· Lukewarm Water ·

The operational status report meeting was one of the tasks he most wanted to avoid. In a small-to-midsize general hospital with around 150 beds, there weren't many incidents that could significantly disrupt operations. About ten years ago it had been upgraded to a general hospital after meeting the minimum qualifications, but the obstetrics and gynecology department—which had built its reputation since his maternal great-grandfather's time—remained the hospital's primary source of income.

Although it had an operating room, an emergency room, and even a funeral hall, patients requiring critical life-or-death surgeries rarely showed up, and the hospital's own policy was to transfer uncertain cases to larger facilities. Operations ran smoothly, free of complicated problems.

There was a degree of internal politics—nothing as cutthroat as in a large general hospital, but present all the same. As the son of the director and vice director, he could afford to keep a comfortable distance from all of it.

His parents had wanted nothing more than for their troublesome second son to behave. They had accepted his terms without argument—no more than thirty-five hours a week, no high-risk surgeries—and hired him on those conditions.

Becoming a doctor in the first place had never been his choice. The arrangement he and his parents had quietly settled into was this: he would hold an internal medicine specialist title, take a clinic in the family hospital where his siblings all held positions, and show up. Minimum responsibility and maximum freedom.

It was the life he had wanted, and he had no complaints. Yet sometime after he turned thirty, he had begun to feel something missing. Not having complaints didn't equal satisfaction, and he was cultivated enough to feel a dim, occasional sense of accountability toward himself—about humanity, about the meaning of a finite life—whether he liked it or not.

As soon as the department heads started talking about a golf tour in Chiang Mai, he excused himself with a prior engagement and slipped out first.

He felt he should take off his gown and maybe find someone to spend the night with after a long dry spell. The frustration wasn't only sexual, but he thought he should at least resolve what could be resolved.

"Doctor, there's a visitor waiting inside."

A nurse called out to him urgently from the internal medicine desk across from his consultation room, stopping him just as he was reaching for the door handle.

"A visitor?"

"Your friend—the one who runs a gallery."

"Him?"

He raised his voice and scowled as though he'd heard an enemy had arrived. The nurse's expression clouded at his reaction.

"I was sure he was your friend, so I told him to wait... Did I do something wrong?"

He held up a file and shook his head.

"No. No, it's fine. Something just occurred to me. Please mark me as having already left for the day. Don't worry about me—just carry on."

He entered his consultation room with a lighter expression than before, tinged even with curiosity. A large presence, entirely incongruous with the modest seven-pyeong room, stood with its back to him near the window.

"Anyone would think this was your room."

"……."

The tall man—navy Italian linen suit, broad shoulders, a relatively lean waist, hands shoved into his trouser pockets—didn't move a muscle.

"What urgent business dragged you all the way to the hospital? Weren't you supposed to be too deep in newlywed bliss to keep your wits about you?"

He tossed a file onto his desk, shrugged off his gown, and grinned at the man's back.

Although they'd met outside a couple of times and he had stopped by briefly, this was probably the first time the man had come to the hospital specifically to see him. The nurse who'd remembered the acquaintance after only seeing him once or twice was almost impressive—but then again, it was the kind of face you couldn't forget even from a single passing glance.

Whatever had made this solid man so urgent that he'd bypassed the usual procedure of making contact and arranging a time—the thought made his mouth twitch with quiet amusement. "What, it has to be poked before it reacts."

Only after he had taken off his gown and hung it in the built-in cabinet on one wall did the man's back finally produce a voice.

"You…"

"……."

"Have you ever been bound to an Omega as an Alpha?"

"What?"

"Probably not. You've never had a sustained relationship with an Omega."

The voice wasn't accusing him. It was dry—the voice of someone searching for hope in a place where none existed. This wasn't the reason he'd anticipated for the man's urgent visit.

"What are you talking about? Is this the main point, the preface—what is it?"

He crossed his arms, leaning one shoulder against the cabinet, and furrowed his brow. The man was stubbornly fixed on the utterly ordinary view outside the window, with nothing in it worth looking at.

"Imagine the other person's pheromones completely overriding your judgment, your choices, your very will. No matter how hard you struggle, you can't remain yourself. You exist and act only as that Omega's Alpha. You've never been exposed to anything like that, have you?"

The moment the man finished speaking, he fiercely narrowed his eyes, walked over, and grabbed the solid shoulder.

"Already sick of Ihyeon-ssi?"

The face now turned toward him wore an expression different from anything he recognized, but he wasn't inclined to make allowances for it.

"Weren't you serious? Calling it dangerous was just a good excuse—I thought you were so smitten with Ihyeon-ssi you wanted to keep him tucked away in your house. And now here's the great Liu Weikun sitting around talking about pheromones because he got his nose pierced by some Omega? You're insane—"

The man's eyes twisted with contempt. His distorted mouth extinguished the teasing.

"I'm talking about Seo Ihyeon."

He released his grip on the man's shoulder and narrowed his eyes.

"What do you mean by that?"

The man grabbed his wrist, pulled his hand away, and spoke quickly.

"This won't end quickly. Let's talk at your place."

His voice was a compressed knot of impatience and exhaustion, as if he lacked the energy or time for a drawn-out exchange. He hadn't even checked whether there were prior engagements. The atmosphere made it plain that this took precedence over everything else.

They drove to his house in their respective cars. He turned the man's words over during the entire drive, but even after arriving home he couldn't begin to guess what he was about to hear.

His prediction had been accurate enough—if circumstances were such that the man would show up at the hospital unannounced, it almost certainly involved Ihyeon, who had become his only preoccupation lately. But the talk the man had begun in the consultation room was entirely a riddle.

Have you ever been bound to an Omega as an Alpha?

It was a question he never thought he'd hear from a man who coldly despised the reproductive instincts of Alphas and Omegas, whose pheromone control was nearly perfect. If it was related to Seo Ihyeon—a Beta—that made it all the more bewildering.

What weighed on him most was the man's atmosphere: unusually grave in a way he had never seen before. This was not someone to make a serious face over nothing. His second prediction—that the man was simply caught up in sweet, incongruous worries over someone ten years younger—had been completely, spectacularly wrong.

The man had arrived first. Turning the corner after exiting the elevator, he found him leaning blankly against the wall beside the entrance, like a specter. Though clearly sober, he looked disheveled as if drunk, and that killed whatever joke he'd been ready to make. Tsk. He clicked his tongue, entered the passcode, and opened the door.

This was only the second time the man had visited since he moved in that spring. They were the closest of friends, yet the man almost never came to his place.

He sat him down at the dining table in front of the stark kitchen, which bore almost no signs of habitation—like a model home. He offered a drink; the man nodded and asked if he could smoke.

His appearance called for something strong, so he poured whiskey over ice. The man, who usually showed little reaction to alcohol, took out a cigarette the moment a dish was offered as an ashtray and lit it as though he'd been waiting.

The cigarette burned halfway down. Half the whiskey in the on-the-rocks glasses was emptied. The man said nothing.

"Speak, you bastard. Did you kill someone?"

Out of frustration, he opened his mouth first. The man let out a dry, hollow laugh and slowly opened and closed the hand he'd let rest limply on the table. It was the laugh of someone for whom it might not be so different from having killed someone—so he tightened his grip on his glass.

"Pheromones. Things like that."

The voice sounded as if every human emotion had been burned away, leaving only the inner framework behind.

"They felt like proof of being a less-evolved beast. From the moment my manifestation began and I felt their effects, I hated it. The shame and humiliation of my body not being under my control—of being driven by what was happening within my own flesh."

He remembered the man from their school days. He had been exceptional. Coming from a family with wealth, honor, and legitimacy that rivaled anyone's among the Alpha and Omega children gathered at H.M.I.S.—the school for the children of the wealthiest magnates in the East—and assessed upon manifestation with over a ninety percent chance of developing into a Golden Alpha, the man had no reason to feel inferior as an Alpha. Yet for reasons entirely unlike those of his peers, he had been desperate to become a Golden.

Some factions had viewed him with suspicion and called him someone who looked down on non-Golden Alphas and Omegas, but the man back then hadn't cared a thing about the opinions of his trivial peers.

Strictly speaking, the man hadn't wanted to become a Golden Alpha; he simply wanted to escape the dominion of pheromones. He was one of the few school friends who had understood him to that extent.

"The attraction between Alphas and Omegas, the Alpha's instinct to protect and possess an Omega—living like a beast with reproduction as its top priority. Everything related to pheromones was dreadful."

There had been a time when he couldn't understand the man's insistence on being so perfect against pheromones. Unless one couldn't afford high-grade suppressants, being born an Alpha or Omega—especially one with Golden potential—was an advantageous condition.

Unless the man was somehow at a disadvantage, he had often shaken his head, thinking he lived unnecessarily hard. Why would someone at the pinnacle as an Alpha reject his given circumstances so stubbornly?

But perhaps, deep down, he had felt a twinge of inferiority toward the man's attitude. He himself had never had that level of passion for anything. Had never wanted anything that intensely, hated anything that intensely, or pushed his abilities to their maximum.

He had been assessed at a forty percent chance of developing into a Golden Alpha—a figure with real potential depending on effort—but he had never felt the necessity to push that far.

Ultimately he had stopped at an ambiguous middle ground: capable of minor pheromone control, neither Golden nor a Regular Alpha completely dependent on suppressants.

There were likely various reasons behind the habit of compromising at a moderate level in everything. He could guess at them. But at this age, he couldn't whine about his circumstances. He also lacked the drive or energy to examine himself from the root.

While calling the man's restraint an unnecessary burden—as though he were carrying some solemn duty—he might actually have quietly admired that intensity, so sharply contrasting with his own life. Probably so.

"I thought the attraction, interest, and sexual desire evoked by pheromones were all disgusting and unpleasant. And in practice, I never found anyone's pheromones the least bit tempting. But…"

The man, who had been speaking slowly while looking at a fixed point on the table, suddenly widened his eyes as though he'd discovered something astonishing on the plain white surface and shook his head.

"In the end, I was just an Alpha too. At least—to one person."

The man raised his head. In his tired face, only the blue eyes shone with an animalistic hunger. It was a brilliance that made his earlier powerless, desolate appearance seem false.

"Explain it so I can understand. What does this have to do with Ihyeon-ssi?"

Ignoring him, the man took out a new cigarette and lit it. He drew so deeply his cheeks hollowed, then exhaled a long stream of smoke and asked:

"Have you ever heard of a Ghost?"

Through the smoke, the man's eyes had changed color again, appearing utterly vacant. Unlike the stronger blue tint of moments before, this gaze—emphasizing an ashen melancholy—struck him as truly ghostlike. He waited for the main point that was clearly coming.

Unbelievable stories followed.

A friend he had grown up alongside for years sat in his house as a stranger. But before he could even fully accept this new identity, the shock of what the man had actually done completely overwhelmed the initial shock.

"You're joking, right?"

The shock was so profound it felt unreal, which was why his voice held not a trace of doubt. It was almost cheerful. But the man's set expression was not joking.

"A Ghost? Hey—isn't that going a bit far back? Ghost is something even Wikipedia covers in about three lines before moving on, a dried-up legend—no, something that couldn't even be verified as having existed in the past, surfacing only in the oral traditions of European royalty. There probably aren't many Alphas or Omegas left who even know the term. Liu Weikun, you're special enough already without dragging in legends like that."

"……."

The man's eyes, watching from across the table, showed no wavering. He knew. He knew this wasn't the kind of person to make something like that up.

"If everything you just said isn't a joke and it's all true—then you are completely out of your mind."

He changed his tone to something cold and sharp, poured whiskey without adding ice, drank it down as though it were cold water, slammed the glass on the table with a loud crack, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Alright. You're a Ghost. Like releasing the safety on a pistol and pulling the trigger, you can induce a chemical reaction during knotting through trained control and turn a Beta into an Omega—let's say that's true. Since the mechanics of Alpha-Omega pheromone interaction haven't been scientifically established anyway, insisting such a change is impossible would be equally absurd."

The more he spoke, the colder his head grew—but separately, anger surged inside him. He didn't even have the luxury to examine whether he had the right to be angry at the person before him.

"But you said you were trained. You went to the States for two years as a kid for exactly that reason. So why did you release that safety for Ihyeon-ssi?"

When he pressed with the taunt, an immediate answer came.

"I never failed. Not once. Not until now. Not with anyone. I never even lost control over knotting itself, let alone progressed to Changing. Since Changing can only be attempted while knotted, there was never any risk of attempting it outside that state."

"You couldn't control either the knotting or the Changing—with Seo Ihyeon!"

He shouted and ran a hand through his hair in agitation.

He wished he knew how to smoke at times like these. He had done everything forbidden as a kid, yet for some inexplicable reason had never touched cigarettes. Still, life had moments where you wanted to numb yourself, soil yourself, and do yourself harm with something as potent as hard liquor.

"I thought it was a mistake. That something had just gone wrong for a moment."

Avoiding eye contact, the man spoke as if making an excuse, and he slammed his fist on the table, raising his voice.

"So you slept with him two, three more times to confirm that? Knowing it might lead to Changing—whatever that means?"

The man's gaze, which had been fixed on a point on the table, snapped sharply toward him.

"You think I would sleep with someone for that reason alone? I don't have that much curiosity about other people or their pheromones."

"I thought I knew you to some extent—your patterns, if not your essence—but listening to you today, I have no idea who you are."

"……."

The man closed his mouth and drank. His face conceded there was no room for excuses. But he wanted the man to offer something—just enough to satisfy him, or at least to settle the anger.

As though he couldn't continue the conversation without it, the man lit a new cigarette before finally opening his mouth in a slightly calmer tone.

"When we first met. Back then, it was just a strange feeling—nothing precise enough to identify as pheromones. I briefly wondered whether he might be a Golden Omega suppressing them, but I didn't think about it too deeply. Looking back, that wasn't it either. At some point it shifted from a strange sensation to genuine pheromone emission. What's more—not only was he unaware of the pheromones he was releasing himself, but he was clearly detecting mine without realizing at all that they were pheromones."

"You released pheromones? You?"

"……."

The more he listened, the more he felt pushed toward confusion. The man postponed answering. Instead, as though suddenly aware he'd stopped smoking while telling the story, he brought the cigarette to his lips and drew deep. Then he spoke as if something were crumbling in him.

"Yes. Several times."

The cigarette in the hand now rubbing his forehead and face as if grinding them was dangerously close to setting his hair on fire.

After a moment of sorting through his memories, he shook his head decisively.

"No—this doesn't make sense. Ihyeon-ssi never detected my pheromones at all."

"……."

The man's fierce eyes demanded an explanation, but he had no intention of being intimidated.

"Why? Did you think you were the only Alpha who could release pheromones to Seo Ihyeon? You aren't the only Alpha in the world."

