“You’re just getting here now, sunbae?”
As soon as he entered the lecture hall, Jeonghan, sitting in the very back seat, was looking at Wooyeon while leaning his body diagonally against the chair.
“Sit here.”
Jeonghan said as he moved the bag he’d placed on the seat next to him. There weren’t really any other options. Wooyeon just sat in the seat next to Jeonghan. There were many days when he couldn’t concentrate on class when Jeonghan was beside him, but it was better than deliberately avoiding the seat next to Jeonghan and worrying about his mood all day.
When Wooyeon sat in the seat next to him, Jeonghan leaned his body slightly and spoke to Wooyeon.
“What did you talk about?”
“Uh… about running a bar at the festival.”
“Ah.”
After hearing Wooyeon’s answer, Jeonghan sat with his chin propped on the desk. His large back was curved because of the chin-propping posture. Come to think of it, Jeonghan had grown up in America as long as he’d been in Korea. How easy would this class be for him again? He envied all sorts of things.
“What are you thinking about?”
With his chin propped, Jeonghan turned his head toward Wooyeon and asked. Languid eyes scanned Wooyeon’s face.
“I’m not thinking about anything.”
Afraid that Jeonghan would catch on to the affection and inferiority complex he had toward him, Wooyeon hurriedly pulled out his textbook from his bag. The textbook he’d gotten from an online used bookstore was tattered. He couldn’t see Jeonghan’s face, but from beside him came a deflated laugh that went “pfft.”
“Sunbae.”
Jeonghan immediately leaned his body again and whispered to Wooyeon. For a moment, Wooyeon felt like all the hair on his body stood on end at Jeonghan’s scent that had drawn near. Wooyeon looked at Jeonghan while shrinking his body a little. He was taking the suppressants Jeonghan gave him every day, but it seemed like they weren’t much use. No, it seemed like they only didn’t work on Jeonghan.
“Want to go on a date on Sunday?”
“Huh…?”
“Why are you surprised?”
It was a voice loud enough for only Wooyeon to hear. Jeonghan grinned and moved away again. At the face looking at him with chin propped again, Wooyeon lowered his gaze.
Ah…. Only then could Wooyeon guess the meaning of the ‘date’ Jeonghan had mentioned.
Wooyeon and Jeonghan were partners, and the dates they went on were predetermined. Of course, Jeonghan didn’t only give Wooyeon sex, but whether they ate, or went to Jeonghan’s private garden, the end was always sex. Wooyeon decided to never have expectations in advance. Because the one who would get hurt would always be himself if he did.
“Sunday is the most free day you have.”
“…I don’t have that much time.”
“Clear your schedule.”
Jeonghan’s voice was calm yet affectionate, but he wasn’t trying to listen to Wooyeon’s words at all. Right then, the professor in charge entered the lecture hall and started calling attendance.
* * *
Sunday, which had felt so far away, came relatively quickly. Wooyeon quickened his steps at the shape of a car visible at the end of the alley.
Leaning against the car, Jeonghan was waiting for Wooyeon while smoking a cigarette. A unique cigarette scent was mixing with his body scent to create a distinctive fragrance.
When Wooyeon stopped walking and stood in front of Jeonghan, Jeonghan threw the cigarette on the ground without any particular greeting. A faint smile hung on the corners of Jeonghan’s mouth, but it didn’t feel like he was smiling at all.
“Did you eat?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s good.”
Jeonghan got in the car first. His tone was affectionate, but strangely it felt cold, so Wooyeon’s pupils moved around. Was it just his imagination? Jumping to conclusions wouldn’t really produce an answer anyway.
Wooyeon passed the front of the car and got in the passenger seat. Jeonghan, who had been propping his chin on the window frame, started the car after confirming that Wooyeon had fastened his seatbelt.
“Where are we going?”
Jeonghan never easily said their destination wherever they went. Jeonghan’s expressionless face saw the signal turn yellow and stepped harder on the accelerator pedal. Dangerously, the car they were in passed through the intersection.
“A hotel.”
Wooyeon turned his head to look at Jeonghan, but Jeonghan’s answer was already clearly out there. Wooyeon silently withdrew his gaze from Jeonghan again and lowered his head. What had he been expecting? Wooyeon felt so pathetic for having worried about what to wear before meeting Jeonghan.
In the end, he’d chosen and worn one of the clothes Jeonghan had bought him, but Jeonghan didn’t recognize it. He’d said he had someone else buy the clothes anyway. To Jeonghan, it must have been an insignificant favor to make Wooyeon his sex partner.
The car entered a hotel in the city center without any twist. Wooyeon couldn’t understand himself for continuing to feel disappointed. Although Jeonghan had said ‘date,’ Wooyeon knew well what it meant. But then why? Why was all the strength draining from his body like this, as if he’d expected something different?
“Get out.”
