The lips heated from using his ability were rough. For something that lunged at him so thirstily, the touching lips were cautious. The rough lips pressed warmly against him so as not to hurt Han Seoha, gently stealing his flustered breath.
“Jae, geon. Why……”
The clumsy question was swallowed by contact slow enough to feel almost tender.
‘Really, why is he like this? As if we’re lovers or something.’
Han Seoha’s question was valid. Even if he couldn’t voice it, he examined Ryu Jaegeon with his eyes. Though just holding hands would suffice for guiding, he wondered at the action of caressing all the way to his wrist.
When Han Seoha didn’t respond to Ryu Jaegeon’s tongue that slid in like flowing water, perhaps thinking he was tense, he raised his hand to fondle his earlobe. At this, Han Seoha shrank back and turned his head. Though faint, the clear rejection grated on Ryu Jaegeon’s nerves.
“What is it?”
What should have been a blunt voice was mixed with gentle sulking. Unlike Ryu Jaegeon, emotion showed that tried to consider this side’s circumstances. Yet the hand touching his wrist and earlobe was subtle. As if seeking permission even after already invading.
Han Seoha’s reaction to the obvious temptation should be bewilderment.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this.”
At the words that he didn’t know, Ryu Jaegeon pressed his face close and bit the ear he’d been fondling. The hand that had been touching his wrist had already wrapped around his waist to grab his ass, lightly moving Han Seoha onto his lap.
“Huk, Jaegeon……”
“You still don’t know even with this?”
Below his ass forcibly grabbed and seated, he could feel Ryu Jaegeon’s hardened body. The calm face made it difficult to guess when it had started to say he’d gotten erect from just a kiss.
Han Seoha perceived this purely as discomfort that Ryu Jaegeon as an Esper must be feeling.
“It’s because of guiding, right? I’m sorry, Jaegeon. Espers always have difficult things happening……”
“What are you saying? When have I ever gotten hard while guiding with you?”
“Huh?”
Their bodies touched without gaps and their faces were too close, so Han Seoha stopped breathing. The proposal uttered at a distance where their lips would collide every time he spoke was resolute as if to engrave it into Han Seoha’s soul.
“Let’s sleep together, Seoha.”
What the fuck is this crazy bastard saying right now.
Han Seoha, barely hiding his expression that wanted to contort, struggled to control his mind.
‘Stay calm. You’re Han Seoha. Who devoted yourself to Ryu Jaegeon… and was abandoned.’
The more I think about it, he really is a fucking crazy bastard.
Unable to grasp his emotions at all, he lowered his head deeply and shook it. At best it was at the level of rubbing against Ryu Jaegeon’s neck, but he couldn’t show a face that failed to hide his displeasure.
‘Fuck, I knew from when he flew to the lakeside. But why the hell is he acting crazy all of a sudden.’
He tried to hide the surging emotion as irritation but it was useless. The resentment he’d barely pushed down raised its head.
You’re the one who abandoned me.
That I wasn’t needed. That I was useless.
You’re the one who said you were tired of even looking at my face.
After abandoning me so thoroughly that I couldn’t even ask for help no matter how much Han Seoha suffered to the point of death.
“What, why are you crying?”
The hand wiping the tears flowing down his cheeks was hot, making it harder for Han Seoha to endure his grief.
After being abandoned by Ryu Jaegeon, Han Seoha, who had passed through the hands of countless Espers, was tormented more by the absence of that uniquely hot familiarity among all those rough hands. The terribly deep lingering attachment wondering if he might come find him again was both Han Seoha’s pure devotion and his stupidity.
“What’s the problem? I need you to tell me to know.”
At Han Seoha’s pitiful crying, Ryu Jaegeon also seemed flustered as he repeatedly just wiped away tears.
The hot hand he couldn’t find to the very end. Foolish Han Seoha who waited until the last moment for the high body temperature characteristic of flame-type Espers. Yet now it was this easy.
Even if it was light emotion based on interest, Ryu Jaegeon’s voice getting hard over Han Seoha and directly demanding was too desperate for his past self.
“I… can’t.”
“Why? Trying to keep loyalty to Baek Uihyeon?”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Then, are you waiting for that kid Jeong Iro?”
“It’s not because of someone else, Jaegeon.”
“Then? What’s the problem?”
If he mentioned Yu Haneul, he’d ask what’s the point of talking about someone who isn’t here. If asked why when guiding isn’t lacking, he’d say that’s for Ryu Jaegeon himself to judge. Unless he made excuses about another Esper, there was no way for Han Seoha to avoid this.
“Because I’m not your Guide.”
At the obvious rejection, Ryu Jaegeon stubbornly pressed their lips together. Opening the clumsily closed lips was easy. Yet Han Seoha’s tears caught his ankles. In the end, Ryu Jaegeon irritably pulled his lips away and had no choice but to ask while looking into Han Seoha’s face.