He brought his glass to his lips, recalling the evening he had met Ihyeon alone at the rooftop bar and answered his questions about Alphas, Omegas, and pheromones.

A belated thought followed: perhaps at that time, Ihyeon had already sensed something unusual in his relationship with the man and was asking from that place. Back then, he had only assumed it was a natural curiosity about Alphas arising from being attracted to Liu Weikun.

"Even if I'm not the only one who can release them to him—the only one whose pheromones can actually affect him… that's me, isn't it?"

Reading the conclusion forming on his face, the man sneered—and that face looked pleased. Though trying to suppress it, he couldn't fully hide the joy of possession that surfaced at the possibility that his pheromones might be the only ones capable of truly affecting Ihyeon.

Increasingly unable to recognize the man before him, he shrugged and clicked his tongue in a dry laugh.

"That's right. Unfortunately. If his pheromones had reacted to mine back then and something had happened between me and Ihyeon-ssi—he wouldn't have ended up tangled with someone like you."

A cold blue gaze pierced him sharply.

"I'd prefer if you held back the provocative comments for now."

He turned away from those eyes—filled with an unstable sense of crisis and aggression he hadn't even seen in the man's boyhood—and reached for his drink. The man's story continued.

"Whether Seo Ihyeon thinks of himself as a Beta or some rare mutation, it's none of my business anyway, and I'm not the type to be curious about others to that degree."

"……."

"But I couldn't ignore him. I was watching his every move, I was curious, I wanted to know, I wanted to dig into it—I couldn't help but reach out and touch. If he hadn't been a Ghost or something like that from the beginning—"

Having gotten that far, the man shook his head and took another drag. Though he'd only taken two or three puffs, the cigarette had already burned noticeably short on its own.

"There's more than one or two things I don't understand. So then—when exactly did you first sense Ihyeon-ssi's pheromones?"

The man let out a short, derisive snort and ground out his cigarette.

"I suppose you've forgotten—but I said from the very beginning that Seo Ihyeon was an Omega."

"But you said he wasn't an Omega. You said he's turning into one because of you. So how could you have sensed his pheromones before that? Then what is Seo Ihyeon? What is he?"

The man lightly clenched the hand he'd been resting on the table.

"I've asked him that too. More than once. 'What are you?' Though it was more like talking to myself than actually asking him. He doesn't know himself. He still only knows he's a Beta. And the professor in Boston who has watched over me since I was a child—even he knows nothing about a being like Ihyeon."

Holding his glass, the man slowly turned it in his hand, biting and releasing his lower lip hard.

"But now—whatever Seo Ihyeon actually is—it doesn't matter. That's not why I came here."

He said it rapidly, almost muttering, then drained the remaining liquor in his glass in one swallow. Watching him, he clicked his tongue.

"You've dragged things to this point—whether it matters or not isn't yours to decide."

"……."

"Most people whose secondary gender manifests after they become adults can't accept the physical changes and fall apart. If a man manifests as an Omega, or a woman as an Alpha, the psychological shock is even greater. There are people who never adapt and take their own lives. It isn't a rare story, as you know. But this—it wasn't his own body manifesting on its own. It was done to him by someone else."

He couldn't finish the sentence and rubbed his face roughly with both hands.

Having accepted the reality of his friend's secret and the absurdity of what he'd done, the prospect of informing Ihyeon of the truth now felt like a wall he had no idea how to scale. The man had come to him precisely for that. There was no other reason to suddenly share a secret he'd kept all this time.

"I won't let it come to that. He's not—that fragile."

The man said it while pulling yet another cigarette from the pack.

"If he's not fragile, if he has the mental fortitude to endure and overcome it—does that mean it's all right to do that to someone like that? No matter how I think about it, this is absolutely not like you. Where is Liu Weikun—the one who despised pheromones and all that goes with them more than anything in this world?"

"You've never loved anyone as an Alpha. You wouldn't understand."

He doubted his own hearing. It was as if a sudden brake had been applied and his center of gravity had lurched forward, threatening to send him stumbling. That word choice was as shocking as everything else the man had told him today.

"……."

"……."

He opened his mouth and lost his words. The man, having become conscious of the word he'd unconsciously chosen—love—averted his eyes for whatever reason. But he made no move to correct or retract what he'd said.

Like an oblivious, uninvited guest, one of the two phones the man had placed on the table vibrated. Both of them glanced down. The man stood and picked it up.

"Just a moment."

He didn't move far enough to be out of earshot—only to the far side of the sofa directly in his line of sight—before answering.

"Yes, it's me."

An utterly mundane and peaceful voice, completely at odds with the man who had just been wearing an expression as though he wanted to tear his own hair out. Conversely, he frowned and stared at the man's back in disbelief.

"No, it's fine. Go ahead. It was a bit stuffy, so I stepped outside for a moment. I'm eating here. Did you have dinner? …You didn't leave any? …Good. I'm glad the changed diet seems to be helping. I might be a bit later. I'll message you when I'm on my way."

The person on the other end was Ihyeon, and the man had apparently told him it was a dinner appointment with a client. He spoke without a hitch, his voice even tinged with laughter.

It was unbelievable. Every note of that conversation was the atmosphere of a man deeply engrossed with a lover. He had never once imagined Liu Weikun's romantic life taking this form. Between the shocks of the last few hours, he felt like he'd aged ten years at once. He downed the rest of his glass in one go.

When the man returned to the table, he wore the same dark, gloomy expression as before. As soon as he sat down he moistened his lips with whiskey, with the face of someone who genuinely couldn't understand the meaning of the silent stare being directed at him.

"Ha—are you two different people?"

"There's no need to cause unnecessary worry."

"Who's the one who made this mess? And now you're talking about worrying Ihyeon-ssi?"

"……."

"Do you think keeping it hidden now resolves anything? Playing with someone else's life as you please—"

At the accusation, the man hunched his upper body as if feeling actual pain in his stomach or chest and furrowed his brow hard.

"Don't—don't talk to me like that."

"Then how would you like me to talk to you?"

Even knowing this kind of blame led nowhere but exhaustion, he knew no other outlet for the shock of the moment. So he couldn't stop.

The man pressed his lips together and exhaled a slow, deep breath. He brought a new cigarette to his lips, then moved it back to his hand, his mouth twitching as though deciding whether certain words could be said.

"We are serious with each other."

The sentence, spoken on an exhale, sounded like a sigh.

He didn't need the man to declare it so gravely—he already knew. He had sensed the man's unusual interest in Ihyeon from the very beginning and had anticipated that Ihyeon might be able to break through the walls the man had built around himself and draw out his full attention. He simply hadn't expected that seriousness to flow in this direction.

"Changing someone's body without their knowledge is what you call seriousness? And then, later, offering a pitiful excuse—that your pheromones wanted to bond with him as an Alpha and Omega? That your precious Alpha nature desired Seo Ihyeon?"

"……."

Strictly speaking, he wasn't Ihyeon's family or longtime friend—but the man, narrowing his brow and setting his jaw, did not push back against the emotional accusation. He closed his mouth and endured, as if wanting to punish himself through the rebuke.

Seeing him weaker than usual only stoked the anger further, and he pressed harder.

"Why? Why didn't you just wait until he was one hundred percent Omega and even pregnant before you said anything? Huh?"

"……."

The man turned his chin toward his shoulder, tilting his gaze further sideways, and swept his hair back. Sensing the meaning behind that reaction, he clicked his tongue and gripped the neck of the heavy brown liquor bottle.

"So you have thought about it. You're truly insane."

He tilted the bottle, filled his empty glass, and swallowed three or four long gulps. He couldn't even feel the heat of the undiluted whiskey going down.

"So. What do you want from me? Isn't this the wrong time to be telling me all this?"

"……."

This was a man who had lived keeping even his closest friend in the dark about what he was. There was no way he had come now simply to confess, or to ease the guilt of turning his 'serious partner' into an Omega through conversation.

The man couldn't bring himself to speak as the cigarette burned all the way to the filter. He drank two more glasses of whiskey, but only the edges of his eyes reddened slightly—he didn't seem to be drawing any strength from the alcohol.

Stubbing out the cigarette that looked like it wouldn't produce smoke even if drawn, the man spoke in a tight, urgent voice.

"The Changing symptoms have started appearing. He's been feeling unwell."

"He…?"

Ha. He had nothing left to say, so he simply kept shaking his head. The sight of this man readily acknowledging a relationship to someone else, without the slightest aversion to it, was foreign. He never spoke about his purely physical partners one way or another.

"Usually it's loss of appetite, heartburn, abdominal discomfort—and depending on the person, nausea or vomiting. A few weeks ago those symptoms started. He's barely been eating."

"Of course his stomach hurts—his insides are changing!"

"It's imprecise, but I'd estimate somewhere around ten to twenty percent changed so far. He thinks it's mild gastritis. But since there's no sign of improvement, he said he's going to see a doctor."

At the voice, drained and trailing off, he leaned his upper body back in his chair.

"You… this… no, it couldn't be."

The man's tired blue eyes sent a plea toward him. He shook his head firmly, refusing it.

"Don't tell me you want me to take part in this madness too."

A brief flash of blue lit the man's eyes, which had seemed like faded, lifeless ash.

"You knew from the beginning that I was interested in him. You knew it and kept encouraging it."

Perhaps the desperation of a person backed into a corner was now drawing out aggression. The man hadn't seemed fully himself since sitting down at this table.

"Didn't you want things to work out between him and me? Weren't you entertained by the idea of a fairy-tale ending—where a miserable wretch who knew nothing of love finally opened his eyes to true feeling?"

"Yes, I was a little entertained. So what? Even if I pushed you like you say—did you only become serious because of me? If I had stayed quiet, would none of this have happened?"

Seeming to realize this was pointless, the man rubbed his face with a large palm and drew back the hostility. He propped his elbows on the table, gripping the hair he'd swept to the crown of his head—that jet-black hair that didn't match his blue eyes.

"Help me. There's no one else—no one I can ask."

"Tell Ihyeon-ssi everything. If you do that, you won't need anyone's help, and it's something you'll have to do eventually no matter how long you try to avoid it."

Faced with the most rational, and therefore perhaps most irresponsible, answer, the man released his grip on his hair and bit his lower lip.

Then, like a severe addict, he reached for another cigarette. It was the first time he had seen the man smoke this continuously. But after lighting it, he spent more time holding it in his hand than bringing the filter to his lips. He simply needed something—anything—to cling to.

Watching the thin bluish smoke curl from the cigarette in his hand, the man's lips were dry and cracked.

"I knew I had to tell him. I knew this wasn't something that could be cleaned up later, that I needed to stop. But at the same time there's a part of me that wants to make him a little more of an Omega still. If we become more deeply entangled through our pheromones, it will be harder for him to refuse me. The probability of him accepting me even after I confess will increase by that much. There's a cowardly part of me relying on pheromones—trying to keep him at my side through the very method I used to despise most—and because I couldn't ignore the sweetness of that voice, I've come this far."

As if remembering something, he drew deep from the cigarette and flicked off the lengthening ash before continuing.

"Whatever Seo Ihyeon actually is, the fact that he emits pheromones that stimulate mine makes him functionally the equivalent of a superior Golden Omega compared to me. I can't resist those pheromones, and I can't control my own. You, who have never been exposed to pheromones of that intensity, wouldn't understand. Convincing a Beta of their real effects is probably as impossible as the theory itself. I felt an immense gap between encountering it in theory and actually experiencing it firsthand. Even though he isn't an Omega I've had a long connection with—the overwhelming sensation of being subjugated to him, the impulse for my entire life to rearrange itself around him and for all my energy to be spent on him—I guarantee you, no Alpha can refuse that."

His voice carried the conviction that if he couldn't do it, no Alpha could. He might have been right. He was the most exceptional Alpha.

But even having lived as an Alpha himself, he couldn't readily accept that. He tightened his grip on his glass and shook his head.

"Even if it meant physically removing yourself, you should have separated yourself from Ihyeon-ssi in that situation."

"……."

"In the end, you only dragged it out and made things worse—because you were afraid he might refuse to become an Omega and push you away."

The man made no further attempt at defense. He simply looked at him with a haggard face and deeply shadowed eyes.

"I'm not here to confess to you or to ask for your understanding. I came to ask for your help—so that his shock can be lessened even a little. So that he can at least hear an explanation through me, and not find out in the worst possible way."

Everything essential, everything he absolutely needed to know, had already been laid bare. Even so, he couldn't respond to the man's final statement. Countless questions still churned chaotically in his head.

If this is this shocking to me—a thorough third party, entirely removed from the situation—what must it be like for Ihyeon?

His upper body jerked as though struck hard across the spine. Without thinking, he looked at the man across from him. Anxiety flickered in the man's blue eyes as well. But the fear the man himself was directly living would be on an incomparably different level. As deep as the bond he must have built with Ihyeon, as intense as his desire for him—that fear was undoubtedly pressing down on him without pause.

Before he knew it, the liquor bottle was nearly empty. Despite having drunk a large amount in a short time, he couldn't hope for the looseness that should have come with intoxication. He felt only the deep fatigue brought on by extreme sensitivity, and he closed his eyes.

"Go home. I have nothing more to say to you today."

He had no intention of seeing him out, and the man seemed to expect none.

The man stood, picked up his cigarettes and phone, and didn't immediately leave the table. He turned halfway back. His large silhouette fell over the stark white surface.

"Beta and Alpha. I thought that might be the most ideal kind of relationship for a bastard like me. Even without pheromones in the picture—he shook me, stimulated me, captivated me. But it didn't work out. When my pheromones respond to his pheromones wanting me, I willingly give myself over to the joy of bonding with him through everything I have—mind, body, pheromones. It makes me feel sorry for Alphas who were born Alphas and never got to know something like that."

He trailed off, rubbing his chin with a thoughtful look. His voice had gone rough as though he'd been shouting for hours. His naturally husky voice was rawer than usual. Whether from the alcohol or the emotions—or both—his bloodshot eyes were no less harsh. The face of a man confessing his love looked like the face of someone who had had the fruits of that love stripped away before he could even reach them.

"Take what I said earlier as a—status report from a friend, separate from this request."

A status report from a friend, right. It was a plea disguised as a statement—meaning: he matters this much to me, so please grant what I'm asking.

He turned away and tilted his glass, and the man, catching his breath in pauses, spoke in a parched voice.

"When I get back from Chicago—I'll tell him everything. Until then, just help me buy a little time. Please."

"……."

"I'm leaving."

He only twisted his lips and drank, offering no reply to the farewell.

Watching the man's back as he walked toward the hallway leading to the front door, a sudden surge of heat rose in him. It resembled anger, and it bordered on contempt—but if he had to name the emotion it most closely resembled, it would be jealousy.

