“Grade. Right, I’ll acknowledge the grade problem. But compatibility matches. Compatibility. And you, this… Ha. Manipulating the graph? Let’s say you can deceive people by manipulating the graph. But how are you going to convince me? This feeling I’m having, these emotions. Ah! I can see all your reactions, and you’re trying to play peek-a-boo? Why. What. Really, why are you doing this! Fuck. It hurts like hell.”
Jaehwi, who couldn’t even open his mouth, was now looking down at Raon standing in front of him. The hair that looked light brown in the sunlight, the brown eyes looking up at him, the straight nose and white skin, even the red lips—this was the Raon he knew. He was definitely him. Moreover, even the energy flowing from him was telling him that everything about him was Raon, yet at this moment, he felt so unfamiliar.
“Avoid it. You understand, right? Definitely avoid it. Absolutely avoid it. Even if you die, avoid it.”
At Raon’s resolute command, Jaehwi couldn’t nod or shake his head. It was because Raon had suddenly grabbed him by the collar. Gradually, Raon’s face drew closer. Close enough that their noses could touch, their breaths mingled. There were clearly two people, but what could be heard sounded like one person’s heartbeat. The heartbeat that had been beating steadily gradually quickened.
At someone’s small movement, their noses slightly brushed, and Raon’s hand moved as he tilted his head slightly to the side. The collar that had been grabbed in a completely non-threatening way was released, and his hand covered his eyes. He seemed to repeatedly forget that this couldn’t block his vision.
He left his senses, dulled by being with Raon, as they were. If his vision was blocked, then so be it. If that was what Raon wanted, he should willingly comply with anything. The distance smaller than one finger joint that seemed like it would close but didn’t kept continuing.
Because he couldn’t see, his other senses began to become more sensitive. In the precarious tension, Raon’s lips that had been pressed together slightly parted, and a small moist sound hid between his breaths.
When their noses touched, when his vision was blocked, Jaehwi’s jawline, which had been expressionless, became prominently defined. He wanted to move the hand he was letting hang and trap Raon in his arms right now. He wanted to breathe in all of Raon’s breath and have everything of his.
He was so pretty, beautiful, lovely, and that’s why he wanted him more. Raon, who used to awkwardly step back and try to keep distance when approached, had definitely changed. The trigger was probably his rampage. Should he say their positions had switched? No, it might look like that on the surface, but the reality wasn’t like that at all. He was just firmly pressing down on himself. The one clinging was himself, and the one more anxious was also himself. He was absolutely the weaker one before him.
Avoid it? Even if you die, avoid it? How can I do that?
Just the fact that he was this close made his heart full, made him happy—no matter how solid a dam is, it collapses in an instant. Jaehwi’s right hand, which had been hanging limply, moved first.
Though he tried not to look, in the end Jaehwi stole a glance at his favorite person’s face beyond his hand. Unlike loudly boasting and acting boldly, Raon was extremely tense, even holding his breath. He would bite his lower lip and release it, and wet his parched lips with the tip of his bright red tongue.
Jaehwi’s hand stopped right next to his cheek. As he slowly exhaled, Raon’s eyelids trembled. Even so, he was still precisely covering only his eyes. Wrapping his soft cheek with one hand, he raised his other hand and removed Raon’s hand that was covering his eyes.
Raon’s lips, which had been loosely creating a gap, pressed firmly shut, and he could see his gaze that had been directed downward gradually rising. His brown pupils appeared, and with the action of looking up at him, his double eyelids deepened.
“Who told you to touch my body without permission…”
Jaehwi wrapped his hand around the nape of Raon’s neck as he tried to move away and began to devour his words. At first, his goal was to become the kind of Esper that Raon wanted, the kind everyone would know just by hearing the name. So when he met Raon in the distant future, he wanted to brag that he had become such a person as hyung said and be recognized.
That wish, which was big if you called it big and small if you called it small, was everything in his life. And in the end, he reached that position. Emptiness washed over him along with a sense of achievement. His life’s goal had disappeared. But after meeting Raon again and spending more time together, Jaehwi’s goals kept being revised and becoming more diverse.
The two parched lips gradually began to hold moisture. The soft lips were crushed and locked together like one without distinction of whose was whose. Their bright red tongues tangled. Even when Raon, whose lung capacity wasn’t as good as Jaehwi’s, moved away briefly because he was breathless, Jaehwi didn’t let go of Raon’s lower lip.
