Chapter 44

“Well, it was Australian pork, I think. I don’t know about aroma, but it wasn’t tough, so… it was fine,” Se-woong mumbled.

Shin bit his lip hard, veins standing out along his neck as he fought desperately to stifle his laughter.

Of course it wasn’t tough; how could a cheap diner barely meeting the per diem allowance of a civil servant provide proper meat texture?

Watching Se-woong completely lose his bearings and ramble incoherently, Shin bit down on the inside of his cheek. Did he truly need to hold back? Tonight, Se-woong’s skin looked even clearer, his lips rosier—the slightly swollen contour revealing how fiercely he had been biting them.

Fidgeting with the hem of his t-shirt, Se-woong asked, “So… that neobiani place… who did you go with?”

“Why are you curious about that?” Shin drawled, tilting his head.

Se-woong glared at him. “Hey, I told you I ate with Sergeant Kim!”

“Did I ask you that?” Shin countered with a chuckle. “You just volunteered it on your own. Did I ever ask?”

A crisp snap echoed as Shin popped open the beer can and took several long, refreshing gulps. Arching an eyebrow playfully, he locked eyes with Se-woong, as if silently daring him to challenge him.

Thoroughly humiliated by that knowing smirk, Se-woong sprang to his feet.

Flushing with embarrassment, Se-woong snapped, “Forget it! It’s late; I should head home.”

“You’re leaving?” Shin teased, reaching out. “It’s past midnight; just sleep over. Don’t you have an urgent matter to consult?”

“Lee—!”

Meeting the furious glare in Se-woong’s eyes made heat coil deep in Shin’s abdomen. Feigning nonchalance, he swallowed another sip of beer before gently capturing the hand trembling before him.

“Woong-ah, why do you care who I went with?” Shin murmured, his thumb stroking his knuckles. “If I ate with someone, what then? Are you going to accuse me of sleeping with them too?”

“Hey, Lee Shin, you really hold a grudge…”

As Se-woong twisted his wrist to pull free, Shin slid his fingers between his, lacing their hands together. Though Se-woong’s hands were by no means fragile, the difference in bone structure made Shin’s fingers distinctly broader. Shin lightly scraped his fingertip against Se-woong’s sensitive palm.

Lacing their fingers tighter, Shin asked, “Why did you eat dinner with Sergeant Kim anyway?”

Se-woong gasped as fingers grazed his palm. “Ugh, we just left the office at the same time!”

Leaning in close, Shin demanded, “Why leave together? Does his rank match yours? Since when does a sergeant share a table with a captain?”

Releasing the captured hand, Shin stroked the delicate wrist, fingering the prominent bone on the outer edge. Without even looking, he knew the skin was flushed bright red—scandalously so.

Setting the half-empty can on the coffee table, Shin took both of Se-woong’s hands into his own.

Shin asked gently, “Do you want to go eat sea urchin seaweed soup together next time?”

“I don’t like sea urchin,” Se-woong retorted, turning his chin away.

Shin smiled with warm amusement. “All right, beef seaweed soup then. I’ve eaten that restaurant’s food for thirty years; their beef soup is incredible too.”

Blinking in surprise, Se-woong murmured, “You had… a regular restaurant like that?”

Shin gently pulled Se-woong down onto his lap. Hesitating for a fraction of a second, Se-woong rested his knees on the cushions and straddled Shin as guided, burying his face against his shoulder. The posture instantly turned intimate—a position so familiar from countless shared nights that awkwardness had no room to breathe.

Tilting his head to follow Se-woong’s motion, Shin sought his lips with practiced ease. Pressing their mouths together, Se-woong could distinctly feel the smile playing upon Shin’s lips.

“Woong-ah,” Shin breathed against his mouth, “are you all the way back?”

Nothing about their external reality had changed. They remained an incomplete bond between two men that the world would never validate, precariously related as secret in-laws, serving together under Shin’s father in an intensely conservative military hierarchy. These truths would never alter, remaining as distant from resolution as ever.

Yet circumstances weren’t the only thing that hadn’t changed; Se-woong’s heart occupied the exact same place it always had. He still loved Shin. He loved only Shin. Without Shin, smiling was impossible.

Are you back? In truth, I never once left your side.

“So,” Se-woong murmured against his lips, “who did you eat dinner with?”

“Mom and Dad,” Shin whispered against his cheek.

“…What?” Se-woong froze in disbelief.

Shin bit down sharply on Se-woong’s lower lip.

* * *

Parting from the lower lip to capture the upper, then returning below, the ticklish sound of friction and saliva resonated in their ears. The fluttering pecks didn’t last long; with a soft smack, the warm breath hovering before him pulled back.

Yearning to follow those receding lips, Se-woong was forced to straighten his spine as hands slipped beneath his thin t-shirt to stroke his ribs. Though their mouths drifted apart, their torsos pressed even tighter together.

“Haa…”

A long, shared exhalation mingled between them, impossible to tell whose breath belonged to whom.

From merely a kiss—a childish peck without so much as an exchange of tongues—his body burned with fever, his hips twitching in urgent need. It was as bewildering as it was desperate.

Burying his nose into the hollow between Se-woong’s collarbone and throat, Shin inhaled deeply before muttering in discontent.

“Did you switch your shower gel?” Shin asked against his collarbone.

Se-woong shivered, resting his hands on his lover’s shoulders. “I don’t… know. Just whatever was there…”

“You must have,” Shin grunted against his skin, “I don’t like it.”

“Is it… really that bad?” Se-woong asked self-consciously.

