“…….”
“……I’ve never once….”
“…….”
“…I guess there hasn’t been a single moment… I didn’t love you.”
He had told himself otherwise — but the truth was, he hadn’t even realized it himself. So much time had passed, worn thin and faded, that he’d convinced himself it couldn’t possibly still be there. Life had been too busy, too exhausting. It can’t be. It shouldn’t be. He’d kept repeating that to himself like a mantra. But looking back now, having come this far — it had all just been his own desperate thrashing. Not wanting to be a burden… not wanting to overstep… Afraid that if he dared to love him again, he’d be the only one who ended up hurt. Again.
He said it with a kind of resolute finality, as if confessing to a crime — and from between the lips of the man who’d been listening in a daze, a hollow laugh escaped.
“……Ha.”
He laughed, his face slack with relief. As if he were finally breathing again, his broad chest rose and fell in a visible, shuddering exhale.
“…Of course.”
His voice — normally so full of his signature arrogance — trembled in a way that didn’t suit it at all. Then he pulled Munyeong toward him once more and folded him into his arms.
That composed way he always had of taking one step further, of speaking his heart plainly — it made Haejeong’s chest stir. That calm, quiet confession left him feeling both glad and achingly sad at the same time. A strange guilt washed over him alongside everything else, and Haejeong bit down hard on his trembling lower lip.
“…I knew it.”
He shot back playfully, forcing lightness into his tone — but his face looked like he was about to cry. Laughing through tears, his expression overwhelmed and brimming, Haejeong threw his arms around Munyeong with everything he had.
Munyeong felt the firm circle of his arms wrapping around him and went still, quietly letting himself be held. He gently patted the body trembling faintly against his own, and silently endured Haejeong’s frantic, desperate need to hold him — hugging him again and again, unable to stop.
Soon, a soft, barely-there sob reached Munyeong’s ear, and the corners of his eyes curved long and gentle. It was both heartbreaking and quietly wonderful — watching him struggle so desperately to swallow his tears. Feeling his heart so directly, Munyeong’s own smiling eyes grew faintly wet at the edges.
A happiness he had never once known before melted softly into his chest.
11.
Their clasped hands held on with a fierce, almost painful strength. Munyeong kept glancing sideways at him, fidgeting, unable to stop stealing looks. He was clearly, visibly nervous — and because of that, the hand holding his was rigid too. The grip was so tight it actually hurt, but after a moment, Munyeong simply let out a faint, quiet smile and let it go.
It looked strange on him — that nervousness. It felt unfamiliar, and oddly disorienting. Haejeong, nervous and at a loss because of him. Even watching it with his own eyes, he couldn’t quite believe it. It made him feel almost embarrassed — the secondhand awkwardness of it.
The held hands had lasted from the car, through stepping out of it, and now all the way onto the elevator. His palm had grown clammy with tension. When Munyeong tried to quietly slip his hand free out of embarrassment, that large hand pursued him relentlessly, refusing to let go. An attitude that made clear he wouldn’t tolerate even a moment of separation. Munyeong kept stealing glances down at their joined hands.
“…What.”
As if he’d felt that gaze, Haejeong — who had been staring straight ahead — tossed out a quiet word. He’d clearly noticed the sideways looks.
“O-oh… no, nothing. Just.”
It wasn’t as if anything particular was being said, but Munyeong flushed for no reason, his face going hot, stumbling over his words.
“…….”
“…….”
After that, an awkward silence settled again. Everything that had happened so suddenly felt unreal. Even this moment — standing side by side, hands clasped together.
Munyeong blinked blankly, expression dazed, then quietly pinched his own thigh. It hurt. So it wasn’t a dream after all. Then why did everything still feel so hazy, like one?
“…What are you doing.”
As if he’d caught even that small movement, Haejeong let out something close to a suppressed laugh and asked. Munyeong, still stiffly awkward, smiled faintly like something had short-circuited, and slowly opened his mouth.
“Nothing… just….”
He tried to brush it off, but under that relentlessly trailing gaze, he hesitated and opened his mouth again, a little clumsily.
“…Something about this….”
“…….”
“…feels like a dream.”
He said it softly, voice barely above a murmur, smiling an unpolished smile — and just then, a short mechanical chime rang out. The elevator had arrived. The doors began to slide open, and just as Munyeong moved to step forward, the other person was suddenly, completely still. He was standing there like he’d turned to stone, staring down at him with an unblinking, obvious look. Munyeong rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish.
