#82
“What’s wrong? Was it something important?”
Taeseong turned his head, finding Bonoh’s sudden silence strange.
“Ah… No. It’s just… it wasn’t anything important.”
Bonoh barely managed to answer with a trembling voice.
After that, Bonoh had no choice but to walk with a sullen face in the middle of the festival. His mind kept being held captive by the fact that the story from earlier hadn’t been read to the end. He’d thought it would go well this time, but he hadn’t expected it to end so anticlimactically. Taeseong seemed to be concerned about Bonoh like that, but after Bonoh said it was nothing, he didn’t ask again what was wrong.
Walking through the crowd, Bonoh was distracted and took a step without properly looking ahead. Just as he was about to bump into someone passing right in front of him, a strong force grabbed his arm.
“Be careful.”
Taeseong’s firm voice reached his ear. Bonoh flinched and raised his head. Taeseong was standing right in front of him, gripping his wrist tightly. If it hadn’t been for Taeseong, he might have really collapsed to the ground.
Taeseong had caught him. If they were going to break up soon, moments like this would never come again. Him reaching out to prevent a fall, time alone together like this. There might be no more occasions for Taeseong to care about him.
If there was such a thing as a perfect moment, it might be right now, spending time alone with Taeseong.
Bonoh looked down at Taeseong’s hand wrapped around his wrist. Then Taeseong let go of his hand as if it was nothing, and Bonoh was swept up in an indescribable feeling.
This moment will never come again. His chest churned. He had to say these words.
“Joo Taeseong, I actually… Actually, I have something to say too.”
The surrounding noise seemed to gradually fade away. The people coming and going around campus, the voices laughing and chattering, even the music coming from somewhere – it all became hazy. Bonoh looked only at Taeseong. And Taeseong also slowly faced Bonoh.
Bonoh’s eyes didn’t waver. It wasn’t the light gaze he had when casually joking around as usual. Something heavy was contained within them. Indescribable emotions were mixed together, filling his eyes completely.
People still passed by around them. Someone walked hand in hand, someone took pictures while laughing and chattering. They passed by close enough to bump shoulders, but Bonoh wasn’t bothered by anyone.
Only Taeseong was visible.
***
Bonoh led Taeseong and quickened his pace. On the last night of the festival, the campus was still chaotic. People’s laughter burst out from everywhere, and the latest songs poured out through speakers from the drinking booths. You could often see those drunk gathering noisily to take selfies. When passing by the drinking booths, there was a smell of greasy food.
Perhaps because it was the last day, after passing through the area where the drinking booths were concentrated, the atmosphere gradually changed. Bonoh moved his steps aimlessly. A quiet place, somewhere he could be alone with Taeseong. He needed a space where they wouldn’t be disturbed by other people. Walking like that, even the music that had been loudly echoing seemed to gradually fade.
Then, the College of Education building came into Bonoh’s view. It was a place he rarely had occasion to visit normally. But at this moment, it looked like the perfect place to Bonoh.
The corridor visible through the glass doors was empty, and the classrooms were in darkness with the lights off. Since all the lectures had ended, it was certain that there wouldn’t be many people remaining inside the building.
Bonoh didn’t hesitate any longer. He pushed the door and entered the building. The inside of the building was much quieter than outside. It felt like a space completely cut off from the festival’s bustle.
Bonoh slowly walked along the corridor. The fluorescent lights in the corridor coldly illuminated the floor, and only their footsteps echoed lowly. Taeseong followed without saying much. However, Bonoh could vaguely feel that Taeseong’s gaze was observing him.
Bonoh, who had stopped walking, opened the door to a nearby classroom. The door opened heavily. The sound of the door clicking shut was heard from behind Taeseong.
Click.
Taeseong took a light breath. He had followed without saying much when Bonoh said to go to a quiet place. Taeseong, who disliked crowded and noisy places, was just getting sick of the festival. If it hadn’t been for Bonoh, he wouldn’t have even thought of coming in the first place, but somehow he ended up coming all three days of the festival.
Of course, spending time with Bonoh was enjoyable. But if it hadn’t been a festival, it might have been even better for him. That’s why Taeseong didn’t think deeply about it. If it was a place Kim Bonoh wanted to go, there was no particular reason to refuse. He had already endured the festival for three whole days to be with Kim Bonoh.
