Chapter 54

He really is a fascinating bastard.

Infuriating one second, lovable the next; a pervert one moment, absurdly adorable the next.

“Yeon Mugyeol, what are you wearing to the freshmen orientation? Do I just need to pack sweatpants?”

Hankuk University’s freshmen orientation retreat was coming up soon. It would last three days and two nights, and Yi-seon had already arranged time off from his part-time job. Mugyeol shook his head. “I’m skipping orientation.”

“Why?”

“I have someone to meet then.”

…Someone to meet.

Yi-seon almost asked who, then swallowed the question with another bite of ramyeon. If Mugyeol had wanted him to know, he would have said so. Would asking have felt easier if they were still only friends?

“Yeon Mugyeol, you’re going to end up an outcast at this rate. Everyone says you make friends at orientation. I’m going to make a hundred friends while I’m there.”

“Then won’t my popular darling with a hundred friends play nicely with an outcast like me?”

“Fine. You can be my 101st friend.”

“Wow, your hubby’s just any old casual friend to you?”

Disappointment pricked at Yi-seon. He had taken it for granted that they would go together, and the idea of attending without Mugyeol suddenly felt lonely.

After they ate and Yi-seon brushed his teeth, he came out to find Mugyeol rummaging through the drawers after finishing the dishes. Mugyeol emerged with a tube of ointment from the first-aid kit, walked straight over, and yanked Yi-seon’s gym shirt up. His sore, swollen nipples were immediately exposed.

“Wh-what are you doing!”

Flustered, Yi-seon leaped backward, but Mugyeol was undeterred.

“These must hurt.”

Mugyeol tapped the tip of his nipple with a fingertip.

“Ah.”

Yi-seon hunched his shoulders with a gasp as pain shot through the tender skin. Mugyeol had been far too rough the night before; faint toothmarks still ringed both areolas, and the nipples themselves were swollen and raw.

Mugyeol backed Yi-seon against the wall and boxed him in with both arms. Then he pushed the hem of the T-shirt between Yi-seon’s teeth and told him to hold it there so the fabric would stay out of the way.

“Bite down so your shirt doesn’t fall. I need to apply the medicine.”

Before Yi-seon could refuse, Mugyeol began smoothing ointment over the sore skin. It was cold at first, then quickly warmed against Yi-seon’s overheated chest.

Yi-seon bit down on the shirt and braced both palms against the wall behind him. Mugyeol’s fingers were touching far more than seemed strictly necessary, but Yi-seon could hardly object when the stated purpose was medicine—and the fabric really had been painful every time it brushed his chest.

Every pass of Mugyeol’s cool fingers made Yi-seon’s shoulders twitch. After the night before, the skin was so hypersensitive that Mugyeol’s stare alone almost felt like a touch. The careful, ointment-slicked strokes kept making his nipples tighten despite himself.

Yi-seon scraped his nails against the wallpaper. Mugyeol’s touch was so excruciatingly gentle that it was somehow harder to endure than roughness. His toes curled again and again.

“Mmh… Izh diz reallhy puttin’ on medizine…? Diz izh too…”

Are you sure you’re applying medicine? This feels way too weird… With the shirt clenched between his teeth, the protest came out hopelessly garbled.

Yi-seon’s face crumpled into a watery pout. The moment he looked up through reddened eyes, Mugyeol’s jaw tightened. A second later the ointment tube went flying, and Mugyeol buried his face against Yi-seon’s chest.

“Fuck, I can’t hold back.”

“Ah…!”

Mugyeol latched onto the nipple that had not yet been treated and licked it hungrily. The abrupt force of the movement pinned Yi-seon flat against the wall.

One hand still gently spread ointment over the first nipple while Mugyeol’s mouth worked over the other. He licked and nipped at the already swollen skin until Yi-seon, stunned, lost his grip on the hem of his shirt. The fabric dropped over Mugyeol’s head.

Half-hidden beneath Yi-seon’s shirt, Mugyeol continued without shame, pressing his body closer while his mouth worked over Yi-seon’s chest.

Yi-seon was trapped between Mugyeol and the wall. Arousal flared despite himself, but indignation rose right alongside it. He had obediently held up his shirt because Mugyeol had promised to apply medicine. How had that turned into this?

“You said you were applying medicine, you crazy bastard…!”

“Saliva used to be medicine in the old days.”

“Cut the bullshit… ah…!”

“Woof!”

“You crazy… you crazy son of a bitch…!”

The wet sounds beneath Yi-seon’s shirt seemed impossibly loud. He looked down at the shape of Mugyeol’s head moving beneath the fabric, then finally gave up struggling. Before long he was sprawled on the floor with Mugyeol over him, breathing hard and letting the contact happen.

