“You don’t want to do Stage 2 with me?”
Kang Chi-yu shook his head a couple of times, trying to suppress the complex, bittersweet feeling of being both relieved and slightly hurt that Hyun Tae-oh hadn’t used the word kiss.
“I already told you—I don’t mind. I figured there’d come a time when we’d end up doing Stage 2 Guiding anyway….”
“What kind of bullshit is that?”
Hyun Tae-oh cut him off with a sharp, low voice, his tone instantly turning serious.
Caught off guard by the completely unexpected reaction, Kang Chi-yu blinked in confusion. Tae-oh turned fully to face him.
When they suddenly found themselves face to face, Chi-yu froze, unsure of what to do. Tae-oh raised his perfectly arched eyebrows like they were about to fly off his face, then tossed out a completely absurd question.
“Who were you planning to do it with?”
Exactly—an absurd question like that.
What the hell had this guy eaten that made him act like this?
Kang Chi-yu genuinely began to worry.
“Answer me. Who? Don’t tell me… Beom Do-il?”
In that moment, Chi-yu’s eyebrows shot up just like Tae-oh’s.
“Are you out of your damn mind?!”
“Then who?”
“I-I didn’t exactly have anyone specific in mind, but…”
“The fuck—you’re planning to kiss some random Esper?”
“What?! No! Why would I—Can someone please delete that?!”
Chi-yu shouted toward the camera crew.
Only when the director gave him a nod did he finally seem relieved. With a deep sigh, Kang Chi-yu turned back to Tae-oh.
“Guides are supposed to do Stage 2 Guiding. It’s even required by law.”
“So you’re doing it just because the law says so?”
“No, I didn’t say I would do it, just that I might—ugh, why are we even talking about this?”
“Because you brought it up. You’re the one who said you’d kiss a random Esper, remember? That bullshit.”
“I never said I would kiss anyone! I was just explaining that legally, Guides are—ugh.”
Forget it. Just forget it.
Chi-yu cut himself off and shook his head hard.
No matter what he said, they’d just end up right back where they started.
Hyun Tae-oh was the kind of guy who, once he grabbed hold of something, wouldn’t let it go until he felt satisfied. It was an infuriating personality trait that had always been part of him.
“Anyway, I’m someone who has to do Stage 2 Contact Guiding eventually. But you have a choice, so I’m trying to be considerate of that.”
“I don’t need that kind of consideration.”
“…You’ve never kissed anyone before, have you?”
Even as he asked, there was a slight trace of doubt.
If Tae-oh said he had, Chi-yu figured, Ah, so it’s fine when it’s Min Yu-hyun, and that would be that.
Maybe that realization would push him into a petty act of rebellion, like, Well, if it’s already someone else’s, what’s the harm in stealing a first kiss for work’s sake?—a self-justifying excuse he knew was pathetic but couldn’t help considering.
“You think I’ve only never kissed a person?”
“…….”
“Then what about you? Have you ever kissed anyone?”
But instead of getting the answer he wanted, Tae-oh fired the question right back at him.
“…Of course I haven’t….”
“Good. ‘Cause if you had, I might’ve killed the bastard.”
“What? Who? Me?”
“No. The fucker who rubbed tongues with you.”
Watching Tae-oh growl and curse out a non-existent guy with such open hostility, Kang Chi-yu was now certain—something had definitely happened to this guy during the two weeks they’d been apart.
Feeling strangely self-conscious at what could easily be mistaken for a jealous lover’s spat, Chi-yu glanced at the director and let out a dry laugh.
“What does it matter to you, anyway?”
At that, Hyun Tae-oh raised his hand and gently cupped Chi-yu’s chin. Then, pressing his thumb firmly against Chi-yu’s soft lower lip, he said:
“Why wouldn’t it matter, Chi-yu? This mouth and mine are about to meet.”
The pressure of Tae-oh’s thumb parted his lips slightly.
Chi-yu looked up at him, startled, and saw those golden eyes—glowing from overexertion—swaying toward him like a tidal wave. He swallowed hard.
There had truly never been a moment, not once in their entire relationship, where this kind of physical intimacy had been acted out.
They had met when they were six and had stayed friends for over twenty years. Never once had anything remotely like this occurred.
Even though he’d occasionally felt himself getting pulled in by Tae-oh’s inexplicable charm, if this had always been part of who Tae-oh was, then… he honestly might’ve never been able to escape.
Kang Chi-yu awkwardly darted his eyes, still utterly unaccustomed to Hyun Tae-oh’s behavior. He murmured just quietly enough that only Tae-oh could hear.
“You’ve seriously changed. You feel like a completely different person. What the hell did you eat to end up like this?”
To that, Hyun Tae-oh also lowered his voice to a whisper meant only for Chi-yu’s ears.
“Maybe I haven’t changed. Maybe you just never really knew me until now.”
Chi-yu’s face blanked out for a moment, then he unconsciously nodded once.
It was true—maybe the Hyun Tae-oh he’d known all this time was only the tip of the iceberg.
He’d always assumed Tae-oh hated people—despised physical contact—and would never be capable of a relationship. But maybe that obsessive aversion had softened enough to let someone like Min Yu-hyun come and go from his house.
Maybe Tae-oh’s so-called aversion to human contact hadn’t been all that serious in the first place—and it was Chi-yu who had exaggerated it in his mind.
“Ugh…”
Otherwise, there was no way that clean-freak bastard would be sticking his thumb inside someone’s mouth like this.
