MORE 24

If nothing else, I could be certain of this. Telling a lie that wouldn’t work on anyone… Even if omegas born as men didn’t account for half the world’s population, the proportion was still high. There was no way an alpha, who claimed that everyone clung to him once he went into rut, would turn that down. Siyul squinted at him with a skeptical look.

“It’s true. I don’t eat guys with balls. Even if they’re omegas, I’m not really into them.”

“Then why did you ask me to sleep with you?”

Woo Hyunse didn’t answer right away. He just stared at Siyul intently. It was as if he were scanning him—looking at his forehead, eyebrows, the bridge and tip of his nose, his cheeks and lips, and even his eyelashes and pupils. His gaze was deep, not as if he were looking at a person, but as if he were picking apart something hidden within a painting.

Siyul stared back, determined not to lose, but eventually, he lowered his eyes. His palms were slightly damp. He curled his fingers, which felt numb for no reason. It stung as if the spark from a flint had touched his cheek.

“That’s true.”

“….”

“I’m curious, too.”

His throat was so parched he couldn’t stand it. Siyul pulled the drink sitting between Woo Hyunse and himself toward his side, opened the cap, and poured it into his dry mouth. The carbonation scratched painfully down his throat. Scowling, he set the plastic bottle on the table. Woo Hyunse naturally took it and placed his own lips to the mouth of the bottle. After just wetting his lips, he shuddered as he had the first time.

“You always taste it even though you say it’s sweet.”

To change the subject, Siyul turned the conversation around. Woo Hyunse willingly played along with Siyul’s obvious ploy.

“It subtly keeps drawing me in.”

“I fell in love with it the moment I drank it at first. It’s a whole new world.”

“Isn’t there a drink similar to this? Mil… what was it?”

“Milky Way? No, it’s different. It’s incredibly different. Just you wait. You’ll be looking for only this from now on, CEO. I guarantee it.”

Kwon Yuwon had been the same way. At first, he’d grumbled about why I kept choosing such strange drinks, but later on, he was the one putting it in the basket first. Even though he’d often bought it saying it was for me, he’d end up gulping it all down himself.

Siyul was confident. Woo Hyunse would be addicted to this new world before long.

Despite Siyul’s bold assurance, Woo Hyunse looked dubious. He tasted the drink one more time and shook his head, insisting that it wasn’t for him.

“But really, why did you come here? Did you really come here just because you wanted to see me?”

Honestly, Siyul couldn’t believe that Woo Hyunse had come all this way just to see him. Could it not be because he had other business? On the other hand, wouldn’t this be a chance to hear him say he missed him one more time? Without realizing it, Siyul swallowed hard and kept his eyes on the other man’s lips.

“You know by now, don’t you? Why I came all this way.”

Or maybe he just came to get the answer he wanted. Siyul’s ears perked up. Even though his gaze was fixed on the messy table, his entire attention was focused on the other man. So as not to miss even the sound of Woo Hyunse’s breathing.

“I came to take you home, Mr. Kwon Siyul.”

The words he wanted to hear didn’t come out. Siyul, feeling completely deflated, slumped his shoulders in despair and looked at Woo Hyunse. Woo Hyunse was grinning. Resting his chin on his hand, he teased him wickedly, making no secret of the fact that he knew what Siyul wanted but would absolutely never tell him. It was a smile that would make even a nine-tailed fox concede defeat.

Siyul let out a “Huh…” and then laughed like an old man, “Heh heh.” It’s hard to figure Woo Hyunse out. Would the day ever come when I understand what’s inside his head? Because he was a person who was hateful yet impossible to purely dislike, Siyul chose to just laugh it off. It felt as though he had been bewitched by those invisible, bushy tails.

■ ■ ■

I don’t know what kind of snake is coiled inside Woo Hyunse’s heart. After asking me to sleep with him, saying he would wait, and promising to give me a few days, he hadn’t pressured me since. Even when they talked on the phone or texted, they didn’t cross any outrageous lines. Basic check-ins like “Have you eaten?” or “Did you sleep well?” were the norm.

This made it even scarier. Didn’t a ghost appearing suddenly without warning make you pee yourself more than a horror movie that builds up atmosphere before the scare? It felt like he would suddenly show up out of the blue and peck at him, asking if he was ready now. He wondered if the way to sleep soundly at night was to volunteer before that happened.

Siyul opened his bedroom door a crack and peered outside. Only after Kwon Yuwon’s presence had completely disappeared toward the alleyway did he close the door. Phew, he exhaled to steady himself and grabbed his phone with a sense of grim determination. Just in case, he even pulled his blanket over his head.