As soon as they entered the hotel entrance, Jeonghan got out of the car and handed the valet to a hotel employee.
Wooyeon raised his eyes to look at the tall building that seemed to glare down as if it would swallow him. Except for school trips in elementary, middle, and high school, this was the first time he’d entered a lodging facility with the name ‘hotel’ attached. Of course, it went without saying that the place Jeonghan had brought him to now was on a different level from the places he’d gone to back then. It looked like it was on a different tier from places that were just hotels in name only.
As Jeonghan and Wooyeon entered the hotel, the employees standing in the lobby bowed their backs and greeted them respectfully. In the embarrassing situation, Wooyeon turned his head to look around inside the hotel as if sightseeing. Below the high ceiling, crystal decorations and modern chandeliers lined up in a long row sparkled.
Jeonghan passed those lined up in a long row greeting him as if he were familiar with it. When one of the employees held out a card key to Jeonghan, Jeonghan naturally received it. As if they shouldn’t raise their faces, the employees’ bent backs didn’t know how to straighten.
When they crossed the lobby and arrived in front of the elevator, an employee used an employee card key to authenticate it in the card reader and pressed the elevator button.
“Get on.”
As if they’d had it waiting in advance, the elevator doors opened immediately, and the only ones getting on the elevator were Jeonghan and Wooyeon alone.
Wooyeon somehow found it difficult to speak to Jeonghan. It was because Jeonghan’s face was expressionless unlike usual and he’d become less talkative. Or maybe it was because he’d realized once again that Jeonghan was a person from a different world than himself. Even though it was a fact he already knew, Wooyeon felt a sense of loss at that fact every time.
When they went up to the hotel’s top floor, one employee who had been waiting was also bowing and greeting Jeonghan and Wooyeon. Wooyeon’s gaze briefly turned toward Jeonghan, but that was all.
Jeonghan stood in front of the suite room with an unconcerned face, and the employee who had greeted them earlier also opened the door for them without properly straightening their back. Even looking around the wide hallway, there was only one guest room.
The guest room he entered following Jeonghan looked closer to a house than a room. Centered around a wide living room with a view of a river as vast as the sea beyond the large windows, several rooms were attached. Luxurious decorations and furniture, modern art works hanging on the walls, and fresh flowers placed in long arrangements here and there blended together like a painting.
When the door closed behind them with a small click, Jeonghan turned around to look at Wooyeon. A gaze flowing with coldness flew over and stuck like a dagger.
“Are you perhaps angry at me about something?”
“Angry?”
Wooyeon couldn’t look up at his face that had come close. The glimpse he saw of him was definitely smiling, but Wooyeon wasn’t a fool who would take that expression at face value.
“Sunbae.”
A low voice settled. Jeonghan’s large hand dug in over Wooyeon’s cheek and ear as he avoided his gaze. Goosebumps rose all over his body at the sensation touching his skin. He was definitely angry, and at the same time excited. At the strong pheromones, Wooyeon felt like the strength would drain from his legs at any moment.
“Look at me.”
It was an affectionate voice that seemed to be coaxing and soothing. Wooyeon was already trembling pitifully. Without even knowing what he’d done wrong.
His pitifully trembling eyelashes slowly lifted upward, and pupils with pigmentation faintly revealed by the light’s reflection turned toward Jeonghan. Jeonghan’s fingers slowly caressed Wooyeon’s ear. The unrealistically sculpted face smiled slowly when their gazes met.
“Well, should I call this being angry?”
In an instant, Wooyeon’s irises tightened tautly. At Jeonghan’s pheromones that suddenly poured out, Wooyeon staggered and grabbed Jeonghan’s shirt. Hot breath surged out from inside his lungs. As if even breathing was difficult, Wooyeon panted in small gasps.
“Haah…!”
“It seems like sunbae made me a little pissed off.”
He couldn’t understand at all what he was talking about. Wooyeon staggered in his tightly spinning vision and grabbed onto Jeonghan. This was the first time Jeonghan had released pheromones this strongly. Even though it wasn’t his heat cycle, the space between his legs heated up hotly.
While supporting with one hand the waist of the body that was about to collapse weakly, Jeonghan slowly unbuttoned Wooyeon’s shirt.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this shitty for days on end.”
“Hng, ngh…”
“It seems like sunbae has to relieve it.”
He kept only saying things he didn’t understand. No, maybe there were no words he wanted to convey in the first place, Wooyeon surmised with his spinning head.
After unbuttoning all of Wooyeon’s shirt buttons, Jeonghan pushed aside Wooyeon’s shirt. The shirt hung precariously on his arm below one shoulder. Jeonghan’s gaze stopped at the protrusions faintly revealed on the snow-white skin.
“Take off the bottom yourself, sunbae.”
“Haah, hk…”
“You want me to fuck you. Take it off yourself, sunbae.”
