Chapter 66
After using the bathroom and coming out, he was waiting in front of the door. The thought that he was like a puppy following behind made the acquaintance chuckle.
Just as he was about to move toward where his bag was, his gaze slowly examined the acquaintance’s upper body in a t-shirt.
“Did I… leave too many marks?”
“Ah…”
Since the acquaintance had checked in the bathroom mirror, he knew the situation. Around his nipples and pubic area, and around his collarbone, there were marks from being sucked and bitten by him. But whether it was an intentional calculation or not, fortunately they were in positions that wouldn’t show when clothed.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s the same for both of us.”
The acquaintance replied lightly while lightly pressing his chest with his fingertips. Due to scratching, grabbing, and biting in an attempt to control his maddening excitement, his chest, shoulders, and back were also mottled.
“But they’re in areas that will be cleanly covered when you put on your uniform, so you’re saved. You seem to have talent?”
The acquaintance said this playfully, firmly pressed his shoulder once, and left the front of the bathroom.
When he shouldered his bag from the floor and turned around, he was facing toward the entrance as if to go out.
“Where are you going?”
“I should go with you too. I’ll go at least to nearby.”
His apologetic gaze fell from the acquaintance’s eyes to lower down. He probably meant he would take him since his body was also uncomfortable, but he didn’t want to extend the memories any further.
The acquaintance deliberately played a mischievous trick as he walked toward the entrance.
“What are you looking at? So lecherously.”
Without realizing it, he had been looking at the center of the acquaintance’s body, the place where he might be feeling discomfort now, and immediately reddened his face again. How could such a person last night…
The acquaintance, who had caught up to him in the narrow hallway in front of the entrance, removed his hand that was gripping the door handle.
“I told you not to feel strange responsibility.”
“It’s not responsibility…”
“I don’t want to become someone who can’t even go home alone just because we had some sex.”
“……”
Only then did he sigh as if giving up and lean his back against the wall with a thud. He probably understood the acquaintance’s mind in continuously declining.
“If Luca happens to come to your hotel or contact you… tell me. It would be easier if I got involved to solve it. It’s also partly my responsibility.”
He nodded. He didn’t seem to take Luca’s matter seriously.
His face looked like he might show tears and cling to him not to go at any moment. Feeling like a heartless parent abandoning a child, his steps wouldn’t easily move away. Such emotions confused the acquaintance.
“Finish the rest of your trip well. And the goal you mentioned yesterday… I hope you achieve it.”
When he finally offered greetings in a hoarse voice, he silently extended his hand. He thought he was asking for a handshake, but he was holding a small piece of paper in his fingertips.
“It’s my email address. Write to me if you feel like it.”
He didn’t add words like “I’ll wait” or “please write for sure.”
The acquaintance was the same. He received it without promises like “I’ll definitely write.”
Had he prepared this in advance to give when they parted after he took him home? He really has delicate aspects despite his appearance. With such thoughts, he just smiled faintly without sound.
The acquaintance, fiddling with the neatly folded paper in his hand, impulsively opened his mouth without looking at him.
“Yesterday was good, right?”
“……”
“I felt good too.”
So much that he would never again be satisfied with only the previous methods.
He swallowed those words inwardly.
“Since we both felt good, that’s enough, right? No one was hurt, no one was harmed. Ah, the downstairs or next room might have been a bit… noisy?”
When he looked up with a chuckle, he was looking at the acquaintance with a better face than before.
While thinking that any more words, any more time would be excessive for people who had to part… he wanted to give him something. Not to suffer. That you, I, this desire is not immoral or unpleasant. Not to deny yourself according to others’ standards. No, let’s not deny it.
“Anyway, don’t blame yourself too much about your own desires. At least to me, you’re not a pervert. In a way, you just… prefer a more intense method. And… if you ever feel disgusted thinking you’re like a pervert, think of me.”
“……”
“If wanting to overpower and push someone is perverted, then wanting to be overpowered and pushed is also perverted. It feels better thinking you’re not alone, right?”
The acquaintance tried to lighten the mood somehow by smiling, but he couldn’t even create an expression resembling a smile.
He didn’t pour out his emotions to the acquaintance. He didn’t act rashly with impulsive emotions that could well be expected at his age – not wanting to part, liking him, or perhaps even going further to say he loved him.
Maturely, kindly. He was silently enduring regret and loss.
The acquaintance stopped trying to force him to smile. It seemed like that would torment him more.
“If it bothers you a lot, look into BDSM. It will help.”
“…I will.”
His throat was choked as he nodded and answered.
Was it because he was still young? Or was it because his nature was pure even considering his age?
