The heavy wooden rod that had been pressed firmly against Sa Ha-hyeon’s lower abdomen dropped to the floor. The smoothly carved piece of wood rolled away with a sound that was almost insultingly cheerful — and of all places, it rolled right up to the toes of Wei Wuyuan’s black leather shoes.
Wei Wuyuan looked down at the thing that had rolled to his feet, and his brow creased like a crumpled sheet of paper.
“You have been alone barely a month. And in that short time you could not endure it, and have taken up such a bizarre and vulgar hobby?”
“Pardon? No, Your Majesty. This is a misunderstanding. A vulgar hobby? How could you say such a thing.”
Sa Ha-hyeon quickly pulled his top back down and prostrated himself on the floor, pressing his forehead to the ground.
“I don’t want to hear it.”
Wei Wuyuan snatched up the wooden piece from the floor and thrust it right in front of Sa Ha-hyeon’s face. His lips nearly grazed the wood.
“This cock——!”
“……Pardon?”
Sa Ha-hyeon blinked and made a dull, vacant sound. His entire train of thought screeched to a halt. He questioned his own ears.
Did he just say — cock?
The august, supreme Emperor of an empire that commanded the whole world. No — even before that — from the lips of a young man of impeccable breeding, raised from birth as a precious treasure — could a word as crude and primal as cock truly have just come out?
“Are you so fond of this grotesque cock that you were clutching it first thing in the morning?!”
“No. A cock, he says. This is a misunderstanding.”
He hadn’t heard wrong. The blunt, unmistakable word rang out like a nail being driven home, and Sa Ha-hyeon was utterly dumbfounded. There was no shortage of ears listening. Had he thrown all dignity and decorum straight out the window?
“This is the imperial palace! In this sacred imperial palace that We govern — where did you dare obtain such a filthy object?! Which deranged fool gave the Jaein something like this?!”
Wei Wuyuan’s shout shook the very ceiling. He brandished the carved phallus through the air as though he were about to strike Sa Ha-hyeon down with it on the spot.
If I told him the truth — that I didn’t receive it from anyone but carved it myself——
He saw a vision of his head being cleanly severed from his body.
“I swear it was not brought in from outside. That thing.”
“Speak.”
Sa Ha-hyeon glanced up carefully at the wooden rod in the Emperor’s hand. He truly could not fathom in the slightest how anyone could look at that and see a man’s member. He turned his head this way and that, and a sigh escaped his lips.
“Ah——!”
Like finally succeeding at a magic eye puzzle, he could now see exactly what Wei Wuyuan meant. How had he failed to see it while carving the thing himself? The smoothly rounded head, the veins running along the shaft, the snug, substantial girth.
It is a cock, isn’t it.
Sa Ha-hyeon could no longer deny it. He was almost embarrassed at himself for having thought of it as a massage wand of all things. Wol truly had no fear — even blinded by money, how had she come up with the idea of making and selling something like this?
Wei Wuyuan, apparently having heard enough, called in the eunuchs and ordered them to comb through every corner of Ha-hyeon’s room to check whether any more indecent objects were present. The room that had been so carefully decorated to welcome the Emperor was reduced to chaos in an instant.
“Your Majesty, there is one more behind the wardrobe.”
“There is also one under the bed.”
“And inside the jar as well…….”
The eunuchs lined up the confiscated items before the Emperor. A thick one, one with a curved tip, and one with veins standing out in relief — together with the one already in the Emperor’s hand, four obscene wooden cocks stood in a row. Sa Ha-hyeon, forced to look at this, felt like he was already dead.
“Your Majesty, please send the others away. This humble consort will explain everything.”
“Everyone withdraw.”
Now only four wooden cocks and two men remained in the room. Wei Wuyuan asked in an even lower voice.
“Well then. Speak freely. Have you truly been with a man before?”
The interrogation had shifted from being treated as a pervert to being questioned about chastity. Sa Ha-hyeon’s mind worked furiously. No matter what, he could not admit that these were cocks.
“No. How could I have ever been with a man? And besides, those are not a man’s member.”
“Then what are they?”
“They are a toy.”
Snap.
