By Zephyria The heat and the heavy weight pressing down on his body once again seeped into his sleep. But Song Hyun-soo was no longer surprised.
This was the second-floor guest room in Yoon Joo-ho’s house, and the weight pinning him down must be his arm.
It had been about a week since he’d come to this house.
He had spent the night with Yoon Joo-ho almost every night before falling asleep. They played with Monroe, watched movies together, and made various cocktails at the bar. And whatever they did, it always led to intense physical intimacy.
It was a natural and expected progression. When a couple in their prime, newly dating, spends the night alone together, they wouldn’t just look at each other. Even if they didn’t go all the way, they always engaged in passionate foreplay until climax. It was intimacy that was no different from sex in its intensity, except for the lack of penetration.
With his utterly calm face, Yoon Joo-ho had relentlessly pushed his vigorous desires forward each time.
He used to copy texts, but most days he fell asleep without even turning on the TV. He hadn’t even opened his transcription book since coming to this house. It seemed Yoon Joo-ho was the same.
A few days ago, they had watched Matt Damon and Jude Law’s Ripley on his bedroom sofa. About 20 minutes into the movie, when Jude Law, who had taken Matt Damon to a jazz club, was freely singing and playing on stage, and then called Matt Damon up, Yoon Joo-ho chuckled and shook his head.
‘Ah… no matter how many times I watch it, Jude Law was the one who seduced him first.’
Song Hyun-soo couldn’t agree.
‘What do you mean seduced? They were just having fun together.’
‘He radiated charm, drew him in, and let him experience the same world. How could he not fall for it?’
‘A charming person is charming just by being themselves. If you put it that way, then Sunbae, you seduced me first.’
Yoon Joo-ho’s face, his arm stretched long over the back of the sofa behind Song Hyun-soo’s shoulder, drew closer. His face, reflecting the light from the TV screen, whispered at a distance where their lips could almost touch.
‘You know now?’
And a kiss.
Lies. You weren’t even interested in me at first.
Even knowing that, he had to admit that the sweet lies of the person he loved were more intoxicating than any truth. Besides, who seduced whom first wasn’t important to Song Hyun-soo. He knew Yoon Joo-ho’s feelings now, regardless of who initiated it.
From then on, they began to rush towards each other. Without anyone starting first, they shed their clothes beneath the sofa, kissed, and Yoon Joo-ho, climbing onto Song Hyun-soo who was kneeling, entered and exited between his legs. By the time the final scene, which showed Matt Damon sitting dazed on the bed, faded to black, Song Hyun-soo was sitting on Yoon Joo-ho’s lap, having his chest sucked. They had been entangled for two hours, leaving the movie playing.
That night, they slept in his bed together. However, Song Hyun-soo was fundamentally trying to maintain his own space.
Although Yoon Joo-ho’s invitation to sleep in his bedroom anytime was welcome, everything felt too fast. While building their feelings for each other hadn’t been rushed, after they started dating, it was hard to keep up with the pace of events. Before he knew it, they were dating, before he knew it, he was in his house, and before he knew it, he was introducing him to Jung-ho.
Of course, Song Hyun-soo had agreed to all of it, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had been swept along to this point. He felt he needed to find his own pace, at least to some extent, from now on.
As Jung-ho had said, Yoon Joo-ho was a dangerous person. Just like Jude Law was to Matt Damon in Ripley.
Excessive charm could sometimes become a magic that clouded one’s judgment. While he wanted and loved Yoon Joo-ho, he had no intention of being passively drawn in by his magic. In other words, precisely because he wanted and loved him, he had no intention of doing so.
The speed at which Yoon Joo-ho was driving this relationship was dizzyingly fast, and he feared it would crash and be destroyed if it collided with something. So, he felt he had to be the one to pull the reins.
Even as he told himself this, when Yoon Joo-ho first touched his cheek or ear, and looked at him with those deep, moist eyes, their lips would meet, and he would quickly lose his composure.
Last night, he had let him go upstairs willingly, but less than an hour later, Yoon Joo-ho had barged into his room. Wearing only an unbuttoned robe over his pajama pants, Yoon Joo-ho wandered aimlessly around the room.
He rummaged through the few CDs, even putting one into Choi Hong-seo’s audio player, and opened the closet, commenting on various outfits.
Then, he approached Song Hyun-soo, who was reading a script at his desk, and began to caress him as usual.
‘You’re going to keep sitting at your desk even though I’m here? Huh?’
‘No, aren’t we… too beastly?’
‘You don’t seem to mind that I’m downstairs, do you?’
Bending down, his lips kissed the depths of Song Hyun-soo’s neck, tracing from his collarbone to behind his ear, making his entire body languid as he swept across his neck.
‘Sometimes, I think there should be days when we don’t… do it…’
Tightening his grip on the pen, Song Hyun-soo stroked his hair with his other hand.
Yoon Joo-ho frowned, displeased.
‘That’s worse for your body.’
