HPK 80

Slap!

A sharp noise cut through the damp air. The sloppy sounds of their mixed saliva stopped all at once.

“Hah, hah……”

Wooseung, panting, slowly lowered his hand. A strange sensation, as if electricity had passed through it, ran down to his fingertips with a tingle.

“Don’t, don’t do this.”

“……”

“I said I wouldn’t do anything with you anymore, so why, why……”

He had struck so hard that his own palm was stinging. He had thought only the person who was hit would be in pain, but it turned out the person who hit was in pain as well. Wooseung clenched his fist tightly. His heart pounded violently from the first act of violence he had ever committed in his life.

Taejung remained motionless, his head still turned to the side. His cheek was only faintly flushed red; there was no grotesque swelling or bruising of the eyes like the man he had punched.

“Heo……”

A laugh like escaping air slipped through his slightly parted lips.

Taejung slowly rubbed the inside of his cheek with his tongue. It would be a lie to say it didn’t hurt, but the fact that Wooseung had slapped him was more shocking than the pain.

“I’ve never even been hit as a fucking kid……”

Taejung slowly turned his head back to its original position. Wooseung, the momentum from when he had delivered the slap gone, was cowering in fear. His adam’s apple kept bobbing, and his eyes were busy observing the other.

Taejung rubbed his left cheek with the back of his right hand, then took it away. A frightened gaze followed his every small movement. He shook the hand that had absorbed the warmth, flick, flick.

“I’m going to sue you.”

And then he said something that would make Wooseung’s heart drop.

“……What?”

“I’m going to sue you.”

Wooseung’s lips fell open stupidly. As if he had never dreamed Taejung would react this way.

“If you don’t want to get sued, take back what you said.”

Taejung didn’t miss the opportunity and drove the nail in.

“What……. What are you suing me for? You’re the one who tried to force me first!”

“Then you say that. That you hit me because I was trying to rape you.”

He was at a loss for words at the shameless retort. The fist he had been clenching tightly slowly loosened. He hated himself for crumbling so easily at the single word “sue,” but he couldn’t help being scared.

“……”

The faint flush on Taejung’s cheek. The mouth that spouted threats of lawsuits. And behind him, his gaze moved sequentially to the CCTV in the corner of the ceiling, blinking with a red light. Everything felt like it was attacking him.

Perhaps Taejung had found a weapon that was more frightening and effective than violence.

“Take it back, what you said.”

“……”

“I said, take it back.”

Does a person become dejected when they feel too wronged? Wooseung wanted to just get out of this fight that seemed to have no end in sight. But Taejung wouldn’t allow it. He kept pulling him in, tying his ankles to the battlefield.

He wrapped his stinging right hand with his left and reluctantly opened his mouth. His voice was trembling pitifully.

“……The thing about you liking me, President?”

“Fuck, I don’t like you.”

“Then, then……. The thing about not doing anything with you anymore, President?”

Taejung fell silent for a moment, a thoughtful look on his face. His left cheek bulged and deflated repeatedly. After a long silence, he blurted out shamelessly.

“Both.”

“……”

“Take them both back.”

Wooseung let out a sigh, “Ha,” at the deep exhaustion spreading from the tips of his toes. He was so tired, both mentally and physically, that he wanted to just lie down and collapse right there.

“……If I take it back.”

“……”

“Is it over? Or do I have to keep seeing you like this, President?”

Taejung frowned sharply, as if those words were deeply unpleasant. But Wooseung still had more to say.

“Then I, I can’t take it back.”

“……”

“I need to earn money.”

As he spoke, a wave of sorrow washed over him, and he started to whimper. It was a severe blow to his pride to be doing so in front of someone who was threatening to sue him if he didn’t take back his words, so Wooseung rubbed his eyes roughly. But they continued to grow hot.

“I can give you that money.”

Taejung said, grabbing Wooseung’s arm and pulling it down forcefully.

“……Why would you, President?”

“You need money, and I……”

He stopped mid-sentence and awkwardly closed his mouth. He rubbed the corner of his lip with his tongue, cursed, “Bitch,” and then spat on the floor, ptoo.

“Just give you that one fifty, is that enough?”

Because Taejung had always been petty with money, his words didn’t quite sink in for Wooseung.

His watery eyes studied the other for a long time before a low voice flowed from between his red lips.

“……That’s not enough.”

Taejung laughed as if in disbelief. He was dumbfounded at the sight of him sniffling and yet sputtering that it was far from enough.

“……”

But Wooseung was, in his own way, being sincere. He might give it once, maybe even twice. But the third time?

How long would Taejung really keep giving him money? No matter how much money he was given, he was a person full of variables. The immediate reality was anxiety itself, so he couldn’t lean on the comfortable uncertainty that Taejung would provide. It might be different if there was something that could give him assurance.

“You’ve been to my house, so you know, President. I, I have to keep earning money.”

“So you’re saying you’re going to sell your body to some other guy while seeing me? Fuck, is that what you’re saying?”

“……I won’t go on second rounds.”

“The words ‘second round.’”

Taejung clenched his teeth tightly, as if forcibly suppressing his surging anger.

“Don’t say them. It’s fucking annoying.”

Wooseung’s gaze fell on the taut jaw muscles. And below that, to the chest that swelled so large it looked like it would rip through his t-shirt.

