TEOTW - 10

The place the two people entered was the private villa where Taejo was staying. Just like last time, the interior was always tidy as if someone’s touch was constantly on it, and the inside, where the sunlight streamed in, was cozy.

“What are we going to do here now?”

She remembered her first visit, so she stopped and looked at him. He twisted his lips into a smile and asked back, “What do you want to do?”

Playfulness quickly gathered in Taejo’s meaningful eyes as he watched her.

“Is there something you want to do?”

“...”

When Yiseo’s tightly sealed eyes wavered for a moment, Taejo, who had caught that fleeting instant, smiled faintly and narrowed his eyes.

“I didn’t think you were like that, Yoon Yiseo.”

You’re subtly into this. He swallowed the rest of his words and approached her. A cool scent instantly rushed over her. It was a little different from the one she had smelled last time, a scent that felt like it came from someone who had just taken a shower.

“Did you just get back from working out?”

“Yeah, I just showered.”

His lips, answering brazenly, curved languidly. That’s not what I meant. She tried her best to ignore him, and his large shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. His jet-black hair swayed with his laughter. The smile that rose to his lips made her feel strangely odd.

“It won’t go your way, so don’t even dream of it.”

Yiseo walked past him and went inside. She heard him snickering and suppressing his laughter behind her.

The cream-colored sofa in the middle of the wide living room was very broad and large. Beyond it, a full-length window that brightly illuminated the outside showed a small, lush green courtyard.

In the garden, apricot-colored roses bloomed beautifully, like plump peaches. The last time she came, the rain had made it hard to see the view. The beautiful and leisurely scenery on a sunny day was slowly and lingeringly etched into Yiseo’s eyes. As she sat on the sofa and looked at the cozy view, Taejo opened the cap of a bottled drink he had brought from the refrigerator and held it out to her.

“You can read a book, or you can study. Do whatever you want. If you’re tired, you can take a nap.”

His attitude was completely different from the way he had swaggered and practically dragged her here. Yiseo, holding the bottled drink he had handed her, gave him a suspicious look.

“Why are you being like this?”

“What about it?”

“It’s strange... for you to be so overly kind.”

“What’s so strange? Me, for being so kind? Or you, for never having received kindness before?”

At his words that stung and hit the mark, Yiseo, who was fidgeting with the bottled drink, furrowed her brow.

“You wouldn’t be like this to just anyone.”

“Of course I wouldn’t be like this to just anyone.”

He replied in a voice heavily tinged with laughter.

“We’re friends.”

Very hot and intimate ones.

As if to make her realize that fact, his deep eyes scrutinized every inch of Yiseo. The meaning of ‘friend,’ which was seemingly ordinary but absolutely not, was ambiguous.

Could a friendship like this exist in the world? A friendship where they were wary of each other every time they met, shared their bodies before they even got to know each other, and now were trying to figure out how to win a ridiculous bet. Could that really be called friendship?

“Ask me if you’re curious about anything. You’re the first friend to come to my place.”

Looking at him, who was talking so casually, offering to answer her questions, Yiseo tried to look away.

The first friend to come to my place. It was a phrase that made her think a lot.

However, she didn’t want to hear trivial things related to him. She ignored his scattered laughter and let the drink flow into her mouth. The sweet and refreshing feeling that disappeared down her throat seemed to give her a moment of relief.

“How long will you keep going on blind dates?”

“That’s not a choice I can make.”

“If you don’t like it, just refuse.”

“If it was a problem that could be solved that way, I would’ve done it a long time ago.”

It wasn’t that she hadn’t refused. From a long time ago, even when she didn’t know as much as she did now, she would attend the meetings arranged by her family, and every time she returned feeling lonely, she would wonder how many more of these she would have to go to for it to end, and how to refuse. She had repeated and revoked all kinds of reasons and excuses.

Sometimes she pretended to be sick, and sometimes she made up fake appointments to avoid them. But in the end, the schedule to secure a marital connection moved according to Choi Seonghee’s will.

“Because this is the only duty and expectation I have.”

Yiseo said that and leaned her head back on the headrest. As fatigue came over her, she closed her eyes, and a low sigh escaped her. It was ironic, but after hiding in a place like this where no one’s eyes could reach her, she felt like she could breathe again.

