for his own situation, drawn to Seo Yi-hyun personally?
“Hmm…”
As she exited the villa’s parking lot, which seemed as solid as an impregnable fortress, she let out a sigh that sounded like a groan. She, for one, could not even begin to guess the ending of the story starring Lau Wikun and Seo Yi-hyun.