And so, they tumbled into the twin bed together, and unlike his bed downstairs, the four-legged bed let out screams of protest for about an hour. After that, Yoon Joo-ho fell asleep right there in the room. Using the excuse that he was too sleepy to make it downstairs.
Even though he was no longer surprised that Yoon Joo-ho was beside him when he woke up, it didn’t mean he had become desensitized to it. He still hadn’t fully adapted to the fact that they were dating.
Moreover, the position was different today. Yoon Joo-ho wasn’t holding Song Hyun-soo from behind like a bolster pillow; they were facing each other. Song Hyun-soo’s arm was draped over his torso. His lips were touching bare skin somewhere near his chest. The warmth of his skin and his peaceful breaths settling on his hair felt ticklish. More than mixing their bodies, showing each other their most intimate parts, this situation of falling asleep embraced felt more embarrassing.
Like someone who couldn’t watch horror movies, Song Hyun-soo slowly lifted his eyelids, as if peeking.
His collarbone was in front of him, and as he raised his head along his neckline, Yoon Joo-ho, contrary to his expectation, was looking down at him.
“You weren’t asleep?”
“About 10 minutes.”
Yoon Joo-ho teased, pressing his chin down on Song Hyun-soo’s crown, who was nestled in his embrace from below. He held Song Hyun-soo tightly, tightly, with both arms.
As the distance between them vanished, his partner’s erection from the night pressed against his body. Yoon Joo-ho’s nudged Song Hyun-soo’s upper abdomen, while Song Hyun-soo’s pressed against Yoon Joo-ho’s thigh. With one arm tightly around his torso, Yoon Joo-ho’s fingertips traced down Song Hyun-soo’s bare back. Below, he gently rotated his hips, pushing against his stiff penis.
Holding onto Yoon Joo-ho’s bare side, Song Hyun-soo hesitantly mumbled,
“Um, aren’t we… too promiscuous?”
“In what way?”
His tone suggested he didn’t understand.
Recalling the transcription book still in the spot where he had first placed it, Song Hyun-soo tried to pull his hips back.
“You know the old story, Gyeonwu and Jiknyeo.”
“Haa… why Gyeonwu and Jiknyeo all of a sudden?”
Yoon Joo-ho, who had been pulling Song Hyun-soo’s back tightly towards him, sighed and released his hold. He flipped over from his side-lying position to lie on his back, his center still bulging. Song Hyun-soo, his eyes repeatedly drawn to it, steadied himself and was the first to get out of bed, slipping his feet into his rabbit slippers.
“They were so engrossed in their newlywed life, only having sex and neglecting their duties, that the Jade Emperor got angry and separated them. Don’t you know that?”
“That’s a new interpretation.”
“It was censored when told to children, but what else could it mean when two young newlyweds are completely infatuated with each other? They were just kissing all the time.”
“So, you’re saying he’ll leave me alone because the Jade Emperor might get angry?”
“Old stories contain the wisdom of life.”
“You’re practicing your script even more diligently than before.”
“That’s true, but…”
The script practice part-time job was set for three days a week. But since they started living together, they talked about the script whenever they had a chance. Whether it was a scheduled day or not. The stories they made up about Lee Sol, Lee San, and Baek Kang were almost enough to exceed the original script’s length.
“Anyway, we did it at dawn, so let’s be a little restrained now.”
“Why?”
“My luggage is arriving today. People should do productive things too.”
It was the day his belongings left behind in Bogwang-dong would arrive. Tomorrow, he also had to visit his hometown, so he was determined to finish all the organizing today.
Yoon Joo-ho, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, leaned back and gave a crooked smile.
“If we were a man and a woman, we’d be making a baby. I don’t think there’s a more productive activity than that.”
Song Hyun-soo snorted, throwing the robe Yoon Joo-ho had worn last night back at him.
“You’re good with words.”
“What else?”
“If I were a woman, you wouldn’t have even let me into this house.”
Heh. Yoon Joo-ho tilted his head and chuckled lowly, as if embarrassed that his true feelings were exposed. It was a laugh that acknowledged Song Hyun-soo’s words as fact.
Watching his annoyingly yet irresistibly charming smile, Song Hyun-soo fled to the bathroom attached to the guest room.
Since I’m not a woman, that hypothetical is meaningless anyway. Yet, a slight bitterness was unavoidable. If I were a woman, I wouldn’t have had to come into this house, nor would I be worried about having children while being together day and night. I could somewhat understand the feelings of past lovers who might have grown distant, feeling resentful towards him for not opening his heart completely.
Instead, as I am not a woman, I cannot dream of marriage or children with him.
Yoon Joo-ho, wearing the robe, followed him into the bathroom and, next to Song Hyun-soo brushing his teeth, squeezed toothpaste onto his own toothbrush. Just as Song Hyun-soo’s toothbrush was in his bathroom downstairs, his toothbrush was also prepared in this bathroom.
It was like proof that the two were not just roommates but a couple living together.