“It’s pitiful, isn’t it? Everyone thinks so. Pitiful Yoon Yiseo. But I can’t break it on my own. It’s like a taboo, and if I break it, everything I’ve built for decades will fall apart... You wouldn’t understand.”

Taejo stared blankly at Yiseo, who was calmly describing her situation as if she were talking about someone else.

“I hate it, too. I hate it even more when it’s useless to say I hate it.”

Yiseo, who had her eyes closed, opened them and turned her head at the continuing silence. He had been sitting with his leg crossed, his arm resting on the headrest where Yiseo was leaning, for who knows how long. His gaze was so deep she couldn’t avoid it.

“Pathetic. That’s what you want to say, isn’t it?”

A self-deprecating laugh scattered from Yiseo’s lips. About her existence, about her ignorance, about the painful patience and her inability to shake them off. But she would have to live with this noose around her neck forever. These were things that had been learned over a lifetime, like Pavlov’s dog.

“I just live by accepting it.”

“You sound like you’d be ready to be buried alive if someone told you to.”

“Maybe.”

Yiseo was almost completely resigned. And yet, a smile spread across her clear cheek. He reached out and caressed Yiseo’s cheek the moment a smile spread across her face, which had been indifferent and on edge all this time. It was a touch that felt like an impulse. At the touch of his hand, Yiseo, who had been muttering with her eyes closed again, gave him a narrow look.

Instead of asking him what he was doing, Yiseo tolerated the ticklish touch. She just offered her cheek to him and looked at him.

His fingertips, which had been touching her cheek, soon gripped it. Yiseo’s face, held in one hand, looked very tired. The warmth that lingered in his hand and the faint wavering in her eyes were unfamiliar. So he incited her.

“Should I end it for you?”

If she said yes, he looked like he would do it right away. As his firm eyes penetrated hers, Yiseo felt her heart pound for a moment. It was an unfamiliar feeling. The emotion, which should have subsided if she just held her breath, continued even though it was strange.

“No.”

“Then what should I do for you?”

“Nothing.”

She hoped he would do nothing. The complex thoughts in her head were not just because of the “blind dates” that her family forced upon her. She again tolerated the way her heart was beating faster and faster at his touch, which was still caressing her.

“If you wait, it’ll end.”

“Because you’re a fool who believes nothing is forever?”

“Yes.”

Yiseo easily agreed with Taejo’s words, as if he was mocking her old-fashioned thoughts.

Because she was a fool who believed nothing was forever.

That someday, these boring moments would also end.

Just as the unknown echo that made her heart vibrate would soon subside.

In the space she had hidden herself in, her mind unexpectedly calmed down. So she thought she was a little okay. She didn’t even notice how Taejo’s eyes, which had a languid smile, were getting darker and darker. She didn’t notice his gaze, which had traced her eyes and cheeks, lingering on her tightly sealed lips.

“Okay, then let’s end it.”

As if it were a simple solution, he seemed to be getting up, but then he bit her lips and entered her mouth. As if he was going to end this boring and meaningless time right away. Their lips, which had come together softly, intertwined, and their tongues mixed.

The thick movement softly burrowed in and began to carefully lick the tip of her tongue and rummage through her mouth. In an instant, she was out of breath. The saliva that wet her mouth and her breath were hot. But strangely, she didn’t hate it. It was a sudden kiss, but the two of them naturally overlapped as if they had been waiting for this moment.

Taejo’s hands began to take off Yiseo’s clothes one by one. He unbuttoned the tight buttons, took off her jacket, and gave her a sense of liberation.

His unhesitating hands and unhesitating kisses continued. As if this moment were forever, and this was all there was.

With his unhesitating touch, her body slowly tilted. Yiseo’s back, which was slowly lying down on the sofa, finally touched the soft surface. Taejo got on top of her and put his weight on her. He was still biting her lips and carefully licking them as he slipped his hand into her open camisole.

As he squeezed his hand between her breasts, which were filling the cups of her bra, her sensitive breasts instantly hardened.

“Ha...”

