Undoing the rest of the shirt’s buttons, he pressed his lips to the base of the firm nape.
Lau tipped his head back deep to watch Ihyeon’s face as he slid his hand under the shirttail to caress bare skin and kissed here and there along his nape. He stroked the small head, then kissed his hair and murmured heavily.
“We both need a haircut.”
“......”
“I don’t think we’ll find the time. How about we wait a bit and, once we’re in New York... go get it cut together then?”
Rubbing his lips against the stubble of a long day on Lau’s jaw, Ihyeon nodded as he pushed Lau’s shirt off over his shoulders.
The sleeves turned inside out as the shirt slipped down his back, and with his upper body bare, Lau lifted the hem of Ihyeon’s T-shirt and kissed him. He tossed the stripped shirt roughly toward the sofa and chuckled as he flicked at Ihyeon’s hair, which had turned into a bird’s nest as the neckline slid off his head.
He gazed at Ihyeon’s smiling face, then slowly slid his hand over skin—hair to neck, neck to shoulder, arm to wrist.
Unlike his own hands, parched and dry, Ihyeon’s fingers were warm, the spaces between them damp with a light sweat. Lacing their fingers, he led him toward the bedroom. Lau closed the door and shut out the studio lights. In the dimness, only the white sheets on the bed reflected a soft glow. On any other night he would have made a dirty joke about how clearly the room had a purpose, but now the thought did not even occur.
Perched on the edge of the high bed, he set his palm quietly to Ihyeon’s cheek, relying on the faint light leaking from the window facing the garden. It was tomb-silent, as if every sound around them had been swallowed somewhere else. Only Ihyeon’s gaze meeting him straight on, and the warmth of his skin under Lau’s hand, remained alive.
Kisses, touching—until now Ihyeon had only managed to follow Lau’s lead, barely able to handle the pleasure given to him. This time he leaned in first. Tracing the clean lines of Ihyeon’s face with his fingertips as Ihyeon lowered his lashes toward his lips, Lau opened his mouth to meet him.
He pressed in as if to fill the parted space, pushing so deep the shape of their lips warped, and when he drew back, their over-dry lips clung and came apart with lazy reluctance. In the unnaturally quiet room, the friction of the kiss pricked at his hearing more sharply than usual.
Spreading his hand wide to cup around Ihyeon’s ear and tangle into his hair, Lau tilted his head and kissed him deep. Through the dry stillness, the wet rasp of the kiss slowly soaked in.
Trading countless small, chipped kisses, they shimmied their pants off while seated, then climbed onto the bed, reclining side by side at a slant as they stroked each other’s bare bodies.
Without breaking the kiss, their hands tugged each other’s underwear down. Palms cradled shafts and stroked outward from the root, coaxing erection with gentle pressure. Their bodies, now reacting even faster than before to each other’s pheromones, heated in an instant.
“......”
“......”
In the silence and the dark, Lau pressed down on Ihyeon’s shoulder. Ihyeon knew what it meant. After holding Lau’s gaze with intent for a moment, he shifted the angle of his head and lay down. The underwear that had been half caught slid all the way off, and without hesitation they set their mouths between each other’s legs.
Lau was already hard. Just seeing the clear shape of it and breathing in the sexual scent made Ihyeon urgent inside, his breath break. He wrapped an arm around him, gripped his firm ass, and filled his mouth with the smooth ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) glans. Lying on his side with his right knee raised, he traced the ridges of the packed, rugged abs under the sleek skin, stroked his pubic hair with his fingertips, and enjoyed every inch of the beautiful body with his own.
“Ha... hh... hhm...”
As he expertly sucked and squeezed Ihyeon’s shaft, Lau’s fingers slid down the cleft of his ass and circled the entrance of his anus. Spitting out the glans, Ihyeon clung tighter and pulled Lau closer. The slow rotation of the finger gently burrowing in and stretching the entrance twisted his waist. Smearing his face along the rigid penis already weeping thickly with precum, he ran his tongue up the heavy column.
Their hands roaming and stroking each other felt less like lewd acts stoked by lust than a desperate attempt to feel, with their hands, something that could not be seen. As if trying to find in each other’s bodies a stimulus strong enough to blanket and numb an anxiety whose origin neither could name.
To confirm, and to be confirmed. That they were still by each other’s side.