Toward what, toward whom, was unclear. It was simply a scorching jealousy, so intense it made him want to throw himself in and take it for his own.

· · · · ·

It was sudden, but Inwu hyung's visit was welcome.

Thursdays were half-days for consultations, and when I received a call from hyung saying he'd stopped by a nearby liquor store and decided to reach out, I hesitated for a moment before readily agreeing.

I had no complaints about my current life, but the visit was a change of mood—like an unusual chord joining a monotonously repeating, stable melody. Perhaps it felt that way even more because the Chicago trip and the joint exhibition in the latter half of the year were both drawing closer, and I'd heard nothing from Yuni nuna or Juhan hyung all week.

"But I'm genuinely a little disappointed."

Hyung lifted his lips from his bold wine glass and spoke while slowly turning it on his crossed legs.

The rich, deep, sensual red wine and the cream cheese crackers I'd clumsily arranged on a plate were gifts hyung had brought. He'd worn a troubled expression and apologized that they didn't pair properly with the wine, but there was no way I, who barely knew the taste of wine, would quibble about the right pairing.

I was sitting on a drafting chair I'd pulled up across from the sofa I'd offered him, and I set my glass on the table and looked across at him.

"Since you moved into this place, you haven't seen me once, Ihyeon-ssi."

"Ah…"

"Is someone telling you not to meet me?"

Tilting his wine glass again and swallowing the dark red liquid, hyung spoke with a slightly mischievous tone.

He had once said he felt jealous even of a childhood friend—and though that friend was probably Inwu hyung, strictly speaking, he had never told me not to see hyung.

"Ah… no. Suddenly a lot of things were decided at once, and my surroundings changed, so I was just overwhelmed. And I've been trying to focus on my painting. Director Liu told me I could go out or invite people whenever I wanted, but—"

My long, rambling explanation was cut short by hyung's dry cough.

"Hmm. I never said it was because of Liu Weikun, so why are you defending him?"

"……."

My ears burned hot. I lowered my head, and hyung laughed—not a mocking laugh that made a joke of my clumsy excuse.

Hyung picked up a particularly savory cracker laden with cream cheese, took a bite, and brushed the crumbs off his thigh.

"Well—the person who wants something has to make the move, what can you do. Thanks to that, I even got the chance to secure a good piece in advance, so I should be satisfied with that for now."

Whenever we spoke on the phone, hyung had been curious about the painting I was doing with Juhan hyung as a model. Everyone around me seemed to find my choice of Juhan hyung unexpected and was curious about it.

I showed hyung the painting, which was about eighty percent complete. Unlike during our phone calls, he looked at it slowly and silently for a long time, with a serious expression. Then he surprised me by saying he wanted to buy it once it was finished.

Although I'd been practicing coloring alongside sketching, this would undoubtedly be a very amateurish piece—my first completed work since I started painting again. I'd naturally been treating it as practice, so hyung's offer made me both happy and slightly bewildered.

After taking a sip of wine, I rubbed the slender stem of the glass with my fingertips and managed to open my mouth.

"About that, hyung… I think it's still too lacking to sell."

"If a collector like me thinks it's worth paying money to own a piece by Ihyeon-ssi, that should be value enough."

"I truly appreciate that, and I am happy, but—"

It wasn't hyung's action that cut me off this time. It was the sound of the keypad on the thick iron door leading to the parking corridor being pressed from outside. Inwu hyung, who had just brought his wine glass to his lips, looked at me with a puzzled expression.

"Ah… Director Liu must be here."

Inwu hyung's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but before I could think anything of it, the door was pulled open from outside.

"……."

As the door opened, he—who had been about to step right in—visibly flinched and stopped. Inwu hyung, sitting with a clear view of the door, raised his wine glass toward him with a smile. His eyes, slightly widened and stiffened, quickly scanned hyung, me, and the wine and crackers on the table. Some inexplicable tension made me stand up awkwardly without thinking.

"What's this, showing up without notice."

He glanced at me briefly but addressed hyung first. His voice was blunt.

"I did give notice. To Ihyeon-ssi."

He dropped his briefcase—bulging with densely packed documents—heavily onto the seat next to Inwu hyung and looked at me again. His eyes and mouth were set, but I couldn't possibly ask him to act normally in front of Inwu hyung. Even knowing that, I still couldn't easily sit back down because of some vague, creeping anxiety. With Inwu hyung leaning comfortably on the sofa and sipping his wine between us, he and I stood facing each other like the two far points of a triangle.

"You're the landlord, aren't you. This is Ihyeon-ssi's studio—is it really all right to just press the code and walk in whenever you like? Isn't that a bit much of an invasion of privacy?"

"That's not it. I just—told him to come and go freely. I felt bad that Director Liu kept having to go back and forth to the garden because of me…"

Hyung didn't point it out openly this time, but his eyes, raised above the rim of his glass, were looking at me—making excuses for him again—with undisguised curiosity.

"But why are both of you standing? Ihyeon-ssi, please sit down. Hey, landlord—if you sit down, the tenant can sit comfortably too."

Taking off his jacket and draping it over the sofa back, he sat down beside hyung as though he had no choice, rubbing the area around his eyebrows like someone suffering from a headache.

"What did you come here for?"

"I came to see Ihyeon-ssi. There's a rumor going around that he's painting Kwon Juhan nude, and I figured since he'd never call me to come see it himself, I'd come."

Thinking I should bring him a glass too, I started to pass the table toward the stairs—but he grabbed my wrist. The gaze that met me when I looked up was dry and lacking its usual persistence. Completely different from the way he always looked at me, as though gently petting me.

"Where are you going?"

"The wine—I was going to get a glass for Director Liu too."

Hyung, sipping his wine, was casting a sideways glance at my wrist held in his hand, but Inwu hyung had probably already noticed the changed atmosphere between him and me.

"It's fine. I won't be drinking."

He lowered his head, rubbing his forehead over and over, and said it in a tone that suggested he was annoyed and tired. Then he pulled my wrist back as if telling me to return to my seat. I was certain this wasn't him being stiff only because Inwu hyung was here—he was plainly in a bad mood.

Doing my best to ignore Inwu hyung's gaze, which was sticking to me with sticky questions and curiosity, I went back and sat down.

"Ah—I put a reservation on that painting, so it's mine, all right?"

Inwu hyung said this while breaking a cracker into pieces on his plate, and he turned to look at hyung with a furrowed brow.

"What reservation?"

"Ihyeon-ssi's current piece. I said I'd buy it once it's finished."

"Do you know what the price might be?"

Hyung shrugged once and gave a short laugh, as though clicking his tongue.

"I'm a Phantom-signed artist and a major client—surely you wouldn't break all the trust we've built by setting some outrageous price?"

He glanced across the table at me for a brief moment. His face looked like porcelain cracking under pressure. He withdrew his gaze from me and swept back the hair covering his forehead.

"Nothing has been decided yet. We're not even at the stage where verbal reservations can be taken."

"Either way, I've clearly stated my intent to purchase to both the artist and the gallery, so all I'm asking is that you confirm I'm first in line if a sale is decided."

Inwu hyung popped the remaining cracker crumbs on his plate into his mouth and stood from the sofa, saying he must have taken up too much of my work time. He didn't say a single word about the obviously awkward atmosphere. I had never wished so badly for Inwu hyung to point things out with his characteristic lightness. My mouth had gone completely dry trying to imagine how to navigate being alone with him after this, and I drained the wine left in my glass.

Even if the rough attitude he was showing now—the intimidating aura of someone who wanted to be even rougher but was holding himself back—even if it came from jealousy, this was completely different from when he had held me in this very studio not long ago and spoken about his jealousy. It wasn't the raw, uncomplicated emotion of an immature boy struggling with a relationship problem. This was something else.

"Ihyeon-ssi, do you remember that painting from before?"

Hyung, slipping back into his jacket, smiled brightly as though oblivious to the current flowing between him and me.

"The one I asked you to recommend for the bedroom in my new place—the piece of mine that you chose."

Of course I remembered. I nodded.

"You might already know this, Ihyeon-ssi, but I never did sell that painting. It's hanging above my headboard now. I used to find it difficult to look at my own work—it felt like looking at the dregs of a self I refused to reclaim. But after you said it was 'honesty about one's own dishonesty,' my paintings started to look familiar to me."

Having walked around the table, hyung placed his hand on my right shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. He, who had been leaning forward with his elbow on his thigh, looked up crookedly and fixed a stare on hyung's hand.

"Come see it sometime when you get the chance. You're always welcome, Ihyeon-ssi."

Moving behind me, hyung placed both hands on my shoulders and pressed down gently from above before letting go. Bearing the full weight of his gaze—hands clasped before his lips—I rose from my seat.

Hyung walked toward the entrance, turned back, and smiled while walking backward.

"Oh, and I've already booked the appointment, so I'll see you at the clinic. I'll have Director Liu pass along the date and time."

I stood there, glancing back and forth between him and hyung. Inwu hyung had arrived, and I had let the driver leave early—someone needed to open and close the parking lot gate, but he showed no sign of moving.

Pit-a-pat. At the sudden noise, I looked up at the window facing the garden. A downpour seemed to be starting; thick raindrops were already pelting the glass.

"Rain, out of nowhere. I should get going before traffic gets bad."

Hyung, who had been slowly retreating while keeping both of us in sight, turned back toward the entrance with a crooked smile. As I reluctantly moved to follow him out, he—who had appeared at my side without me noticing—placed his hand on my shoulder.

"Sorry—would you bring me a beer from upstairs?"

His eyes were following hyung's back, not mine. Was I being too sensitive to feel something like reproach in the weight of that hand, heavier than usual, pressing down?

When I came back with the beer, he had already seen hyung out and was standing at the table, holding the wine bottle and looking at the label. I wondered if hyung had properly called a designated driver, but instinct told me now was not the time to ask. I slowed my steps and hesitantly set the green translucent bottle on the table.

"Um—it's not that I went out. Hyung came here to the house…"

After he finished work, we had always been so close, constantly exchanging small moments of physical contact as if compensating for the half-day we'd spent apart. This was the first time we'd maintained distance in such an unstable, cooled atmosphere. The unfamiliar discomfort only made the easy intimacy of before stand out in sharper contrast.

He quietly set down the wine bottle and turned to look at me, standing awkwardly a few steps away and rubbing my arms. His face still looked like porcelain on the verge of shattering. I could feel the immense effort he was making to prevent the cracks from becoming full destruction.

"And it was also almost time for Director Liu to finish work—"

"Why are you making excuses?"

"That's—"

That was because he looked like he was in such a terrible mood.

I couldn't say that. His question wasn't one seeking a real answer, and I knew it.

He thanked me perfunctorily for the beer, twisted the cap off, and drank a full third in one swallow. Meanwhile, the sound of the rain—which had progressed past a patter to a proper downpour—was carving an irregular rhythm into the room. In just a few minutes the room had grown noticeably darker, but neither of us thought to turn on a light.

"About the painting—it would be a problem to finalize something like a reservation without consulting the gallery."

It had only been Inwu hyung's one-sided declaration of intent; I hadn't indicated any acceptance on my end. But saying so now didn't seem like it would make him feel better or smile.

"Since it was your first time and you might not know, this time I'll talk to Choi Inwu somehow, but—"

He tilted his chin up and tipped the bottle back quickly—more like pouring it down than drinking.

"At least let me be consulted about who Seo Ihyeon's paintings go to from now on."

His face was contorted as though forcing out words that were hard to say. If his low mood came from jealousy, and if that jealousy extended to the paintings too, then maybe mentioning I had no intention of selling to hyung would help a little.

While I racked my brain for how and in what way to bring it up, a ring came from inside his briefcase. He took another sip of beer, set the bottle down, pulled out his phone, checked the caller, pressed his lips together, exhaled through his nose, and answered.

"What now."

I'd expected a work call, but his opening word was casual. He glanced at me, turned his back, and stepped away from in front of the sofa.

"It's the same kind of party as always. The guest list is one we put together together with them, we've confirmed the final list, so there's nothing to worry about. The media outlets are carefully selected for influence and credibility. Just do the same as you do here. Yuni and I will be together the whole time—nothing will be different."

I had a good idea who he was talking to. My own mood was plummeting rapidly now.

After pacing around the studio for about five minutes, struggling to persuade Artist Shushu, he suddenly threw a brief glance my way and lowered his voice.

"All right. I'll be there in thirty minutes, so go on and talk. …What? Cheese ca— Ha. I know which one you mean. I'll buy it, just don't fall asleep on the people waiting for you."

Along with my sinking mood, the warmth in my chest seemed to drain too. Jealousy wasn't something you could only feel in tender conversations. Even in that exchange of complaints, I could sense the long, intimate history between them—the way they knew each other.

The violent emotions that rose all at once were so unfamiliar they left me bewildered. He acted annoyed, acted inconvenienced, but in the end he was going to give Shushu everything she asked for. I wanted to attack him with cold words and a frozen expression.

Shushu's relationship with him had bothered me for a long time—I had even confessed once that I wished he wouldn't do things like carrying Yuni nuna on his back. But my feelings before hadn't been this ugly. Feeling as though my entire face and chest were scorched and shriveled, grotesquely twisted like melted, punctured plastic, I rubbed the corner of my mouth and looked away from him.

He stopped in the middle of the empty space and said:

"You said you hadn't heard about the party. You said you hate parties and photo shoots—now we're back to square one. How do you plan to break into a new market without any promotion? I'm sorry, but tonight's dinner—you'll have to handle it on your own."

At that definitive statement about going to see Shushu, my gaze snapped to him. Watching his profile as he irritably swept his hair back and urgently sent a message somewhere, my heartbeat gradually quickened. The rain fell irregularly—sometimes gentle, sometimes stronger—amplifying my anxiety.

Even when Manager Han pressed him, he always treated it as a nuisance, so why was he insisting on meeting Shushu in person right now? Why did it have to be now? The impulse to question him harshly was only distressing. It was an ugly side of myself I didn't want to face—but more than that, I didn't want to let him go.

Following him as he grabbed the jacket from the sofa back and made to pass by me, I lightly caught hold of his arm just above the elbow.

"What if… you didn't go?"

The words that broke through without any eloquence were direct. He stopped walking and turned, his eyes widening slightly. I was surprised by my own action, but having already thrown out the most essential words, I decided not to care about petty pride or fear.

"If you leave like this now—"

"……."

Unable to find anything better to say to make him stay, I bit and released my lower lip hard. Not having the courage to look at his face, I dropped my gaze to his shoulder and spoke helplessly.

"I wish you wouldn't go."

He didn't react immediately.

The muscles of his arm, revealed below twice-folded sleeves, were tensed. His broad chest beneath the shirt expanded and contracted with a larger-than-usual amplitude, straining the fabric. We hadn't raised our voices or exchanged exhausting, hurtful words meant to wound, but we were already draining each other emotionally. We had given each other that right. It felt like glimpsing the raw underside of what a relationship actually was.