He intended to study how men had intercourse today. It wasn’t because he was accepting Woo Hyunse’s proposal. It was because an academic passion he didn’t know he had was burning inside him. He wanted to explore a new realm.

Asking someone he knew would be the fastest way, but he had already had a painful experience after asking Kwon Yuwon once. If he asked one more time, Kwon Yuwon, with his personality, might subject him to torture—shaking him by the collar and not letting him sleep until he confessed the whole story. He’d rather trust the power of the internet than do that.

There was also the method of asking the bartender. If he used a friend as an excuse, the bartender would explain it comfortably and in detail. He remembered hearing him say at a drinking party before that he didn’t distinguish between men and women when dating.

However, if he went that far, it might be exposed that it wasn’t a friend, but his own story. It was better to minimize the risk. Having made his decision, Siyul turned his attention to his phone.

Even when Siyul occasionally watched adult videos, he watched ones featuring women and men; he had never seen a video featuring two men, even by mistake. But this time, he wanted to challenge himself. With a devout heart to study, he rubbed the sweat off his palms onto the blanket and clicked on a new video. It was a video featuring a man with slender lines and a sturdy man, both naked.

“…Ugh.”

He had clicked on it valiantly, but the rating was too high from the start. Siyul quickly turned off the screen and swallowed the nausea rising in his throat.

Did he really have to go this far? He was curious, but did he have to find out in this way? Every part of him wanted to give up, but a strange stubbornness that always surfaced at times like this prodded Siyul.

It felt as if someone was giggling behind him—the voice sounded just like Woo Hyunse—mocking him. Asking if he was really prepared to stop at just this much. Saying, “I knew you were like that.”

Siyul took a deep breath, calmed down, and searched for a different video. This one was at least more modest than the previous one. Two men, still wearing clothes, were kissing shyly. He could watch up to this point. Fortunately, the nausea he had felt from the previous video did not rise up.

Watching it under the blanket made it stuffy and suffocating. Siyul poked his head out from under the blanket. His face was flushed from the heat, and a few strands of hair were stuck to his forehead. He swept his forehead and hair back with his palm and sat leaning against the wall.

He watched the video as if he were watching a movie. After the two men took off their clothes, the atmosphere heated up. He wanted to turn it off, but feeling that he would lose if he did, he opened his eyes wide, determined not to miss a single scene. His expression toward the video was as focused as an examinee burning with their last passion right before the college entrance exam.

“….”

The study session that started in the middle of the day ended when the evening glow set and the twilight drew its veil. Siyul was collapsed. Like a wreck, his hair was a mess and his eyes were hollow. He looked as haggard as someone who had been severely roughed up.

He hadn’t climbed a steep mountain, but he didn’t have an ounce of strength in his body. The videos he watched in succession had stirred his mind into a quagmire. Even though he had turned the videos off, those flesh tones were still shimmering before his eyes. It was less racy and more a continuous series of shocks. To think such a world existed. It would have been better for his mental health not to know.

He connected the phone, which had become piping hot from playing the videos continuously, to the charger. Siyul lay face down, limp on the blanket, ruminating on the shock.

The first video he watched had been a scam. At their actions that looked like they would break the bed, Siyul had stuck to the wall and trembled like someone who had seen a ghost in broad daylight. The shock was so profound he didn’t dare to even think about turning that video off.

Still, because the first “vaccination” was a strong one, he was able to watch the next video more easily. After watching a few, he saw the patterns, so later on, he even watched them while picking at snacks.

‘Wow, so that’s possible.’

He even occasionally let out exclamations like that. The strange, miraculous positions the two took just seemed like stunts, and their naked bodies became as familiar as what he’d seen in a public bathhouse. The gasping groans were unpleasant only at first, but later they became as familiar as the sounds he heard next to him when exercising at the gym.

While he was at it, he also looked for videos of omegas and alphas. From videos produced for sex education to actual personal experiences. When he read about ‘knotting,’ he felt afraid again, as if back to square one. He could guess why Kwon Yuwon had desperately tried to avoid alphas. If a phenomenon like that happened inside his stomach, anyone would naturally want to avoid an alpha.

On the other hand, there was also the term ‘knotting addiction.’ He had wondered what kind of madman would be addicted to a phenomenon that seemed like it belonged in a gore movie, but the story was that while it hurt like death at first, if you endured it a little bit, the pleasure was greater than drugs, so it was possible to become addicted.