“…Mm.”
Elian’s lips were blocked. Hot water, pink steam, and Calix’s face filling his entire vision. Every sense felt as though it had gone numb.
Calix didn’t rush. He roamed gently over Elian’s firmly closed lips. The tip of his tongue lightly grazed the lower lip, or he pressed steadily between lip and lip, knocking at the door.
It was persistent yet courteous caressing — as though asking for permission.
W-wait, he’s actually doing this. For real?
Elian’s pupils trembled like the ground during an earthquake. His mind felt as though it were about to burn white. The wet, hot sensation against his lips traveled down his spine and stimulated his lower abdomen.
Ugh….
It was dangerous. Calix’s firm thigh was pressing between Elian’s legs beneath the water. Every time their bodies came together, it felt like a sharp electric current shot through him. His body was already heated from the hot spring water, and now with the man’s stimulation added on top of it, Elian’s core began responding with a heavy, undeniable weight.
No. If I give in here, it’s over.
What a humiliation it would be if he were found out. Elian desperately pressed his legs together and pulled his hips back. But Calix only pulled him in tighter, refusing to let him escape, and breathed roughly against his wet ear.
“…Open for me, Elian.”
A low, rumbling voice. It was less of a command and more of a plea. At that voice, one last thread of Elian’s reason was on the verge of snapping — when,
Right before Elian’s eyes — more precisely, in the air just beyond Calix’s shoulder — a blue window appeared.
Ding―!
[System Notification: Sustained Kiss Detected]
[Currently accumulating… +100 BP… +100 BP…]
[Tip!]
― Upon saliva exchange (Deep Kiss), 500 BP per minute can be earned!
“…!”
Elian’s eyes flew wide open.
500 points? Even just rubbing lips like this he was already getting 100 at a time — and if he just opened his mouth, it would be five times that?
Wait — 500 points per minute. That’s 5,000 points in ten minutes?
His mind started calculating at a frantic pace. 5,000 points — that was enough to pull at least ten large-diameter pipes needed for the waterworks construction. Funds that would let his domain residents have access to clean water and flush toilets.
Should I just close my eyes and open up? It’s not like it even feels… bad?
Honestly, “not bad” was an understatement. The man in front of him was the most beautiful in the entire empire, and his kiss was so deeply melting it made Elian’s mind go hazy. All he had to do was pretend to be swept up in the mood, open his mouth, collect the points, and enjoy the pleasure while he was at it.
Right, this is business. I’m earning construction funds.
Elian quietly let the tension in his lips loosen. For the waterworks construction. For the sanitation of the domain. The moment he was about to part his lips just slightly —
Swoosh.
His gaze met Calix’s crimson eyes. Clouded and undone with desire, yet holding only Elian — that desperate, earnest look.
“….”
Elian’s jaw froze. A corner of his chest ached. Those eyes weren’t doing “business.” This wasn’t a transaction for Mana recharging or points — those were the eyes of a man genuinely, desperately craving the person right in front of him.
What… am I about to do?
To someone looking at him with eyes like that — he was going to open his mouth for the price of some pipes? Suddenly, he found himself unbearable. He felt like trash. Even a money-obsessed materialist had lines that couldn’t be crossed.
Elian’s lips trembled and closed shut again. A door that had seemed on the verge of opening, only to close once more. There was no way Calix could have missed that subtle signal of refusal.
“….”
Calix went still. The tongue that had been trying to coax its way past his lips stopped, and the arms that had been crushing Elian’s waist slowly released their hold. It was a retreat full of reluctance — but resolute nonetheless.
“…I won’t force you.”
Calix pulled his lips away and said quietly. Between their lips, a thin silver thread stretched — then snapped.
“Your Highness, it’s not that I dislike it….”
Elian tried to explain in a fluster, but his voice wouldn’t come out properly. It’s not that I dislike it. But it’s not that I like it either… no, actually, I do like it. I like it, but doing it for money doesn’t feel right. But if not for money, then why am I even—
Elian’s thoughts tangled into a complete mess. Calix cupped Elian’s flustered cheeks in his wet hands.
“I’ll wait until you want it.”
He pressed a brief kiss to Elian’s forehead, then pulled back without a trace of lingering.
“Let’s get out. Staying in too long will make you dizzy.”
The moment they stepped out of the water, a hellish cold crashed down on them. The biting wind at thirty below zero stabbed at their wet skin like needles.
“Uwaaah! It’s freezing!”
Elian shivered and curled in on himself. Romance could wait — he was going to freeze to death. And then —
Calix picked up his own shirt from where it rested on a rock. Without hesitation, he carefully dried Elian’s body with it. The moisture that had been rapidly cooling and turning his entire body to ice vanished in an instant.
“Get dressed now.”
“Y-your Highness. If you use your shirt as a towel, what are you going to wear….”
“I’ll be fine. With your stamina, if you go back down while still wet, it’s straight to pneumonia.”
