# Chapter 142
“Oh, this feels incredibly soft. It feels so good when it lightly brushes against my body.”
Tae Igyeol watched anxiously as Mo Eunje pranced around wearing only a roomy T-shirt. Tae Igyeol’s gaze was fixed on his smooth, long legs. His mouth kept drying up, causing him to repeatedly lick his dry lips.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Sensing the subtle gaze through the mirror, Mo Eunje turned his head abruptly to look at Tae Igyeol. Noticing his gaze directed downward, he chuckled.
“Ah, the pants? Don’t worry. I have something in mind that will match well.”
With self-confidence, Mo Eunje pulled out a fluorescent orange sweatpants that looked like it could blind someone just by looking at it. This was also one of the gifts Tae Igyeol had bought in New Orleans.
Seeing the pants in Mo Eunje’s hand, Tae Igyeol cleared his throat and snatched them away. For their first date, this was absolutely unacceptable. The T-shirt, the pants—Tae Igyeol unintentionally realized that he truly must have been out of his mind when he was in New Orleans.
To think he spent money buying these things as gifts…
After throwing the confiscated pants carelessly on the floor, Tae Igyeol cupped Mo Eunje’s cheeks with both hands and suddenly kissed him. His soft lips pressed firmly against Mo Eunje’s defenseless ones several times before gently biting them.
Vulnerable to skinship, Mo Eunje was easily captivated by the sweet sensation, forgetting what he was doing and immediately wrapping his arms around Tae Igyeol’s neck. Driven by the desire to be as close as possible to his firm body, he instinctively pressed against him and intertwined their legs. As Tae Igyeol nibbled on his lower lip, his tongue sought entry, licking between his lips as if asking for permission, and Mo Eunje reflexively opened his mouth. The blunt flesh invaded, exploring his teeth and mucous membrane.
Mo Eunje responded actively, entwining his tongue with Tae Igyeol’s. Their breaths, saliva, and tongues mingled, heightening their excitement. One of Tae Igyeol’s hands, which had been cupping Mo Eunje’s cheek, jaw, and nape, subtly rubbed his earlobe. The other hand unhesitatingly moved downward, firmly grabbing his rounded buttocks once before caressing his exposed thighs as if enveloping them. Suddenly, heat pooled in Mo Eunje’s lower abdomen while a shiver ran down his spine, causing him to unconsciously apply pressure and twist his waist.
“Mmmh…”
Just as an embarrassed sound resonated in his throat, the hand that had been stimulating his ear roughly grabbed the back of his neck, pressing their bodies even closer. Tae Igyeol released a rough breath and pressed forward as if he wanted to devour him. The hand that had been caressing the outside of Mo Eunje’s thigh boldly invaded between his legs, explicitly revealing his desire. Mo Eunje’s thighs tensed, and his muscles tightened.
But it wasn’t just his thigh muscles that had tensed. With their bodies pressed so close, Tae Igyeol surely felt it too. His situation wasn’t much different. When Mo Eunje realized this was getting dangerous, he snapped back to his senses, grabbing Tae Igyeol’s wrist to prevent further movement. He twisted his head to separate their locked lips and gasped for breath.
“Haa, ha… What’s this, so suddenly…”
“Eunje, whew… Let’s go to Busan right now.”
Tae Igyeol sighed, lowering his head and murmuring with his forehead against Mo Eunje’s shoulder. Mo Eunje automatically stroked the back of Tae Igyeol’s head, but was still distracted by the fingers subtly rubbing his thigh. Feeling the hard warmth between them become unfamiliar, he slightly pulled away. He couldn’t relax his vigilance because the moment he let go of the wrist he was holding, Tae Igyeol’s hand might touch where it shouldn’t.
“First, your hand…”
“Let’s go to Busan right now and get permission from your aunt and uncle.”
“What does that…”
“I can’t wait until summer vacation.”
A chill ran down Mo Eunje’s spine at the roughly cracked, terribly low bass voice. It was a statement whose meaning was all too clear.
“Igyeol. I’ll treat you to a course meal. I thought you’d want a course meal too.”
Mo Eunje pulled away from Tae Igyeol, blurting out the first thing that came to mind, and immediately turned his back. He pretended to be searching for pants in the dressing room while flustering, but in reality, Mo Eunje was also trying to hide the physical reaction that had explicitly occurred.
Whether before or after dating, nothing seemed to have changed outwardly, but his mindset had completely transformed. Thinking they could be “friends who also kiss” was the biggest misconception Mo Eunje had ever made in his life. There could be no such thing as friends who also kiss.
With his body so explicitly desiring Tae Igyeol like this, he couldn’t understand how he had restrained himself all this time. Perhaps if Tae Igyeol hadn’t mentioned going to Busan, he might have pretended to be crazy and gone further, disregarding conscience, filial piety, or anything else.