“I’m starting now. Saliva Contact Guiding.”
With that calm announcement, his lips came down over Chi-yu’s.
“Hu-!?”
Chi-yu’s eyes flew wide at the shock of feeling someone else’s lips against his for the first time—then clamped shut tight.
Far softer and more pliant than he’d ever imagined, the sensation made his heart pound like a war drum.
“Start guiding, Chi-yu.”
Tae-oh mumbled those words with their lips still touching, completely indifferent to Chi-yu’s spiraling panic.
A strange, unexpected desire rose up and wrapped around him so tightly it felt like it might explode from within.
But this was still work.
Chi-yu forced himself to focus, channeling his energy through their joined lips to sync with Tae-oh’s wavelength.
At that very moment, Tae-oh tilted his head and deepened the kiss.
The sudden move shattered Chi-yu’s concentration in an instant.
Unexpected physical contact like this was the last thing you wanted during a guiding session, where focus was everything. But even more flustering than the broken concentration was the fear that Tae-oh might somehow hear how loudly his heart was thudding.
Not only was this Chi-yu’s first time attempting Saliva Contact Guiding—it was also the first kiss of his entire life.
Which left him totally unsure: Was this part of the guiding… or an actual kiss?
But given that Tae-oh was now fully wrapped around him, holding him steady while kissing him like it was the only thing in the world that mattered—it really didn’t seem like Tae-oh gave a damn about any of that.
Questions piled up in Chi-yu’s head, but before he could even begin to sort them out, they were all blown away by the sheer intensity of Tae-oh’s alarmingly skillful movements.
Seriously—how was someone who claimed he’d never kissed anyone this good at it?
There was no benchmark to compare it to, of course, but there was something about it that made Chi-yu absolutely certain: this guy was good.
“Hnn… mmph….”
Tae-oh kissed him deeper, as if mocking the very idea that Chi-yu could spare a thought for anything else right now.
His heart was about to burst from the sheer shock of experiencing this for the first time.
A tingly sensation danced beneath his feet, and a chilling shiver spread through his entire body.
At some point—Chi-yu didn’t even realize when—his hands had wrapped around Tae-oh’s neck. Without knowing, he’d started leaning on him with his full weight.
Their lips were now slick from the unrelenting kisses that kept crashing down on him like waves.
If you’d asked him earlier, Chi-yu would’ve said that a germaphobe like Tae-oh would never do something this messy. And yet, there wasn’t the slightest hint of hesitation or discomfort in him—he just kept kissing, relentlessly.
As the kiss grew more insistent, Chi-yu finally turned his head and pushed at Tae-oh’s shoulder. Tae-oh pulled back, teasingly brushing their lips one last time before letting go.
Looking down at him, breath uneven, Tae-oh’s eyes still brimmed with desire that had yet to be released.
In contrast, Kang Chi-yu’s mind was reeling—not with anything related to the guiding, but completely wrapped up in what had just happened.
Panting hard, he started to wonder if he should ask for this scene to be deleted. But then Tae-oh grabbed him by the wrist and turned toward the director.
“I think we’ll need to practice Stage 2 Guiding a bit more. Please delete today’s footage. Let’s film tomorrow instead. I’ll run some exercises with my Guide before the next shoot, so everyone can go home now.”
Caught by the wrist and dragged into Tae-oh’s bedroom—conveniently beyond the reach of any cameras—Kang Chi-yu could only blink in stunned confusion.
Wait… practice? What kind of practice…?
***
As soon as they entered the room, Hyun Tae-oh kissed Kang Chi-yu again.
He held him close like he never intended to let go, as if separation were physically impossible.
At this point, Chi-yu was genuinely curious—just when and how did he learn to kiss like this?
When he’d asked if Tae-oh had ever kissed anyone before, the answer had been a clear no, so that must’ve meant he hadn’t kissed Min Yu-hyun either.
And Tae-oh wasn’t the type to lie—he might say things that cut deep without a second thought, but he never lied. So if he said he hadn’t done it, that had to be the truth.
Which left only one explanation: was this just one of those annoying traits of people who seem to be naturally good at everything from birth?
That thought alone was kind of irritating.
Still, even as all these useless thoughts built a nest in his head, what struck him most was just how astonishingly overwhelming a kiss could be. He had no idea this single act could ignite such a storm of desire.
The kiss was so precise, so complete, so intense that it made his eyes sting with the beginnings of tears from the sheer depth of pleasure.
This was supposed to be a practice run for a Saliva Contact Guiding scene, and yet—none of it felt anything like a work-related exercise.
And honestly, he hadn’t even had the mental bandwidth to initiate any proper guiding throughout the entire kiss. He hadn’t managed to release any of his energy. So at this point, it felt strange even trying to categorize this act.
Kang Chi-yu’s body instinctively twisted under Hyun Tae-oh’s relentless, pulse-pounding advances.
He hadn’t even realized when he’d been laid down on the bed—or when Tae-oh had positioned himself over him.
His mind was so overwhelmed by the onslaught of sensation, it felt like he was barely hanging on to consciousness.
Even Tae-oh seemed to be keeping himself in check, carefully creating space by propping himself up on his knees so he wouldn’t put weight on Chi-yu.
That gentle consideration—subtle but unmistakable—made Chi-yu want to reach up and pull him into a tight embrace right then and there.
It was the kind of impulse he would never act on in a sober state. Not even drunk.
Just imagining it was the limit.