As if he couldn’t miss even the shallow breath that escaped her, he bit her lips and sucked in her short breath. Yiseo’s breath flowed into his deep intake of breath.

Normally, she would have turned her head or pulled her lips away and hesitated, but today was different. Taejo’s cheeks hardened at her reaction. Excitement rushed over him.

His lower body swelled with a terrifying force. His lower body, which was pressed between Yiseo’s thighs, was in pain. But he slowed down.

For some reason, he wanted to take his time today.

He didn’t want this moment to end easily. As he continued to kiss her and took off her camisole and bra, her white naked body was revealed. Her willing response to his touch without resistance was extremely stimulating.

He pressed his lips down and caressed her white skin, leaving red marks on her delicate neck. The lips that had been tickling her collarbone slowly traced a line and then made a ticklish mark on her ribs. As he licked her gaunt ribs with his tongue, her slender waist, which he could wrap his hand around, twitched.

“Ha...”

Thanks to that, her lower body, which was pressed against him, was pulled tighter. He pressed down on her body, which was filled with anticipation. His tongue, which had been circling her chest, moved down to her belly button and headed lower. After easily taking off the skirt that had been rolled up on her thighs, he slipped his hand between her legs and ripped her stockings.

“Ah!”

“Why are you so wet here?”

Yiseo’s surprised breath perfectly conveyed her excitement. He pushed through the torn stockings and parted her underwear. As he parted and rubbed her alluring flesh, a heated moan escaped Yiseo’s lips.

“Hn...”

The moment you break a taboo is always thrilling. He used the sticky fluid that had leaked out as a lubricant and rolled his fingers in a circle, and Yiseo’s hips twitched and bounced up. He parted her legs and put his lips on her. A sweet taste was felt on the tip of his tongue. He bit her flesh as if biting it with his parted lips and sucked with a smacking sound.

“Hng, ngh.”

The flesh caught between his lips quivered faintly. Yiseo’s slender legs became tense as she tried to endure the pleasure. He didn’t care and pressed down on her thighs to hold them in place, and buried his face a little deeper. His sharp nose crushed her secret flesh as it was buried in it. Yiseo’s scent that reached his nose was so good it drove him crazy. Just smelling that scent made his lower body expand as if it would burst. His reason almost melted away at the desire to take out his erect cock and shove it in recklessly.

He stuck out his tongue and licked her vaginal opening. As her tightly sealed red opening fluttered as if asking for more, his heart pounded with the impulse to stir it up. Nevertheless, he was patient and restrained himself. He licked the same spot several times with the tip of his tongue and then sucked deeply, just as he had wrapped his tongue around the root of Yiseo’s tongue, and her waist lifted and her body, which was pinned down, trembled.

“Hn, stop, ah, please stop!”

He ignored the uncontrollable moans that burst from her and sucked greedily on her flesh. He stuck out his tongue and licked it, and the moment he penetrated the trembling narrow hole, Yiseo’s hand came down and grabbed the back of Taejo’s head. He gasped for breath at her soft touch that ruffled his hair.

“Ha, fuck. You’re sweet.”

The tip of his nose and the area around his mouth vibrated with Yiseo’s sweet smell. As he slowly slipped his finger in, her densely wrinkled inner wall clung to him like an adhesive. He recklessly stirred up her hot, cream-like insides. Yiseo’s vaginal opening soon became wet and sticky.

Another finger, invading the tight space, took over like a master. Splash, splash, the sound of water splashing echoed between her legs from his bold, circular movement that swept the inside.

“Hn, ugh, ngh!”

An obscene sound and an obscene smell filled the air. It was like heaven.

“You like this, huh?”

He pressed down on the round bump on her hot, slippery flesh, and Yiseo’s body trembled and she grunted as if she was having a seizure.

“Make a sound. I want to hear it.”

“Haa, ha, haa... stop it, ah... please...”

Despite her urgent moans, he was leisurely. He explored and touched every corner of Yiseo’s body like an adventurer, leaving marks.

“I want to suck on this all night, your this.”

He mumbled, licking her reddish clitoris without taking his lips off it. Yiseo’s legs trembled again at his hot breath.

“Taejo. Ryu Taejo...”

