Wasn’t that a bit of an exaggeration? Yeehyeon couldn’t laugh. It wasn’t because the money and time he had invested were direct proof of love. It was because if he switched their situations and pictured it in his head, he could all too easily imagine the emotions Liu must have felt, and he could empathize with them… which was precisely why he couldn’t show any reaction at all.
He slipped his arm out from over the sheet and wrapped it around Liu’s side, pressing his lips gently against the shoulder before him. Liu twisted his waist, pressing their bodies closer, and tightened the hand on Yeehyeon’s shoulder.
They remained still like that for quite a long time. At the end of a long, passionate night, it was as if they were only now properly savoring the fact that they had reunited.
After a long while, Liu pulled Yeehyeon away from his chest.
“You must be hungry. I tormented you for too long without feeding you anything, didn’t I.”
His voice was deliberately pitched high, as if to hide the swell of his emotions.
“I’m fine…”
“I don’t really cook here, so there’s nothing fancy, but I’ll make you something simple.”
Yeehyeon grabbed the wrist of Liu, who was starting to get up, and looked up at him.
“Instead, please give me coffee. I’ll have coffee.”
Liu looked down at him for a moment, his face showing he was reluctant to feed him only coffee, but he nodded and gave Yeehyeon’s hand a tight squeeze before letting go. He then took out a fresh pair of underwear from the wardrobe next to the bed, put it on, and stepped off the mattress, walking toward the kitchen.
Black boxer briefs that came down to cover about half a hand’s span of his firm thighs. Even his taste in underwear was the same. The realization that the person before him was the real Liu, found in such a trivial detail, made Yeehyeon’s heart pound once more.
Whether it was because of love, because of pheromones, or the influence of both, rejecting him when he was right in front of his eyes was an impossible feat, even now after they had been apart for over a year. If Liu had come to him during that time and pleaded for his love, he would have surely surrendered to his longing, without having had enough time.
It was a relief that they had met again now, and that he was someone who had considered his feelings.
Soon, the fresh aroma of coffee filled the room. Just smelling the coffee seemed to clear his head a little.
Watching Liu, in his underwear, brewing coffee in a kitchen even more cramped than the kitchenette in the basement studio of his Seoul home, Yeehyeon gathered his heavy, sinking body and leaned back against the pillows.
Perhaps it was just his imagination, but Liu’s every action seemed a little slower than usual, though he appeared to have no major trouble handling a familiar task within a familiar radius.
Feeling a little relieved, Yeehyeon shifted his gaze. The clothes they had messily stripped off and thrown on the floor last night were now neatly folded and arranged on the table.
It pained him to imagine Liu, who couldn’t even see well, wiping his body with a wet towel and folding their clothes in the bluish darkness while he was asleep.
Come to think of it, he had been like that in Hong Kong, too. That time, after their first insertion, when Liu’s first Changing had probably occurred completely unexpectedly, he had neatly folded all the clothes before leaving the hotel before he woke up.
Why he had to disappear that morning. Why he was wearing sunglasses when he reappeared.
Tracing the past that he was only now understanding, that he was seeing in a new light, Yeehyeon looked again at the back of the man who was carefully brewing drip coffee as if he were extracting herbal medicine.
“Um, when did I fall asleep?”
Liu straightened the kettle of hot water and turned around.
“Hmm… After the third knotting, I was caressing your back, and when I moved up to your face to kiss you, you were already asleep.”
“Ah… I’m sorry.”
Glancing back over his shoulder, Liu gave a slight smile and placed the kettle down completely on the shelf. As he brought two mugs over, he peeked at Yeehyeon’s bare torso, exposed above the sheet.
“It’s been a while, and I pushed you too hard… I’m the one who should be sorry.”
Following his gaze, Yeehyeon looked down to see his chest, stomach, and sides mottled with the marks of bites and sucks. Taking the mug Liu handed him, he pretended to shift his position, moving his back off the pillows and pulling up his knees to cover his body.
Instead of playfully digging into the traces of the previous night and reliving the heat, Liu also pretended not to notice, simply perching on the edge of the bed by Yeehyeon’s feet and drinking his coffee.
It had been a long time, but they had already been with each other countless times, and it wasn’t the first time they had crossed the line and revealed their completely uninhibited selves to one another. Yet, for some reason, they felt as shy and awkward as a couple waking up together on the morning after their first time.
As if grateful to have something to drink, they both focused on their coffee for a while. At least, they pretended to.
Liu, who had been drinking his coffee with a pensive look, staring at a spot on the wooden floor, was the first to quietly break the silence.
“Last night… the things you said.”
Sitting with his side to Yeehyeon, he slowly turned his head. The color of his eyes, which he still wasn’t used to, made his stomach lurch every time they met, but it was because of their beauty, not out of aversion.
Like someone about to say something difficult, he took a deep breath, his shoulders and chest swelling and then slowly deflating as he exhaled in short bursts.
“Can I take that to mean… you’ll accept me again?”
With one foot on the low frame supporting the mattress and his arm resting loosely on his knee, Liu looked relaxed at a glance, but the muscles in the hand and arm holding the mug were taut, the veins prominent.
