“Chi-yu.”
Tae-oh’s lips glistened as he finally pulled away from their kiss and called Chi-yu’s name.
His lips were so messily wet that it was hard to believe this was the same guy with a textbook case of germophobia. Instinctively, Chi-yu reached out and wiped them with the back of his hand as he sat up.
As Chi-yu raised his upper body, Tae-oh naturally followed suit, sitting up as well, but he kept his eyes locked on Chi-yu, who was now looking around frantically.
“Tissue…” Chi-yu muttered deliberately while glancing around. In truth, he wasn’t looking for anything at all—he just didn’t want to let his current state be noticed, so he was pretending to busy himself.
Misinterpreting this, Hyun Tae-oh cupped Chi-yu’s chin and leaned in like a dog trying to lick around his mouth.
“Wha—What are you doing?!”
“You looked like you wanted it cleaned,” Tae-oh replied as he licked his own lips slowly.
Whether he was doing it on purpose or not, there was something chillingly sensual about the way he licked. The sheer heat pouring off him was overwhelming.
Already flushed, Chi-yu’s face burned even hotter under Tae-oh’s brazen, lust-laden gaze.
He was always handsome, sure—but this level of seductive, debauched intensity? It was something else entirely. This wasn’t just sexy—this was hypnotic to the point of obliterating rational thought.
“What the hell happened to you during those two weeks apart?”
Muttering under his breath, Chi-yu finally found a box of tissues on the nightstand and pulled one out, gently dabbing Tae-oh’s soaked lips. Tae-oh, for his part, looked at him with a strange, unreadable expression.
“What about you? What happened to you in those two weeks?” he asked, pulling out a tissue of his own and wiping Chi-yu’s lips in return.
“Me? I… nothing happened.”
“Nothing happened, so why’d you run?”
Chi-yu froze mid-motion as he wiped Tae-oh’s lips, his hand pausing in place. But he quickly resumed, now even more meticulously than before.
“I didn’t run…”
“Didn’t you?”
“How many times do I have to tell you? I’d already been thinking about moving for a while—”
“You always avoid eye contact when you lie.”
At that, Chi-yu’s gaze shot straight up, locking onto Tae-oh’s eyes in defiance.
Something about the gesture must’ve struck Tae-oh as endearing, because a quiet, breathy laugh slipped past his lips.
Chi-yu’s heart was already pounding out of his chest—he didn’t need that laugh on top of it. It felt like cheating. He turned his head away abruptly, swallowing a breath of heat.
“That’s not true.”
“Let’s save that conversation for later. Right now, we’ve got a fire to put out.”
Tossing the used tissue into the trash, Tae-oh spoke in a maddeningly calm voice.
Chi-yu turned back toward him instantly.
“A fire?”
Looking a bit confused, Chi-yu asked the question, and Tae-oh responded with a look so alluring it felt illegal.
“We’ve got something to finish.”
“…! Wh-What do you mean…!”
“What do you think I mean? Stage 2 Guiding.”
“We just did that…!”
“That was nowhere near enough, Chi-yu.”
“N-No, it was enough! The guiding’s already over—!”
Caught completely off guard, Chi-yu stammered and shouted, utterly panicked. His mind was in such chaos that he couldn’t think straight. The way Tae-oh had said it—it wasn’t romantic or serious; it was like he was inviting him to grab coffee or eat dinner.
Burning with embarrassment, Chi-yu turned his head again, blinking rapidly to avoid letting Tae-oh see his thoroughly flushed face.
He wasn’t like this before…
That thought kept racing through his head like a runaway train.
“So, you’re saying you don’t want to keep going?”
The next thing Tae-oh said shattered that thought completely.
“Then should we try something else?”
…Something else?
He wasn’t the type to say things like that—Chi-yu knew that better than anyone. Hearing those words from Tae-oh’s mouth left him utterly floored.
Dizzy, Chi-yu pressed both hands against his forehead and let out a long sigh.
“I seriously don’t get what’s gotten into you…”
“Same here.”
That made Chi-yu look up, eyes narrowing in disbelief.
Tae-oh met his gaze, shrugged once, and continued.
“I didn’t know I could be the type to be this… honest about what I want.”
Tae-oh’s eyes drifted downward—toward himself.
Chi-yu blinked in stunned silence, unable to process any of it. This entire situation was just too much.
“…Why now of all times… No, seriously, why now…”
Kang Chi-yu trailed off, sounding more dumbfounded than anything. That’s when Hyun Tae-oh’s gaze shifted completely.
It was hard to define—there was something bitter in it, something angry, but at the same time, it held a softness, even a kind of affection. It was uncanny, how one look could stir up such conflicting emotions.
“Maybe… it’s just that this is the first time I’ve been the one left behind.”
Tae-oh repeated Chi-yu’s muttered words back to him with eerie calm.
“Wait, who left who, exactly?”
“We lived together for over a decade, Chi-yu. And then one day I woke up, and you were just… gone. Moved to another zone without a word. Isn’t that being abandoned?”
“That’s not fair… We weren’t even— It’s not like we were in that kind of relationship where one of us could abandon the other.”
“Why not?”
Tae-oh’s perfectly sculpted brow furrowed sharply.
“You’re all I’ve ever had.”