Within my field of vision, he released the tension in his shoulders and exhaled.

"Right now I'm too—anyway, it's better if we're not together."

"……."

"Whatever you're thinking, I'm leaving because of work. Nothing else."

It seemed to mean: don't misunderstand.

It wasn't that I didn't trust him. I knew it was only work, knew there was nothing between him and Shushu, yet I still didn't want to let him go. And I couldn't blame him for his emotions coming out crooked, unable to be hidden, even while knowing nothing had happened between me and Inwu hyung. If anything—I understood.

He placed a hand heavily on my shoulder, squeezed it once, and left the room. It was just—a casual touch, the kind that might pass between him and Juhan hyung, the kind that meant nothing at all.

The soundproofing here wasn't as good as upstairs, and the sound of the rain was so loud it was like standing in the middle of a downpour. I stood blankly in the sound of the rain for a long time, trying to calm myself.

I thought I should at least clean up the messy table, but when I tried to move, my hands were busy and useless. Trying to put the cracker plate onto the tray, I knocked over the wine bottle, and what remained of the dark red liquid spilled. I wasn't the type to get irritated over something like that, but I found myself cursing my own foolish mistake aloud as I wiped up the wine that had pooled on the table and floor.

Just having done that much left my body as drained as if I'd completed heavy physical labor. I gave up on tidying and sank onto the sofa, and started drinking the beer he had left behind.

I hadn't harbored such a naive dream as to expect only sweet days. But I think I'd arbitrarily assumed that if we ever fought, it would be for some deeper, more fundamental reason.

His judgment—that it was better for us not to be together right now—might perhaps have been the slightly more mature decision. Trying to console myself with that, I pulled my legs up onto the sofa, bent my knees, and rested the beer bottle on them. I didn't really know what cigarettes tasted like, but I suddenly felt like having one after a long time without.

"……."

My body stiffened at a mechanical sound mixed in with the rain. The sound of someone entering the door code. I awkwardly got up. My heart began beating fast, but I didn't want to anticipate and then be disappointed. Maybe he had forgotten something. His briefcase was still here. Or maybe he had come back still angry, intending to continue the argument.

The lock disengaged and he opened the door. Even after opening it, he didn't step inside—just stood in the hallway holding the handle, looking at me. His face seemed to be asking permission to enter.

I went quickly around the table and approached him. Up close, his eyes were no longer attempting to control their emotions, the way they had been before he left.

"I'm sorry for acting so childish."

"……."

As if wanting to make it clear the fault was his, he spoke with emphasis.

"I try not to, but—it's not working. I'm ten years older, and I still can't manage my emotions over something like this. It's pathetic."

I strongly shook my head, pushing the door—which he hadn't opened all the way—wider with my shoulder.

"I was already furious just seeing you drinking with someone else. And then to show him your painting—the painting that might be your first work as Seo Ihyeon—and to leave it in his hands, somewhere I wasn't—"

He stopped speaking and drew a deep breath.

"It felt like my head was going to explode. As though you'd actually been with him."

I couldn't let him go on tearing himself apart. Taking the remaining two steps, I pressed my lips to his. I felt his body stiffen in surprise. His lips, meeting mine, tasted sweeter than before—like something lost and found again.

The hand that had reflexively grabbed my side slowly wrapped around my waist. Now it was my turn to be childish, pathetic, and honest.

"Don't go. Being alone with him—I don't like it."

As if my bothersome, whining words were a beautiful and noble confession, he looked down at me with an expression of deep feeling.

His arms wrapped tightly around my waist as he claimed my lips. The kiss was strong enough to sting—he bit down and sucked with an intensity that was almost punishing. I clung to his neck as he kissed me urgently, as though to overwhelm and press me down. His tongue plunged between our pressed lips and found every sensitive place inside.

Half lifting me, he stepped into the room. Behind him, the door lock clicked shut with a crisp sound.

He strode straight across the empty studio, tossing his jacket somewhere onto the floor. Already one hand was slipping under my T-shirt, tracing the prominent outline of my shoulder blades, while his other hand gripped and squeezed my hip over my jeans.

Thump, clatter. The drafting chair I had moved in front of the sofa knocked against my calf and toppled noisily. Paying it no mind, trusting him, I tightened the arms around his neck and pressed my tongue hard against his.

It was a kiss that brought back memories of Hong Kong. That night in his hotel room, when we had rushed through the living room, tangling ourselves in a frenzy the moment we entered.

It felt like it might have been our first kiss.

If he hadn't pointed that out, oblivious me might have let it pass without ever realizing the significance of it being my first kiss in my life.

The hand that had been twisting my hip moved forward, unbuckling my belt and pulling down the zipper. Unlike his usual smooth ease when undressing someone—as though he were undressing himself rather than another person—today he was impatient.

Mmph, hmm. My shoulders flinched as his hand plunged through the gap and wrapped around me over my underwear. The groan vibrating deep in my throat made it hard to keep hold of his tongue.

As I tried to pull my head back, loosening my grip, he pushed his pelvis forward and pulled my waist tight against him, as if refusing to allow it.

His slick, hot tongue retreated and then slid back in, its tip sharp and hard as it pressed between my lips. The gaze that met my narrowed eyes was already boiling, focused entirely on me.

While he constantly adjusted his hold on my waist and pulled me closer, stroking me to draw out an erection, and simultaneously filled my mouth with his tongue's insistent caress, I quickly fell in step with his pace.

"Mnh… hh, mm… mm."

My cheeks burned at the thrusting of his tongue—which so clearly intended to simulate, and succeeded in simulating, penetration. But I couldn't deny that heat was also gathering at my cock, which was beginning to swell with an unmistakable firmness.

From below to above, above to below, deeper between my legs. The hand trying to build my arousal was putting in more force than usual.

"Ah. Huff, ugh."

The rough friction of his palm against me conveyed something raw—the bewilderment of not being able to contain the fierce desire that had ignited all at once, and the desperate need to pour it out onto the person in front of him.

I didn't dislike this—his excitement uncontrolled and irregularly spilling out from within the composure built on reason, restraint, and practiced skill. I felt a petty, secret pleasure watching him lose his balance and his pattern because of me.

To make it easier for the hand trembling between my legs—almost shaking from the effort of holding himself back—I lowered my hips and widened my stance. In that small motion, I became newly conscious that we were truly beginning to have sex, and at the same time a sharp tingle shot up the back of my neck.

His eyes narrowed as he noticed my arousal amplifying. His tongue slipped out of my mouth, and he peppered kisses across my lips, threading words between them.

"Tell me—one more time."

He kissed my entire upper lip densely, then leaned his forehead against mine and rubbed our noses together.

"Tell me not to leave. That you don't like it—whoever it is—me being alone with someone else."

"……."

Hearing my own words confirmed through his mouth made my gaze wander in embarrassment. It suddenly seemed strange that I felt more ashamed of what I'd said earlier than of the hand now moving against me beneath my pants.

"Hah, uh."

When I avoided his eyes without answering, the hand stroking my cock became more explicit. His lips moved from my nose to my cheek and covered my ear, exhaling heat that kept blurring my mind.

"Tell me you want to monopolize me—so much that you want to separate me from the rest of the world."

"You don't… dislike that, do you?"

I finally managed to ask, biting and releasing my lip, and a faint laugh touched his lips at my ear. A self-deprecating sound.

"Why would I dislike it."

"……."

"If I want to do that to Seo Ihyeon, there's no way I'd dislike it done to me."

His face—tangled with extreme desire that ran directly counter to lust and excitement—was tightly contorted, as if he were in pain.

The possessive words he wanted to hear from me—weren't they actually the words he wanted to say to me?

While I turned that thought over, the hand working at the front of my pants withdrew. Not having received an answer, he pushed his frustration onto me. This time he thrust his hand inside my underwear from the back, pulling my body flush against his and creating friction with his entire body.

His straining, sensual physique locked me in tight. The solid mass of his shoulders, chest, and arms. The hot firmness of his erection. The raw, vivid sexuality flowing from a body built tight with appeal—felt even through clothing.

"Tell me. That you want me as much as I want you. That it's the same. Tell me you won't run."

It wasn't that I lacked such desire and was delaying out of uncertainty.

I held his large body tightly and writhed my hips within the arms holding me, pressing my body against his. I could be bold. I could be honest. It wasn't so hard anymore.

"I do… So much so that I feel unfamiliar to myself with this childish stubbornness—I want you a lot too, Representative-nim."

"……."

With an expression as though he'd heard something he couldn't quite believe, he traced every corner of my face before pressing his lips to mine. Unlike the hand between my legs—rough enough to make his broad shoulders shake—the kiss was slow and deliberate.

The sensation of his lips sucking my lower lip and then gently releasing it made the soft flesh throb sweetly. A moan escaped me involuntarily, overcome by the mood. The kisses raining over my face were tender to the point of being almost ticklish, while the hand rubbing and gripping and rocking between my legs was offensively rough.

The contrast was so stark it felt like two different people—one above, one below—but this was his way, and for me, who knew no other touch, there was nothing to compare it to.

"Inside… you're completely soaked."

He lowered his voice and whispered it close to my ear, as though sharing a precious secret. I breathed out a sigh that felt like it might undo me, and following his lead I slipped my hand into my underwear.

"Ugh… mnh."

Surprisingly, it was drenched in there. To exaggerate slightly—it was so soaked I might have wondered if I'd accidentally wet myself rather than leaked pre-cum. But the viscous, sticky fluid that clung to my hand and stretched was only bodily fluid from excessive arousal.

A mystery of the body I hadn't known during the bland years when masturbation was the entirety of my sex life. Lately, there were times when this much fluid came. Since it was proof of arousal, he seemed to quietly enjoy it whenever this happened—but I was still a little… embarrassed.

But that was only a slight regret that washed over me after sex was fully done. I didn't dislike confirming my own arousal as a physical reality, nor did I dislike how it spurred him on even more intensely. I was changing—moving further from who I used to be.

He bent his head and buried his lips in my nape. He let them slide across my skin for a moment, then bit down hard.

"Haa, ugh… mmm."

The hand layered over mine gradually quickened. My back arched from the pleasure of grinding my soaked groin against his. Between wet skin and palm, a squelching sound—reminiscent of penetration—echoed. He bit my nape hard enough that his teeth seemed ready to break through, but it felt thrilling rather than painful.

"Being this lewd—what am I going to do with you."

There was genuine worry in his voice. A sigh that seemed to acknowledge defeat settled against my nape.

"Even when I'm working—I only think of you lately."

"……."

"I'm over thirty. To have nothing but sex on my mind all day—do you know how pathetic I feel?"

But you're probably holding back and working hard anyway.

I was startled by my own inner thought—as if I were hoping he couldn't work because he was thinking of me—and tried to pull back, but it was impossible.

His other hand, holding my waist, rubbed against my lips. Though it had no real force behind it, my lips shifted wherever his fingers moved them.

"Here."

The hand that had swept down from my nape scratched my nipple over my T-shirt.

"And here."

The hand that had been layered over mine inside my underwear slid out just far enough to stroke my cock, which was hard enough to peek above the waistband.

"Here."

"……."

Knowing where his next target would be as he mapped out each sensitive point of my body, I swallowed with a shameless anticipation. The hand that had been stroking my cock moved past the back of my hand—which had gone still inside my underwear—and delved deeper. My heel lifted at the hand pressing firmly and rubbing in deliberate circles against my entrance.

"And here too."

"Ugh, ngh… nnh."

At the sensation of his finger pressing and circling precisely over my hole, I buried my forehead in his shoulder, unable to stay still. I couldn't stop my hips from rocking on their own.

"Pops into my head out of nowhere. Seriously. It's inconvenient."

As I pushed off the floor with my toes and tensed my lower body, he narrowed his brow—not even squeezing my cock—and let out a breath like a groan of admiration.

"Take responsibility, Seo Ihyeon. You will, right? Huh?"

"Ugh, ngh… mnh."

The moment I shuddered at his finger pushing deep inside, it withdrew—leaving only the edge of his fingernail. Then, straightened, it thrust back in deep.

He exhaled roughly as he pushed his tongue into my ear.

"Ah, yeah… ngh. Haaah."

Just his fingers moving in and out quickly was enough to almost send me over the edge. I let my mouth fall open, spilling out a moan I couldn't contain, and grabbed his arm with the hand I'd pulled from my underwear. My hand, covered in fluid, was slippery everywhere. Every time his hand—undoubtedly just as wet—probed inside, an explicit wet sound rang out. A hot, aroused tongue coiled around my ear. It felt as though he were gripping my very sense of hearing and licking it.

"So soft. Why is it so wet here too. Listen to the sounds coming from you, Seo Ihyeon—from a 'Beta.'"

"Haa, ah… hnh."

I bit my lower lip and shook my head wildly. At his whisper calling that place of mine a 'Beta,' a maddening excitement seething inside me was suddenly overturned.

Beta. Alpha. Omega. Those words—as common as 'man' or 'woman,' used every day without a second thought—somehow felt like private shorthand for the hole I used with him during sex, a second organ made only for him. A vulgar pleasure rolled through me, the same kind I felt whispering dirty things to him in bed.

At his husky voice, mixed with excited breath, whispering about what he wanted to do to my Beta, I unknowingly clenched—squeezing his finger tight. Inside, his finger stirred my inner walls as though he absolutely could not stand it.

"I want to touch it together."

What on earth did he mean, together? Even while thinking it was absurd, I couldn't push away his hand as he seized mine and drew it toward that spot. Half hesitant, half unable to hold back curiosity, I let his hand guide my middle finger—and push it into my own hole. Into my Beta, where one of his fingers was already inside.

"Ugh."

I bit down on my molars against the indescribable, alien sensation and buried my face in his shoulder. The pre-cum I'd leaked enough to soak my underwear had probably flowed in along with his hand; my inner walls were wetter than I'd expected, which made my face burn even hotter.

Facing myself—drenched and yearning for sex with him all through my body, even in that secret inner depth—was brutally bare. There was nowhere to hide, no way to deny it.

Even though I'd learned the pleasure of anal sex, I'd never put my own hand inside my hole before, because we had sex often enough that using it for self-pleasure had become unnecessary. It was my own body, and yet I accepted his fingers or his cock inside it so much more naturally than I accepted my own hand—that fact felt suddenly strange.

"Ah, ngh… don't—wait, I don't like—"

Inside, his fingers tangled with mine. It was a truly, truly strange sensation. I looked up at him with an expression like someone biting down on something cold. He, meanwhile, looked like someone who had hot water poured over them—savoring the new friction created by his fingers entwining with mine inside me.