The wooden rod finally broke clean in two. What kind of toy could he have been imagining that even the word toy made him this angry? Sa Ha-hyeon hurriedly snatched the broken pieces from Wei Wuyuan’s hands.
“Absolutely obscene. Utterly obscene.”
“It is not obscene. This humble consort — there is a traditional game from the place where I lived as a very young child. It is called yut——nori. You throw four long wooden sticks, then look at which way they land face-up or face-down to move your pieces — a perfectly wholesome game. Here, allow me to show you.”
Sa Ha-hyeon gathered up the carved phalluses from the floor one by one. The oddly satisfying grip of the pieces filling both hands only made him feel more mortified. The Emperor’s gaze followed Ha-hyeon’s every movement. Then Sa Ha-hyeon raised all four carved pieces up to head height, and with a cry, flung them down onto the floor.
“Yut!”
With a loud clatter, the pieces fell — and did not land face-up or face-down as Ha-hyeon had described. The pieces simply rolled every which way across the floor.
“They just roll around.”
Cold sweat ran down Ha-hyeon’s spine at the Emperor’s frigid response. The yut-nori gambit had been a catastrophic failure. Sa Ha-hyeon opened his tightly shut eyes and scrambled to change course.
“That was — that was a jest. The atmosphere was so grave I thought I might air it out a little. I was rash. The truth is, these are not yut sticks but something called a massage wand——”
“A massage wand?”
Wei Wuyuan tilted his head at the unfamiliar term.
“Ah — that is to say, it is a regional dialect word meaning massage. This humble consort, when I briefly lived abroad as a child, learned massage from a skilled healer there. At that time, my teacher told me that to release blocked pressure points, one must use a tool that is exactly…. long and round like this.”
It was a completely absurd lie.
“You learned massage in a foreign land as a child.”
Wei Wuyuan repeated Ha-hyeon’s words as though turning them over in his mouth.
“Yes. The weight of the empire Your Majesty carries must be as great as Mount Tai, and your body surely never has a moment’s peace. It was with the wish to serve you with this secret technique that I stayed up through the night carving these.”
Perhaps it was the relentless, desperate will to survive — the lies were coming out remarkably smoothly.
“For me. You stayed up through the night carving these, you say.”
Wei Wuyuan’s expression shifted in a peculiar way. Every trace of his blazing fury vanished without a trace, replaced by a look of quiet satisfaction as he gazed steadily at Sa Ha-hyeon.
“If Your Majesty would permit it — though my skill is humble — I will do my utmost with all sincerity.”
“Very well. Your devotion is so admirable that I shall take you at your word.”
“Then, one moment.”
Sa Ha-hyeon layered the bedding thickly on top of the bed, making it soft and plush. Ha-hyeon gestured for him to lie down, and Wei Wuyuan walked over to the bed and sat.
“To properly locate the pressure points, you will need to remove your upper garments.”
“If it is necessary, there is no helping it.”
Wei Wuyuan moved his hands toward his sash.
“Allow me to help you undress. Please, be at ease.”
Wei Wuyuan’s hands stopped in midair. In truth, Ha-hyeon had no ulterior motive. The Emperor’s clothing appeared to be at least three or four layers, and Ha-hyeon simply didn’t have the patience to wait for his unhurried movements.
“If that is what is needed, then do so.”
Wei Wuyuan said it curtly and turned his head away — and his earlobe, just visible, was flushed as red as a ripe persimmon.
As I thought — he is embarrassed.
Even as a child, he had been far more bashful than other boys his age. Ha-hyeon found himself charmed by that side of Wei Wuyuan all over again, and moved his hands with an energy he rarely showed.
Sa Ha-hyeon loosened the sash bound around Wei Wuyuan’s waist and tugged at the ribbon fastening the front of his outer robe. He grabbed the layers of silk robes wrapped around the Emperor’s body all at once and pulled them down — and a clean, smooth back and broad, wide shoulders were revealed.
He grew up well. He really grew up so well.
“Please lie down comfortably.”
“Very well.”
As the Emperor lay face-down on the bed, the tightly woven muscles of his back stood out even more prominently. Ha-hyeon looked down at that vast expanse of back and paused for a moment in thought. He had claimed massage as his specialty, but if he tried to work through those boulder-like muscles with his bare hands, his own finger joints would give out first.