Their erections pressed together through their clothes. Mugyeol bore his hips down and began grinding against Yi-seon with slow, deliberate pressure, breathing harder as the friction built while his mouth remained at Yi-seon’s chest.

Mugyeol finally emerged from beneath the shirt and braced both arms beside Yi-seon’s shoulders. Then he started moving in earnest, grinding their hips together hard enough that the motion resembled sex despite the clothes between them.

Overwhelmed by the electric friction stimulating his groin, Yi-seon threw his arms around Mugyeol and clung tight.

“Ah, mmh…”

The moment their bodies locked together, heat seemed to fuse through every point of contact.

Through the thin T-shirt, Yi-seon could feel the broad muscles of Mugyeol’s back working beneath his palms. Each roll of Mugyeol’s hips made them tighten and release in rhythm.

At Yi-seon’s touch, Mugyeol let out a low groan and rocked his hips with even greater intensity.

“Honey, touch my bare skin.”

Yi-seon slipped his trembling hands beneath Mugyeol’s shirt. The bare skin underneath was scorching, the muscles alive beneath his palms. He stroked slowly down the line of Mugyeol’s spine toward his waist, and Mugyeol’s breathing turned even rougher as his back tightened under the touch.

“Haaa…”

Mugyeol looked down at Yi-seon and drove his hips forward again—thud, thud. Each hard movement jolted Yi-seon against the floor. His back ached against the hard surface, but by then pleasure had drowned out any reason to care.

“Spread your legs wider.”

“Ngh! Ah…”

“Yeah. Just like that.”

The grinding continued in a relentless rhythm. Pinned underneath Mugyeol, Yi-seon trembled and jolted with every movement. Then, while he was still gasping beneath the heavy weight, Mugyeol’s mouth covered his and a tongue slipped between his parted lips.

“Mmph…”

The combination of Mugyeol grinding against him while kissing him so deeply was almost unbearably lewd. His tongue swept through Yi-seon’s mouth without restraint, then caught Yi-seon’s tongue and sucked hard.

Mugyeol’s hips moved faster even as the kiss deepened. Pleasure clouded Yi-seon’s mind until he could barely process anything beyond the mounting pressure low in his body. His abdomen trembled. “Ah, ngh…!”

He came in the middle of the grinding kiss, release soaking hot through his underwear. Nothing in Yi-seon’s life had ever felt remotely this chaotic or humiliatingly intense.

Mugyeol hit his limit moments later. With one heavy thrust, he pinned Yi-seon beneath him and went rigid. Yi-seon felt the broad muscles under his palms lock tight as Mugyeol shuddered through his own release with a low groan.

Still caught in the aftershocks, Mugyeol rolled his hips once in a slow circle before finally breaking the kiss.

“Haah, hah…”

Yi-seon lay there dragging in ragged breaths while Mugyeol panted just as hard above him, face flushed from release. Mugyeol stared down at the disheveled figure beneath him, rolled his hips once more, and smirked.

“Coming with our clothes on is a first for me, too.”

“…”

“I did the bedding this morning, and now we have to wash our pants too. Wonder if your water bill will be high? Don’t worry. Hubby will pay for it.”

The absurdly practical mention of the water bill snapped Yi-seon back to reality. His face flooded with color as the full situation registered, and he shot Mugyeol a furious glare.

“You said you were putting on medicine. You said you’d only put on medicine…!”

What is this.

What on earth is this…

He had come straight into his own pants like a four-year-old. Yi-seon had not even wet himself as a child, yet now here he was because he had trusted Mugyeol to apply ointment to his chest. The fact that the mess was semen rather than urine did absolutely nothing to reduce the humiliation.

“You perverted bastard… Doing nothing but telling lies…”

Yi-seon’s face crumpled with fury and humiliation. Mugyeol burst out laughing, wrapped both arms around him, and rolled across the floor with him trapped in the embrace.

Clutched in Mugyeol’s grip, Yi-seon smacked Mugyeol’s back over and over—thwack, thwack!

“Ack! Get off! It feels gross!”

No matter how hard Yi-seon smacked his back or shoved at him, Mugyeol’s hold never loosened. The resistance was completely futile.

Yi-seon felt deeply wronged. Apparently, a pervert’s idea of medical treatment operated under entirely different standards.

❖ ❖ ❖

On the morning of orientation, Yi-seon checked himself in the small mirror by the front door.

Face clear. Hair fine.

A desk calendar sat beside the mirror with two dates circled. They marked the two days he had kissed Mugyeol: once on the night they first stripped down together, and once during the supposed ointment incident. They had agreed on eight kissing sessions a month, which meant six remained.