Wherever the other’s skin scent grew thicker, they kept their lips longer, breathed in the fragrance, and slowly bared their own depths. Even as they thrust their sex right before the other’s nose and sucked it into their mouths, there was no reserve, as if the concept of sex itself had been set aside. Like a kiss exchanged mouth to mouth. They spread their legs, lowered and rocked their hips to sink deeper into the other’s mouth.
Lau withdrew his fingers from Ihyeon’s wet anus and pushed himself up. His penis was now pulsing, drenched in precum. Changing position for penetration, he settled between Ihyeon’s legs and pressed his chest to lay him flat.
It was earlier than usual to enter, but his whole body was already knotted tight with the effort of holding back the urge to be inside Ihyeon. Ihyeon’s wet body, too, was fully ready to take him. Feeling clearly the dense wrap of Ihyeon’s pheromones winding around him as if to pull him in and swallow him, Lau surrendered to its force, closed his eyes, and trembled in small shivers.
From the first time he entered this body, Golden’s control had slipped from his grasp; and the more often they overlapped, the closer he grew to omega—so much so that he could not tell whether he was making Ihyeon an omega or Ihyeon was making him an alpha, as the density of Ihyeon’s pheromones grew thicker.
Dragged helplessly along, like wrists bound and tied to the tail of a carriage pulled by six strong horses... exactly as the diary had put it.
Looking down at Ihyeon spread and disheveled, he slid his knees under his thighs and pressed in. Bending over, he brushed back his hair, then sucked his plump lower lip between his own and drew on it with a sweet sting.
With a soft moan, Ihyeon cupped and stroked Lau’s cheek, then stopped Lau’s hand as he set the glans to his entrance.
“I’ll... be on top.”
“......”
Lau knit his brow, wondering if he had misheard. Then he shook his head with a low laugh, as if he could not believe it.
“Because of the accident this afternoon?”
“......”
“I told you—I’m really fine.”
Ihyeon pushed at Lau’s chest as he tried to press into his anus.
“It’s not only because of that... I just want to. You don’t... want me to?”
“Of course not. That’s not it, but...”
While Lau hesitated, Ihyeon rose, pressing at his shoulders. He cradled Lau’s face, kissed his lips and cheek, and whispered at his ear.
“In Hong Kong... the first time you put it in. Let’s do it like that.”
“......”
If that was what Ihyeon wanted, there was no reason to refuse. Lau sat back and drew him in by the waist. Crawling on his knees, Ihyeon straddled Lau’s thighs, looped one arm around his neck, and with the other hand grasped the shaft of his penis and slowly lowered his hips.
Lau slid his palm down the sleek, lean back, traced the curve of his ass, took the flesh in his hand and kneaded the sensual weight, and as he was sucked into Ihyeon’s body, squeezed tight by the pressure, he parted his lips and pressed his forehead to the chest before him.
He fought the impulse to snap his hips up and drive in to shake him hard, and instead set his teeth here and there on chest and nape, biting skin. He took the small, bunched nipple into his mouth and drew as if juicing it, cheeks hollowing as he sucked, and Ihyeon’s inside twitched, pulling him deeper.
With the suffocating fullness cramming him tight and the crushing pressure squeezing him dry, they moaned and wrapped their arms around each other, rubbing bare skin. When Ihyeon stopped with just a little of the base left, Lau began to thrust up into him.
Not fast—rather, filling Ihyeon completely inside so there was no gap, so their most fragile, sensitive places pressed flush. Even the slow penetration, accompanied by soft, awed sounds and unhurried motion, felt like a process of confirming the other through the joined place. Careful and meticulous, as if not to miss the smallest sensation.
Feeling the shaft withdraw and then surge in to fill him with a full-body push, Ihyeon hugged Lau’s neck, lowered his head, and let out a trembling breath. The wet coupling noises of shaft and mucosa rubbing, squeezing out fluid, seemed to stick tacky to their sweat-glossed skin.
Matching Lau’s motion, Ihyeon rolled his hips slowly back and forth to raise the intensity, then kissed his ear.
“Do it....”
He did not say what he wanted, but Lau needed no object.
Biting into Ihyeon’s collarbone that was asking for Noting, Lau wrapped his trim waist tighter. As the thrusts grew a little more intense, Ihyeon held his head and bit his lower lip.
“Back then... in Hong Kong. You lost control and Noted, didn’t you? Without Awi even knowing.”
“......”
He remembered Lau apologizing again and again, then half forcing his still-not-subsided shaft out and scraping cum from Ihyeon’s anus. Now, too, Lau was looking at him the way he had then—like a powerless, fragile boy, with clear emptiness in his eyes.
