His breath came in shallow gasps. The sensations—biting, sucking, chewing, devouring—were almost violently vivid. Kim Sibaek clung to Tae Woon’s shoulders, overwhelmed by the dizzying sense that he was about to be eaten alive.
Tae Woon pulled his mouth away from the nape he’d been savaging. Rather than a kiss mark, what he left behind was closer to a wound, which he slowly licked with a deliberate sweep of his tongue. Sibaek couldn’t see it, but he could feel it—round indentations, likely bleeding.
“Hnn… You like that?”
“I like it so much I feel like I’m gonna come.”
Tae Woon rubbed his now swollen cock against the inside of Sibaek’s thigh.
“It’s not just your neck—I want to bite every inch of your body. Your face, your chest, your nipples, your stomach, your cock, your thighs… Every bit of skin. I want to chew, gnaw, and mark you all over so the traces never fade.”
“……”
“Even if you forget me, your body will remember—until the day you die. And since you can heal yourself, how deep would I have to bite for it to leave a scar? Should I go all the way to the bone?”
He said it with a teasing smile, but there was a heavy truth buried underneath the words that pressed down on Kim Sibaek like a weight.
“I want to be the last person you think of before you die. I want your mind to be so full of me that it bursts. I want you to die holding only me.”
So that’s what it was.
Even those things Tae Woon had said in passing, things Sibaek had once laughed off—every word had been real. Every bit of it is sincere.
“…You’re way too young to be talking about dying all the time.”
A soft laugh tickled the back of his neck.
“I’ve never told anyone this before. Not even you. But before I entered middle school, I met this shaman on the street. Total accident. She took one look at me and freaked. Said I should’ve been dead already—asked how I was even still alive.”
Kim Sibaek frowned. Sounded like some scam artist feeding bullshit to a kid to scare money out of his parents.
“Those types just want to run rituals and bleed you dry. Don’t let it get to you.”
“Really? She looked legit to me.”
A large hand slid over Sibaek’s stomach, drifting down his side to his back, then slipped beneath his waistband. The cold fingers against his heated skin made him inhale sharply and shudder. His lower belly clenched.
“My lifeline is crazy short, hyung. Everyone who’s read my palm said it’s like I don’t even have one.”
“Woon-ah.”
“But honestly, even without that—it’s just the world we live in. Someone like me, weak and soft, could get torn apart by monsters tomorrow.”
Tae Woon yanked down Sibaek’s pants and underwear in one motion, then wrapped his hand around his fully erect cock. His voice might’ve been cold, talking so casually about death, but his hand grew hotter with each stroke, as if soaking in Sibaek’s heat.
Pleasure surged up from his reddening shaft, and Sibaek bit his lip to suppress the moan. He clung to Tae Woon’s shoulder, gasping.
“Don’t say stuff like that. I’m here. I’ll protect you—from monsters, from anything. I’ll heal all your Magi, too.”
Somewhere, a panel voice droned about the death of five-year-old Tae-gun. The echo clawed at his skull like a dream, but Kim Sibaek shook it off.
This is a dream. Just a dream. A fleeting illusion that’ll vanish the second I wake. Maybe I came across a bio of Dr. Cloud Carter online once, buried somewhere in my memory. Some fragment I don’t even remember… leaking into a dream.
That’s all it is. Just a dream. Not real. My Tae Woon who died at five can’t be real.
“Don’t ever think about dying again.”
At his firm voice, Tae Woon raised his head. His eyes gleamed from the darkness, steady as always. And, like always, he smiled and said casually:
“Okay.”
Tae Woon lied more easily than anyone.
He had met Kim Sibaek when he was six. He was now thirty-six. And he knew, without a doubt, that he would never make it to thirty-seven.
Sibaek’s cock, gripped tightly and stroked fast, turned a flushed, peachy hue. A stifled groan escaped as white semen gushed from the tip. Kim Sibaek, still catching his breath from the climax, reached out and grabbed Tae Woon’s shoulder where he crouched between his legs. If he didn’t stop him, Tae Woon would—quite literally—eat it.
When pulling at his shoulder didn’t work, he grabbed his head and tugged him upward. Tae Woon’s body followed reluctantly, and he muttered in a voice soaked with longing:
“But I need to eat this…”
He said it like someone sick and desperate for their meds—as if swallowing someone else’s cum were necessary for survival. Kim Sibaek quickly pressed a finger to his lips.
“I’ll give you something else instead.”