"Why don't you like it? Because it feels good?"

"……."

As though he'd struck the exact center of the target, I was speechless. I tried to swallow to wet my dry mouth, but there was nothing to swallow. He pressed his hand over mine, moving in the same direction, and pushed firmly upward inside me—while with his other hand he brushed my hair back.

"Feeling good. Feeling it while we're together—that's not something dirty. Don't feel guilty for enjoying yourself when we're like this."

Exposed unknowingly to socially constructed sexual repression, I still felt something like guilt even during sex with someone I liked. Until my reason completely took flight.

But there was no need for that.

I thought about whether I felt something sordid in the way he rubbed his fingers against mine inside my wet inner walls—and the answer came immediately, without need for deep thought. If the other person had not been him, I never would have agreed to any of this. Because it was him, every secret event between us could become a secret contained inside our relationship, one that left no bitter aftertaste.

Groaning at the sensation of his finger pressing firmly against my inner walls, I nodded. He kissed my exposed forehead, slipped his arm under my armpit to hold my back, buried his lips near my ear, and whispered.

"This is it. The place I go crazy in every day when I'm inside Seo Ihyeon."

"Ah, hnh."

The sensation of his movement inside me—felt simultaneously by my finger and by the inner walls themselves—was far more raw.

"Because I'm inside Seo Ihyeon together with Seo Ihyeon right here—it's really…"

He trailed off, lowering his head slightly, biting his lower lip and smiling. That smile, which looked almost shy despite the content of his words, made something stir in me without warning. I wanted the man in front of me. I pushed my own finger deeper inside, responding to his rhythm on my own. The temperature in his eyes as he watched me instantly soared.

"Ngh, hah… mmm."

Touching my own hole for the first time—and knowing his finger was inside it too—enticed me further. He didn't look away from even the smallest reaction flickering across my face.

Together with him, I began to move my arm with real urgency. I rocked my hips up and down repeatedly, even building a rhythm to match the thrusting inside me.

"No joke."

He muttered it in a heavily suppressed voice, then stretched out the arm that had been holding my waist and roughly pushed my soaked underwear—already tattered and half-off—further down. My jeans, with the zipper open, had slid down long ago and were hanging at my calves.

Rubbing my forehead against his shoulder, I looked down. My cock—swollen and red—was glistening everywhere. Every time he and I thrust inside, it dangled clumsily in all directions, up and down and sideways.

While I couldn't meet his gaze, I couldn't look away from what was happening below. I could feel his eyes from above, watching the same thing as he breathed in heavy gasps.

If my hand slowed, he immediately sped up as though refusing to let me rest. A thick, taut, slick arm—muscles and veins standing out sharply—stirred inside me within my line of sight. My cock bounced with the recoil.

"Ah, h-hah, haah, ugh."

Just as I felt arousal surge and flood my chest, there came the sudden familiar gush from the head of my cock. But it felt different from the pre-cum I knew. It resembled the feeling of coming—except that instead of the relieving emptiness of release, it left me with a swelling, burning desire that only expanded.

The fluid flowing down my cock couldn't support its own weight and dripped, trailing through the air and leaving several round marks on the gray floor. It was a primal, savage scene—like a starving beast drooling before a piece of meat.

My senses ignited by the image, I let out a sob-like moan and twisted his shirt in my fists.

"Haa, hah… Ah. Mmm."

The rhythm of my body's movement was fluid, but I had completely lost the rhythm of my breathing. Even gasping with my mouth open like someone hyperventilating, I leaned against him, writhing my entire body, and went on thrusting inside with him.

His hand climbed up my back and came over from behind my shoulder, sweeping my hair and pressing his lips several times to my forehead. When I tilted my chin up, he immediately lowered his head to devour my lips. The scent was overwhelming, and a dense red haze filled my mind.

The copious pre-cum flowing down my cock dripped onto my palm and down between my legs. Perhaps drawn in along with my hand into my inner walls, the viscous fluid seeped between his fingers and mine, creating a messy, squelching sound inside. The sensation of fluid that had pooled and dripped from my cock, from my Beta, flowing over the soft skin of my inner thighs, made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

"Can you feel it? Clenching and releasing—it's incredible in there right now."

He gripped my chin, bit his lower lip, and worked his fingers inside me. His pupils, studying me from beneath narrowed eyelids, held a deeper blue than usual, almost cold.

"When Seo Ihyeon squeezes like this—does his own finger feel good too? The way I feel right now? I'm suddenly curious."

"Huh? What do you think?" he added, sly and teasing. I hugged his neck and pulled him closer. Lowering his head, he offered me his ear, and I pressed my cheek hard against his. I stuck out my tongue and wetted his ear. He moved his head up and down, rubbing our cheeks together. Trying to be honest, focusing on the arousal blooming inside me, I opened my mouth.

"Just…"

"……."

"I'm… turned on."

At that word, he tensed his entire body for an instant.

"Mm. It doesn't seem like just turned on."

A whisper followed about the dampness and softness of my inner walls—already prepared for penetration. And as if to confirm his own words, he deliberately scraped against the inside where fluid had pooled, drawing out a wetter sound, stimulating me subtly.

"Hnh, ah… ugh."

"Me too. Since Seo Ihyeon is leaking so much, so generously—I'm also… very turned on. Should I take my fingers out and put something else in? Should we go with that?"

His voice was threaded with uneven breaths from arousal. At those words—whispered with his chest heaving—my inner walls contracted on their own again.

I felt like I might come just standing here. Since our time together usually stretched for hours, I always had to hold off my first release as long as possible. Without another thought, I nodded.

Two fingers slowly withdrew from my body. Even the sensation of them leaving was enough stimulation that I had to hunch my shoulders and squeeze the base of my cock to keep from coming. As soon as they pulled out, not wanting him to notice the feeling of fluid leaking from the still-unclosed gap, I lowered my head and pretended to focus on taking off my clothes.

I stripped off the jeans that had slid to my ankles, and then the stretched, soaked underwear. I'd probably have to throw it away. He watched from a step back, then helped pull off my T-shirt.

Only after I was completely naked did the sound of the rain finally register. It was so loud it felt chilling—as if I were standing naked in a downpour—and I felt faintly embarrassed that I'd been so absorbed I hadn't noticed it.

Standing awkwardly, I crossed one arm over my chest and tried to discreetly cover my cock with the other hand, but the prominent heaviness of it made that difficult. Even his gaze sweeping over my entire body was stimulating it further.

"I can't take it anymore," he muttered, almost to himself, unbuttoning his shirt. He found the wrist covering myself, took hold of it, and led me to the bed. Through the light partition into the bedroom, he sat me on the edge of the mattress.

The bed—with its double-layered thick mattress and a topper added on top—was high enough to reach his groin. Despite its simple design, it had a slightly luxurious feel.

His chest was partly visible through the open front of his unbuttoned shirt. When I climbed onto the bed and glanced up at him, he looked down at his own chest and gave a soft laugh. Then he lightly bit my nose.

"Showing your colors."

With the lingering smile still on his face, he stepped back, undid his belt buckle, and pulled down the zipper. Without hesitation he slid his black briefs down, and his cock sprang out—the word "burst" would not be inaccurate. It had that kind of force and weight.

He bent to remove his lower garments completely, then approached me with a face now entirely devoid of any remaining humor, and slowly pushed against my chest. He guided my legs—lying across the bed—upward, bending my knees. The sound of the rain suddenly surged loud again.

"Mmh… mmm, hnh."

Just his rock-hard cock brushing the back of my thigh made my prone body twist. The muscles around my ass clenched, and my hole tightened. Watching all of it, he finished removing his shirt and slowly pushed my knees outward, spreading my legs further apart.

Conscious of being spread open by him, I bit down on my lower lip. His right hand slid down my inner thigh toward my groin. The hot palm traced the path the fluid I had leaked earlier had taken.

He slid his hand down between my cheeks, and rubbed against the sensitive skin there.

"Ngh… mnh."

As I moaned and tightened my thighs, he kept his face between my legs and looked up at me. He was aroused to the point where it looked almost like anger—or resentment.

Maintaining eye contact, he placed his hands on my raised knees and moved closer. His cock rubbed against the inner flesh of my spread thighs. I couldn't take my eyes off the fluid, suggestive sway of his hips.

Even lying down, I was breathless.

My cock pressed against my lower belly, and my sweat-damp chest rose and fell rapidly. The moment his cock changed direction, slid over the crease of my groin, and pressed firmly downward, I widened the space between my knees without being asked. I saw his eyebrows twitch as he looked down.

The desire that had been building since before we entered the bedroom had reached its peak. Any concern about looking ridiculous was already beyond consideration. I stroked the area around my cock and looked up at him with a gaze that was unmistakably seductive. In the room darkened earlier than usual by the rain—lights still off—his blue eyes glittered.

I hadn't known I had this side to myself, but there were moments when his reactions to my sudden impulses came back to me as a thrilling pleasure.

Like now, when he was focused between my legs wearing the face of an inexperienced, late-blooming boy seeing another person's body for the very first time.

"……."

I slid the hands that had been stroking both sides of my groin deeper and began touching my Beta—the place we'd just been moving in together. His eyes widened. His breathing roughened. His shoulders, which looked as solid as stone walls, trembled. He didn't seem to notice, but the grip on my knees had grown very strong.

When I pulled the entrance open slightly from both sides and let it show, he made a sound that was almost a choke and brought one hand down to his own cock. Standing before me as I lay on the edge of the bed with my legs spread, he gripped the base of his already fully hard cock.

"Nnnh, ngh… ah."

Just the sensation of his swollen head settling against my entrance and pressing gently was enough to make me arch and grab the sheets. He raised an arm to wipe the sweat from his forehead haphazardly, then stroked my heaving lower belly and clicked his tongue.

"I used to mock that nonsense—the idea that every man but me is a wolf—and think it was only insecure, small-minded people who said things like that."

"……."

His tip—slick with the copious pre-cum typical of an Alpha—kept slipping, barely grazing the entrance without quite entering. That tantalizing contact made my lower body twitch and squirm.

"I think I have to join that sad group after all."

He let out a breath and slowly pushed his head inside. Just having the head in brought a pressure like something bearing down on my entire body, and my chin lifted, my lips parting.

"Haa, ah… hh… haa, hnh."

He gripped my side. Trembling finely, I lifted my eyes—already moist from the pressure below—to find his. Because the height of the bed was slightly mismatched with the position of our bodies, he had spread his legs to lower his center of gravity, gently rocking his hips to coax the entrance open with just the head inside.

"Handsome, cute, with a great body—and on top of that, sexy too. How could I not feel anxious?"

"……."

Joke or earnest. I examined his face.

His words were more embarrassing than the situation between my legs—the fact that I was receiving his head.

He leaned his upper body over me as I turned my head away, interlacing our hands. Then he raised our joined hands to his lips and kissed the back of my hand.

"Ah. Ugh. Hh."

As he leaned forward, the heat penetrated deeper, and I bit my lip and rocked my hips. From the closeness, his eyes watched my reactions with a hungry attention. Damp breath rained over my face.

"You being this bold in bed—I love it, and even if my daily life falls apart because of a sexier Seo Ihyeon, I welcome it. But at the same time I keep feeling anxious."

"That… really doesn't seem like it."

"What doesn't?"

If we were talking about anxiety caused by someone's appeal, I was confident I could claim the world number one position in that category. For the very person who had made me number one to now be talking about his own anxiety—I genuinely couldn't relate.

"Are you saying you can't agree right now that Seo Ihyeon is sexy?"

He narrowed his eyes and thrust sharply, driving deeper. I had to swallow my moan and cling to our joined hands. He pressed my hands into the sheet and covered my body with his.

He worked his hips, rubbing his hot tongue against my ear. Each time he drove down into me, the deepest part of my body reverberated with a vibrating ache. The cock was less than halfway in, but the sensation of my inner walls splitting open was vivid.

"Ngh, ngh. Ngh. Haa."

Gasping at the pleasure of being completely filled by deep penetration, I wrapped my legs around his waist without thinking. He paused for a moment—letting out a breath as though catching himself—then raised our joined hands to his lips and bit down on my knuckles.

"You deny it and then you do this. Where did you learn to be like this?"

"Ah."

Licking the complex curves of my ear with careful attention, he whispered about how much my movements stimulated him.

He told me I was good.

The burning, almost scorching sensation as he forced my tightly clenched entrance open. The dense pressure, like being thoroughly worked through as he drove into the snug inner walls.

And as if mocking that resistance and tightness—as the penetration repeated, as his cock rubbed against my inner walls and the prominent ridge of his head dragged over that spot inside, again and again—he whispered about how my Beta gradually softened and opened and grew wet, and finally clung to him with a passionate, sticky honesty.

Listening to all those explicit words, I moaned as if losing my mind, shook my head, rolled my hips, and pressed against him. He soaked my insides thoroughly with his own pre-cum, driving deeper with the loud, slick sounds of sex.

Looking down at my face—contorted and close to sobbing—he slowly swayed his pelvis from side to side. Even the graze of his pubic hair against my tender inner flesh made me shudder.

"Then I'll just have to show you. How sexy Seo Ihyeon is."

"……."

Not knowing what he intended, I could only breathe in ragged gasps—and then, after kissing my lips, he raised his upper body and pulled back. The sensation of his thick cock, which had been locked in so tightly it felt ready to split me, dragging back against my inner walls as it withdrew was so vivid I instinctively raised my head and looked down. As if showing it off, he looked at me with his sweat-drenched face and smiled.

"Aaah."

When everything had withdrawn except the head, I shook my head—unable to tell if what I felt was anticipation or fear—and made a strange sound.

His cock, which had scraped sharply against the upper part of my entrance as it pulled out, displayed its hard elasticity with a forceful bounce against his lower belly, vibrating. Fluid tangled around it scattered in all directions.

Goosebumps rose on my arms at the sensation of fluid leaking from the opening, which I knew had to still be gaping. There were moments when the feeling of fluid flowing out from inside me felt like the most tangible proof of sex.

I pulled my legs together with a shudder at the strange, eerie feeling—something I would never have experienced had I not had sex with an Alpha in a place I had never thought to use.

He looked at me with a serious expression, glanced over his own cock, walked out through the open door, and came back with a phone from the table. In his hand was my phone.

Unsure what he was planning, I slowly pushed myself up to sit. He climbed onto the bed, his erection leading the way. He showed a brief flash of surprise that the screen wasn't locked, then tapped it a few times. Suddenly he stretched his arm out, tilting his head back and forth toward the screen.

The moment I realized he'd started recording, my hips instinctively began to slide backward. He quickly settled between my legs and pulled me close by the waist.

His legs slid under my thighs, bringing our groins together; our erect cocks brushed against each other. That alone made the back of my neck tingle, and I parted my lips—surrendering to his kiss as he leaned in.

