INV 34

Kwon Yihyeon, who had managed to fall asleep after 3:00 AM following a bout of lovemaking madness, habitually opened his eyes without an alarm as soon as it hit 6:00 AM.

And he was met simultaneously with a mysterious smile and a question from the priest.

“Was it good?”

“Yes. It was good.”

For the first time, Kwon Yihyeon was able to answer this question. When he responded with sparkling, clear eyes, Chacha—who looked somewhat haggard—laughed hollowly.

“I’m glad, then. At least being swung around was worth it.”

“The stamina of a young man is certainly difficult for you to handle, isn’t it?”

Should I just snatch that brat up and eat him? If I simmer and boil him well, he’d be quite tender.

Chacha was seriously thinking such thoughts before deleting the insane impulse cleanly, deciding it would be a waste to end things with a mere meal. Kwon Yihyeon had to live a long, long life.

‘Because he’s cute.’

Chacha was sincere. Just what kind of atrocities the ‘cute’ Kwon Yihyeon had committed in the middle of the night while everyone else was asleep was at a level too embarrassing to speak of, but even so, he believed the ‘objective fact’ that he was cute was an eternal truth. There was no case of rose-colored glasses quite like this one; it was almost a pity that The Jade Emperor was still asleep, leaving no one to make Jae Angshin face the truth.

The previous night, Kwon Yihyeon had engaged in sex so messy that Chacha’s thin belly skin was plumply swollen with seed-water, and new seed-water had flowed down several times over the inner thighs where semen foam had dried, layering the marks. Kwon Yihyeon had a persistent and tenacious side like a predator refusing to lose its prey; even when his partner repeatedly fainted and cried while being forcibly held and struck by the cock-head, he did not stop. Chacha realized that the first night, when he had thought the man was arrogant despite being a virgin, was actually quite noble. Compared to last night, that time was practically the royal lovemaking of the Joseon Dynasty. Didn’t they say court ladies watched the lovemaking from behind the paper doors back then? Everyone would have just been going through the motions.

No, if I mention that, it might actually awaken Kwon Yihyeon’s abnormal sexual desires. Chacha swallowed the joke he was about to let slip and smiled faintly.

Then Kwon Yihyeon smiled beautifully with dreamy eyes.

“You’re pretty even from the morning. Is it because you’re a monster?”

“That’s right. Unlike you, my eyes don’t even get puffy. If I want to, I can maintain a clean state at all times, so it’s quite a comfortable life. Of course, one must be a high-ranking monster for that.”

“…I’m going to go wash my face.”

Kwon Yihyeon, who had tucked the blanket back softly over Chacha—who had been half-pulling it off—got up. He covered his mouth and yawned, narrowing his eyes sleepily for a moment before shaking his head to wake up. Then he went into the bathroom. The sound of water followed.

To the sensitive Jae Angshin’s senses, one more sound was audible, but Kwon Yihyeon would never know it in a million years.

‘Is it hard again just because it’s morning, after all that? And so, thinking he’s being considerate of me, he’s taking care of it alone?’

Chacha was afraid he might kill Kwon Yihyeon because he was too cute. When you see something too cute, you want to bite it. But if Chacha bites, a normal person just gets severed. Crunch.

‘I have to endure. Right.’

For a younger man who had no sexual experience to be this vigorous—he was a rare species that wouldn’t even appear in the “Encyclopedia of All Monsters”—he seemed to know how to mate as if he possessed the natural qualities of a lecher. A lecher; it was an evaluation that might make Kwon Yihyeon try to strangle Chacha if he heard it, but the violent and dominant side of him, so opposite to his usual cheerful and respectful-to-elders image, was actually thrilling.

For reference, Kwon Yihyeon is a rare man with a healthy mind and a sound sexual education. Even so, the reason Kwon Yihyeon engaged in such rough and humiliating lovemaking was because his partner was Jae Angshin. This didn’t mean it was okay to treat him carelessly because he was Jae Angshin. Kwon Yihyeon believed that because the partner was Jae Angshin, if he ‘sincerely’ wanted to refuse, he would beat the crap out of Kwon Yihyeon or whoever and kick them out, and that was the truth. Chacha accepted it because he permitted Kwon Yihyeon’s atrocities…

So, although it’s a bit much to say out loud, Kwon Yihyeon thought Chacha was a pervert.

‘Not even thinking about what I did.’

When Chacha looked into the mirror, tooth marks were vivid on his neck. Chacha touched the marks with his fingertips without erasing them on purpose, imagining the Kwon Yihyeon of the days when he wasn’t by his side.

