Chapter 69
“Numerous experiences?”
He asked back while pouncing on me with a playful attitude to kiss. Even with his cheeks being held, his face was filled with joyful laughter.
“Since you’ve become this skilled, I couldn’t even imagine you were that person from back then. Where did that cute little thing who couldn’t even look me in the eye go? Ah… the power of experience is amazing.”
His movement of trying to bite my hand holding his cheek, shaking his head this way and that with his mouth open like a puppy, stopped. His laughter faded, and his brow furrowed as if gauging the meaning of my words.
“Ah… mm…”
Making a sound like a groan, he grabbed and pulled down my wrist.
His profile checking his wristwatch once more was serious. Getting up from the bed, he wrapped the used condom in several layers of tissue and set it aside on one side of the table, then returned to sit on the edge of the bed.
Did I say something wrong?
While I was thinking, he cleared his throat and glanced back at me.
“I think we have absolutely no responsibility for each other’s past. I want to make that part clear first.”
“……”
“But since I know hyung is misunderstanding… I’ll correct it before we move on.”
From his atmosphere, he didn’t seem angry. He just seemed to be pondering how to bring up what he wanted to say.
Only then did I rub my arms and sit a little closer to him.
“What kind of story needs such a grand introduction?”
“Back then, after the Paeli trip… I started looking into BDSM as hyung advised.”
Even while completely naked, he looked comfortable as he spoke while looking down at the floor with his hands clasped between his thighs.
After returning to Korea, he had absorbed almost all information about BDSM accessible online, and also read authoritative books and papers in that field. He had been immersed in that work throughout that summer, and had continued to update information about BDSM in general, including other orientations unrelated to his own.
“Though the classification system of BDSM existed for convenience, most people who defined themselves as ‘oriented’ were complex cases with various orientations mixed together. I was also closest to having a hunter orientation, but that wasn’t everything.”
“……”
“Kissing tenderly, carefully overlapping bodies while respecting the other person… finishing gently in missionary position without looking down. Until then, I thought that was general sex, and I was frustrated that my desires were completely different from that. I even thought I’d become a rapist someday.”
After saying such a frightening thing, he laughed with a whistling sound. Since it was laughter about something that had passed, I could feel relieved. I was glad he no longer thought of himself that way.
“The important thing was… learning that there were quite a few people troubled by not being satisfied with that ‘general sex’ I had imagined, and fortunately, the desires I had weren’t excessively beyond what could be generally accepted.”
“……”
“At least I didn’t have high-difficulty desires like wanting to hit my partner or mentally dominate them.”
This time too, he turned to look at me and smiled.
“It was just as hyung said. I didn’t want to forcibly rape someone who said no. I didn’t want to hit them or hurt them. My desires were that specific, but I had treated myself as just a violent dangerous person, a potential criminal. I didn’t know myself well even though it was me, and I didn’t even try to know while not knowing well. Because I didn’t know well, I tried to suppress it blindly. Ignorance is truly frightening.”
Though he was talking to me sitting beside him, his eyes were lost in deep thought as if searching distant places.
And his face slowly turning toward me after a long while looked peaceful. The composure shown by a human who could know, understand, and control himself was attractive.
“You’re not a pervert. If you’re a pervert, then so am I. Back then hyung said that to me. To look into BDSM once. If it hadn’t been hyung who said that to me… I would still be living in denial of myself while remaining ignorant about myself.”
I had said such things. But I myself had only fragmentary knowledge heard from Taeyoon until now, and made no effort to care for and resolve my desires.
Just sexual desire, I thought. Even if many other parts didn’t match with me, as long as the forceful aspect was somewhat satisfied, I could just roughly resolve it through my relationship with Yoon Juho.
Sexual desire was an important desire deeply connected to quality of life and satisfaction along with food, clothing, and shelter – so much so that there were couples who divorced because of sexual incompatibility or different preferences about sex. Even knowing this theoretically, I had treated sexual desire as trivial and not cared for it.
I raised my knees and loosely draped my arms over them. The moment I tried to avoid his eyes that seemed to pressure me, he changed his expression and smiled gently.
“I’m grateful to hyung who defended me saying I wasn’t a pervert. But I’m probably a pervert in other ways.”
Some playfulness seeped back into his face. I couldn’t immediately grasp what he meant.
“Hyung seems to think that lots of sexual experience made the current me… and I know that’s the general thinking too.”