Feeling self-conscious, Se-woong started to pull away, but Shin clamped down on his waist, hauling him back in. The motion caused Se-woong to drop back into his lap, pressing their lower bodies flush together. He wasn’t the only one driven frantic by a simple kiss; feeling the familiar, hard mass beneath his hips, Se-woong finally relaxed.

Their reunited lips made a wetter, deeper sound. Parting the seam of his mouth, Shin’s tongue swept across his teeth before thoroughly mapping every inch of smooth, sensitive mucous membrane within.

Unsatisfied with that alone, Shin pressed firmly against Se-woong’s chin with his thumb, coaxing his jaw wider to plunge his tongue deeper. Grazing the sensitive roof of his mouth that always made Se-woong shiver, Shin seemed deliberately mischievous.

“Nngh… ah…” a muffled moan escaped him.

Overwhelmed by the heavy heat filling his mouth, a choked moan slipped from Se-woong’s throat.

In the blink of an eye, a hand traveled up his flank, teasing around his erect nipple. Lightly brushing circles around the tip with his thumb before grazing the peak as if by accident, Se-woong’s hips jerked violently.

“Ah! Ahng!” he cried out sharply.

Simultaneously, a hand slipped past the hem of his shorts, shoving aside the elastic band of his boxer briefs. The grip squeezing his bare buttocks held zero mercy. Unable to stay still, Se-woong rocked his pelvis restlessly; after such an agonizing drought, his entire body hummed with raw excitation.

The only consolation was that Shin was in no better state. Unlike his usual irritating composure, Shin’s breathing sounded ragged and harsh, his hands digging into Se-woong with impatient hunger.

“Haa…” Shin buried his face into Se-woong’s neck, his ragged breath scorching the flushed skin.

He gripped the bottom hem of Se-woong’s t-shirt and yanked it upward, while Se-woong raised both arms in practiced coordination. Stripping his partner’s shirt in the next motion, both men shook their hair free as they sat chest-to-chest.

“What on earth…” Se-woong gasped, his chest heaving. “Did you do… haa… nothing but work out in the meantime?”

“Yeah. Does it show? I had to do at least that much,” Shin murmured with a low drawl.

To switch positions, Shin lifted Se-woong off his lap onto the sofa, then straddled Se-woong’s thighs in turn and pressed him down flat against the cushions.

The supple leather of the expensive sofa groaned in a taut, creaking shriek beneath the sudden press of bare flesh. In a room thick with humid, ragged breaths, that sharp friction was the only sound anchoring the moment to reality.

Shin scanned every inch of Se-woong’s body with an intensity that suggested he was counting each individual strand of hair. He seemed intent on verifying whether anything had changed during their time apart, even though there was little difference beyond having shed a bit of weight.

From the shadowed curve behind his ears, to the hollows of his collarbones and armpits, the areolas framing his nipples, down to the vertical indentation of his navel—Shin’s gaze was relentlessly possessive, as if demanding full compensation for every day kept from his sight.

It left Se-woong utterly tormented by embarrassment.

Se-woong knew Shin’s sexual habits as intimately as his own workout routine, yet being devoured purely by sight like this was entirely unprecedented. He would have vastly preferred throwing themselves into frantic, breathless friction; having those explicit eyes trace every contour of his skin was so mortifying that his breath hitched in his throat.

For all he knew, there was likely an interrogation tactic prescribing that if a subject refused to talk, one should pin them with an unyielding stare. No accusatory question was pressed and no demand was made, yet under that obsessive gaze, Se-woong felt compelled to blurt out anything at all—such as begging to be touched.

“Shin, stop staring at me like that…” Se-woong averted his face with a faint shudder.

When Shin showed no intention of looking away, Se-woong raised an arm to shield his face. Shin refused to allow even that small retreat. Grasping his wrist in a deceptively tender grip, Shin pinned both arms above Se-woong’s head, locking them down with unyielding authority. In stark contrast to his coaxing, affectionate touch, the iron grip around Se-woong’s wrists granted not a sliver of leeway.

Shifted downward by the angle, Shin’s eyes could now scrutinize Se-woong’s features in meticulous detail. The gaze that had drifted over forehead and brow soon locked onto his eyes. Blatant as the visual confrontation was, neither of them looked away.

Shin pressed his thumb firmly against Se-woong’s lower teeth, prying his jaw apart to peer into the dark cavern of his mouth. Taking in the quiet tongue, the even rows of teeth, and the shadowy depths of his throat, Shin slid his thumb deeper until it pinned the tip of Se-woong’s tongue. He looked down with a languid gaze as Se-woong’s brow furrowed in sweet distress.

Beneath the thin fabric of Shin’s loungewear, the stark outline of an erection swollen to its absolute limit was unmistakable, yet the man seemed entirely unhurried to address it. Every flicker of Shin’s gaze was infuriatingly leisurely. Wondering if he was the only one burning up with unbearable restlessness, Se-woong squirmed and arched his hips in a desperate bid for relief.

In a voice thick with hoarse restraint, Shin warned, “You’d better stay still.”

The low voice was cracked and gravelly, thoroughly scraped dry by stifled heat.

Judging by that rigid erection alone, Shin had to be suffering just as acutely, so why on earth was he acting like this?

Tilting his head to inspect every recess of the mouth, Shin withdrew his thumb only to replace it with his middle finger. When he pressed down firmly on the base of Se-woong’s tongue, saliva pooled in an instant flood. Shin paid no heed to his finger growing slick and soaked with spit. If anything, he churned the narrow cavity more aggressively, as though determined to coat his hand completely.