“So why are you bawling?”
“Because you’re… too late.”
It was a truth Han Seoha would never have been able to speak.
Late for what. The single response Ryu Jaegeon would have answered nonchalantly couldn’t come out because thoroughly wet eyes looked at Ryu Jaegeon having lost their color. Those eyes looked at Ryu Jaegeon yet couldn’t see him properly, and the tears that flowed pitifully stopped him in his tracks just as they had made him explode.
“I’ll guide you. Whether by hand or mouth… I’ll do it however you want. But as long as I’m C-rank and you’re A-rank, anything more is meaningless. Because it would just be sex.”
Is it something to refuse this much. Even if he says it’s late, how late could it be. Instead of the words swirling in Ryu Jaegeon’s mouth, Han Seoha knelt first.
“That… if that’s what you want……”
If we’re not partners and not lovers. If you don’t tell me you love me.
“I will never consent.”
If you do it anyway, it would only be rape.
There was no way Ryu Jaegeon, who knew Han Seoha better than anyone, wouldn’t understand. Even as Ryu Jaegeon’s face crumpled completely, Han Seoha sank into resignation instead of reading the room like usual. When Ryu Jaegeon stood up irritably, the pushed Han Seoha brushed off the dirt without even a groan. Ryu Jaegeon watched Han Seoha stand up alone until the end, then just moved his lips before gritting his teeth.
As if he didn’t know what to say because he had too much he wanted to say. Or perhaps he realized that any words would just be excuses.
“You.”
The still-hot hand couldn’t catch Han Seoha and flailed in empty air.
He won’t be able to admit it. He won’t be able to say it out loud. That his feelings toward Han Seoha have changed. Or he might have realized he already liked me, but.
Ryu Jaegeon couldn’t control his wavering emotions and instead threw a tantrum.
“It’s ridiculous, really, that you give it to an S-rank but act expensive with me.”
Ryu Jaegeon couldn’t confess affection rather than lust. Shamelessly enough, he still had enough composure to uphold his pride.
‘You don’t even know that composure is kicking away your last chance.’
Because I’ll make it that way. On the day you regret and kneel, Han Seoha will already be nothing to you.
Because even the tears that the last affection toward Ryu Jaegeon shed volatilized the moment they were rejected by his pride.
When Han Seoha didn’t even make excuses, Ryu Jaegeon just left.
“Jaegeon……”
Letting out a voice filled with sorrow toward the receding flames wondering if it might be heard, he looked around.
He’d come farther than expected, so the location wasn’t good for going to find the item that was his purpose. If he’d been abandoned somewhere else, he would have gone looking for the item under the pretext. As expected, it seemed he’d have to start from the base camp as planned.
Fortunately, finding the base camp wasn’t difficult. He headed in the direction where the smell of burning grew stronger while catching the direction where the watch’s reception sound strengthened.
Even after noticing Ryu Jaegeon’s waves watching from far away after pretending to leave alone caught at the edge of his senses then disappeared, Han Seoha repeatedly stopped and ran as if frightened. Though he ran moderately knowing it was an act that drained stamina, sweat seeped out making him look disheveled as if he’d suffered greatly.
‘At this level, it won’t look strange for a Guide who doesn’t know Gates well to wash their face in lake water.’
Before leaving the edge of the ridiculously large lake, he put his hand in the water’s edge. A faint energy caught on the sensitive Guide’s fingertips.
‘A small creature or a plant swaying its stems. Either way it’s a demon beast, but.’
The water droplet-like magic stones that small demon beasts in the lake spat out could be used as emergency drinking water. Though it would only be revealed later since no one had put such ominous things like magic stones in their mouths, it was beneficial to gather them if he was going to wander caves.
To draw in the demon beast, he cupped water in his palm and made splashing sounds while washing his face. Once, twice, three times.
The stem that wrapped around the fingers touching the water climbed up to his wrist in an instant.
Snap.
The moment he was suddenly grabbed by the waist and pulled, tearing the middle of the stem wrapped around his wrist, a fierce firepower passed through intense enough to turn the stem that had been deeply submerged in water and filled with moisture to ash in an instant.
Without needing to look back, it was Ryu Jaegeon. The body touching his back swelled greatly then subsided. It was because the tense body from exerting great force took in insufficient breath. There was no way Ryu Jaegeon would be clumsy enough to be tense and use excessive force against a mere stem-type demon beast.
“Jaegeon?”
Ryu Jaegeon didn’t even answer. Even making a blank expression, his hardened jaw announced his tension.
It was absurd that he acted as if nothing happened while being this desperate for Han Seoha’s safety.