"Mmm, mnh… hnh… mm."

I was conscious of the camera recording the right side of my face, but my body—hypersensitive from being hard for so long—craved his kiss more.

The suction on my lower lip ended. He probably had a blatantly longing look on his face, but I didn't have the composure to deal with that right now.

"This is Seo Ihyeon's phone. Whatever happens to the file after—that's entirely up to Seo Ihyeon."

"……."

He watched me closely from beneath his lowered eyelids.

"What do you think? Not interested?"

Surprisingly, I was interested.

A lewd curiosity about how we would look captured on that phone screen he was waving around pulled at me. Had I always been this sexually curious and forward? Sex with him was always an encounter with unfamiliar sensations—an encounter with an unfamiliar version of myself.

Stroking his arm as he fidgeted at my waist, I pressed my lips firmly against his lips right in front of me. He tilted his chin to deepen the kiss. Using only his lips, he gently traced mine, taking and releasing again and again.

I ran my hand up his bare shoulder and circled his firm, long neck. I opened my mouth to take his lips in. Our lips overlapped and shifted—above then below, below then above.

We rarely closed our eyes when we kissed.

I don't know if most people actually close their eyes when they kiss, the way they do in films. I also don't know why he never closes his. At first, I didn't have a particular reason either.

I was simply curious what he looked like while kissing—and as time passed, I stopped closing mine because I couldn't bear to miss him, even for a moment. It felt too precious to waste. I wanted to experience him with every sense I could mobilize, not only my lips and tongue. Even if that desire was a little improper.

I liked him, and he liked me—most likely, with high probability—and we were in a bed together. What did it matter if I was a little improper?

Perhaps his words telling me not to feel guilty had taken effect, because even rather audacious thoughts crossed my mind.

Even now, we were entwining our tongues while looking into each other's eyes—but now I couldn't ignore the phone in his left hand, which felt like a third presence in this bed.

And yet my excitement and focus on sex were not disrupted at all. If anything, the front-facing camera screen lighting us up made my skin tighten and sharpened every sensation of feeling him.

"Hh… haa, mm… hh, hnh."

Moaning at the flexible caress of his tongue—which filled my mouth, then teased the inner lining of my cheeks and lips as it retreated—I suddenly narrowed my throat and quieted, remembering even these sounds were being recorded.

Seeming to notice, he smiled and gave my lips a quick kiss. Then he lightly cupped my chin, rubbed our lip surfaces together, and whispered.

"Look at the screen. At us kissing."

Like a coward—like someone watching a horror film through the gaps between their fingers—I cautiously turned my eyes.

When he curled his tongue and licked along the underside of mine, I offered it to him, and—eueu, mm… heum. Mm. It was immediately swallowed, sucked until it stung.

As he tightened around my tongue, glancing sideways to adjust the angle, on the screen another version of myself appeared—tangled with him in a kiss even more vivid than the real thing happening in front of me.

No—the person on the screen looked far more sexually heightened than the real me felt. The self I experienced still seemed to hesitate, to hold a defensive stance—but the self on the screen looked explicit, bold, as though thoroughly enjoying the situation. Which one was real?

My own appearance—hazy, unfocused eyes, sucking his tongue, a moan rising from the back of my throat—was more foreign to me than a stranger I might have met for the first time today.

The glistening of the red flesh between his lips and my teeth—not fully swallowed—was more intense than the first pornography I had accidentally stumbled upon with a few clicks in my boyhood.

"Hh, hnh. Mm. Mmm… mmh."

When he pushed the phone slightly farther away, his face appeared beside mine on the screen.

Instead of facing each other directly as usual, we tilted our faces toward the phone—monitoring ourselves and each other in real time on the screen, testing the stimulation through them.

The rubbing of lips, the deliberate tangling of tongues outside our mouths, the back-and-forth tangle of bodies—every part of a kiss that wasn't entirely romantic was laid bare alongside the blinking red dot at the top of the screen.

The two figures on the screen were simultaneously the real me and him—and also androids modeled after us. The initial shock, which had seemed to strike my very core, dissipated with surprising ease, and behind it came the human curiosity of facing one's own double. Or perhaps this was how it might feel to see a mirror for the first time in over twenty years of life.

It wasn't only me. He too was showing undisguised interest in the new game he'd proposed.

Sweeping his tongue through my mouth and checking my reaction on the screen, he gently stroked the back of my neck, drew me closer, and repeatedly bit lightly at my lips before letting go.

"You can't take your eyes off the screen. Who did you fall for? Which one of us? Hm?"

At his teasing words, spoken as though he found it endearing, I tried to look away and pretend otherwise. But just as watching someone eat with obvious pleasure on screen stimulates appetite, I couldn't deny that the lewd tangle of us on the screen was arousing me.

Instead of pressing for an answer, he moved the hand around my neck downward, caressing as he went. As his lips nestled into my nape, I tilted my chin up to meet it—and my eyes met my own on the screen, which inexplicably made the muscles in my lower back pull tight.

He pushed my legs—resting on his thighs—bending my knees. Sitting with a slightly hesitant posture as he guided me, I adjusted my position, and as I settled with my knees raised his hand slipped beneath my balls.

"Ugh, mmm."

As I tilted my head back and leaned my upper body backward, my center of gravity shifted, widening the space between my legs. His fingers began working inside my wet hole—already soft and loose from the earlier penetration. He bent his head as though inspecting carefully, pressing methodically against different points of my inner walls, then deliberately rubbed the entrance with a knowing nuance before pulling his finger out and looking up at me.

Ding. Ding. As the first video ended, the second recording began immediately. He used his long thumb to tap the icon in the lower right corner of the screen, switching the camera direction. The phone—now on rear-facing—was suddenly thrust close to my chest.

In the extreme close-up, shaky as though from an experimental independent film, my hard nipples were clearly visible even in my own field of vision.

"Haa, ha… haa."

A moan escaped even though nothing was touching my body, as though I had received intense stimulation. My arm braced on the sheet trembled, and my chest twitched. He became absorbed in framing my chest on the screen with an almost clinical intensity, adjusting the angle repeatedly.

"……."

His hand stopped, and his gaze slowly lifted to meet mine—because my own hand had begun to caress the nipple on the screen.

The nipple, gathered into a sensitive reddish hue, was slightly swollen from the long caresses of the previous night. With my middle finger, I stroked the plump, protruding flesh from bottom to top, again and again.

He drew a sharp breath, his broad shoulders jerking as if angry. Watching the nipple being bent and rolled on the screen, he pulled the camera back and lunged directly at my chest.

"Hah, ah… hh, mph."

His tongue overlapped my finger. Capturing both his fingers and his tongue tangled around one small nipple on camera, he was entirely unembarrassed by his own presence in the frame.

Looking back and forth between the real him and the him on the screen, I slowly pushed the finger that had been teasing his tongue—bending the nipple this way and that—into his mouth. He glanced up at me and opened wide, taking both my nipple and the tip of my finger inside at once. My back arched and my hips lifted at the sensation of my finger being rolled inside his mouth alongside the hardened nub.

My lower half—stirred open and left empty—kept twitching, wanting to be filled tight again. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I could no longer reach a satisfying release through ejaculation alone.

"Ugh, hnh… uu… mnh."

So much pre-cum had already flowed out that I wondered whether any semen would even come when I finally came. My cock was starting to ache. How could he stay hard this long and hold back from coming? Was this, too, some unique sexual ability of a Golden Alpha?

But now—me, a perfectly ordinary twenty-two-year-old Beta—I wanted to come with his cock inside me. I wanted it badly.

Sensing I was pushed to the extreme, he chewed his lip, spit out my finger, and sucked hard on my nipple as if trying to compress it. As he sucked, his tongue rapidly scraped across the nub inside his mouth.

"Haaaah, ah… haaah."

I stomped my feet, writhing my calves, arched my back, and pulled his head close. His body then covered mine, driving me down.

Unable to hold the weight that crashed down, I fell back onto the sheet, my hips lifting into the air. I ground my cock wildly against his chest as he worked his jaw, biting my nipple even harder.

"Ugh. That—hh. Ah."

Sounds that were barely words fell from my lips. Finally, he was entering me—a little more urgently than usual. Thanks to the earlier penetration, he managed to push all the way inside in roughly three thrusts.

"Haa, ngh… ah. Hh."

Before I could even steady my breath—shattered by the pressure of his cock filling me completely—he began to roll his hips. The moans that had been subsiding quickly transformed into jagged, rasping breaths that spoke of rough, intense sex.

Now he was using his tongue outside his lips to toy with my nipple—capturing the entire areola, slightly reddened and slick with saliva, along with his own face on screen.

"Seo Ihyeon."

His eyes, looking up at me from my chest, were hazy. He drove his hips heavily—pounding into me—then lifted his head and pressed his lips against mine with a soft, damp sound before pulling away.

"See? Pretty. I was right."

As if confirming his own words, he turned my chin to face the screen.

"Ah. Uuuh, hnh."

The force of his thrusts—accelerating now—shook me violently. What was visible on the screen was only my face, shaking and moaning; not even the place where we joined, where fluid would have been leaking and squelching around the base of his cock. And yet it instantly evoked sex itself.

I realized, looking at the figure on the screen, that perhaps I had only been able to have sex with him like this because I couldn't see myself before. The person on the screen was sexually undone to a far greater extent than I had ever imagined. I had always pictured myself as somewhat more—restrained, hesitating before pleasure—but that was a delusion.

Belatedly I tried to cover the traces of sex overflowing across my face with the back of my hand, but I couldn't look away from the screen.

"Even though I'm inside you right now—seeing you on screen still makes me want to."

His excited breaths, rapidly piercing me, drowned the sound of rain and filled my hearing entirely.

"Even like this, Seo Ihyeon—don't you think you're sexy?"

Between each word, he paused to thrust his hips sharply upward. Our images overlapped and shook on the screen. Whether it was because I was sexy—as he said—or because of the extraordinary stimulation of watching a depersonalized version of our own sex, I had to admit it now.

Unbelievably, I was getting turned on by watching myself.

"Ah… ah—hh…"

As I watched him grinding into me wetly below, I lowered the hand covering my mouth. My lips trembled with hesitation.

"Am I… always like this?"

To my evasive question-answering-a-question, his eyes sparkled as he licked his lower lip. The question itself was already a kind of admission about the provocative side of myself I'd just discovered.

The movement of his hips grew even more intense. Smack, smack, smack. The sounds of sex—pounding into me, soaked with pre-cum—were explicit enough to be embarrassing even for the two of us making them. With every withdrawal, it sounded like translucent fluid was stretching away from the thick head of his cock.

"Why? What do you think you look like right now, Seo Ihyeon, to ask me that?"

"Ugh, too much—"

"Do you understand now why I feel anxious?"

Looking at his flushed face—waiting for a lewd answer—I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him into a kiss. Ding. He threw the phone onto the sheet and covered me. His broad, contoured chest pressed down heavily against mine. As our upper bodies overlapped, the friction below deepened. With every thrust, his heavy balls swung and struck below my entrance with an elastic impact that scrambled my thoughts further.

"I can't show this to anyone but you, Director. So don't wor—ry. Ah."

He looked down at me with eyes blazing blue as if I had betrayed him, then lunged at my neck. He bit into the flesh, sucked hard, then squeezed and chewed with the pressure inside his mouth. The pain, sharp enough to leave a mark, sparked a twisted, arid pleasure.

Huff, huff. Having broken past his limit, boiling over, he was suppressing nothing. His broad shoulders covering me swelled and heaved in my line of sight.

"Being able to make you like this, being able to see you like this—it's only me."

It wasn't a declaration of confidence. His voice sounded more like a desperate plea: It has to be only me. Moving to mark another spot on my neck, he went into overdrive. His large, glistening body—pressed tight against mine, only the lower half moving rapidly—was intensely, savagely animalistic.

"Ah, ah. Hh… nnh, haaah."

The sensation of orgasm rushing toward me left me breathing as though I were about to tip over.

Bracing his fists on the sheet, he pushed up his upper body and drove his hips with a rough, fast urgency that threatened to shatter both the bed and me. It wasn't only his hips—from his shoulders through his back, waist, ass, and thighs, his entire body created wide, undulating curves, and poured the force of that momentum into me. I convulsed intermittently, almost in spasms.

"Seo Ihyeon—snap out of it and look at me."

"Ah, hnh."

He grabbed my wrist with his hot hand and pulled it down, making me feel his cock—hotter than my hand. I felt the thick base of it plunging in and withdrawing, slick and heavy. The throbbing, hot length seemed to have a pulse entirely its own.

His eyes, glittering with a blue glow, looked down at me and said:

"I'm your Alpha."

"……."

In the rising tension just before orgasm, his words felt like a small declaration. The furrow between his brows, for a moment, didn't seem caused only by lust. He said it again.

"Yours. Your Golden."

My Alpha—the one he was speaking of—was inside me, spreading my Beta, and I could feel it in my hand. I instinctively stroked his thick cock as it entered and exited my entrance, which was stretched to its limit, its edges pulled taut.

He bent his head and watched the movement of my hand with a slow, sharp inhale—sshhp, hh.

Leaving only as much length as my hand could touch, his fast, driving movements made my wet inner walls throb and pulse.

"Ahhh… ah… hnh, hup."

"Your Alpha—what is he doing to Seo Ihyeon the Beta right now? Huh?"

My tender inner flesh, rubbed and worked to extreme sensitivity, craved to be driven harder, to the very limit—urging me to give him the answer he wanted.

I clawed at his arm on my shoulder, and from below I pulled the base of his cock inward as I trembled.

"Sex… hah, ugh. Having sex. Your Alpha, Representative-nim, here, in my Beta—sex…"

He cursed and lunged—kissing me savagely until my lips were crushed. For him, it was clumsy. Messy. But for that very reason, his unrefined, undisguised desire came through without barrier.

"Ugh, mm. Yeah… ngh. Ngh."

"Seo Ihyeon—let me hear more of you getting fucked. Just hearing your sounds—don't you know it makes me want to finish? I'm going crazy with how much you're turning me on."

His confession—rational thought abandoned, obsessively, vulgarly fixated on sex—layered stimulation on stimulation, driving me forward. He was undressing me with words even though I was already naked. I was the one losing my mind.

"Hah, ah! Ah, hnh."

With the sensation of his cock pulsing inside me, I sensed knotting approaching. That feeling—building like the primal, fear-inducing theme of Jaws—made me grab the sheet with both hands and rock my hips wildly.

He glanced at my reaction, picked up the phone, and—ding—the camera was rolling again. But this time, I had no capacity to care about that voyeuristic third gaze.

The rear-facing camera, which had been capturing my cock with new pre-cum flowing over the dried traces of the first, now turned toward the space between my legs—toward where we were joined.