He paused briefly and reached out to fidget with my hand resting on my knees.
“True perverts don’t compromise.”
“……”
“Unless it’s the best choice, perfection that’s convincing in every way, their hearts don’t move. They don’t compromise with choices that don’t meet their standards just to moderately satisfy their desires.”
“Ah…”
It was the moment when the theme of the story, which had felt vague about what he was trying to say, became clear.
It wasn’t easy to understand. A healthy adult male in his twenties, moreover one with excellent external conditions who could relatively easily find sex partners, voluntarily refusing such opportunities…
“I’m a pervert, right?”
He was smiling while lightly pulling my hand. It was a smile that looked somewhat bitter. I was momentarily speechless and couldn’t even deny it.
“I understand. Yujun always calls me disgusting too. That abnormal levels of abstinence are also a kind of perversion. My friend and work colleague you saw at my house last time. Do you remember?”
I nodded slowly, but I didn’t have the leisure to think about his friend.
Thinking coldly, even in the past he had only hesitated and been careful, but despite it being his first experience, he wasn’t bad at sex. He knew how to use his waist, when to go faster, when to kiss, when to drive his partner to climax – he knew it all instinctively.
As he grew into a relaxed and confident man proportional to his social achievements, his attitude toward sex could have changed in any number of ways. Moreover, he was armed with abundant knowledge, properly knew and acknowledged his own desires, and above all was free from them.
Openness toward sexuality. In sex, there was no technique more certain than that.
He who had pulled my hand down from my knees lightly rested his chin in that spot.
“Is inexperienced me burdensome?”
“Rather than burdensome…”
Wondering how to say it, choosing and choosing words in my head, I gave up and decided to be honest.
“It would be self-consciousness to think it’s because of me… but we only spent a few days together back then, so I wondered if you couldn’t enjoy your twenties because of me…”
His face was smiling on my knees. It was a face enjoying his own secret, showing that there was something more I didn’t know. And not knowing the content of the secret made me a little anxious.
“Why, why are you smiling like that?”
Without answering, he shook his head while smiling until his cheeks puffed out. Then he embraced my thighs with both arms.
“Can you make time this weekend? I’d like you to spend just one day with me before script reading starts. To properly celebrate… and we have so much to talk about. I think I really need to go now.”
He checked his wristwatch once more. Then he put strength into his arms holding my legs and kissed my knees.
“Our appointment was canceled last time because of the housewarming. Hyung will be very busy later. I really want to go to Hongcheon together before that. Won’t that work?”
I stared at his face looking up at me with his lips buried in my knees. As our past memories became shared, he felt like he was more actively utilizing his position as the younger one than before.
The important thing was that I didn’t dislike such obvious tactics, attempts to get what he wanted by putting cuteness forward.
“I need to arrive in Seoul before Sunday lunch.”
That would be enough, he nodded satisfactorily.
I didn’t know what deadline he had originally set, but when we finished all preparations and stood at the entrance, it was well past midnight. It was approaching 1 o’clock. He seemed to call his company once in the middle, and I was a bit worried because he was earnestly apologizing and asking for understanding from the other party.
“You said you’re meeting a friend in the morning?”
He himself didn’t seem very worried, standing at the entrance wearing his shoes but unable to leave easily.
“Drink with me next time too.”
“We drank last time.”
His two hands slyly grabbed my two hands. Fiddling with my fingertips, he grumbled.
“That wasn’t drinking together, that was hyung coming to my house drunk.”
“There will be plenty of opportunities to drink together in the future… so hurry and go today. At this rate we’ll be standing here until morning.”
I was anxious thinking he might get in trouble at his company. At my force pushing our clasped hands outward, he reluctantly took steps.
“I don’t expect hyung to have the same size emotions as me.”
Even while saying that, a slightly disappointed light flashed in his eyes.
I couldn’t yet know exactly how big his emotions were, and how mine compared to his.
But even after he showed his back, the door closed, the door lock automatically locked, and the sounds of him going down the stairs, opening and closing the gate, and his neat footsteps completely faded away, I couldn’t leave the entrance for a while.
I was that regretful about parting too.
It’s just the beginning now. As I told him, there would be plenty of opportunities to do many things together and convey my heart in the future. Just as I was about to turn around consoling myself like that, the bouquet on the dining table suddenly caught my eye.
Only those bright colors and fragrance that didn’t match my modest household seemed like faint evidence that he had been here until just a moment ago.
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Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