Tae Woon’s eyes went wide with surprise. Worried about whatever twisted fantasy was about to sprout in that wild little brain of his, Kim Sibaek hurriedly pulled him into an embrace.
He pushed aside the robe hanging from Tae Woon’s shoulder and pressed his lips to the back of his neck. His tongue traced the taut, muscular column, and Tae Woon let out a soft giggle, squirming at the ticklish touch. But the moment Sibaek bit down hard, the laughter stopped cold.
It wasn’t pain. At least, he hoped not. Still, he hesitated, concerned. He felt Tae Woon swallow hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he held his breath.
His shoulders were stiff with uncharacteristic tension. Sibaek rubbed them gently and swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth.
He’d left plenty of marks during sex before—kisses, touches, the usual. But this was different. This was deliberate. Raw. He’d never bitten someone like this before.
And for Tae Woon, this was a first too.
Even as the feeling struck him as foreign, Kim Sibaek didn’t hesitate—he bared his teeth and bit down. The sensation of teeth sinking into smooth, warm skin was unfamiliar and strange. Above him, Tae Woon let out a low, breathy moan. As Sibaek chewed gently at the nape of his neck, his thoughts drifted. The scent of skin at such close range filled his lungs, and every time he bit or licked, the faint shudders that ran through Tae Woon’s body traveled straight into his arms.
He could feel the thrum of the carotid artery beneath his teeth, vivid and distinct, like the pulse itself was echoing against his jaw. This was where vampires bit, wasn’t it? The spot where blood spilled, where life pulsed beneath the skin. Leaving a mark here—was it like taking a piece of that life, claiming it as your own? If that’s what it meant, then yes—he could give Tae Woon as many wounds, as much pain, as he wanted.
He couldn’t bite hard enough to draw blood like Tae Woon had—it hurt too much—but he still left behind a clearly defined set of teeth marks. Even the Magi embedded in his skin couldn’t blur them.
Sibaek rubbed the bite gently with his thumb and whispered close to his ear.
“Don’t forget me, either.”
He’d sensed it the first time they kissed—that this would lead to regret.
And now, speaking those words, Kim Sibaek felt it again. Regret. He was asking too much from someone who had wandered alone for twenty-one years in pain, searching for him. From someone he had thought of like family—like a cherished little brother. He was asking Tae Woon not to let go, not to find peace, not to move on.
Even though he might vanish from this world again, might leave Tae Woon behind to live alone in it, he hoped the boy wouldn’t change. That he’d stay the same.
Their relationship had changed. The selfish part of Sibaek—the part that didn’t want to lose the boy who had engraved himself so deeply inside—had changed too.
Was this still just a bond between an older and younger brother, filled with familial affection? Or was it what Tae Woon wanted it to be—a sexual relationship? Or something else entirely?
He didn’t know what to call it anymore.
Maybe even when this quest ends, he still won’t know. Whatever it was that shook his resolve to return home—whatever it was that stirred this deep, aching regret despite his vow to leave no trace behind—it didn’t have a name.
Maybe he couldn’t name it because he’d never really experienced it. Never truly lived it. And with that still-nameless thing blooming faintly in his chest, Kim Sibaek gave a soft, bitter smile.
“These marks will probably fade in a few days.”
“…Hyung.”
Tae Woon started to say something—his voice caught in his throat, turned to breath, swallowed back down. His lips parted again, and his Adam’s apple bobbed with a deep swallow before he spoke in his usual playful tone. He licked at Sibaek’s earlobe.
“Maybe I should get it tattooed—right over the bite mark.”
“…Don’t. That’s just perverted. If it starts to fade—no, before it even starts—I’ll leave another one.”
“Before you go back?”
“…Yeah.”
Maybe he heard the hesitation. Tae Woon gave a low, throaty chuckle and bit down firmly on Sibaek’s earlobe.
His knee slipped easily between Sibaek’s thighs, spreading them apart. His cock, heavy and rock-hard, brushed against Sibaek’s groin, and the sharp spike of arousal made Sibaek forget all about the bite on his neck. He bit his lip.
Need surged up so fast it almost stung. He reached down without thinking—but Tae Woon caught his wrist. That hand, once always cool to the touch, now burned with heat as it wrapped gently around his skin. And then, just as hot and twice as breathless, came Tae Woon’s voice.
“Hyung, I just remembered—this is bad.”
“…What?”
“I forgot the condoms. I left them back in Daejeon.”