He had investigated and learned many things about Kwon Yihyeon for a long time.

But Chacha couldn’t know with what kind of thoughts Kwon Yihyeon lived through all that past.

That alone, he simply could not.

⋆˙⟡

After getting entangled with Jae Angshin, Kwon Yihyeon began to receive all sorts of mistreatment from shamanistic figures, but his standing in the outside world was different.

Kwon Yihyeon was actually famous as ‘that’ sunbae of the Sculpture Department at Korea University.

It meant he was famous and eye-catching enough that people understood just by calling him ‘that’ sunbae.

First of all, he was handsome and tall. It’s a prejudiced thing to say, but despite being an arts major, things like piercings or bleached hair weren’t excessive enough to be inappropriate for school. Rather, Kwon Yihyeon dressed like a sophisticated member of society. Actually, since he had started social life early with contract work and tutoring, it wasn’t exactly wrong.

There was a reason why he had agonized over his outfit for a long time on his first day of work. On the day of the freshman welcoming party, when he showed up in a straight-cut long coat over a black turtleneck and an ivory muffler mixed with light gray and beige checks, posts flooded the university community asking if anyone knew who ‘that’ tall, handsome guy was. He mainly enjoyed wearing clean and neat casual looks to semi-formal looks, and since he was a tall, handsome man who also dressed well, he always stood out.

But he also had a good body and great stamina, to the point where the tennis club sent him to amateur tournaments as if it were second nature. Moreover, he was diligent. While bringing home all sorts of awards from extracurricular activities, he never missed a group project. Since he treated everyone he met with a smiling face, it was the law of nature that people flocked to him.

He had taken a two-year break for the military in the middle and was currently in a state of having suddenly applied for a leave of absence during his graduating semester, but he was still talked about as a legend of that class year.

Kwon Yihyeon was a sunbae, a classmate, and a hoebae who was so sociable and well-rounded that one might think, ‘Can there even be human likes or dislikes for a kid like this?’ He was like that to everyone who wasn’t a nuisance. Just having a clean personality without being clingy was already a high score, but since he was kind and nice in everything, he couldn’t help but be liked by everyone.

There were even many legendary anecdotes. The story of how he approached a classmate who was forcing others to drink while spouting out-of-line nonsense, and chased him away with just one whispered word and a quiet smile, was a repertoire that poured out of the mouths of senior students whenever a drinking party was held. The fact that what he whispered remains unknown to this day made it a legend in itself.

However, ironically, Kwon Yihyeon thought of himself as a sophisticatedly crafted mask made for others to see.

In Kwon Yihyeon’s opinion, his true nature beneath the mask was on the dark side. How should I put it? To put it a bit mischievously, he had a side that was sensitive to the point of being perverted. He was excessively sharp, so he often noticed the inner thoughts of others that he didn’t want to know. Consequently, he easily caught onto backstories that no one else could recognize, but he didn’t bother getting involved in the complex affairs of others. Because it was a hassle. Because he didn’t want to pour that much sincerity into it.

‘If it were family, I would have stepped in actively. But we’re not at that level. Not us.’

Instead, he occasionally took kids who looked very precarious and bought them a few more cups of coffee or a few more meals.

From his perspective, the bystanderism of pretending not to know when it was clearly visible was tiring in its own way, so it was a wicked scheme to settle it with money instead of consuming mental energy.

However, after spending some money out of selfish and willful calculations known only to himself, his reputation strangely rose a dozen or so times. I don’t know how many more times it happened where Kwon Yihyeon wasn’t aware. At this point, Kwon Yihyeon found it bothersome.

So he just decided to be a sunbae who buys food well.

‘My wallet…’

Regardless, Kwon Yihyeon was faithful to his duties as a university student. It means he made many friends far and wide and studied hard. He didn’t take elective courses just to get credits; he approached them based on curiosity toward the subject, so he had many acquaintances in other departments as well. There was always one or two wherever he went. You could call him an ‘insider’ who encompassed all of Korea University. The majority of the reputation was that if he had run for office, the student body presidency would have been a sure thing.

In a word, his popularity couldn’t have been better.

However, when a human becomes famous, they are bound to pay the price of fame.

Because people heard so many rumors about him and Kwon Yihyeon treated them kindly, many people mistakenly thought they had become close to him. Such people wanted to use Kwon Yihyeon to make themselves look like something, or wanted to stab him in the back simply because he was nice. So, around the time Kwon Yihyeon became a sophomore, an incident broke out…