I need massage oil…….
Just then, Ha-hyeon’s gaze landed on the silk-wrapped bundle sitting in the corner of the table. It was the item the eunuch had quietly handed to Wol the day before — the one said to be a scent His Majesty favored, sent with instructions to burn it in the room before he arrived.
He unwrapped the bundle at once, and inside was a smooth, curved gourd-shaped bottle. The moment he opened the stopper, a dizzying, sweet and dreamy fragrance washed over him.
Ha-hyeon tipped the bottle without hesitation. Starting from the nape of Wei Wuyuan’s neck, he poured the thick, clear, fragrant oil generously down along the line of his spine.
“Ha…….”
At the sudden sensation of cold liquid touching his skin, the muscles of Wei Wuyuan’s back gave a small shiver. Ha-hyeon paid it no mind, set the bottle down, and rolled up his sleeves.
“Now then, I will begin. It may hurt a little.”
Memories from his past life flashed through his mind like a reel. The skills he had built up kneading his seniors’ backs during his judo days — who would have thought they’d be put to use like this. Truly, as they say, no experience is ever wasted.
Seniors’ backs or the Emperor’s back — if it’s knotted up, it’s knotted up the same.
Ha-hyeon planted one knee on the bed and found his position. Then, without hesitation, he drove his elbow into the thick muscle running just alongside Wei Wuyuan’s spine.
“Ngh.”
A suppressed groan broke from Wei Wuyuan’s lips. But Ha-hyeon didn’t stop. He put the full weight of his body behind his elbow and began to push firmly upward along the erector spinae muscle bracing the spine, careful not to touch the vertebrae themselves.
The harder he pressed down, the rougher Wei Wuyuan’s breathing became. Riding that momentum, Ha-hyeon switched to both thumbs and found the sunken pressure point on the inner edge of the shoulder blade, pressing into it in firm, deep circles.
“Please relax. This area is quite knotted.”
After a long stretch of vigorous, deeply satisfying work, Ha-hyeon paused for a moment to catch his breath and lifted his hands. A long, deep exhale came from Wei Wuyuan, whose face had been buried in the pillow.
“Haaah…. That is very good.”
Wei Wuyuan turned his head slightly and looked at Sa Ha-hyeon through languid, half-lidded eyes. Ha-hyeon cheered inwardly. But there was one fatal miscalculation Sa Ha-hyeon had made.
The liquid inside that gourd bottle Wol had received from the eunuch — it was not simply a fragrant oil the Emperor was fond of. It was a potent aphrodisiac, a secret imperial formula, used discreetly by the concubines who attended the Emperor’s nights to bring him greater pleasure and sensation in the bedchamber.
He had poured the entire thing onto someone’s back — it was only a matter of time before the consequences came. And the greater problem was that the drug’s effects had also been transmitted to Sa Ha-hyeon, the one who had applied and rubbed it in skin-to-skin.
Sa Ha-hyeon fanned himself with his hand and wiped the sweat forming on his brow. Why has the room gotten so hot? The palace servants must have loaded the furnace with firewood again because His Majesty had arrived.
But something was off. It wasn’t simply that he was warm. His breathing was growing oddly shallow, and from somewhere deep in his belly, a creeping heat was rising up through him. On top of that came a strange, heavy pulling sensation low in his abdomen. Sa Ha-hyeon put it down to having done massage with far too much enthusiasm after such a long time.
His body felt strange, but regardless, what he had started had to be seen through to the end. If he stopped here, there was every chance the interrogation about those obscene carved wooden cocks — no, acupressure wands — would start right back up again.
Just as Sa Ha-hyeon was about to reach back out toward Wei Wuyuan’s oil-slicked shoulders — Wei Wuyuan’s hand shot up and snatched Sa Ha-hyeon’s wrist. It was burning. A hand so hot it was hard to believe it belonged to a living person.
“Your Majesty?”
A powerful grip yanked his arm. Sa Ha-hyeon’s body, completely off-balance, pitched forward helplessly. In an instant, Ha-hyeon found himself pulled into the Emperor’s arms. The scent of Wei Wuyuan’s skin and the sweet, heady fragrance of the oil hit his nose all at once.
