At the absurd words, Wooyeon looked at Jeonghan as if he couldn’t believe it. With a face that could make anyone fall for him and a gentle smile, Jeonghan nodded at Wooyeon.
Wooyeon approached Jeonghan slowly, swallowing his tears. It felt like he was being enchanted. There was no time to think, and even if he had hesitated, the result wouldn’t have been different.
Wooyeon reached out his trembling hand and gently cupped Jeonghan’s handsome cheek. It was an ordinary action, but the sensation of skin touching skin felt unfamiliar. Jeonghan was still relaxed, and the smile hanging on his lips remained unchanged.
Wooyeon felt miserable again at Jeonghan, who seemed to have no intention of approaching first. With some courage, Wooyeon put a little strength into the hand cupping Jeonghan’s cheek and pulled him closer to his face. Was he drunk from the cocktail he’d had earlier?
Wooyeon, standing on tiptoe, slowly approached his lips, and soon their lips gently touched on the surface. Jeonghan’s lips were warm and felt somewhat soft. Wooyeon’s eyes, which had been looking far away, slowly closed as if sad. The tears falling again with a plop were pitiful.
“Sunbae.”
After Wooyeon’s kiss ended—just bringing lips to lips without any movement—Wooyeon lowered his feet from standing on tiptoe. The eyes looking up at Jeonghan cautiously were gauging his reaction to Jeonghan’s dumbfounded voice. The relaxed smile that had always hung on his face was momentarily erased.
“Is this a kiss?”
The moment Wooyeon’s hand cupping Jeonghan’s cheek was about to slip away, Jeonghan’s long fingers dug between Wooyeon’s fingers. Wooyeon’s surprised face took a step back, but that was all.
“Mm…!”
As his chin was pressed down, Jeonghan didn’t miss the opportunity and invaded between his parting lips. It wasn’t the pretty kiss he’d seen in dramas. His plump lips were pressed down painfully, and the tongue stirring inside his mouth was frightening. When Wooyeon’s legs gave out and he staggered, Jeonghan pushed Wooyeon against the wall.
“Ah, mm…”
Leaning his back against it made his posture a bit better, but this way he was completely trapped between the wall and Kwon Jeonghan. The saliva mixing in his mouth made his whole body dizzy.
When Wooyeon turned his head to avoid it, Jeonghan’s hand painfully grabbed Wooyeon’s chin. When the large hand stroked the back of his neck, his waist trembled, and at the unfamiliar sensation he was experiencing for the first time, Wooyeon continued to shed tears drop by drop.
Wooyeon was breathless, his heart pounding as if he’d been running at full speed. His legs kept trembling, and in the end, he even grabbed onto Jeonghan’s shirt. Jeonghan’s thigh that had somehow come between his legs was firm.
Jeonghan seemed to want to shake Wooyeon to his heart’s content, as the kiss showed no signs of ending. Only after licking Wooyeon’s lips, wet with saliva, with his tongue again did Jeonghan’s lips move away.
“Is… is that enough?”
Wooyeon’s hand wiping his lips and cheeks was trembling. Wooyeon had no way of knowing that his words pretending to be okay actually looked even more precarious.
Before he knew it, a satisfied smile had returned to Jeonghan’s face. Jeonghan looked at the trembling Wooyeon with amusement and slowly rubbed the saliva remaining on his lips with his thumb.
“I don’t know. I think I won’t be able to forget it even more.”
“What…?”
“But I’ll try my best to forget.”
“…”
“Sunbae.”
Jeonghan deliberately added the word “sunbae” even though he didn’t really think of him as a senior.
To Wooyeon, who was looking at him with trembling shoulders, Jeonghan smiled with a kind face. Tears poured from Wooyeon’s eyes.
* * *
Wooyeon woke up around 5 AM. Habit was truly a frightening thing. Even without setting an alarm before going to sleep, his body that woke up on its own was even sad.
Since there was no milk delivery on Saturdays and Sundays, it would have been okay to laze around a bit more, but somehow he didn’t feel like staying here any longer.
Wooyeon rubbed his bright red swollen eyes and got up from the bed. Pajamas were neatly folded beside the bed, but Wooyeon was wearing the white shirt and slacks he’d put on from the closet yesterday.
“…”
Wooyeon, who had been staring blankly outside the bedroom for a moment, shook his head. It all felt like a dream. It was unbelievable. To think he kissed Kwon Jeonghan…
Wooyeon recalled himself and Jeonghan kissing while pushed against the wall, then realized it was a memory he couldn’t handle and decided to stop. He just needed to forget. Kwon Jeonghan also said he would try to forget, so he just needed to forget. No, he shouldn’t have drunk that cocktail yesterday in the first place. He didn’t know what happened after getting drunk from barely one glass of cocktail.