Overwhelmed by the extreme pleasure, Yiseo called out his name. But he didn’t care and continued to suck on her below.

Her mind was gone. Her shame had disappeared a long time ago. In her blanked-out mind, flames flashed and burst, then went out repeatedly. In an instant, they were rolling around, but in this moment, it felt like only an eternity without a beginning or end existed.

Was it this thrilling to touch, to lust after each other, and to be taken by it?

It felt as if every place his hands touched became an erogenous zone. Yiseo closed her eyes, fully feeling the ecstasy that rushed over her entire body.

Was a person’s body heat this good? Or was it good because it was Ryu Taejo? Her confusion soon faded in the hazy senses.

After a bout of foreplay, he climbed on top of Yiseo’s body with a satisfied look on his face. Yiseo, who was convulsing as if she was sobbing, hugged him with both her arms. Even though she couldn’t understand what was happening, she couldn’t think of anything else. The melancholy that had dominated her just a moment ago had flown away in an instant. So she wanted to explore him a little more.

Desire rose and shattered in an instant, like a wave.

I wanted to have her like this.

I wanted to hold her like this, in my arms, and shove myself deep inside her body. It was satisfying to know that there was something he could reach out and have. The feeling of fulfillment that began with a small gesture began to fill and warm her empty heart.

Yiseo reached out and grabbed Taejo’s hair. His firm yet soft hair crumpled in her hand. Then she hugged his muscular, bumpy back to confirm his existence. When she confirmed his reality with the feeling of her fingertips, she felt strangely at ease.

Feeling her touch, Taejo lowered his head and looked at Yiseo for a moment. Her eyes, which met his, were boiling with passion. But was it because she was intoxicated that he felt a sense of tenderness?

Their gazes, which had been looking at each other for a moment, lingered as if they had frozen. It was a moment of silence as if time and space had stopped. He slowly lowered his lips and kissed her tenderly.

His jet-black eyes, which had been stripped of a layer of their usual facade, were still fierce, but his lips, which bit and parted her lower lip, were soft and hot. Their lips, which were overlapping, sucked on each other. Their round flesh touched and rubbed against each other and eventually intertwined and swallowed.

Her breath was sweet. It felt good that their breaths, which they had gasped out, flowed in and were swallowed together. She also felt like she wanted to be broken and shattered by this. So she opened her knees and accepted him deeper.

“Do it.”

Yiseo’s feverish cheeks were red. Her eyes, which held the heat, were the same. His expression became ferocious as he stared at her face, which was turbid and blurred.

“Do it now.”

Her flushed cheeks were as red as a peach. Taejo’s face cracked at the words that came from her small, fluttering lips.

“Yoon Yiseo.”

What had happened today?

She was so different that it felt like a delusion. But this gentle Yoon Yiseo wasn’t so bad either. The feeling of her body wrapped around his was so good that he felt like he wanted to chew and swallow her bones and all. As if he could be buried in her for the rest of his life.

He left countless marks on her softly intertwined skin and took her shaking, white body into his hands. The marks that were left on every spot his hands touched, like a symbol that she belonged to him, made him feel satisfied.

What kind of feeling is this?

Desire and instinct, that’s all it is.

He pulled down his pants and drawers at the same time and put a condom on his menacing cock. He bit down on his teeth for a moment at the feeling of her tightening around his rough member, and then Yiseo opened her knees. He pressed his blunt glans against her wet skin and moved a few times, and a wet, sloshing sound immediately came from below. But he suddenly stopped his movements, which had been stimulating her by sweeping from top to bottom.

“You do it.”

Yiseo’s cheeks, which had been looking at him with heated eyes, hardened in embarrassment.

“Spread your legs and put it in yourself.”

He pulled Yiseo’s hand to his cock, and her small hand awkwardly gripped his cock. As soon as her warmth touched him, he felt like he was about to ejaculate. Taejo gritted his teeth and suppressed his excitement. But her unskilled touch only incited his desire.

“You, fuck.”

He followed her as she opened her body and slowly pulled him inside, as if he were possessed. The tip of his glans, which was barely aligned with her narrow opening, twitched as if it was about to go in. A curse naturally escaped his lips. Every one of his senses was focused on his lower body.