Having said that, Calix was already pulling on his pants over his still-wet body. While Elian fumbled to get dressed watching that sight, Calix quietly waited for him.
“Are you really sure you’ll be alright, Your Highness?”
“The cloak will do.”
Calix threw the thick fur cloak over his bare body. Below the button fastened only near the collar, between the folds of the cloak, his firm chest muscles and sharply defined abs were fully on display. Elian swallowed without realizing it, then caught himself and continued.
“No, but still….”
“Stop fussing.”
Calix scooped Elian up into his arms again.
“Hold on tight. The way down is faster.”
Elian reflexively threw his arms around Calix’s neck. Through the inside of the cloak, Calix’s bare skin was warm against him. Elian’s cheek rested near Calix’s collarbone.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The sound of Calix’s heartbeat in his ear — much faster and rougher than usual.
…This man isn’t even cold.
He’d given all his dry clothes away, and now he was half-naked in the middle of a blizzard. All because he was worried Elian might catch a cold. At that reckless, utterly devoted consideration, Elian felt something in a corner of his chest quietly sting.
***
The path back down the mountain was silent. There was none of the bickering from on the way up. The only sounds were the crunch of footsteps in the snow and the howling wind. When they arrived at the lord’s manor, the knights and servants who had come out to meet them were horrified.
“Y-your Highness? Your attire…?”
“Why is the Lord being carried?”
The scene was perfectly designed to be misunderstood by anyone who saw it. A wild, bare-chested Grand Duke and the Lord cradled in his arms. It looked like nothing less than evidence that “something intense had happened up in the mountains.”
“Get things ready. The Lord looks tired.”
Calix, unbothered by the stares of everyone around him, set Elian down at the entrance. Then, without even looking at Elian, he said briefly,
“Rest.”
“…Yes. Please get some proper rest as well, Your Highness.”
Calix walked toward the guest quarters without looking back. The cloak draped over his broad back fluttered as he moved. For some reason, his retreating figure looked lonely, and Elian stood rooted to the spot for a long while, watching him go.
***
Back in his room, Elian collapsed face-first onto the bed.
“Uwaaaaah!”
He buried his face in the pillow and kicked his legs furiously. Kicking the blankets wasn’t enough — he looked ready to punch through the mattress itself.
“I’m losing my mind! Why didn’t I open my mouth?! That was 500 points! Ten minutes and it’s five thousand!”
The capitalist monster screamed. That money was worth how many pipes, how many bags of cement?! And he just threw it away?!
“No, but….”
Elian lifted his face from the pillow. The hot sensation still lingering at the edge of his lips. And the look in Calix’s eyes as he pulled back — wounded, and yet so careful of him.
“I’ll wait until you want it.”
Those words echoed in his ears. It hadn’t been simply to satisfy desire. The Grand Duke — that man who ruled the North — was genuinely, sincerely respecting him.
“…Does he actually like me?”
Elian stared blankly up at the ceiling.
The Calix Drac in the original novel had been a cold-blooded man without a drop of sentiment. And yet the man who had just carried him down the mountain was the most foolishly pure-hearted romantic in the world.
“Ugh, my head hurts.”
Elian brought the shirt up and inhaled its scent. The cold winter smell, and beneath it, that subtly comforting, distinctly Calix scent that had soaked into the fabric.
“Whatever, I’m going to sleep.”
Elian forced his eyes shut. But behind his closed eyelids, the image of the snowy hot spring and Calix’s face drawing closer while still dripping wet kept surfacing, and sleep would not come easily.
The System points window showed a meager 300 BP accumulated from the failed kiss attempt, but in Elian’s heart, something far more complicated and far heavier was quietly, steadily building.
***
The door to the guest quarters closed, and the moment silence settled in, Calix roughly threw off his cloak. The cold air hit his bare skin — but the heat boiling from inside him showed no sign of cooling. If anything, it blazed more fiercely.
“Haah….”
A ragged breath tore out of him. The restraint he had held onto in the hot spring was reaching its limit. Even with his eyes closed, it was vivid. Elian’s trembling gaze looking up at him, heavy with water. His lips, swollen and flushed. And the feel of that smooth waist beneath his hands.
Calix leaned against the headboard and bowed his head. His hand, veins standing out beneath the skin, moved slowly downward. What tormented him now was not the cursed cold. It was a thirst — unfamiliar and relentless, something he had never once felt before in his life.
“…Elian.”
Just chewing that name silently inside his mouth sent a shiver down his spine. In his imagination, he devoured Elian again and again. Prying open those lips that had refused to part, tangling tongues together, pinning that pale body beneath him.
Creak — with the sound of reason snapping, his hand tightened around himself. A hot wave struck his lower abdomen, and a tremor rolled up his spine. The desire he had been suppressing broke open in the dark — secret and scorching.
For a long while, the quiet room was filled with nothing but ragged breathing, and the burning heat of a man consumed.