"Ahhh, ah! Haa."

The almost violent, overwhelming pleasure given by the knotting pulsing powerfully inside me did not dull with repetition. Thump, thump. It felt as if he had implanted a new heart inside me.

His glowing eyes dissected and magnified my every reaction to the knotting, inch by inch, through the roughly six-inch screen. My lips, my chest, my lower belly, the wet groin tangled with fluids of unknown origin, and my cock—swollen and twitching as if ready to burst—were all laid bare before his eyes by the lens that permitted no distortion.

Eyes wide open, my waist and back arching wildly, I came without so much as rubbing my cock once. I flailed my arms through the air, my lower jaw trembling, as the pulse inside me beat more vividly than my own heartbeat.

"It's all right. Breathe, Seo Ihyeon."

"Ngh, ah… Representative-nim… Repre…sentative-nim."

Lost in the ecstatic, dreamlike pleasure of coming while knotted, I reached for him like someone losing their mind. He interlaced his fingers with mine—with the hand not holding the phone—and pressed them to the sheet, slowly grinding our joined lower bodies together.

"Hey, it's all right. Your Representative-nim is right here. It's all right. You know what this is. It's knotting."

While gently rocking inside me even after I had already come, and meticulously recording through the screen the physical changes the knotting was causing in me, he whispered and asked me to call him by his name.

Even though I had come, he was still knotted. The heat of the semen erupting inside me in time with his contracting and expanding rhythm was vivid. He released my hand and pushed up the back of my left thigh, beginning to drive his hips like a beast charging forward—fully surrendering to the pleasure of the knotting.

By now it had grown dark, and the artificial light filtering through the window fell on his bare body. His face, lit by the phone screen, looked paler than usual, but his eyes—devouring me—shone a clear, vivid blue.

With wet eyes and parted lips, I called him.

"Awi."

"……."

"Kun."

"……."

Having called those names, I understood. How much I had wanted to call him by his name rather than his title.

His names—which had felt like a privilege belonging to those he cherished, which had always made me feel small. If he ever knew about my selfish desire to make all his various names my own, I wondered what he would think.

He drew a sharp, deep breath, his shoulders and chest heaving, and looked at me as though shooting a glance.

"Seo Ihyeon."

"……."

This time, he called my name. The camera—which had been capturing the crimson flickering of the knotting—was no longer aimed at us. All that faced me was the blue flame leaping from him.

"Come to Chicago with me. Please, come with me."

"……."

"Will you… come with me?"

Whether afraid to hear my answer, or perhaps carried by some pleasure only a knotted Alpha could feel—a pleasure I couldn't comprehend—I looked up at his tormented face, hesitated, and then nodded with a voice that came out cracked and dry.

"I will. I'll go. I want to be with you."

Ting. The sound of filming stopping completely—and cut off from everything else, we were entirely focused on each other.

He kept rocking his hips until the knotting subsided enough for his cock to barely slide free. He then turned me over without pulling out.

It felt as though all strength had already drained from my body, but I braced myself on the sheet, relying on his arm lifting my lower belly from behind. Each time he pounded into my hole—where pre-cum and semen had mixed—the sound of sex was like punching into a pit filled with mud, and my mouth kept going dry.

Surprisingly, as if he had simply changed batteries, he immediately entered knotting again—without any process to build his arousal back up. It was the first time a second knotting had followed so quickly after the first.

"Ahhh, hh… no… I feel like I'm going to die… haa, it's strange. It's so strange. My insides are melting."

In a frightening pleasure where my insides felt as though they were literally dissolving—as though I myself would lose form and liquefy—I tried to crawl away across the sheet to escape. I was crying. I thought they were only physiological tears, but I didn't truly know why.

He covered me from behind and stroked my cock to scatter my consciousness. Kisses rained down on my ears and cheeks. Inside my body, his Alpha—no, my Alpha—was expanding, creating friction that made all of my insides burn. I felt as if my ego, along with my fragile internal organs, was about to explode and be destroyed.

"I'm sorry. Bear with me a little longer. Go to your limit for me. Show me everything. Don't run away."

Don't run away, Seo Ihyeon. Please.

In a desperate voice mingled with sighs, he murmured repeatedly, as if collapsing—all while not letting me run away. And there was no way to escape the cock knotted inside me anyway. What was he so afraid of? Like an idiot.

Biting and sucking and working at various points on my neck and shoulders, marking them red and purple, he implanted a new heart inside me—even as the heat and tremors from the previous knotting had not yet faded.

I couldn't tell how much time passed until we had spent every last drop of desire, impulse, and energy and reached a complete stillness. I could barely recall how this exhausting sex had even begun.

Actually, I remembered.

It was the desire for mutual constraint and exclusivity. A childish yet desperate longing to have that right confirmed.

After sating that hunger for possession to its fullest, my phone held five videos—but I couldn't find the courage to play them back. I didn't delete them, either.

I had to lie face-down on the sheet for a long time, like someone returning home after hours of intense physical effort. No—it felt less like exercise and more like having been severely beaten. My insides trembled, and my skin throbbed everywhere.

Even after the knotting subsided, he didn't pull away immediately. He lay heavy on top of me for a long time, caressing slowly, stroking my hair, and kissing my face and upper body. Only after my eyes had regained some focus and my breathing had stabilized did he withdraw his still-warm cock with a languid groan and move off me.

Unlike me, who was a complete wreck, he showed no signs of exhaustion. He left the bedroom and returned with a towel and water. The outline of his erection was clearly visible through the towel wrapped around his waist. Despite having knotted twice in quick succession with only a brief interval between, sex had once again failed to quiet him.

Trying to ignore the powerful aftereffects of sex still coursing through every inch of my body, we sat side by side on the edge of the bed and drank the bottled water he'd brought. We definitely both needed hydration. It felt as though every last drop of fluid inside me had been wrung out.

3:13. 5:37. One was 12:02.

While I was mentally tallying the playback times of each video in my phone's album, he was pressing his lips to each of the marks he'd left on me. He had left the studio lights on, so a soft light—neither too bright nor too dark—seeped into the bedroom. The rain was no longer pouring, but it was still drizzling.

"This one's too deep. It must have hurt when I did it."

After staring at the video thumbnails—which I was too afraid to touch—for a while, thirst washed over me. I drank more water and turned to look at him.

He was pointing to a particularly dark, bruise-like mark just above my collarbone, speaking apologetically—but his face couldn't quite hide a smile. He had occasionally left a mark or two in hidden places before, but this was the first time he'd left so many—spanning my neck, collarbone, shoulders, and chest.

Since this was sex that had followed us both laying our jealousy bare without filter, I supposed he had wanted to claim ownership, even through the meager means of leaving marks on my skin. The sight of him kissing the marks he'd made struck me as oddly endearing—even though it hadn't seemed endearing at all while he was making them.

A weak laugh escaped me. Looking down at my mottled upper body, I tried to make a joke of it.

"Do you like it?"

He looked up at me with a slight frown, having been kissing the mark left above my nipple, and turned my shoulder toward him. Then he leaned back to create some distance and took in the full spread of red traces our sex had left across my body.

"Very much. I'm thinking about submitting it as a work of art somewhere."

Because he was flawlessly handsome, his very presence already conveyed seriousness. His face couldn't look frivolous even if it tried. When he made jokes like this with an even more earnest expression on that face, I still didn't quite know how to react.

"Honestly, I have no intention of sharing it."

Drawing closer and kissing my bare shoulder, he said it with a laugh. Feeling a rush of warmth at the sight of his large frame hunched over—arms hanging between his legs, cheek rested against my shoulder—I laughed too.

Embarrassingly, each time I laughed, the semen he'd left in thick deposits from the knotting seeped out below—in fact it was flowing rather than seeping, impossible to stop. The towel under me was growing damp. Trying not to let him notice the sensation that kept making my upper body straighten, I fiddled with the water bottle and my phone and spoke.

"It's nice that this job doesn't require me to go in to work. Times like this."

He sparkled with mischievous eyes and laughed, tickling my waist and rubbing his nose against mine.

"Are you saying it's a good job for having sex right now? Seo Ihyeon, you've gotten so lewd."

I didn't feel any need to deny it. Because it was true. Responding to the light kisses he pressed like someone savoring an afterglow, I let out a leisurely sound from deep in my throat. Then, suddenly, the thought that the first visual record we had of ourselves together was a sex tape made me feel a little hollow. I didn't feel guilt or discomfort about those videos—but separately from that, I wanted at least one piece of evidence that our relationship wasn't only about sex. It was an impulse without context.

"Representative-nim."

"……."

His twitching eyebrows seemed to express dissatisfaction at the usual title returning after sex—but he didn't voice it.

"Shall we… take a picture together?"

Perhaps it was unexpected, because his eyes widened. But soon he smiled, as if he'd been waiting for this, and quickly moved behind me—wrapping his arms around my waist. As he pressed his cheek close, almost resting his chin on my shoulder, settling into a pose for the photo, I opened the camera and flipped the lens.

The screen—which had been showing the cluttered table outside the open door—changed to a bust shot of us both. It had already been about a month since we'd started spending our days practically glued together, but we'd never captured ourselves in a frame, so it was a fresh two-shot.

Because the composition caught us down to our bare chests, the photo had a faintly risqué feel. I tried adjusting how far I stretched my arm, but a tight frame of only our faces wasn't much better either.

"Come to think of it, this is my first selfie."

"What about me—do you think mine would be the second?"

He hugged my waist a little tighter and turned to look at me. Come to think of it, the image of him holding up a phone and looking for the right selfie angle was unimaginable, and the thought made me let out an unexpected laugh.

Unlike him—who looked completely natural—I stared at my stiff reflection in the screen, then lowered my arm and hung my head.

"This looks awkward. Should we just not do it?"

"Why? I was already looking forward to it."

The genuine disappointment in his voice made me hesitantly raise my arm again.

"Since neither of us is wearing a top, it doesn't look very wholesome."

He tapped the screen where we appeared and laughed, then pressed his lips to my cheek. His right arm crossed over my chest to wrap around my left shoulder, and his handsome face—which looked good even on camera—moved close in the frame, as if about to kiss me.

"Try smiling a little more."

To loosen my rigid expression, he caressed my side and whispered in my ear.

"No matter what, we're going to look like a couple who just had sex anyway."

Click. With a slightly awkward and insufficient smile, an image of the two of us was captured and preserved in a 4:3 ratio.

Couple. Whether he said it consciously or not, the word left an impression as lingering as the aftereffects of the knotting.

Watching his profile as he sent the photo we'd just taken to his own number, I suddenly felt a longing for him even though he was right next to me. Even after he had knotted inside me twice moments ago, it felt as though it still wasn't enough. It wasn't a hunger born of distance. I couldn't explain it even to myself—so I simply pressed my forehead into his shoulder.

· · · · ·

Since even standing still felt like too much effort, refusing his offer to clean me up afterward would have been nothing but stubbornness.

While he gently swept through my insides, I tried to hold on to the showerhead pole to keep myself upright, but it wasn't easy. "Don't fight it—just lean on me," he said in a voice full of pity, kissing my temples and cheeks several times while his skilled hands did their work.

Despite how much had already leaked onto the bed, the volume of murky fluid streaming down the drain under the shower was staggering. It was nearly wondrous to me that my body could have held that much.

Only after the cleanup was finished and I was sitting in the bathtub did he start his own shower. He toweled off quickly, wrapped himself in a robe, and came back with two cold cans of beer.

He settled into the spot opposite me and offered me one.

"This is the first time we've bathed together in this room."

It was also the first time we'd had sex down here, in the unit I was using. Though smaller than the bathroom upstairs, I liked this one—all its walls, floor, and ceiling finished in tiles in various shades of blue. There was also something quietly enjoyable about watching him move awkwardly in the compact tiled tub, his range of motion restricted in a way it wouldn't have been in a large whirlpool.

"I know this might sound persistent, but—"

"……."

"What did you talk about? With Choi Inwu."

He seemed embarrassed to bring up the question himself, unable to look me in the face.

"Just… the painting."

"About handing over Seo Ihyeon's first piece to another man so readily?"

He leaned his elbow on the edge of the tub and tilted his head, twirling a strand of hair around his finger. His dissatisfied expression looked like that of a teenage boy—I thought I'd like to capture this exact look in a photograph, but my phone, with its nearly dead battery, was on the bed.

"He said he wanted to buy it, but I told him I didn't think it was at that level yet. For now."

He let go of the hair and straightened his head.

"Then you must have felt wronged when I said earlier that it would be a problem to formalize any kind of reservation."

"Wronged isn't quite—"

He said he worried about me getting hurt outside because I seemed too gentle, too accustomed to keeping my mouth shut even when misunderstandings led to being taken advantage of.

But I wasn't the gentle, kind kind of person who stayed silent out of goodness. I was simply a coward—more accustomed to resignation than most, conditioned to avoid situations where problems might surface. A coward who, instead of telling the person I liked who I really was, silently drank beer and endured his worried gaze.

"The wine Choi Inwu brought. Do you know it's one often ordered when people are trying to seduce someone?"

Earlier—when I'd come downstairs—he'd been reading the label. Was that him checking? Wiping the water droplets running over my eyelids with my hand, I shook my head.

"There was no seduction. Nothing like that."

"I know. And I know that even if he had tried to seduce you, you would have been firm."

His voice left no room for doubt.

"If I knew all that—why couldn't I control myself?"

He said this and took several long swallows from the beer he'd set on the edge of the tub, as if embarrassed by his own jealousy. The sound of rain still came through the small window hung high near the ceiling.

He set the can back down and spoke.

"About Chicago."

"……."

"Earlier, because I said it while we were knotted, it might have sounded like something impulsive. I want you to know it wasn't."

I remembered the sensation of possession—of fulfillment—I'd felt when I first called his name, and the moment that had followed like a confession in the form of an invitation. My mouth was dry, so I drank more beer.

"Actually, I've been thinking about it on my own ever since you moved in and started painting again. Watching Kwon Juhan's painting nearing completion made me start hoping, more concretely—even at some informal party setting, it would be wonderful to have a chance to introduce your work during this trip. And beyond artistic achievement, travel can be stimulating. Experience is the most essential material for a creator."

He smiled faintly and brushed back the clumps of hair scattered across his forehead. Then, as if recalling something amusing, he let out a soft laugh into the empty air.

"To be even more honest, since you've seen all my less-than-perfect sides."

Despite the bashful tone, his eyes—when they shifted to meet mine—were intense without hesitation. They made it clear he had no reservations about his feelings.

"It's also because I don't want to be apart from you. Even if it's only for a few days."

He said it with conviction, then lowered his head and smiled. Watching his long, solid neck as he swallowed his beer, I took a couple of sips of my own.