While drawing the circles, Mugyeol had announced that exceeding eight was perfectly acceptable, but falling short was not. Any deficit would incur a penalty and carry over into the next month. Apparently kisses were a loyalty-card program now.

What was more, a star was drawn on the very first day.

“We agreed sex gets a star. This commemorates our first mutual jerk-off.”

Watching Mugyeol smirk like a pervert while drawing the star had nearly driven Yi-seon to grab him by the collar again.

A bastard with no sense of shame whatsoever…

When Mugyeol threatened to write ‘mutual jerk-off’ in full, Yi-seon had stopped him in horror. Mugyeol compromised by shamelessly writing the initials ‘M.D.’ instead, claiming they felt like a secret code. Every time Yi-seon saw those two letters, he wanted to attack the calendar with a black permanent marker.

While Yi-seon glared at the calendar, Mugyeol wandered over with a wide yawn and wrapped both arms around him from behind. Light kisses landed along Yi-seon’s nape, while Mugyeol’s damp hair felt cool against his skin.

“Darling, good morning…”

Mugyeol’s languid voice purred at Yi-seon’s ear. The familiar scent of Yi-seon’s own soap and toothpaste on Mugyeol gave him a strangely intimate, unsettling feeling.

As Mugyeol’s lips wandered from Yi-seon’s nape toward his ear, Yi-seon squirmed and pushed his face away. Mugyeol simply caught Yi-seon’s chin and turned his head back toward him.

“Leaving now?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why are you staring into the mirror so much? Who are you trying to look pretty for?”

“You.”

Yi-seon answered offhandedly out of sheer annoyance. Mugyeol responded with a strangely delighted little hehe.

Today was freshmen orientation—Yi-seon’s first official Hankuk University event, and he would be attending without Mugyeol.

Lately, Mugyeol had been sleeping over often. Yi-seon sometimes wondered why anyone would choose this cramped rooftop room over Mugyeol’s palace of a house, but then he remembered how they used to squeeze together under a tiny desk as children. Maybe the appeal was the same.

Since drawing the star on the calendar, Mugyeol had behaved himself—no lewd stunts, no relentless perverted commentary. Yi-seon had gradually lowered his guard enough to let him sleep over without worrying. “I’m heading out, Mugyeol-ah. Get some rest.”

Yi-seon left Mugyeol behind in the apartment. Mugyeol had a spare key, and there was nothing valuable enough to tempt a burglar, so Yi-seon was not worried. Then the front door slammed behind him. He turned to find Mugyeol fully dressed and following him down the stairs.

“Where are you going?”

“Giving you a ride to school before I head home.”

“I can just walk.”

“Use the free chauffeur while you’ve got one.”

“Fine. Then drop me off by the main gate or another street, not right in front of the Business School building. Thanks.”

Yi-seon chose the drop-off point specifically because of Mugyeol’s sports car. Arriving in something that expensive would draw attention from everyone around, and Yi-seon had no desire to announce himself to his entire incoming class on the first day by climbing out of a ridiculous luxury car.

Mugyeol readily nodded.

A short while later, Mugyeol pulled up on the road directly beside the Business School building.

Yi-seon glared at Mugyeol while clutching his seatbelt tightly.

“…Mugyeol-ah, what is your problem, seriously…?”

Yi-seon found himself seriously reconsidering Mugyeol’s moral character.

Tour buses lined the open plaza in front of the Business School, and freshmen swarmed everywhere. Several were already peering openly through the sports car’s tinted windows. A few students farther back had even started taking pictures.

Yi-seon could not make himself step out under that many eyes. Purrr—. The expensive engine’s idle no longer sounded sleek or cool. It sounded like humiliation with horsepower.

Mugyeol’s pheromones had also begun saturating the car, making Yi-seon strangely dizzy.

Is his rut coming up? Why is he leaking so much pheromone everywhere…?

Before the accident, when Yi-seon had been an extreme recessive, Mugyeol’s scent barely registered at all. Now he could perceive it vividly. Still, the pheromones did not carry any overt sexual pressure, so Yi-seon merely rubbed the tip of his nose and ignored them.

“I told you to drop me off somewhere other than in front of the Business School building.”

“That’s why I brought you to the side, not the front.”

“You son of a bitch…”

Unable to suppress his frustration, Yi-seon spat out the curse. Mugyeol only laughed despite being cursed out after giving him a ride, which made Yi-seon grind his teeth harder.

Wouldn’t beating him up be completely justifiable at this point?

When Yi-seon still hesitated, Mugyeol left the car in park and tapped the accelerator. Vroooom—! The exhaust roared across the plaza, drawing every remaining pair of eyes. Terrified Mugyeol might lower the convertible top next, Yi-seon lunged for the door handle.

“I’m going. Thanks for the ride.”