Wooyeon got up and roughly slipped his feet into the slippers on the floor. How did he fall asleep last night? Wooyeon felt a headache coming on.
Wooyeon, who had been searching for the minibar the assist had mentioned, stopped walking again. After kissing Kwon Jeonghan, Kwon Jeonghan had laid his sobbing self on the bed. Having recalled up to that point, Wooyeon couldn’t find the minibar and went to a nearby wall to bang his forehead against it.
He must have gone crazy. Was he really enchanted? Why did he cry there? Wasn’t he really crazy…?
Since he had no memory after that, he must have fallen asleep while crying like that.
After rummaging through all the drawers and finally finding the minibar, Wooyeon took out a bottle of water and drank about half of it at once. His swollen eyes stung from crying too much.
Looking around the lounge again, it was utterly quiet. It was so clean that one wouldn’t know someone had come and gone, and the interior with its silence flowing through was even desolate.
Wooyeon felt relieved at Jeonghan’s absence while also feeling somewhat empty. To Kwon Jeonghan, it must have just been a prank. It wasn’t that he had any different expectations, but somehow his stomach felt bitter.
It was time for Wooyeon to forget about the one-night prank too. Wooyeon had reality left. And suddenly, Wooyeon sighed as Kwon Jeonghan’s face when laying him on the bed came to mind. Wooyeon even felt despair, thinking it seemed like a memory that would continue to torment him for a while.
Inside the closet was a large suitcase. Wooyeon took out the suitcase, placed it on the table, and brought an armful of clothes hanging in the closet. He stuffed the clothes he’d worn when coming to the Night of Sponsorship tightly into the suitcase, and with no more room, he wore his old knit sweater over his shirt since there was nowhere for it to go. He put on the sneakers he’d worn here, and put the three pairs of shoes from the closet into cloth pouches and stuffed them into the backpack he’d brought.
“Phew.”
Fatigue suddenly rushed over him as if he’d done hard labor. He knew it was shabby, but it felt like he needed to receive at least this minimum compensation. Of course, Wooyeon wasn’t taking them with the intention of wearing or using them himself. They were items beyond his station, and Wooyeon simply needed the money he could exchange them for.
Wooyeon lost his strength and sat down on the plush carpet. His long lower eyelashes got wet from the moisture that fell from his eyes without warning.
“I must be crazy.”
Wooyeon muttered to himself and roughly wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand. To be indulging in sentimentality over something like this, he really must have gone crazy.
Wooyeon, who had jumped up again, put on his padding and wore his heavy backpack. And as he grabbed the handle of the suitcase on the table to lift it, there was a sound of something falling under the table.
Wooyeon put the suitcase back on the floor and picked up what had fallen under the table. What was inside the small paper box was… exactly what Wooyeon had most wanted to obtain at the Night of Sponsorship.
TH’s new suppressant.
A note was attached to the package.
「Gift」
The concise handwriting was probably Jeonghan’s. After letting out a deep sigh, Wooyeon peeled off the note attached to the suppressant package, crumpled it with one hand, and threw it onto the lounge floor. Still, he was fortunate to have obtained the suppressant anyway. With this, he’d be able to breathe a little easier for the time being.
Wooyeon put the suppressant deep in his padding pocket and picked up the suitcase again. After confirming the lounge key was on the table, Wooyeon pushed the door open while pressing the lock from inside.
“What the…”
As soon as Wooyeon opened the door, he muttered to himself in surprise at the scraps of paper scattering in the air before his eyes. Wooyeon, who lowered his body out of curiosity to check the papers, slightly frowned. The small papers, which seemed to number at least a dozen or so, were all business cards. They were people he’d never even exchanged a word with.
「I would like to offer personal sponsorship.」
When he confirmed the memo written on the business card, Wooyeon straightened his body again. The names of those pretentious alphas were trampled under Wooyeon’s sneakers.
“Seo Wooyeon-nim?”
At the sound of someone calling him, Wooyeon turned his head. A man in a suit had approached beside Wooyeon, having been standing there since who knows when.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Min Gyuhwa, a ‘Night of Sponsorship’ assist.”
At the word assist, Wooyeon’s guard lowered a bit. Checking his chest area, there was a badge with the staff marking that yesterday’s assist in charge had mentioned.
“I’ll take you home. Taxis don’t come here.”
The man took the suitcase Wooyeon was holding with a businesslike but kind attitude. Did they originally take people home like this too? Wooyeon had a slight doubt, but thought it could be something that happens in a place like this.