Yiseo tried to move her hips down a little more and press them together to fit him inside. But despite the fact that her vaginal opening was sufficiently wet, she kept slipping. Her white cheeks were crumpled with embarrassment. Seeing her face, which was tangled with excitement and confusion, he finally couldn’t hold back and thrust his hips forward.

Thump.

Both of their faces were twisted in pain at the thick, deep insertion that tore through her flesh. But the pain of being tightly squeezed was only for a moment. The hot, inflamed flesh inside her vagina bit down on his cock and swallowed it. The inside, which had sucked him in, gnawed on his cock with a gushing motion as if it were a tight grasp. A shiver of exquisite pleasure ran down his spine. His heart pounded fiercely.

“Hoo.”

Taejo slowly pulled his hips back and then thrust up again. Thud, with the impact of his thrust, Yiseo’s body also flinched with the same sensation. He began to thrust rhythmically, gently pushing inside.

As the intermittent movements gained strength, the sensation was imprinted on Yiseo’s body as if his shape was being engraved inside her. A shocking pleasure struck her head like a thunderbolt. The deep part of her abdomen where his cock had touched tightened hotly. In an instant, blood began to circulate rapidly through her veins.

Her mind came back to her at the breathtaking pain that pushed through her from below, but when he rummaged inside and pulled out, she was lost in ecstasy again.

Uncontrollable excitement and pleasure became clearer and clearer in the raw sensation.

She wanted him thirstily, like people addicted to opium. She knew that the only thing that could soothe the lingering pleasure was more pleasure, so she couldn’t stop now. When she realized that she had already come a long way, her legs parted to follow his movements as he slowly pulled his hips back.

She wanted him to go a little deeper, to penetrate her more.

In her faint consciousness, all that existed was desire. He pressed down on her densely wrinkled inner wall with his thick cock and plunged deep again. The bumpy, veined cock scraped her sensitive, heated insides. A chilling pleasure struck her head.

Yiseo’s body flinched. But she was pinned down by his large, heavy body and couldn’t do anything. She just convulsed with every thump of his thrust.

She had no idea it could feel this good. She never thought it would become this good. The way her heated body was being tamed was so intoxicating.

She felt like she was going crazy from the electrifying pleasure that seemed to melt her brain.

Then Taejo slipped his arm under Yiseo’s knees. Her body opened wide, and he sank deeper. Thud, as he pressed down deeply, the sofa scraped the floor and was pushed back. The vibrations that echoed through the room shook Yiseo’s head.

“Haa... my breath... my breath.”

Yiseo, who was flushed red to the tips of her ears, suppressed her breathing as he thrust into her. He whispered softly into her ear.

“Breathe out slowly.”

He said that and slowly pulled out his cock and then plunged it in again, even deeper. Yiseo shuddered, and her thighs trembled.

“It’s big. It’s too, ngh... too big...”

“So what am I supposed to do about it? Huh?”

She knew he was moving leisurely, even slowly, to check on her, but her body felt overwhelmed. It was a matter of course. He was so big and physically strong that his cock, a part of him, was also excessively large.

Even when he wasn’t erect, his cock was so big that its outline was clearly visible in his pants, and when he was excited, it swelled to the point where she couldn’t look at it directly. Just looking at the thick, menacing flesh bobbing in the air was enough to make her face flush.

When something like that plunged into her body, her breath caught in her throat.

“You told me to ram you, hoo, and begged for it. Haa...”

Even when he was slowly and carefully thrusting, she felt like she was being stabbed in the lungs. She could feel his massive cock squirming inside her body. He slowly rotated his hips while buried inside Yiseo. As he moved his hips shallowly, blocking her vaginal opening, her hamstrings tingled as her pleasure spots were poked. The more Yiseo flinched, the more his playful, thick motions continued.

“Stop... haa, it’s strange...”

This was a moment where even pleading was useless. In the end, thin tears flowed from Yiseo’s eyes. They were tears of ecstasy.

The desire to be pushed down and fall into depravity like this. The desire to let go of everything like this. The desire to melt and crumble like this took over Yiseo.

She hugged him. She dug her fingernails into his firm back and panted, barely able to catch her breath. He rummaged inside her more tenaciously than before. Taejo also felt good inside her body, which was burning like a fiery pit.

