NILWM - 51

He reluctantly took his tongue out and parted his lips. It was a shame, but he stopped for a more certain pleasure.

“Hnng, Sunbae...”

Min Yeseo tried to push away his hand, which was delving into her clothes and fumbling with her bare skin, as she caught her ragged breath.

“Stop it, let’s go. You said we were going home...”

“There are only four days left now.”

“Ah! Ugh...!”

His devious finger pinched and pulled at the protruding part over her underwear. His arm, which had slid in like a snake, pushed her bra aside and began to knead her bare skin.

“We won’t be able to see each other for about a month at first. So...”

“Hng! Haa...”

“We have to make the most of it now.”

He pulled on the nipple of one of her breasts, then brought his lips to it and sucked on it mindlessly. Chok, chok. The sound of his tongue brushing against her nipple began to echo obscenely inside the car.

“Ah! Sun, Sunbae...!”

Min Yeseo flapped around mindlessly like a fish on a cutting board. He sucked and licked her breast for a long time before reluctantly letting her go. As he tidied her clothes and buckled her seatbelt, a fuzzy static electricity crackled at his fingertips.

“Let’s go.”

“Wha, where?”

“My officetel. No... it’s too far. We’ll go to the nearest hotel.”

He started the engine and looked at her. His face, as he slowly licked his lips as if savoring the sweet taste of her skin, looked so lewd. Min Yeseo turned her head away with a flustered look, but she didn’t say she would get out of the car.

“Where are you looking? Why are you avoiding my gaze?”

His long, firm fingers grabbed her chin and turned her toward him. There was no trace of a smile on his face. It was only full of excitement, on the verge of exploding. When Min Yeseo flinched and trembled her shoulders as if she was scared, his eyes finally softened again.

He put his arm around her shoulder, pulled her close, and kissed her again. And he whispered, so quietly she could barely hear it.

“I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

“...”

She didn’t reply, but that was enough. The gesture of her willingly opening her lips and accepting his tongue again was no different from forgiveness.

The mind-numbing kiss continued for what felt like an eternity. With every touch of their tongues on the tips of their teeth, the soft texture made his blood boil. His front swelled up even more, and he felt like he was being consumed by the heat.

Even after he pulled his lips away, Juhyeok pulled her even closer. He buried his nose in her hair and tried to calm his excitement, but it only had the opposite effect, amplifying it even more.

• I don’t know how serious you are about me, Sunbae. You say you like me and you don’t want to break up... but I don’t think it’s as much as I like you...

He hoped that Min Yeseo would always think that way. He wanted her to feel a little insecure, to mistakenly believe that she liked him more, and to always be so anxious.

His twisted desires and secret urges intertwined, making his insides turbid and chaotic. He started the car with a hurried hand. He couldn’t wait another second.

Even while driving, one of his hands was deeply intertwined with hers. He couldn’t control himself if their hands weren’t touching.

________________________________________

After what seemed like an endless winter, the new semester finally began. She had mentally prepared for it, but the repercussions of their sudden relationship were stronger than she had anticipated.

Her face would burn up every time she went anywhere on campus as people’s gazes followed her. The back of her head felt prickly all the time, and for the first two months, she never felt comfortable anywhere she went. Not only her classmates but even her closest friends, Chaerin and Saeun, were shocked and hounded her with questions.

“Hey, I’m really hurt, Min Yeseo. How could you keep it a secret from even us?”

“And as soon as you started dating, Sunbae went to the military! But maybe it’s a good thing. Imagine if you two were walking around together, you’d be getting even more attention than you are now!”

“At least he’s in KATUSA, so that’s a relief. He’s stationed in Pyeongtaek, so you can see him on weekends, right? Do you meet every weekend?”

“Huh? Oh... Hey, Saeun, I’ll give you the notes you wanted to borrow earlier. You can copy from here.”

“Oh, thanks! Wow, what’s with all this... Did you take so many notes after you got a boyfriend?”

At Saeun’s words, Yeseo awkwardly mumbled and changed the topic of conversation. In truth, it had been a little over two months since his enlistment, but they hadn’t met even once.

She couldn’t go see him on the day he was assigned to his base because his family elders were coming, and their attempts to meet were thwarted several times during his first leave after his basic training due to his work. She had even brought up going to the Humphreys base in Pyeongtaek to “escort” him, but that had also fallen through every time. They didn’t even get to talk on the phone much. The statement that she would be able to see him every weekend because he was in KATUSA felt meaningless.

She couldn’t say anything to him about it since a void was created in the startup’s operations after he left. But the feeling of having to swallow her disappointment and frustration alone was slowly growing.

This doesn’t feel right somehow. If this is the case, isn’t it no different from him serving in the regular military?

________________________________________

The emptiness of feeling like she was in a relationship alone remained the same even as April began.