“…Aren’t you getting off?”
Munyeong looked up at him with clear, open eyes and asked — and Haejeong’s face shifted. Before Munyeong could make sense of that subtle change, Haejeong’s upper body came crashing forward. Startled by the suddenly closing distance, Munyeong instinctively stepped back. The elevator shuddered with a thud, and his back collided with the hard wall.
Peck.
And in an instant, his lips pressed against his — and pulled away.
Munyeong’s pupils, blown wide, trembled visibly. Inside those shaking eyes, he could see Haejeong — staring back at him with burning intensity.
“…Wh, what are you…….”
Instead of an answer, the kiss that had just barely landed left Munyeong’s face blooming a deep, satisfying red.
“You know.”
His voice came low and close, right in front of his eyes, rippling softly.
“There’s something about you that drives me absolutely crazy.”
At the sudden words, Munyeong could only blink, his expression blank, his big eyes doing all the work. Haejeong gazed at that clear, guileless face and curved the corner of his mouth in quiet satisfaction. His usual arrogant gaze and the look of someone helplessly, hopelessly enamored were tangled together as he pressed his body even closer.
“You feel like it’s a dream just being with me.”
“…….”
“If it’s that good — how did you hold yourself back all this time?”
Huh?
Haejeong murmured, questioning, and then urgently cupped Munyeong’s face in his hands and began pressing quick kisses against it. Once on his cheek. Peck. On the tip of his nose. Peck. On his forehead, then along his cheekbone and the line of his lips, peck peck — warm breath spilling out and beginning to burn with heat.
“W-wait a second….”
“How did you hold back, I’m asking you.”
Peck.
“Ngh. Hae, Haejeong….”
“Fuck…. Holding back was killing me.”
Peck peck.
“How did you manage it, seriously….”
Haejeong let out a low, sighing murmur and finally covered his lips with his own. The moment their lips met, his tongue pushed through immediately. Munyeong froze on the spot, completely blindsided by the assault. Haejeong’s face, utterly consumed and absorbed, was right there in front of him. Like a fuse had been lit, he couldn’t hold back — his face as he came at him was raw with desperate, starving need.
Haejeong kissed him furiously even while unlocking the door. They’d barely made it out of the elevator, and already he couldn’t wait — he pushed Munyeong up against the wall again and went at his lips hungrily, messily. So urgent that their teeth clashed, rubbing and pressing without knowing or caring whether he was even hitting his lips or somewhere else.
Haejeong devoured Munyeong’s lips like prey and poured out the ragged breaths rising from deep in his gut. How long — how long had he ached for this moment. For the past month, Haejeong had been living like a man dying of thirst. He had shut himself inside the bedroom where Munyeong had briefly stayed and hadn’t left for days. He drained every bottle of whiskey and brandy in the house — there had been dozens. And then he’d lain in Munyeong’s bed and breathed in the fading scent and touched himself. After finishing, a deep, hollow emptiness would wash over him, and he’d choke back tears that kept coming no matter what. He hadn’t known until now that he was a man capable of crying this much. No — it was simply that Im Munyeong had taken every single one of his firsts. Even his first tears. Tears, for a man, are proof of his deepest, truest feeling.
“W-wait a… mmph, ngh….”
Munyeong was flustered and couldn’t collect himself against the relentless kissing. He could feel Haejeong notice his embarrassment — but that wasn’t what mattered right now. The real problem was what was happening below the waist, which had already been responding since the moment they’d stepped onto the elevator, since that charged, embarrassed tension had swirled in the air, since he’d first felt the subtle electricity between them. The scent he’d been longing for, the clear and open face he’d ached to see — the moment they were finally within reach, the urgency that had been driving him right to the edge of madness had now made itself undeniably, physically known.
“Ha…. God…. I’ve been wanting to kiss you so fucking badly.”
Haejeong pressed the door code with one hand and gripped the back of Munyeong’s head with the other.
Not a single word of it was a lie. If he had never tasted it before, he could have stayed ignorant — but Haejeong had tasted it more than once. And once you’ve tasted something, once it’s gotten under your skin, there’s simply no cutting it off. He knew he should restrain himself. They’d finally met again, and he knew he needed to rein in his impulsive behavior — but right now, in this moment, that was asking far too much.
Beep. Beep-beep.