Yeehyeon placed his mug on his sheet-covered knees, stroking its surface with his hand and biting his lower lip. Then he looked straight into Liu’s eyes, which had turned white as evidence of the change he had undergone.
The heat of his penis, the sensation of being forcefully spread open, the endless flood of semen that still felt like it was inside him—the fact that the traces of their sex were so clearly engraved on Liu’s body as well subtly satisfied a deep-seated possessiveness and desire for ownership.
When Yeehyeon gave a deliberate nod, the tension finally drained from Liu’s shoulders and chest. But he didn’t seem completely at ease.
If he hadn’t come here after seeing the painting sent to Seoul, then last night’s meeting had been a sudden, completely unprepared-for event for him. He still didn’t know what process Yeehyeon had gone through to arrive at today’s decision.
Yeehyeon also had many things he wanted to ask him. But none of it was a gap that could be closed all at once with a few words in this very spot. They were scars that had to be slowly erased over a long period of time. Even if they felt a slight anxiety, impatience, and thirst for each other until then, it wouldn’t necessarily mean their relationship was wavering.
Liu, who had loosely taken hold of Yeehyeon’s ankle over the sheet, finally spoke after parting his lips several times.
“After we finish this, can we go out together for a proper breakfast… and stay together… until evening.”
Yeehyeon answered hesitantly.
“Ah… I’d like to, but… I really want to stick to my regular work schedule.”
He immediately smiled and agreed, but his face as he brought the coffee cup to his lips seemed to be trying to hide his disappointment. Yeehyeon knew it wasn’t disappointment at him prioritizing work over their time together, but simply regret over the time they couldn’t spend together, so he didn’t want to disappoint him again. But that was all the more reason he felt it was better to tell him in advance.
“And this evening… I have a small party I was invited to by an outside group.”
The early Christmas party hosted by ‘Late Bloomers’ was, of all things, tonight.
“I think I’ll probably have to stay there… until around 10.”
The hazy irises, which had been busily contracting and expanding, read the same disappointment he was feeling on Yeehyeon’s face and slowly settled back into place. The hand on Yeehyeon’s ankle moved gently up to his calf, kneading it as if giving a massage.
“Then, should I come pick you up around the time it ends?”
Yeehyeon hesitated for a moment before nodding. He wanted to spend as much time with Liu as possible during the limited period, too. He hoped Liu wouldn’t misunderstand.
“When are you going back to Seoul?”
Liu, who was massaging his calf with his left hand while tilting the mug in his right to drink his coffee, furrowed his brow and looked up at Yeehyeon over the tilted mug.
“I was planning on staying here. Didn’t we agree on that last night?”
“……”
He definitely remembered Liu muttering something like that.
Let’s be together. I’ll stay here.
But they were both completely drunk on pheromones then…
Yeehyeon, whose eyes darted as he was lost in thought, soon realized Liu was joking and let out a belated chuckle. It was still hard to keep up with his jokes sometimes.
“You probably heard from Yuni… but Phantom is under construction right now. Manager Han gave me a vacation, so I have about a week off… I was planning to go back on the 27th.”
If it was the 27th, there were only about five days left.
“On Christmas… we can be together the whole time.”
“You’re not changing your plans because of me, are you?”
Yeehyeon shook his head and gently swirled the mug.
“It’s Christmas, after all…”
Though he was expressing his yearning for Yeehyeon by saying he wanted to spend time together and showing his disappointment when they couldn’t as much as he’d like… Liu was being more cautious than that. It was as if he were constantly asking himself if he even had the right to ask for a share of his time.
Yeehyeon felt sorry for him, but he knew it was Liu’s own burden to bear regarding the weight of the past, something that couldn’t be simply cleared away with a few words of absolution like ‘I forgive your sins.’
A soft laugh suddenly made Yeehyeon raise his head.
“It feels like a dream.”
Liu was looking at him with a voice and expression of someone truly beholding a dream.
“Making plans to meet again like this… waking up holding you after spending the night together and starting the day… It feels like a dream someone is about to pop.”
Placing his mug on the bed frame, he leaned forward and buried his face in Yeehyeon’s knees.
At Yeehyeon’s touch, which gently stroked his hair, he slowly lifted his head, rested his chin on his knees, and met his eyes.
Miraculously, emotions were conveyed even through the pale irises that looked as if their pigment had been bleached away. His eyes, looking at him, were like a snowfield glittering in the sunlight.
“But whoever it is, I won’t just let them pop it.”
His determined declaration somehow made his mouth go dry, and Yeehyeon shielded his face with the back of his hand, averting his gaze. A force grabbed his wrist, pulled it down, and firmly interlaced their fingers, making him meet his eyes again. Liu was frowning deeply with a serious expression.
He pressed their clasped hands onto the mattress and leaned his upper body over Yeehyeon’s raised knees. The kiss, which pressed and released only the surface of their lips as if he didn’t know how to use his tongue, was like a clumsy first kiss.
As he tightened his grip on the mug to keep the coffee from spilling, Yeehyeon thought.
Last night wasn’t their first time having sex, but it was their first morning together after. He felt like he would remember this morning for a very long time, perhaps for the rest of his life.
○
Leave a Reply