But from the way Bonoh acted the whole way here, Taeseong couldn’t just be thoughtless about it. Kim Bonoh carefully looked around. As if he had a destination in mind, but there was a strange hesitation mixed in his steps.
When the surroundings became busy, his pace would slow down. Then he would turn his body toward directions with fewer people. It looked like he was avoiding people and looking for an appropriate place.
Seeing Bonoh like that made Taeseong reconsider his words about going to a quiet place. Taeseong looked down at the back of his head, which seemed quite serious, and chuckled. Taeseong could easily guess why Kim Bonoh was acting like this.
The reason lovers look for a place to be alone together was obvious. A place without people, a space where they wouldn’t be disturbed by anyone. There was only one reason why couples needed such a place.
“This place is quite unexpected…”
The fact that the place was an empty classroom was unexpected. He knew Kim Bonoh was a pervert, but he didn’t know he was this much of a pervert…
Even while thinking that, Taeseong carefully checked the corridor and firmly locked the classroom door.
“Why are you locking the door…? Oh, right. It would be better to lock it anyway… It could be troublesome if other people found out.”
Bonoh was puzzled at first but convinced himself. Taeseong wondered if he should be thankful that at least Bonoh wasn’t trying to show off to other people. In the meantime, Bonoh quickly went to a seat and sat down.
“Don’t just stand there… Come here and sit down.”
Bonoh lightly patted the seat next to him with his hand. Although the building was different, the structure of the classroom itself wasn’t much different from the place where Taeseong and Bonoh had taken classes together. Long desks and chairs were arranged in the same layout, and the seat where Bonoh sat was also familiar.
The seat he sat in was a back seat close to the window side. Taeseong preferred the window side where people didn’t pass by, and due to his tall height, he tended to choose back seats so as not to obstruct other people’s view. Bonoh, who had no particular preference for seats, would sit next to Taeseong following him.
Is he trying to do some kind of roleplay now…? Don’t tell me, Kim Bonoh, it wasn’t just an empty classroom – did you want to do it during class? What kind of porn did this guy watch… Taeseong looked at the seat where Bonoh was sitting with a confused gaze.
Although Taeseong wasn’t keen on the unsanitary outdoors and the location being what it was, he had no intention of refusing. As a boyfriend, he had a duty to fulfill Bonoh’s fantasies. Taeseong moved his steps a beat late and sat in the seat next to Bonoh.
The sound of a chair scraping echoed lowly in the quiet classroom. Kim Bonoh’s shoulders flinched as he kept his head down, not even able to look to the side. Thinking that Kim Bonoh got excited by this kind of thing… Taeseong also seemed to be getting excited somehow. Compared to Bonoh’s sexual fantasies, which could be called bold, Taeseong’s were simple. It was Kim Bonoh being excited.
“Kim Bonoh.”
“Wait, wait a minute. Listen to what I have to say first.”
Bonoh’s voice was full of nervousness. It seemed like Kim Bonoh definitely had a specific roleplay scenario he wanted, Taeseong guessed. Since he didn’t even manage his expressions normally, let alone roleplay, Taeseong was also secretly nervous. Which one of them was supposed to play the professor role?
“Joo Taeseong, you might not know how I think about you, but… I like you. I’m serious.”
His voice trembled but he conveyed his words clearly. Taeseong was inwardly impressed by Bonoh’s acting skills. Anyone could see that Bonoh looked like someone confessing his true feelings wholeheartedly to someone he liked. It seemed like both of them were playing student roles, not professors.
He’d thought they’d start having sex right after coming in, but it seemed like there was quite a narrative. And starting with this kind of confession – such an innocent story was unexpected.
“Hmm…”
Now it was Taeseong’s turn to respond, but the problem was that he didn’t know the flow of the roleplay scenario Kim Bonoh wanted. Should he accept this confession now and they should have emotionally overwhelming sex as a couple who just started dating, or was this the timing where he should coldly reject him and then roughly pounce on him asking who dared to covet whom…
Taeseong thought he really needed to know the list of porn Kim Bonoh had watched. Even though there were things that should be maintained between lovers… Since he couldn’t properly grasp the needs, he hesitated to react readily.
While Taeseong didn’t notice, the silence between them was growing longer.
“…I actually know what you were going to say. You were going to say let’s break up, weren’t you?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
