Wei Wuyuan’s gaze was not on Ha-hyeon’s face — it was fixed squarely on what was rigidly standing at attention between his legs, straining visibly through the thin fabric. Sa Ha-hyeon belatedly covered his groin with his hands. His face felt like it was going to burst from sheer mortification.
“Don’t look! This is nothing!”
Even he himself didn’t know what he was saying anymore. Nothing — what on earth did he mean, nothing.
“Shh.”
“No. It’s not — I mean……”
For now, he at least had to redirect Wei Wuyuan’s gaze. Sa Ha-hyeon pulled out a hair ornament and flung it across the room. The metal piece clattered noisily across the floor — sharp enough to make one’s ears sting. Yet Wei Wuyuan’s eyes didn’t so much as flicker. He simply curled the corner of his mouth as if Ha-hyeon’s desperate antics amused him.
“Surely you didn’t think I was some dog that would go scampering after a tossed stone.”
I’m so screwed. It’s over.
Sa Ha-hyeon spun around and tried to leap off the bed. But Wei Wuyuan was faster.
“And where do you think you’re running off to.”
Relentless arms coiled around his torso.
“Please let me go. I think I’ve caught a cold. I’m afraid I might pass it on to your sacred person — please, step away quickly.”
“Oh my. How entertaining. Tell me — what woman in this world gets something like that standing at attention between her legs when she catches a cold. I am deeply curious.”
“Th, there’s nothing there. Your Majesty must have been seeing things. Please let me go. Please?”
Wei Wuyuan’s large hand slid slowly down Ha-hyeon’s abdomen. His fingertips passed the navel and reached the place that was pulled taut and straining. Ha-hyeon frantically pressed his own hand over the Emperor’s, holding it in place so he could not slide it any lower.
“Not only do you treat me like a dog — now you’d make me a blind man as well.”
“No. Never — not at all. It’s a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding.”
“……A misunderstanding?”
“The folds of the fabric are layered on top of each other, making it look that way. Ugh!”
Wei Wuyuan’s large hand closed firmly around what was throbbing with indignation between Ha-hyeon’s legs, seizing it in one grasp. The force of his grip through the fabric was considerable.
“And you’re still going to say no. That I was imagining things?”
Wei Wuyuan slowly kneaded what he held as if confirming it was real, and whispered against Ha-hyeon’s ear.
“Hah……. Your, Your Majesty. Please let g, go.”
“Perhaps I am seeing things after all. Because otherwise, how could something like this be attached between the legs of such a lovely Yeong-ui.”
“It’s a swollen lump from a bruise. Ugh……”
A swollen lump from a bruise — even a small child would laugh at such an excuse. But Wei Wuyuan received that absurd lie with gentleness.
“Oh dear. Is it swollen?”
“Yes, yes! So please don’t touch it. Hngh!”
“If it’s swollen, the pooled blood needs to be worked loose.”
The hand that had been stroking him through the fabric slipped beneath the hem of his undergarment and made contact with bare skin. The Emperor’s hand closed around Ha-hyeon’s member. Sa Ha-hyeon’s head snapped back convulsively.
“Ngh.”
“Shh.”
Wei Wuyuan’s fingers stroked slowly, achingly deliberately up the length of him. His rough, calloused palm grazed the sensitive skin like it was dragging along every nerve. It was coarse and burning.
“Do you remember. Yeong-ui did this to me.”
Wei Wuyuan nibbled at the shell of Ha-hyeon’s ear and whispered.
“Haa…. Ha, ugh, Your, Your Majesty……”
“You gripped the shaft firmly, and stretched your thumb out to press here — just like this — rubbing it in circles, as if to tease.”
Wei Wuyuan’s thumb pressed firmly against the tip of Ha-hyeon’s member, sealing it shut, then lifted away. It was a precise and brazenly deliberate movement — like covering and uncovering the holes of a flute to tune its notes.
For the past ten years, surviving in an unfamiliar world had left no room for desire or carnal indulgence — such things were no better than luxuries. Not only had he never been intimate with another person, he had rarely even tended to himself with his own hand.
Given that, the sensations Wei Wuyuan’s stroking hand drew out of him surpassed mere pleasure. It was a bolt of lightning shooting straight up his spine and through his mind in a single instant. He had never once imagined that the touch of another person’s hand — and one belonging to a man, at that — could awaken such raw, unfiltered sensation.
“Haa, ugh.”
Each time a moan slipped from Ha-hyeon’s mouth, Wei Wuyuan’s hand moved faster and more relentlessly. The friction of skin that had been somewhat dry had, at some point, become slick with fluid Ha-hyeon had let slip — turning wet and obscene with sound.
Slick. Slick.
Ha-hyeon panted, lost in the haze of arousal, yet couldn’t bring himself to look down. He couldn’t bear to face the fact that what was between his own legs was growing wet in the Emperor’s hand. He couldn’t bring himself to accept that he was the source of those lewd sounds hammering against his ears.
“You seem to be enjoying this quite a bit. Unlike before, you’re not telling me to stop.”
“Ah, ugh, I’m n——!”
“You are.”
Wei Wuyuan pressed hard against the tip of Ha-hyeon, swollen to his limit.