[Sunbae. I’m just texting to see how you’re doing. When you don’t contact me, I get worried that you might be sick, so I’d appreciate it if you could reply even a short one when you have time.]

She wrote the text but ended up deleting the last sentence and sending it. She was worried that asking for a reply would come across as a burdensome pressure or a whine.

But isn’t it okay to ask for something like this...? It’s something that would be perfectly normal to say in a regular relationship.

But she remembered a conversation from the end of last year and became cautious.

• I’ll have some breathing room after January 3rd, so just wait until then.

• Okay, I will. Work is important right now, so just focus on that... Let’s see each other after January 3rd.

• Thank you for understanding. Any other girl would have gotten angry and whined. Being emotional over something like work is one of the reasons I’ve been avoiding relationships. But I guess you’re different, Yeseo.

She didn’t want to be a whiny and demanding girlfriend. But she couldn’t help but have doubts several times a day.

Where do I draw the line to be a smart and understanding girlfriend? She wondered if this situation, where she had to constantly agonize over whether saying “I miss you” or “Can we meet this weekend?” would cause him to feel tired, was normal.

Maybe... Sunbae’s feelings haven’t changed, have they?

Even though she thought there was no way, the doubt kept raising its head. She would sometimes think about asking Chaerin or Saeun for advice, but she never brought it up. She was cautious about revealing too many personal details about her boyfriend, and more than anything, she was afraid they would give her the same advice as Soomin.

• Isn’t that beyond being detached; it’s neglect? I don’t understand what kind of great business he has that he doesn’t even have time to see his girlfriend.

• Oh... you think so, too? But my friend’s boyfriend is really busy...

It was when she was asking, pretending it was about her friend, with her heart in her throat.

• Well. I don’t know anything about your friend’s couple, so it’s hard for me to give my opinion, but just hearing about it, the guy seems like a real jerk. Isn’t that just a classic case of neglecting a fish you’ve already caught? You said they started dating because your friend liked him so much and that she confessed first.

The phrase “neglecting a fish you’ve already caught” hit her hard. It was just a third-party’s opinion, but she couldn’t just brush it off. The hurt she felt at that moment didn’t go away even after several days.

Her steps felt heavy as she walked home from tutoring. She was trudging along, looking at the ground because she felt like crying when a notification sound made her look at her phone without thinking, and her legs stopped on their own.

[Are you busy? Wanna meet this weekend?]

She almost screamed. Yeseo sat down on a bench in front of the playground and quickly typed a reply.

[Are you not busy this weekend? Is your work okay?]

[I’m busy. But it’s been a long time since we last met. My officetel will be empty this Friday. Do you want to come over? The password is the same, so you can go in beforehand.]

Her heart was pounding. She finally took a deep breath and was able to breathe properly. It felt as if her heart, which had been so heavy it almost made her cry just a moment ago, suddenly opened up.

[Okay, Sunbae. I’ll go there right after my tutoring.]

As she stood up from the bench, the blood rushed to her head. Her legs were trembling with joy. She could vividly picture his face, which she would be seeing after three months. A picture was so insufficient. It was nowhere near enough to alleviate the longing to talk to him in person and feel his warmth firsthand.

Soomin’s words, which had so harshly criticized him for “neglecting the fish he had caught,” had vanished from her mind without a trace.

________________________________________

Han Juhyeok, who she was seeing after three months, looked a little gaunt. His face seemed a bit thinner, but his body seemed even more solid and bigger. But she didn’t get a chance to examine him visually.

“Ah! Sun, Sunbae! Haa...”

She could physically feel the change with the muscles and force that were pressing against her bare skin. As soon as he opened the door and saw Yeseo sitting on the sofa, he almost lunged at her and embraced her. As if to make up for three months of lost time all at once, his mind-numbing movements of putting his tongue in her mouth and intertwining it with hers felt desperate.

When she came to her senses, she was lying naked on the sofa, panting. Her ragged moans and his heavy breaths intertwined, creating a moist heat.

Like a dam that had burst, his desire showed no sign of calming down. The desire, carried by the force of his head pushing in with the friction of their clothes rubbing fiercely against each other, rose from the bottom and consumed their two bodies that were stuck together as one.

“Hnng, Sun, Sunbae...! Wait a minute...!”

Yeseo. The loving call brushed past her ears. Her head was dizzy from the sound of their flesh rubbing against each other. She felt like she would lose her mind completely if she continued to be in a daze.

Her legs were spread wide open, and his heat-filled shaft pounded deep into her opening. The force that pushed open her inner flesh and widened her narrow inner walls suffocated her. Instead of pulling his hips back and re-entering, he stayed in that position and thrust upward.

“Ah! Sunbae, a little, slo, slower...! Hng!”

Her plea soon turned into a moan. Her eyes closed on their own from the violent pounding.