Arching his back and waist to tease Lau inside him, Ihyeon stroked his hair.
“Was that... the first time?”
In the dark, Lau slowly nodded. Stroking his broad shoulders, tamed into gentleness like a beast groaning with a deep wound, Ihyeon kissed him. The big man before his eyes was unspeakably lovely.
“Do it. Like then...”
If their Noting until now had been experiences where reason blurred in a blazing heat like being set on fire, this time the pulse of Noting striking his mucosa and ringing through his whole body was so distinct it felt like he had entered Lau’s heart.
In a frightening unity like his own blood was flowing through Lau’s heart, Ihyeon came again and again without ejaculating. They held each other, mingled tongues, and shared scent until the aftershocks of pleasure completely subsided. It felt like there was nothing left to share.
■ ■ ■
Standing before the wardrobe, Ihyeon shifted his grip on his phone. He was in the middle of persuading Lau, who said he would send the driver away on schedule.
“My brother said he’ll come pick me up with the car, so you really don’t have to worry.”
[Hm... Kwon Juhan is coming to get you? For someone who acted like he’d never speak to you again.]
“Like it or not... in a week we have to part anyway...”
His hand slowed as he opened a drawer and took out a soft cotton T-shirt he used as pajamas. At the same time his voice grew quieter. Choosing to stay with one person did not mean parting with others would have no effect at all.
[He still flies off the handle because he’s young, but even with all the holes he’s punched in his body, he’s not vicious. I knew it wouldn’t last.]
Thinking of Juhan’s curt voice on the call—playing reluctant and asking what time he should come pick him up—Ihyeon smiled soundlessly.
At Phantom, Juhan still seemed cold to Lau, but with Yuni he had eased somewhat. According to Yuni, over the past week the two of them had gotten drunk together until dawn three times, baring the bottoms of their characters, tearing at each other, and sobbing snottily, and that was how they got there.
Thanks to the two of them achieving about eighty percent reconciliation, the three of them were set to gather today, their only day off this week, at Juhan’s officetel.
To bolster staff, Phantom had, instead of hiring new recruits, scouted an experienced hand who had been a director at another gallery. Moving to New York did not mean Lau would take his hands off running Phantom in Seoul. Phantom was still Lau Wikun’s Phantom. But it was essential to meet contracted artists, clients, and major customers in person to brief them on the situation. So even today, Sunday, Lau had several meetings lined up, though the staff could have the day off.
Aside from business trips when he was away with Lau, this would be Ihyeon’s first night out since moving into this house.
[Go have fun. Just don’t hug the three of you and bawl like you’ll never see each other again.]
Whether in New York or Paris or Seoul, whenever there’s time, I’ll make sure you can meet as many times a year as you want.
At the promise he added, Ihyeon closed the drawer quietly and turned back, answering with only a faint smile.
He knew the words were sincere, and that they were his kindness. He also knew such kindness did not strain him financially. But perhaps there were parts one must politely refuse even such kindness and solve by one’s own strength—parts where one should not lean on kindness. Thinking that, Ihyeon walked toward the sofa.
Lau. Yuni. And even Morae and Ihan. He had made a decision, accepting the disappointment around him and the guilt he would feel. Only when the negative consequences that followed the choice became his own burden... only then would he have the standing to say his life was truly his.
Setting what he had taken from the wardrobe onto the coffee table, Ihyeon put his hands to his waist. Then, to endure the embarrassment of what he was about to say, he ran a hand over his eyebrow.
“Director, aren’t you the one who won’t be able to sleep because I’m not there?”
[...]
He had said it hoping to make him smile a little—between the occasional cigarette and sips of coffee, he was barely keeping the fatigue at bay—but there was no response. Maybe he had overstepped and made it awkward; flushing, he shook his head and shoved pajamas and underwear into his backpack in a hurry.
“Uh... um... I was joking. It wasn’t very funny, was it?”
[No... that’s not it. You hit the mark and I was flustered for a second.]
Ihyeon stopped moving and straightened from his bend. Fingering the leather handle hanging from the backpack, he strained to catch even the smallest sound from the other end of the line.
“Should I not stay over... and just come back late at night?”
[Yes. Please do.]
“......”
He had not just said it to say it; lately he had not wanted to leave the house with Lau looking like a man always teetering at the edge. But he had not expected an answer to come back this instantly, as if Lau had been waiting. This time, Ihyeon...