He had never felt such pleasure in his life. Even when he engaged in dangerous activities as if they were a game, there had never been a moment where his adrenaline surged like this.

Yoon Yiseo’s body was like a hallucinogen.

“How can I stop something that feels this good? Huh?”

“Aah, hng, hng...”

“I’m going to die.”

Taejo ended up losing control and held her until her small body felt like it would break. The cheeks of Yiseo, who was being shaken under his large body, turned red. He gnawed at her surging breasts several times with his teeth and pushed his cock all the way in. Her bloodshot eyes lost focus and wavered. Everything was stimulating—her face, which was tightly shut and distorted in pain, then released into a hazy state again.

“Hoo. Relax.”

The more Yiseo felt, the more her hot insides gnawed at him and swallowed him, making him lose his mind. In this moment, Yoon Yiseo’s body was so lovely that he could even whisper the words “I love you.”

He bit every place his lips touched, wildly. Yiseo’s breasts, her nipples that were red and swollen from being gnawed so much, her small shoulders, and her neck.

He wanted to leave so many marks on her that she couldn’t go anywhere. He wanted to wildly thrust into her and ultimately crumble together with her.

It was a moment where he couldn’t suppress such impulses. His reason had flown away a long time ago, and all that was left was his instinct to shove his large body into her small hole. His obsession with such a crazy act was unlike him.

“Ah, it feels so good. Taejo, ...it feels so good.”

“I know. ...My cock’s gonna break, Yiseo.”

He licked Yiseo’s neat earlobe, his husky voice whispering into her ear as if he were possessed. His tongue messily licked her ear, and he gnawed at her earlobe with his teeth, and Yiseo’s insides tightened again. He gritted his teeth at the vivid sensation of her vaginal opening tightening around him again.

Their heavy, broken breaths mixed in a sequence.

She felt like it would be okay even if this was hell.

It didn’t matter where. This act of overlapping their bodies and sharing their warmth, of overlapping their lips and sharing something else, felt like all the world he knew.

“Haa, ah, stop, stop, ah, please, ah!”

Yiseo, who had been biting her lips and moaning so as not to lose consciousness, finally let out a shrill scream. The urgent voice that burst out was a sign that she was on the verge of climax.

He thrust in heavily at a constant speed. He pulled his cock out all the way to its base, and then, as he plunged his cock, which was white with sticky fluid, deep into Yiseo’s body, her body, which was pressed against his, shook. His testicles hit her vaginal opening and touched her all the way. Yiseo trembled urgently and grabbed Taejo’s shoulders as if pleading.

“Haa, I... I’m feeling strange. Ah, this feeling...”

“Feel it.”

He wanted to clearly see her going all the way with his own two eyes. His eyes became sharp, wanting to imprint the sight of Yiseo struggling in the pleasure, the uncontrollable lust, and the ecstasy spreading across her face.

“Come, Yiseo.”

He whispered coaxingly in a gentle voice and began to speed up. How obscene and beautiful she looked, with her legs spread and her body shaking.

He looked down at the creamy fluid that was flowing out of her vaginal opening, where his large cock was moving in and out, and mixing with his, and he slyly stuck out his tongue and licked his own lips. The visual stimulation intensified his excitement.

He finally touched her plump, swollen flesh with his fingernails. As her clitoris was rubbed, Yiseo lifted her hips. In that state, he pushed his cock harder into Yiseo’s body, which was lifted in the air. It was a vigorous thrust that made her head ache from the recoil. The moment the pleasure she had been holding back finally reached its peak.

“Aah, ah! Ah! Stop, haa!”

Thwack. As he thrust a part of his body into hers as if to repel it, Yiseo hugged Taejo and convulsed. Her vaginal opening, which was gripping his cock, churned and repeated its contraction and expansion randomly. Taejo gritted his teeth at the stimulating pleasure that made his mind hazy.

“Shit, haa...”

He finally couldn’t hold back and thrust into Yiseo’s body as if to split her apart. The sofa creaked loudly again. Creak, squeak. After a long moment of shaking, scraping the floor, Yiseo felt her climax and convulsed faintly once more. At that moment, Taejo shoved himself all the way into the deepest part of her and came.

