He had no choice but to entrust all his joints and muscles to the trainer’s hands. When the trainer pulled, he squirmed without being able to make a sound, and when pressed, the same.
“What are you two doing?”
Seungun, who had been suffering in pain on the mat, suddenly lifted his head. He didn’t know how glad he was to hear this voice. Gi Siyoung, dripping water from his hair, was glaring this way with fire in his eyes.
As soon as the strength left the trainer’s hands, Seungun crawled up.
“The manager’s body is too stiff, isn’t it?”
“……”
“When employees come, it’s discounted, so I taught him a few tests and stretches in advance.”
“I think it would be just perfect if you did your job well, teacher. Just your job.”
“Pardon?”
The atmosphere turned cold in an instant. The trainer bowed awkwardly. Gi Siyoung made the man, whose arms were several times thicker and thighs several times thicker than his own, tuck his tail between his legs in one go.
Trainers frequently touching members’ bodies to assist with exercise was a common occurrence. Gi Siyoung, who exercised a lot, knew that much.
But seeing Im Seungun laid flat and his lower body touched here and there, even what he knew became a different story. He wanted to kill that trainer who tried to teach exercise by grabbing just anyone, but Im Seungun who accepted being kneaded as others pleased was also a problem.
“Gi Siyoung-ssi!”
Seungun followed Gi Siyoung as he left the center. Instead of using the center elevator, he moved through the emergency door. His body, still full of energy after exercising, went down the stairs to the underground parking lot, stepping on three or four at a time. Chasing after him, Seungun thought his crotch would tear.
“Gi Siyoung-ssi! If you suddenly leave like that—!”
As soon as he got in the driver’s seat, his collar was grabbed and his upper body was dragged to the passenger seat.
“Huk.”
“I’m saying this out of concern, but as long as you’ve decided to date me, you only have sex with me.”
“What?”
“I’m saying don’t carelessly give your body to anyone, whoever they are.”
“…What on earth are you talking about?”
“To trust a man like Im Seungun-ssi whose permission is so light, I have to get a promise like this.”
“Are you joking with me right now?”
Seungun roughly shook off the grabbed collar. To bring up sex with other people just because a trainer helped with some stretching—it was completely incomprehensible to Seungun’s mind. And for good reason, because if you put it that way, Gi Siyoung was no slouch either.
“Did Gi Siyoung-ssi forget that you suddenly pulled down your pants to masturbate in front of me? How am I supposed to think about that?”
“I did that anticipating that our relationship would become like this anyway.”
At the shameless retort, Seungun let out an empty laugh.
“And what did you say yesterday? That people who have sex with you keep trembling in their thighs? Is that something to say?”
When others do it, it’s adultery; when I do it, it’s romance—Gi Siyoung’s attitude was exactly that.
“Want to know the difference between you and me? I don’t kiss if I don’t have feelings for someone. I don’t show off offering to masturbate for them either. Do you think that’s normal?”
“Who does that? Kisses even without feelings?”
“……”
He expected an immediate counterattack, but there was complete silence. Looking at Gi Siyoung with an uneasy heart, he was smiling, slightly curving the corners of his eyes in a way that didn’t fit the situation. Only then did Seungun think “oh no.” What did I just say? That I kiss even without feelings? That meant when kissing Gi Siyoung, he had feelings for him. Gi Siyoung neatly smoothed out Seungun’s collar.
“So you already had feelings for me even then?”
He wasn’t the type to let it pass without addressing it. Gi Siyoung covered his mouth and laughed like an embarrassed child, then soon closed his eyes and shook his wet hair. He seemed to have already forgotten the scene with the trainer upstairs.
“You pretended otherwise and played innocent, but you’ve had me in your heart since much earlier—”
“Does saying that make you feel better?”
“Cling to me.”
“What?”
“I’m telling you to cling to me and try kissing. I think I’ll feel better if you do.”
Gi Siyoung reclined the passenger seat all the way back. He, just out of the shower, smelled of fluffy soap. From his clean face without makeup, one could even feel a fresh energy as if new shoots were about to sprout. Seungun sighed. At times like this, he really felt like a stubborn five-year-old.
