“...Ah!”
Even though Yohan was no longer crying, his breath once again came ragged. It felt as though dozens of tongues and lips were caressing him. Even the fingers he flailed helplessly in the air were one by one sucked into a mouth. His body temperature rose, his heart hammering fast.
“Hyun... mook-hyung....”
He did not even realize that he had drifted far from the Eternal Stone, where he had just glimpsed such horrific memories. His breaths came light and feverish. What was this? What could it be? Strange—so very strange—yet the sensation was oddly, obscenely pleasant. Half-exhausted, his limp body was held in just the right pressure, and he felt as though he were floating in the air.
Before long, soft, pliant ends slipped inside his clothes. They licked down from his heaving chest to his tense lower abdomen, sliding further into his trousers. When the broad expanse between his thighs was sucked, his legs drew up tight.
“Ugh, ngh....”
The stimulation was so intense it almost made him cry again, yet it felt so good that no words of refusal left his lips. Instead he only clutched the tendrils fondling his fingers and whimpered. When they once more licked from his lower abdomen down to his groin, a trembling moan slipped out.
“Hhngh, nngh... it feels... good....”
With wet sucking noises, the space between his legs was devoured, and Yohan shuddered, lifting his hips. Sparks flashed before his blind eyes. The sensation of being licked over every inch was too unreal, too overwhelming. Was he dreaming an indecent dream?
The tip of him was sucked at a perfect pressure, while the space between his perineum and scrotum was pressed gently. As he writhed with pleasure, a warm, human-like appendage rubbed against his rear. Slowly, as if testing his reaction, it pressed inside.
A flicker of rejection rose within him, but Yohan did not push it away or resist. Breathless with both fear and anticipation at something utterly unfamiliar, he could only pant. A thin cry escaped him. Ah, ah, ah.... As his insides were licked, pleasure made him thrash, and it pushed deeper.
“I-it’s weird... ah!”
It entered to a depth and girth just shy of pain, prodding him slowly from within. With similar rhythm, it withdrew and then pressed in again, licking and kneading the tender inner walls, giving him a pleasure he had never imagined.
“Hyun... mook-hyung.... Ah, ah, aaah...!”
It was too good. Could it be right to feel so good? By now Yohan had nearly forgotten what had just happened. Struck, licked, and sucked both inside and out, his body neared a peak as if it would melt away completely.
“Hhgh, haa...!”
When he spilled, the thick white essence that poured out was taken, drained until his body trembled. The beads of sweat on his forehead were also licked away. Weak and heavy in the afterglow, Yohan sagged, his eyelids, already heavy with fatigue, finally sinking fully. Half-asleep, faintly conscious, he heard a strange lullaby.
A lullaby, a pitifully smiling face, a campfire in the field, swimming stars, the soundless dawn, rolling marbles, a mouse’s nest, grains of sand to count, whispering rose bushes....
Listening to the nonsensical lyrics, Yohan’s body sank into distance. Drenched in the lingering sweetness, he forgot even the memories he had glimpsed of Lee Hyunmook, and sank into a deep, deep sleep. Around his unconscious body, a faint light glowed, illuminating the darkness.
In the void, something endlessly black, eternal and solid, squirmed and crawled closer. It clutched the only brightness, licking and licking again. It lingered as if unwilling to part, and at the farthest edge, ‘Lee Hyunmook’ at last....
* * *
Yohan, sunk in deep sleep, stirred and groaned awake. His body ached—aching not like simple soreness, but as though struck with flu. At that moment, a worried voice called him again and again.
“Yohan, are you awake?”
He forced his eyes open. Seo Yakrin was gazing down at him with a face full of concern. Seeing Yohan regain consciousness, his expression brightened. As Seo Yakrin stepped back, Lee Hyunmook’s face appeared too. Yohan lay on soft bedding, almost cradled in his arms. At his side, Lee Chanha sighed.