It wasn't only him who lacked confidence about a separation of just a few days. The anxiety I felt about his impending absence was instinctive—deep enough that I'd been actively trying not to think about his business trip, even feeling a vague, formless dread about it. This wasn't just the selfish desire to stay close and not be apart. I had never imagined that even once I liked someone and started something with them, I would want such an intimate connection. That he said it first was, honestly, a relief.

"After the last exhibition, I said something."

His gaze turned toward me.

"That a lie is better than silence."

I placed the beer can on the edge of the tub, scooped water with my hands, and splashed it over my face. I wiped the running water away with my palm.

"Maybe that's because I'm someone who stays silent."

"……."

I pressed my lips together once, then continued.

"Because I hated my silent self."

His eyes, watching me, seemed to already know what I was about to talk about—perhaps a story he had been curious about since the time I'd suddenly started hyperventilating in his living room. Yet he had waited without asking, and I was grateful for that consideration.

His calm, still blue eyes conveyed that he was ready to listen.

I realized I didn't need to gather my courage or manufacture the right moment to talk about the past. I only hoped that what I was about to say would become an expression of my feelings toward him. Because I was now sure that between him and me, even the smallest details about each other became precious secrets.

"It was a collision—the cause was a brake failure in the perpetrator's truck. No one broke any traffic laws, and no one with a terrible motive was involved."

He set down the beer can he'd been holding and drew his arm back from the edge of the tub.

"My mother was the victim. But having a cause for the accident yet no perpetrator—no one with cruel intent to curse, hate, or resent—someone who had done it deliberately. That's what made it hard. The suddenness of it, the emotions—I think I didn't know what to do with any of it."

My father had been waiting for my mother at the Thai restaurant when he got the news by phone and ran out like a madman, giving no explanation. My maternal grandparents made their own inquiries everywhere to confirm what had happened to my mother.

And I went home alone in a taxi and trembled in anxiety and confusion until my father returned the next morning before dawn, looking like a ghost—having refused to attend my mother's funeral.

What kind of accident had happened to my mother, how she had died instantly at the scene, whether there might be a correction article saying the earlier report was wrong, that she was actually alive—I spent the night searching for news articles over and over. It was horror—like waiting for a second death sentence from inside a grave, a damp shadow of death slowly covering my skin.

The accident was reported not only on internet news but on TV as well. In today's world, a traffic accident wasn't major news. But a massive collision in the middle of Seoul that left five people seriously injured and three dead was another matter.

At the end of the report, the anchor added, "It is truly an unfortunate incident," with a suitably somber expression—which vanished quickly from his polished face as the segment transitioned into a related report about the importance of thorough vehicle inspections.

Whether the cause was the perpetrator's neglect of vehicle maintenance or a defect in the vehicle itself was the core of the case, they said—but that was only the interpretation from the perpetrator's side. His life depended on what the cause of the brake failure was determined to be.

As soon as my mother's death was confirmed, my maternal grandparents prepared the funeral immediately, and a simple three-day service was held. Setting my father aside—locked in his studio with his mouth shut—my grandparents had me attend the funeral. My maternal grandfather was the chief mourner. No contact was made with my uncle's household.

When I returned home still in mourning clothes after the funeral was over, my father still hadn't come out of his studio. I didn't know what to do alone, so I called Yeehan hyung.

My mother died in a traffic accident. My father won't come out of his room, won't eat anything, won't say a word no matter what I ask. I don't know what to do. I'm so scared. So scared.

Talking to hyung, my words became increasingly emotional and incoherent. Sitting on the bed with my knees drawn up, wearing a black suit that didn't fit me, I cried in a way I couldn't stop. It was probably the first time I had cried while truly understanding that my mother was gone.

Until then, because of the too-sudden accident and the surrounding circumstances that demanded I play a role without explanation, I hadn't been able to fully grasp the reality of her death.

Two days later, when my grandparents came to the house, they stood before my father—who showed no reaction—and said they were severing all ties. Given everything, they said, they had no lingering attachment to life in Korea and planned to spend their remaining years doing their work in Europe. They would handle all legal and documentation matters related to the accident, including the settlement with the perpetrator. Before leaving through the front door, their eyes—as they looked at me—held a brief, complicated light. But they turned away more coldly than that.

It was a sudden death, and no one had been prepared for it. Everyone was in chaos; everyone was desperately trying to find some version of realistic balance in their own way.

Everyone except my father.

Days passed, and my father showed no signs of improvement. When I brought him a meal I'd clumsily prepared, he would eat a little plain rice—but he still wouldn't say a word. My worry and fear for my father had even blocked the ability to grieve for my mother.

"Back then—I wasn't sleeping well anyway, but if I woke up at night, I would get up and open the door to his studio. Sleeping next to my father—who had become a completely different person—was frightening. But I was also afraid he might… end his own life. That he might be suffering and dying somewhere I couldn't see."

I tried to sound calm, but my voice couldn't help trembling. I rubbed my wet hands over my face to hide the moisture gathering at my eyes.

"To my father, a world without my mother is essentially worthless. So I thought he could easily have such feelings. That's why—when my uncle came and I moved to my grandfather's house—I was actually relieved. Thinking that I wouldn't have to carry all of that weight alone anymore."

When my father's condition showed no improvement, my uncle had no choice but to leave his work and come home. Because my father flatly refused to go to a hospital, we had to pull strings and spend extra money to bring a doctor to the house.

The doctor diagnosed my father with psychological aphasia.

A phenomenon where a person's hearing becomes paralyzed after experiencing an event that delivers severe emotional shock—despite no physical defects. An unconscious activity in which the subconscious mind preemptively blocks all response to external stimuli. That was roughly what I'd read online after my uncle relayed the diagnosis.

I understood it as a kind of defensive act—a way of protecting oneself.

In other words, for my father, stopping listening and speaking felt safer than listening and speaking and communicating with the world.

Even if that world included his son.

"That night, after the doctor left, my uncle said over a glass of soju in our kitchen: 'There's nothing physically wrong. It's possible your father has simply chosen to close himself off. He can hear everything and say everything—he just decided not to.'"

I think I understood.

Unlike so many people who cannot accept the sudden death of a spouse and can't bear to look at their belongings—watching my father stubbornly refuse to leave the studio where my mother's traces remained untouched, I came to realize: to my father, I was nothing more than a byproduct of the love he had shared with my mother.

When that love was intact and undisturbed, my existence was precious to him as a part of it. But in my mother's absence, my value faded.

It wasn't that my father didn't love me at all. It was simply that loving his remaining son wasn't enough to heal the grief of losing his wife. That grief had swallowed my father's world whole—and I just happened to be included in that world.

After that sequence of events, I stopped painting. There was nothing I wanted to paint anymore—which was the same as having nothing I wanted to say or express.

And I became afraid of love.

If love was something that could turn one person into a monster through the disappearance of another, it seemed like a risk that demanded insurance. But I had already learned—branded into my bones through my mother's accident—that insurance only eases the burden of dealing with the aftermath. It cannot prevent the accident itself.

Before that winter ended, my father and I moved to my grandfather's house. Not only was I unable to handle my father on my own, but also because my father—who had stubbornly resisted every other suggestion—reacted when my uncle proposed returning to that seaside village.

And so, without even attending my middle school graduation, I left the house where the three of us had lived together for so long. My father continued his silence for over six more years after that.

Sitting with my knees drawn up, hands loosely clasped in front of my ankles, I paused in my story and looked up at him—hoping his expression wasn't one of too much pain.

"……."

"Hmm…"

Looking at his face—strained with the effort of controlling emotions that seemed ready to erupt violently at any moment—I let out a quiet sigh.

He slumped his stiff shoulders and bit his lip.

"I never imagined. That's why you stopped painting."

Listening, he roughly wiped the water from his face—which had dried out—and shook his head.

"No—I just hoped it was that you… somehow, as time passed, hanging out with friends got more fun, and painting felt trivial. That you naturally drifted away from the brush through the whims of adolescence. Maybe."

"……."

"Because I was afraid I'd hear a story like this."

His tone implied he couldn't forgive himself for trying to escape my reality by holding onto that hope—even though nothing in this story was his fault.

As gently as I could, I stroked his calf, which was loosely stretched out to my right, and managed a faint smile.

"It would be a lie to say it's nothing—but now, it doesn't feel like I'm going to die from it anymore. I haven't overcome it, but it's become duller."

"……."

He was looking at me as if to ask, is that something you can actually say?—but I could read in his expression that he was holding himself back, knowing such words wouldn't help me and would only pour out raw emotion he'd regret later.

The bathtub—built by filling the gaps between bricks with cement and tiling over it—was large enough for one person but too short for him to stretch his legs fully. I stroked his awkwardly bent long legs as though massaging them and looked at the foam, which had long since mostly dissolved.

"Alienation was painted before the accident—and even then, the feelings I had caught between my parents weren't at a fatal level. I don't know about others, but I… didn't only paint intense things. It was just—like other kids my age wanting to escape their parents' interference, having complaints about their parents' ways of raising them for their own reasons—I felt a childish jealousy toward my parents' bond. Along those same lines. Nothing more."

How a painting born from that kind of self-centered, growing-up emotion—something present in any family—had come to provoke terror strong enough to cause hyperventilation. That mystery seemed to finally resolve itself across his face. But he didn't look relieved.

I rested one arm on my raised knee, brushing back my hair with my right hand while massaging his ankle with the other.

"In that process—the emotions I couldn't properly handle—they probably distorted my inner self into an unnatural shape. And I let myself freeze in that state."

"……."

He couldn't easily open his mouth. Complex, varied emotions surfaced and faded in his eyes as he looked at me.

I knew that figuring out how to respond to someone sharing such things was an uncomfortable task for people. We'd always been careful not to accidentally bring up similar topics around a friend whose personality had changed from the shock of his parents' divorce—out of consideration, or discomfort.

"Feeling anything—forming relationships with the people around me, experiencing emotional changes within them—it was frightening, something I approached with caution. What I wanted was just days of safety, without any plus or minus, continuing on. I thought that was the best way to protect myself."

I lowered my head further, resting my chin on my knees. I couldn't help thinking of Morae nuna, Yeehan hyung, Yuni nuna, and Juhan hyung—all fighting so hard to push through the obstacles in front of their lives. I felt small by comparison.

"But I think I've realized—what I was pursuing wasn't peace or safety. It was numbness. It was just another form of silence, different from my father's. I was the one who gagged myself."

The path they each chose might not be the one absolutely correct answer. Their present selves might not be perfect either. Behind every choice I'd witnessed and heard about, someone had to sacrifice something. What mattered was that I felt ashamed before their choices and their efforts to take responsibility for them.

I couldn't like the path I chose. I couldn't call it the best option. If my father's was an extreme silence, mine was a weaker, more diluted small silence.

"At that time, you were—"

He seemed to be trying to maintain composure, but his voice was trembling, faintly and unusually.

"You were only sixteen. An age that needed someone's care to process and work through a situation like that. The fault lies with your father and the adults around you who abandoned that responsibility—not with you. You were someone who should have been protected. Emotionally and environmentally."

His voice and expression contorted unnaturally, like someone suppressing rage.

"Yes—I thought that too. I raged and resented for a long time. The target of my anger and resentment was mostly my father, but sometimes it expanded without control until I couldn't even identify who it was aimed at anymore. But not everyone gets the help they need when they need it. Of course it would be better if they did—but I wasn't able to."

I don't know whether sharing a heavy past is a necessary part of love. I'd even thought that perhaps it was better if only one of the two carried knowledge of it, rather than both suffering. But telling him now, I think I understood. I wasn't seeking his empathy for past pain.

Carefully, I wrapped my hand around his slender ankle—as if gauging its thickness—and gently opened my mouth.

"This may sound presumptuous, and it's probably—still too early to say."

"……."

"But right now—just a little—I think I might be able to understand my father. Not fully, of course. I still have so many things I want to ask, and the resentment and hatred are so large that I'm afraid to even ask them and hear the answers. But I do have this vague feeling—that I might understand a little."

Strangely, I felt short of breath. I paused and took a deep breath to steady myself.

"The meaning of one person becoming more important in someone's life than anything else—perhaps even more than their own child."

The corners of his eyes crinkled. His gaze shook violently. He looked like someone who had completely given up on the restraint he'd been fighting to maintain. To calm him, I fiddled with the ankle I held and continued.

"Thank you for asking me to come to Chicago with you. I didn't answer impulsively just because I was knotted."

For me, honestly expressing my feelings in a moment where reason holds back instinct—it was probably harder than confessing the past. Given how long I had kept my feelings silent, that was certainly true. But now I wanted change.

"I want to go. I don't want to be apart from you, Director Liu."

He moved his lips as though about to say something, then stopped, and collapsed inward as if in pain, whispering.

"I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?"

"Just—you're telling me all this, and you can't even cry."

Watching him press his palm fiercely to his face, unable to finish the sentence, I reached out and carefully took his fingers—resting limp on his thigh.

"I already cried enough before."

"……."

"And now—because Kun is here. Because Awi is here."

With a splash of water, he enveloped me.

Our wet lips pressed together deeply, and his high nose pressed against my cheek. As his large hands covered my cheeks and ears, the sound of air moving—a sound I couldn't normally hear—became muffled. The kisses, repeating without the tongue, were more comfort than passion.

I hugged his broad, solid shoulders tight and finally let myself overflow.

"Can I think that?"

"……."

"That I'm not alone anymore—because you're here. Am I… wrong to think that?"

He pressed his forehead firmly against mine, lips tightly shut, and was silent for a moment.

"Can I speak frankly?"

"……."

He cupped my chin and tilted my face up to meet his eyes, and when I looked at him, my eyes burned.

"I'm angry at your father for leaving such a young person in such solitude—but if I were to lose you and face the same thing, I don't have the confidence I'd handle it any better than he did. It might be too soon to say this, and you might not believe it—"

How could I not believe him? I'm the one who might vaguely understand my father for exactly that same reason.

He didn't try to comfort me with carefully chosen words or reassure me with effort. After the kiss, he led me out of the tub and dried every inch of my body with a large towel. We went back to the messy bed and joined our bodies once more.

We touched each other's faces more, looked into each other's eyes more than usual—as if this were less an act of physical stimulation and more an act of sensing and confirming each other's existence. The caresses lasted a long, long time. Not as primal or intense as what had come before—but more substantial. I felt him fully, sufficiently, checking with my hands several times the seamless joining of our lower bodies becoming one.

It was probably the first time since the winter I turned sixteen that I had exposed my most fragile weaknesses and my most hidden shame—both before another person, and before myself.

The next day, I set a lock on my phone for the first time—the one I had previously been able to use just by dragging a finger across the screen. And about three weeks later, we headed to Chicago together.

To be continued in Diamond Dust, Volume 5.