No matter how much they felt drawn to each other, revealed each other’s depths briefly and communicated, and opened their first physical experience… it had only been a few days. He seemed quite troubled.
Therefore, the acquaintance couldn’t embrace him. He couldn’t casually suggest a last kiss. Such contact seemed like it would collapse his efforts.
“I’ll go. Sleep more.”
The acquaintance said this while pulling the door, and he nodded.
Even after coming out and completely closing the door behind him, the acquaintance couldn’t move his steps for a while. He felt nauseous as if he had done something very bad, something he would surely regret.
He thought that would be the last time, but there was one more opportunity on Friday.
Friday afternoon.
After receiving contact from the theater company that the actor who had missed practice had completely disappeared, on the way to Naples, the acquaintance first visited his hotel room.
He didn’t care that they had already exchanged farewell greetings, or that he himself was the one who had insisted this would be their only meeting.
The person who noticed his earnestness about theater, who called him the protagonist when he was on stage.
He couldn’t think of anyone else to share this pure joy with.
He sincerely congratulated the acquaintance on getting the opportunity to stand on stage and was as excited as the acquaintance, or even more. The two in high spirits headed to Naples together in the acquaintance’s car.
However, that night, the two didn’t spend it together. The kiss they shared in front of the theater’s back door was the last.
The acquaintance, who attended the after-party, drank until he was unconscious, and when he opened his eyes the next day, he was at Matteo’s house, which was more of a mess than usual. He couldn’t even return home due to the worst hangover.
When he finally recovered and returned to Paeli, it was Sunday, already after he had left. Perhaps he had unconsciously gotten drunk to make it that way. To prevent himself from seeking him out.
When May was completely over and the calendar turned to June, the acquaintance’s long-held preferences had changed.
He no longer paid attention to gentle people with similar height, similar build, and similar atmosphere to himself.
A solid build with attractive sleek muscles and a face with bold lines. From then on, the acquaintance’s preferences were consistent.
Vacationers were flocking from all over Europe, and Paeli’s summer was just about to begin in earnest. However, it seemed to the acquaintance that the most intense midsummer had already passed.
The summer after he left was unusually long, boring, and blurry. As if it had been robbed of vividness by something more intense that had passed through earlier.
■
“Hmm. Bunk beds… are the worst for sex.”
He, who had been lying on top of my chest drawing unknown shapes around my areola with his finger, muttered in a dissatisfied voice.
Because the entire bed rattled with even slight hip movements, he had to control his strength several times during the process. Considering his usual intensity, I burst into laughter thinking his dissatisfaction was understandable.
“Don’t laugh… when you laugh, I’m getting vibrations right now.”
He, who was still inside me even after climaxing, flinched his shoulders.
“If it were a situation where we could do it one more time, that would be welcome, but…”
He who added that raised his wrist to check the time. His appearance with only a steel wristwatch on his naked body showed the situation of urgent lovemaking, somehow embarrassing.
His shirt and tie were somewhere on the table. His pants were scattered on the floor among boxes, wine bottles, and glasses. My clothes that he had hastily removed were crumpled everywhere on the bed.
“I don’t want to go.”
He lay down again, burying his lips in my neck, and I ran my fingers through his hair. The moist, soft black hair felt good.
“You’ve changed so much.”
“Me?”
While resting his chin around my collarbone, he asked cheekily. I smiled and pinched his cheek.
“Where did that innocent boy go who couldn’t even look me in the eye properly… talking about ‘worst for sex’ and ‘vibrations’ and such…”
“I don’t think I was innocent even then… but I was weak to you, that’s right. I was young and didn’t know how to do anything.”
As if he was feeling around somewhere in his memory, he looked down and smiled faintly. Perhaps he was recalling the terrace of ‘Mio palazzo’ restaurant and the outdoor table of the square pizzeria.
His eyes soon calmly turned back to me.
“I was young… and it was too intense… I felt like I was going to die.”
“……”
“When you came into my sight in Bangkok. Even then I felt like I was going to die.”
“……”
Hoo. His briefly exhaled breath seeped into my lips too. Supporting his body with his elbows as he lay over me, he touched my cheek and continued.
“Even while meeting again several times after coming to Seoul… I couldn’t believe the person in front of my eyes. I was trembling… thinking that if I looked away for just a moment, or made even one small mistake, that person would disappear. That it would become as if nothing happened. So I was scared…”
After light rambling, he bit his lips tightly for a moment. Then he confessed as if bursting out held breath.
“Even now, I’m like that with Jung Jiin-ssi. My inside is no different from then.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