“Yohan-gun, you’ve been unconscious for a week....”
“A... a week...?”
Yohan murmured blankly with a hoarse voice. That meant he had rested for a full week, yet his purification power was only faintly filled, still near empty from being wrung dry. Perhaps that was why everyone’s faces and eyes looked so haggard and dim. Red glints flickered in their gazes from time to time. They looked like broken survivors barely holding together while he lay collapsed.
“Here, first... eat something.”
Yoon Seungryong, sluggish as always, at last overcame his laziness and brought Yohan something like a mild, salty porridge. Drinking it down in sips, Yohan slowly came to himself, though his body remained limp and unwilling to move. With a groan, he rolled over. Joo Hoyoung, staring at a handheld game console with the power off, asked:
“Yohan-hyung, are you crying?”
“N-no....”
He denied it, but his voice already quavered with tears. They were still in the Abyss, their attempt a complete failure, and there would be no second chance. The thought was unbearable. Shame forgotten, Yohan burst out into sobs.
“Hhhuuh, hhhuuhhh.... I should have tried a little harder....”
If he had just struggled a little more, maybe he could have gone home. He recalled the core of the Abyss collapsing and fleeing somewhere. Sitting uneasily by his side, Seo Yakrin comforted him gently, patting the weeping Yohan.
“What are you saying, Yohan? You’ve already tried enough.”
“But... but I wanted to... go home....”
Wretched with sickness, Yohan cried even louder.
“I really... wanted to go home.... I hate it here... we were almost, almost, hhhhuuhh, so close....”
He sobbed aloud that he had wanted everyone to escape together, and wept bitterly. Lee Hyunmook quietly held him in his arms and let him cry as much as he needed. Only after a long time, when Yohan had sniffled himself nearly dry, did he calm down. In truth, he no longer had the strength to cry. Pressing his face into his lover’s chest, hiccupping faintly, Yohan stiffened.
“You just ate my cheek, didn’t you?”
“No.”
Yet he promptly licked his swollen cheek again with a loud slurp. Groaning, Yohan complained.
“Not even pretending anymore....”
“That’s right.”
“What do you mean, ‘that’s right’....”
Whining, he sulked, and only then did embarrassment flood him. Burying his nose in his lover’s chest and playing dead, he was patted on the back as Hyunmook spoke.
“Still, it wasn’t completely without effect, Yohan.”
Only then did Yohan lift his head. He looked up—above was the usual black-red, swirling, ominous sky of the Abyss. Yet something was indeed different. The air felt lighter, fresher.
It was as if the toxic fumes belching from a factory smokestack had turned into mere car exhaust on a busy road. The suffocating malice pressing on his lungs had thinned. Yohan muttered blankly:
“It really does... feel different.”
“See? It wasn’t a meaningless effort. It was worth the challenge, and it wasn’t a failure.”
Was it? Could it be? Still upset, still disappointed, Yohan nevertheless found himself half-persuaded by Hyunmook’s words. The core of the Abyss had # Nоvеlight # fled, but it had not escaped intact. Yohan knew he had struck it a grievous blow.
Of course, the situation was far from positive. His purification power was near depletion, and his teammates who had fought in the Abyss were also in poor condition. They huddled close to him like around a campfire, barely sustained by the purification that leaked from him.
Lee Chanha hid beneath a blanket he had scavenged, unwilling to show his face. Yoon Seungryong sprawled boneless, moving only to hand out bits of food. Joo Hoyoung, pale as a corpse, stared at his powerless console, breath misting blue in the cold. Seo Yakrin sat seething, breathing raggedly, full of fury. Lee Hyunmook was the only one still somewhat steady—and Yohan was in the worst shape of all.
Yohan spent another full week bedridden. Only then did his purification power recover halfway, enough to tend to his teammates one by one. Even after their color returned, however, the atmosphere remained heavy. Though none cried out like Yohan, it was clear everyone had pinned their hopes on this attempt.