It was a long, long climax.

Taejo stared blankly at Yiseo, who was mechanically getting dressed. Yiseo, who had quickly put on her clothes and finished getting ready to leave as soon as she came out of the shower, was almost no different from when she had entered this place. The only difference was that her makeup, which had been a little darker than usual, was now gone, and her bare face was revealed.

Taejo’s gaze lingered on Yiseo’s back as she put on her lipstick and fixed her appearance for the last time.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Yiseo, who had finally finished getting ready, turned around. She was perfectly composed, as if her double life was an everyday thing.

“You could be an actress.”

At her blank look, as if she was asking what he meant by that, Taejo added.

“I should’ve drained all your energy.”

After their encounter, Taejo, who had come out after cooling himself down with cold water, leaving the exhausted Yiseo behind, regretted his actions for a moment. She looked so revived after just a short nap. No, maybe that was also an act, pretending to be okay.

I should’ve made it so she couldn’t move even a single step from the bed.

The face that had been begging him while rubbing against his chest was nowhere to be found.

“I’ll be going now.”

As Yiseo, who had picked up her handbag, turned to leave like a person who had finished her business, Taejo’s voice flew to her.

“When do you want to meet again?”

The voice, which was holding onto her as if he didn’t care about what had happened before, was so brazenly nonchalant, yet it somehow felt urgent. Yiseo turned her head and faced him again.

“I’m not asking to have sex. Next time, let’s try something else.”

He added, chewing on the words Yiseo had requested a while ago. His voice was subtly gentle. Was he asking her on a date? Her puzzled gaze lingered in the air for a moment.

Something else. Was that possible between them? She had made that condition because she thought such a possibility didn’t exist.

“Why, you don’t like anything else?”

When she didn’t react and just stayed there for a moment, Taejo poked at Yiseo again. The words sounded as if he was calling her a crazy sex addict, and Yiseo unconsciously furrowed her brow.

“Then you decide on our next meeting.”

She replied in a cold tone. Just like before, she had no regrets. Suddenly, Taejo got up from the bed and closed the distance between them in an instant.

“Do you even intend to see me again?”

His half-naked body, without a shirt on, quickly blocked her view. Thankfully, he put his pants back on. As her gaze slowly traced his body, the front of his gray training pants was subtly bulging. Yiseo pretended not to notice and looked up again. Yiseo was slightly flustered by his clear gaze, which hid neither suspicion nor desire.

The intention to meet again...

He quickly read her true feelings in her clear eyes that had wavered for a moment and then became impassive again, and he twisted the corner of his mouth into a smile.

“You’re just babbling on, saying things you don’t mean.”

It wasn’t that he couldn’t guess why she was holding out. It was a well-known fact that Yoon Yiseo’s pride was as tough as an iron wire, but he couldn’t understand why she was holding out even at a disadvantage. Maybe that’s why he was curious.

Besides, the pleasure this meeting gave him wasn’t bad, so even if his reason for wanting to be involved with Yoon Yiseo was only sexual attraction, he was still willing to spend a little more time on it.

“But you do feel a sense of responsibility for the words you said, don’t you? If not, why did you even start this?”

“...”

“You have no intention of doing it, but you’re just being prideful.”

So, as if asking what she was going to do now, he looked at Yiseo, who had collected her emotions, with a leisurely gaze again. A faint smile spread across his lips. It meant he wouldn’t give her a way out. Yiseo, who had been quietly looking at his smile, opened her mouth after a long time.

“Honestly, you find this fun, don’t you?”

In fact, Yiseo had intended to meet him a few times and then cut off the relationship. Since the relationship had started as a game, she knew that neither of them had any intention of taking it seriously. Most of all, the two of them didn’t suit each other.

He was used to getting what he wanted, but Yiseo was the opposite. Still, what she was thankful for in all of this was that he was the first person who had allowed her to achieve what she desired. It was also true that a little intimacy had grown between them after meeting a few times.

But she had no intention of continuing this relationship for long. Nevertheless, she just found it a little strange that they kept running into each other in this small city of Seoul.