Raon’s two hands that had been grabbing Jaehwi’s collar were now raking through Jaehwi’s abundant hair. Jaehwi too, following his instinct to thoroughly prevent him from moving even a little away from him, wrapped his left arm around Raon’s waist, and his right hand still gripped the nape of Raon’s neck.
“Haa. I… definitely… told you… to avoid it.”
Jaehwi, who had been continuously coveting Raon’s lips, couldn’t help but snort at the words muttered while turning his head to avoid his lips and breathing heavily.
Then, instead of Raon’s plump lips, he began to bite and suck on the soft cheek flesh visible before his eyes. When Raon murmured and turned his head the opposite way, he bit the jaw that was wickedly exposed. “Hey, you…” Jaehwi buried his face, which surely showed all his emotions, in the neckline of Raon who was squirming in his arms and trying to say something.
“If I had avoided it, you would have scolded me for avoiding it.”
“Yeah.”
“If I’m going to be scolded either way, I’ll do as I please and get scolded.”
“Hey!”
At Raon’s words, his breath still rough, Jaehwi laughed and deeply breathed in his body scent. As he said, he should have avoided it to the end even if it killed him. Now what should he do? It wasn’t a situation where he could just run wild as he pleased, doing what he wanted. He felt like he could die of happiness and was so happy. Now what should he really do?
“Min Jaehwi. I can hear your mind working. You seem to be making plans to roughly pass this off as an accident and run away, but you’re in the palm of my hand anyway, you know?”
Raon’s hand stroked his head and caressed the nape of his neck. As Raon tilted his head and pressed that small head against his, Jaehwi wanted to cry. His god was so kind and warm. Endlessly generous and benevolent yet utterly cruel.
Did he want to kill his only god with his own hands in the end?
“I’m trying to stay as quiet and still as possible, so why do you keep instigating? What do you gain from that?”
Jaehwi, who let out a deep sigh, still holding him, moved to sit on Raon’s desk and stood him between his legs. Only then did their eye levels match a little.
As Raon wrapped those small hands around his cheeks, gently stroking with his thumbs while smiling brightly, Jaehwi tried to slightly turn his head.
“Why wouldn’t I gain anything? I gained the biggest thing.”
Jaehwi’s plan to turn his head to avoid looking at Raon was mercilessly trampled. How could he when he was firmly holding both his cheeks?
“So what is that?”
“You.”
“What are you going to do after gaining me? You’re already an Esper affiliated with MK Center and doing your job well.”
“Look at you deflecting again. Are you going to insist that kiss just now was mucous membrane guiding? If it makes your heart more comfortable to think that way, then do so.”
Raon’s voice, which had become much softer and was consoling him like usual, let go of his face, so Jaehwi slightly turned his head toward the window. But at the bold thing his hand did, he had to look at Raon again.
Not even sneakily, Raon grabbed the bottom of Jaehwi’s t-shirt and pulled it up with a swoosh. As if that wasn’t enough, he held the pulled-up shirt in place with one hand and began to freely grope Jaehwi’s abdomen and chest with the other hand.
Jaehwi’s muscles twitched under Raon’s fingertips.
“What…”
“There are no cracks. Is it because your condition is maintained well so there weren’t any, or did they just get better? If I had known this would happen, I should have stripped you first before doing ‘mucous membrane guiding.'”
Though he should let go after checking, the atmosphere of Raon’s touch stroking his skin began to change little by little. Slowly stroking Jaehwi’s sides and abs with his entire palm, he firmly gripped his solid chest muscles.
His muscles naturally tensed, and wrinkles formed on Jaehwi’s brow as he tried hard to avoid a situation that could become sufficiently embarrassing.
“…Are Espers born with bodies like this? Or do they naturally develop by training every day without fail and going through dungeons?”
Raon’s words were in the form of a question, but they were closer to talking to himself. If it had been a genuine question, he didn’t need to draw a line along between the split chest muscles with the tip of his index finger.
“Team Leader Kang.”
Jaehwi finally grabbed Raon’s hand, which had no intention of letting go and was pressing firmly or touching between his muscles, and stopped his actions.