He said it with a look and tone that could’ve been mistaken for a once-in-a-lifetime love confession. And the way his eyes bore into Chi-yu—it left no doubt that Tae-oh truly meant it.
It was the kind of gaze that would make any outsider believe, Ah, this must be love.
“What do you mean I’m all you have? You’ve got your mom and dad…”
“My parents? You saw how they treat me like I’m some discarded son.”
“Well, that’s because even when your mom called during your leave and begged you to visit Z-Zone, you said you’d rather work out in a monster nest than spend your vacation in the countryside—”
“I said that, but if you were going, I would’ve gone too.”
“……”
There it is again.
He says things so casually that sound way too easy to misinterpret.
Chi-yu narrowed his eyes at Tae-oh.
“Anyway, everything about how I’ve changed—it’s your fault.”
“…Wait, what did I even do?”
“Doesn’t matter. You pissed me off enough that you’re definitely getting punished for it. Later.”
Punished? What the hell does that mean?
“But first, Stage 2 Guiding is the priority. Let’s put out the fire before we get to all that.”
Tae-oh dragged the words out lazily as he spoke.
Chi-yu shouted on instinct.
“I already gave you all of it!”
“It’s not enough. Not even close. We need at least three more hours.”
…What kind of absolute nonsense is this?
Chi-yu’s brows twisted in pure disbelief, but before he could even fire back, he was suddenly pressed down onto the bed.
As Chi-yu blinked in confusion, utterly stunned, Tae-oh slowly climbed on top of him, lips curving into a dangerously handsome smirk.
Chi-yu unconsciously swallowed a dry gulp as he stared up at Tae-oh.
“So stop whining and give me your lips.”
“…Didn’t you used to have touch aversion?”
“You already know the answer to that.”
Tae-oh’s response was nonchalant, bordering on bored. But despite the casual tone, he immediately leaned down and covered Chi-yu’s lips with his own.
Startled, Chi-yu turned his head to dodge the kiss, eyes wide with disbelief.
“Wait, your touch aversion—”
“Yours doesn’t count.”
“…How does that even—mmpf…!”
The sudden press of lips cut him off, and Chi-yu flinched hard at the unexpected sensation.
A breathy moan slipped from his mouth, and Tae-oh’s eyes focused directly on his face.
“Were you always this pretty?”
…What?
His voice was laced with amusement and barely restrained arousal.
What the hell did this lunatic eat to end up like this?
Chi-yu couldn’t make heads or tails of anything anymore. Overwhelmed, he crossed his arms in an X and covered his eyes.
Tae-oh stared at him silently. He wanted to pry those hands away and meet his gaze, but Chi-yu’s entire face—his ears too—was burning crimson, so he left him be.
Maybe it was the loss that finally made him realize just how much Chi-yu meant to him.
Tae-oh had always hated everyone except Kang Chi-yu, and his possessiveness had been there from the start. But lately, it had grown far worse.
The belief that Chi-yu would always be by his side had vanished the day he disappeared, and since then, everything about Tae-oh’s emotions had shifted.
It was messing with his head—how drastically he’d changed.
A thousand thoughts raced through his mind like tangled threads.
So that whole “not enough guiding” thing… maybe he just wanted to do this all along.
He had never acted this way before. Not once. And Chi-yu couldn’t for the life of him figure out why now.
Sure, maybe it was his fault for changing his number and vanishing without a word—but even so, wasn’t this reaction a little extreme?
While Chi-yu struggled with his confusion, Tae-oh pulled him back into a tight embrace.
The strength of it forced a pained moan from Chi-yu’s mouth.
“Ah, Tae-oh, mmph—ah!”
“Yeah? What?”
Tae-oh’s grin was playful, but his eyes… there was something unhinged behind them. His Adam’s apple bobbed with a hard swallow. This wasn’t just teasing anymore—this was serious.
Chi-yu gulped again, voice trembling.
“I… I’m scared…”
***
Oddly enough, saying “I’m scared” worked like magic.
The moment those words left Kang Chi-yu’s mouth, Hyun Tae-oh immediately pulled away.
With a long, weary sigh, Chi-yu ran a damp hand through his hair.
Reclining in the tub, gazing up at the bathroom ceiling, his face was clouded with heavy thoughts.
But it didn’t take long. Tae-oh, who had just let go, hugged him tight all over again, like he couldn’t bear the distance.
Only after what felt like ages did Tae-oh’s arms begin to loosen, and Chi-yu didn’t waste that fleeting opportunity—he shoved him off and bolted for the bathroom.
When Tae-oh spouted something absurd about showering together, Chi-yu shut him down cold, reminding him that they’d never even bathed together as kids.
This house had three bathrooms—why the hell would they need to share one? He glared at Tae-oh like he was out of his mind.
Funny how things had flipped.
Back when they were younger, it had been Chi-yu who’d begged Tae-oh to sleep beside him or bathe together. Now, somehow, their roles had reversed completely.
Maybe Tae-oh really had changed that much after Chi-yu moved out, just like he claimed.
Or maybe—Chi-yu worried—it was something else entirely.
If this was his way of throwing up a smokescreen after catching wind of what happened with Min Yu-hyun… it felt like Tae-oh was going way too far.
The fear crept in.
Was there truly nothing between them after all?
That question kept spiraling, looping endlessly in Chi-yu’s head as he soaked in the tub.