“Of course I find it fun. But me finding it fun and you not taking responsibility for your words are two different things. If you want to give up, give up. I lose. It’s a problem that ends when you admit it.”

“...Honestly, I don’t know.”

It was true that she had started this out of curiosity and as something interesting. But she wasn’t sure if everything that had happened since, like a coincidence, was fun. To say she was focused on pleasure would be a stretch, as every moment with Ryu Taejo had been tense and precarious. Yet, the fact that she couldn’t cut him off was unlike her usual self.

“I know it’s right to stop here, but I also wonder what it matters if we meet more.”

It was funny that the path she had chosen to ruin herself had become a breakthrough, and it was even funnier that she was tolerating it because it was cozier than she had expected after pushing her way into that breakthrough. She was full of contradictions. Yiseo, who was trying to find a suitable excuse to use as a shield, ultimately failed to find one.

“I’m an adult, so I guess this isn’t so bad either.”

“Then let’s meet.”

He coaxed her again in an easy voice, as if it was no big deal.

The number of their meetings was small enough to count on her fingers, and the opportunities were more frequent than she had thought. Maybe that’s why. The more she met Ryu Taejo, the more her memories and information about him were rearranged. That part was ultimately confusing.

Was this an attraction?

Even if it was an attraction, no matter how much she dressed it up, it was a hollow impulse. Such things wouldn’t last. Nevertheless, she didn’t understand why she didn’t want to be tied to him, who had no definition of their relationship, but couldn’t easily cut him off, and why she wanted to continue this debauchery.

“If you continue, I’ll try to do anything to get what I want.”

“...”

“Or not, it’s up to you.”

Was it because of lingering feelings that she couldn’t cut off his scoffing words?

“But I don’t like it here.”

Her true feelings suddenly blurted out, trampling on the reason that was urging her to draw a line.

“Let’s choose a place that’s neither yours nor mine.”

I’ll turn a blind eye this one time, Yoon Yiseo.

Just rest a little longer.

“I’ll look for a suitable place. And you, too.”

Taejo, who answered as if it was no difficult task, met Yiseo’s eyes.

“Don’t go on any blind dates for a while.”

Yiseo’s brows furrowed for a moment. The composure she had barely maintained on her face, with her neat eyebrows and defiant eyes, was broken.

“I don’t like it when things are touched by others. Whether it’s an object or a person.”

When something was his, it had to be completely his alone. He didn’t want even a moment of it, whether it was Yoon Yiseo’s body or her mind, to flow to anyone else. Of course, she wasn’t the kind of woman who would easily give in just because he said so.

The more he met Yiseo, the more he realized how high the nose of Yoon Yiseo, who was always so cold, was. Yoon Yiseo, who was unbreakable, and who would say she wasn’t broken even if she was.

He would wait until the day this difficult woman begged him.

Even if that day didn’t come, he wanted to have her all to himself while they were meeting.

“It’s not fair that you’re doing this with me behind the scenes and looking for a husband in front of me.”

Taejo raised Yiseo’s chin with his finger. Their gazes became closer. Her clear, amber-colored eyes wavered in the light.

“Then you go on blind dates, too.”

The eyes that he thought had been wavering for a very short time were now calm again. She looked so composed as if she wouldn’t agree to any conditions or demands.

A low scoff escaped Taejo’s lips. So you don’t want to give in at all. Then...

“Then just end it here.”

If she had no intention of being compliant, he had no intention of being compliant either.

If she would break now, he was ready to back down a step.

But Yiseo’s eyes, which had a fleeting look of bewilderment, were just calm.

“Fine.”

She looked as if she had accepted everything, as if it were her own business, yet outside of her control. Yiseo pushed away Taejo’s hand that was holding her chin and turned away without a word. Yiseo walked away without saying goodbye. Soon, the sound of the door closing was heard.

“Such pride.”

He scoffed while staring at the front door where Yiseo had left, but his face soon showed irritation, as he couldn’t easily tear his eyes away.

Taejo took a cigarette out of the pack on the table and put it in his mouth. But he only fiddled with the lighter in his hand and didn’t light it. He stared at the empty space with a sharp look, as if lost in thought, and in the end, he nervously crushed the cigarette.