Seungun pressed his palm on the console box and leaned his upper body down. As he firmly pressed his lips to Gi Siyoung’s smirking lips, he stuck out his tongue and tapped like knocking. Even though it was Gi Siyoung lying down, he somehow couldn’t avoid the feeling of being on the receiving end.
As he welcomed the tongue gently parting his lips and entering, the car interior with no air conditioning running quickly became muggy. Every time the sound of people’s footsteps going back and forth in the parking lot was heard in front of the windshield, Gi Siyoung pressed down Seungun’s flinching shoulders with his large palm.
He responded only briefly to the tongue trying to make its way down to his uvula. Like lightning striking from a clear sky, the shaman’s voice suddenly echoed in his ears.
‘Why do you keep someone next to you who’s digging your grave and waiting?’
‘Why do you keep someone next to you who’s digging your grave and waiting?’
‘Why do you keep someone next to you who’s digging your grave and waiting!’
‘Why do you keep someone next to you who’s digging your grave and waiting!’
Im Seungun’s eyes flew open. The face of Gi Siyoung he had seen in his dream was right in front of his nose. That face with its neck cleanly cut off, rolling on the asphalt road, glaring at him in the driver’s seat from the road with eyes, nose, and mouth gaping open. Four gaping holes were wriggling as they looked at Seungun.
Gi Siyoung’s sticky tongue stirring inside his mouth felt eerie like a bone. Gi Siyoung noticed the stiffly frozen body and lifted his head.
“Are you cold? Why are you suddenly trembling?”
“……”
Im Seungun couldn’t bear to look at Siyoung’s face and bowed his head deeply. His body trembled like someone who had just emerged from a cold valley stream. At the touch trying to gauge his temperature by touching his face, he wanted to just go into the car’s nearest engine and burn up.
“……”
He was afraid that if he lifted his eyelids, that face without eyes, nose, and mouth would be looking at him again. Seungun buried his face in the solid shoulder. When his mind calmed down, he barely lifted his head. Gi Siyoung’s face, staring at him with a worried expression, was clean without any rough edges.
He was relieved that the shaman’s voice beating at his ears and Gi Siyoung’s hideous appearance from the dream had disappeared. Even after the fear subsided, Seungun trembled like ground with remaining aftershocks. He didn’t want to enter an empty house alone. If he was alone, it seemed like that shaman’s words and Gi Siyoung’s face from the nightmare would appear again and again.
“Can I go to Gi Siyoung-ssi’s house and sleep today?”
After mumbling and wondering what he was saying, Gi Siyoung answered while messing with the hair of Seungun who asked such a thing in a completely deflated voice.
“What are you planning to do alone with me?”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
Im Seungun got up, pressing his chest with both hands. Everywhere that Gi Siyoung’s thing had entered and exited still ached. Gi Siyoung looked at Seungun’s sunken expression and grabbed the door handle. In an instant, he got out of the passenger seat, went around the hood, and flung open the driver’s seat door. He gestured for Seungun, who was looking up at him, to get out.
“Let’s switch seats. I’ll drive.”
“……”
Im Seungun obediently got out of the driver’s seat.
What was so greatly different and meaningful about seriously trying to date—it was a truly interesting result how Im Seungun’s reactions changed moment by moment.
Judging by how he wasn’t bad in bed, he seemed to have quite a bit of experience for his age, but when Gi Siyoung fiddled with his earlobe while driving, pressed his pale knuckles, or interlocked fingers and placed them on the console box, Seungun would reduce his already minimal words even more and just look out the distant window.
Had this person occasionally had one-night stands but never seriously dated? At the sudden question, Gi Siyoung raised his eyebrows and glanced at the passenger seat. Seungun’s left arm connected by interlocked fingers was unnaturally stiff.
He could gradually learn about Im Seungun’s past romantic affairs. There was plenty of time. Gi Siyoung, busy with various thoughts while driving alone, didn’t know. Seungun’s eyes weren’t looking out the distant window. His two eyes were constantly staring at the two people’s hands on the console box reflected in the window.