“Had I known Yeong-ui had something like this, I would have enjoyed such pleasures with you long before now.”
Wei Wuyuan’s voice dissolved into a buzzing hum. Ha-hyeon could no longer make out any words properly. Only pleasure ruled his entire body. He had reached his limit. The moment Wei Wuyuan’s thumb twisted against that most sensitive spot and then abruptly pulled away —
White stars burst before Ha-hyeon’s eyes.
“……Hah!”
Like a man struck by lightning, Ha-hyeon’s upper body jerked violently. The moment all strength left him and he pitched forward, Wei Wuyuan caught him in his arms.
All at once —
Semen shot from Ha-hyeon’s member and soaked Wei Wuyuan’s palm in a wet mess. What his hand couldn’t catch in time trickled between his fingers and dripped onto the silk bedding.
“Hah, hah……”
Every last ounce of strength drained from him, Ha-hyeon went limp and could only draw ragged breaths that seemed on the verge of cutting out entirely.
Wei Wuyuan stared at his now-sticky hand for a moment, then met Ha-hyeon’s gaze — still gasping, still lost in the aftermath.
“No matter how much the Imperial Guard Commander saved you from danger, could he make you feel this good.”
“…….”
“Yeong-ui. I can give you pleasure.”
Wei Wuyuan whispered with absolute certainty, then reached for a white silk cloth. He moved to clean up the mess left behind by Ha-hyeon’s release himself.
The moment the silk cloth touched Ha-hyeon’s still-swollen, hypersensitive tip, his body shuddered violently as though struck by electricity. Skin in the immediate aftermath of climax reacted to even the lightest graze with something close to pain.
“Stop. Ugh……”
Ha-hyeon cried out and pushed Wei Wuyuan’s shoulder away. He couldn’t take any more. Shame, pleasure, and fear had all tangled into one until his head felt like it was going to explode. He turned away as if fleeing and collapsed onto his side, deeper into the bed.
“How sensitive you are. Anyone watching would think you’d been touched by a man for the very first time today.”
“Touched for the first time?”
Ha-hyeon muttered into the pillow with his face buried in it. It was deeply unfair. No matter how close to celibate his life had been for the past ten years, to look like a virgin to a grown man — this was clearly mockery.
Wei Wuyuan pressed close against Ha-hyeon’s back and lay down beside him.
“It feels different from Byeoksong Palace.”
There was no time to think deeply about what those words meant. Ha-hyeon’s mind was already in complete disarray. As the heat that had swept through him like a storm began to cool, reason slowly raised its head.
I’m completely done for. What do I do now.
Everything had gone dark before his eyes. Being a man had been found out — undeniably, inescapably. There was no room for excuses. No — it wasn’t just his sex that had been exposed. The fact that he was not the princess of Seoran had been laid bare. On top of that, his member had stood at full attention in the Emperor’s very palm — and to make matters worse, he had gone and finished. Had there ever been someone this insane in all of Daehyeon’s history.
The one thing he should have held back, even with a blade to his throat, was finishing. No — the real question was why it had gotten hard in the first place. He was genuinely appalled at his own body for getting aroused by the touch of that cold-blooded Emperor’s hand.
“I hear that Seoran has been so devastated by war that there are no longer any tributes to offer, nor anything left to squeeze from the treasury. A hostage from a hollowed-out country. And if the others in the imperial palace were to learn that this hostage is a man — what do you think would happen.”
“…….”
With nothing to say no matter how many mouths he might have, Ha-hyeon simply lay still, thinking: so it’s finally here.
“As Emperor, I have no choice but to abide by the law. If it comes to light that you are not the princess of Seoran, regardless of my own wishes — I will have to behead you and display your head as a warning.”
As if gauging where to make the cut, Wei Wuyuan slowly dragged his fingers down the nape of Ha-hyeon’s neck. A chill crawled up his spine.
“Deceiving the palace with a false identity and entering was entirely my own reckless doing. So please — even if you must kill me, do not hold Seoran responsible.”
It would be enough to enrage anyone — even without being Emperor. And so Ha-hyeon thought that this was where his life in this place would end. He found himself wondering: if he died here, would he return to his original world — or fall into yet another world inside a different book.
“What a cold thing to say. I’m not going to kill you. I am not the sort of man who trembles with resentment over something as trivial as betrayal.”
“…….”
Can a national-scale act of deception really be summed up as something as trivial as betrayal.
Ha-hyeon couldn’t tell whether Wei Wuyuan was simply magnanimous — or had lost his mind. Perhaps both.
“Is there not a saying — even poison can be useful depending on how it’s used. It was only after meeting Yeong-ui that I was finally able to sleep at night.”
Wei Wuyuan buried his nose against Ha-hyeon’s nape and drew a deep breath. That rough and almost desperate sound felt to Ha-hyeon like the labored breathing of a gravely ill patient clinging to life by an oxygen tube. Wei Wuyuan continued.
“And so, Yeong-ui. This must remain a secret between the two of us alone. If you conduct yourself carelessly — and the moment anyone other than me discovers the secret between your legs — in order to protect our secret, I will have no choice but to cut down whoever comes to know it.”
It was a chilling warning.