“……I have to go to work.”

“You really want to die.”

A billowing rage filled the space. It wouldn’t be strange if he resorted to violence right now, but Taejung was holding it in, his fists clenched tightly.

His breath caught in his throat at the absurdity of using a “lawsuit” as a threat, and yet, the thing he was threatening him to take back was just a few words he’d said…….

“Take it back.”

In that moment, Wooseung lifted his head as if he had realized something.

The hand that was raised as if to strike but then lowered, the violence that was never unleashed in the end. And the words he ultimately wanted him to take back, threatening him with a lawsuit and whatnot.

“I can just give you a card, can’t I?”

“……”

“Right?”

Then that’s settled, Taejung messed up his hair as if he was fed up. The fine strands of hair settled down calmly without looking messy.

“Just try saying that shit about going to work again. Really—.”

“Then, then……”

Wooseung cut off Taejung’s continuing words and urgently met his eyes. His wavering pupils were a storm of all sorts of emotions.

“Can you make just one promise with me?”

“A promise?”

Wooseung lifted his free arm and slowly rubbed his eyes. There was no wetness, but a warm heat lingered. After forcibly swallowing the saliva that had pooled thickly under his tongue, he slowly began to speak.

“……Don’t threaten me with money.”

“What?”

“Don’t give me a card and then take it back, don’t do things like that.”

“Hah……. Hey, do you have something you’re relying on? Have you fucking grown a pair since a while ago?”

Emotions are intangible, but sometimes, they are more certain than anything else. What Wooseung believed in at this moment was what the other was exuding with his entire body, something he couldn’t even control himself…….

“If you don’t promise me that, I, I can’t see you, President.”

“Wow, fuck……”

Taejung kept letting out hollow laughs as if in disbelief. He roughly swept his hair back and pressed the crown of his head with his interlocked hands, chewing on a curse.

But in the end, he couldn’t refuse Wooseung’s words. As if that was a blow to his pride, his wide-open eyes were sharp and fierce.

“Then you promise too. If you go to work, you die by my hands.”

Wooseung nodded his head docilely, as a sign of his promise. But Taejung’s words didn’t end there.

“Don’t contact clients.”

“……”

“And don’t lie. You think I don’t know you met Park Hyojun?”

The moment the name Hyojun came out of his mouth, Wooseung was startled. A sharp gaze bore down on his wide, round eyes.

“What, Daejeon? Hah, just try making another fucking lie using your family as an excuse. Really, fuck……”

“How did you……”

“And.”

A hand shot out and covered the area from under his ear to his chin all at once. The moment his face was lifted and their gazes met, Wooseung saw a flame burning at its highest temperature.

“Don’t hide your tongue when we kiss.”

Without any warning, their lips met. An intense sensation, as if swallowing a conflagration, rushed through him.

“Heut.”

As his tongue instinctively recoiled, Taejung spat out a curse irritably.

“Tongue, please. Fuck……!”

A sloppy sound was made as their two tongues, thoroughly soaked in saliva, intertwined. Wooseung squeezed his eyes shut, not knowing what to do with the sudden kiss.

Just then, his knit shirt was lifted, and a hand slid inside. As if he were being chased, Taejung clutched his waist, then fumbled frantically at the prominent bones along his spine.

“Heut, I don’t want to. Why, why all of a sudden, eu-eut.”

No sooner had Wooseung turned his head and pushed him away than he muttered a fierce curse. But Wooseung stubbornly shook his head, saying he didn’t want to.

“Fuck, then where should we do it.”

“……”

“You choose.”

Taejung kept planting kisses on the spot below Wooseung’s ear, where the neck and shoulder met. He would bite down gently with his teeth, and then stick out his tongue to lick him. All the while, he kept muttering incomprehensible things to himself, “Who said I liked you. Who, haah.”

“That’s not it, heut……”

Wooseung struggled, unable to accept the sudden change in atmosphere. As much as the anger he had poured out, Taejung’s entire body was blazing with heat.

“I asked where we should do it.”

When Wooseung didn’t answer at all, Taejung finally couldn’t hold back his temper and urged him on.

“The car?”

“……The car, I, I don’t want to.”

“Go to another room?”

The other room he was talking about would be Room 7.

Wooseung quickly shook his head. Taejung sucked on his earlobe and then let it go, saying in a voice thick with excitement.

“Then home?”

“Yes, yes, oo, home, home.”

Even in his dazed state, he thought that home would be better.

“Your home?”

Taejung buried his nose under Wooseung’s ear and inhaled his scent deeply. Then he got angry again by himself, saying, “Fuck, the smell of perfume.”

“What? Eut, why at my house……”

“That’s where your scent……”

“What?”

Taejung stopped mid-sentence and clamped his mouth shut. A hot flush instantly rose to his face at the words he was about to blurt out without thinking. The area under his eyes turned bright red, making the faint flush that had briefly appeared on his cheek after being slapped seem pale in comparison.

“Fuck, whatever, let’s go to my place then.”

He pushed Wooseung away with a thud and grabbed his wrist. The moment he opened the door and stepped into the hallway, Mr. Kim Jungoh, who had been watching them continuously, came out from behind the counter as if he had been waiting. But Taejung strode straight for the stairs.

Like a typhoon that stirred everything up into a mess and then left abruptly.