The addictive skinship with Tae Igyeol was dangerous enough to change Mo Eunje’s values. However, fortunately or unfortunately, Tae Igyeol unintentionally put the brakes on Mo Eunje by mentioning Busan and permission.
They had been alone in a car together countless times, but the feeling was completely different now. Every cell in his body was going wild with the desire to be in contact with Tae Igyeol, even just a little. Just making eye contact made him want to embrace, kiss, and touch him. This uncontrollable desire was a first for him and difficult to accept. If it weren’t for his concern about his parents, he would have had abnormal urges strong enough to lock Tae Igyeol up at home and indulge in biting and sucking him to his heart’s content.
Since Tae Igyeol might be very surprised to learn that Mo Eunje was considering something as absurd as confinement because he liked him so much, Mo Eunje decided to hide it as much as possible. Still, if possible, he wanted to escape the pressure of worrying about his parents and just spend time with Tae Igyeol, locked up in the house, doing various things together.
Throughout his 26 years of life, Mo Eunje had prided himself on having quite normal thoughts. Hadn’t even writer Kwon Jiyeon said so? That she had never seen such a normal person among writers. Of course, she had also added that this made him less charming, but Mo Eunje, with confirmation bias, only accepted what he wanted to believe.
Anyway, after starting a romance, the standard for “normal” was beginning to change. Since “normal” is a noun referring to a state that is proper without any special changes or problems, perhaps it was natural and normal to have thoughts of confinement about someone you love deeply. Even if it wasn’t sensible.
Still, he wasn’t completely crazy with love to the point of insane desire—he was aware that confinement was a crime. His mind eased considerably knowing that if he asked Tae Igyeol to just stay at home together all the time, he would nod in agreement. Mo Eunje managed his expression to hide the complex thoughts in his head with unnecessary speculation.
With an indifferent face, he looked out the window and then glanced at Tae Igyeol who was driving. His hands were lightly placed on the steering wheel. Feeling that gaze, Tae Igyeol asked in a plain tone.
“What?”
“Hey, you can drive with your left hand, right?”
“…Yeah.”
Perhaps because the intent of the question was obvious, he looked at Mo Eunje for a moment, answering half a beat late. Mo Eunje brazenly extended his left hand and casually spoke what he had prepared to say next.
“Then drive with your left hand. Give me your right hand.”
“You’re really seducing me as easily as breathing. How could I not like you and resist?”
Although it must have been an expected response, Tae Igyeol let out a hollow laugh and gripped the steering wheel tightly once. Earlier, he had been freely touching the inside of Mo Eunje’s thighs without permission, but now he was so tense about just holding hands.
“Forget it if you don’t want to.”
After dryly uttering words he didn’t mean, Tae Igyeol quickly overlapped his right hand with Mo Eunje’s palm. The corners of his mouth rose on their own, and a broad smile formed. Mo Eunje interlaced his fingers between Tae Igyeol’s straight fingers, clasping them together.
Just holding hands while Tae Igyeol drove felt this good, it was lamentable that he hadn’t found the courage to do it before. It felt like he had wasted time, having blown countless opportunities to hold hands whenever they were alone in the car.
“Eunje. Are you very hungry?”
“Yeah. Extremely hungry. Why? Aren’t you that hungry?”
“No. I am hungry, but…”
His trailing off at the end of the sentence seemed ominous.
“But what?”
“When we get out of the car, we’ll have to let go of our hands.”
Tae Igyeol held their interlaced hands a little more firmly. Who would have known Tae Igyeol had such a cute side? It felt like ants were crawling all over his body, unbearably ticklish, but his raised cheekbones showed no sign of coming down. The lovey-dovey behavior that had seemed creepy and unsightly when others did it was nothing but enjoyable when he did it himself.
Mo Eunje was also reluctant to let go of Tae Igyeol’s hand, but since they had dressed up and gone out, they couldn’t eat lunch in the car. And it was impossible to eat while holding hands. For a very brief moment, he regretted not ordering delivery food at home, but he still wanted to make their first date special. It would only take about 10 more minutes to reach the restaurant where they planned to have lunch.
“We can hold hands again in the car after eating, why regret such a thing? Let’s hold hands all the time at home until we’re sick of it.”
“…Keep that promise. I won’t let go even for a moment.”
“Yes, do that. After eating, should we go to the movies? It’s been a while. I heard Baek Suji’s movie was released a few days ago, and Hajun said it’s really fun.”
“I’m not interested in Baek Suji. We’re going straight home after eating.”
Looking at it carefully, Tae Igyeol was someone without a middle ground. It wasn’t incomprehensible. Despite the expectations for their first date, albeit improvised, it wasn’t easy for a same-sex couple who hadn’t come out in South Korea to date while showing affection. Even something as simple as holding hands required being mindful of others’ gazes.
