#67
After returning home, Saheon hyung pressured me with kisses as he had warned. There was a loud bang as my body hit the shoe rack. I don’t remember how we made it to the bedroom.
We hastily stripped off the clothes we had barely put on in the car and entangled like animals in heat, probably going at it three times. Ejaculation was hyung’s standard, not mine.
I became more sensitive than hyung, and towards the end, I felt like I might wet myself again like last time. If this continued, I was afraid I’d have another accident on the bed. Only after I begged him to stop while crying did our encounter end.
It felt like I had been devoured, bones and all. Exhausted, I collapsed face-down on the bed, but hyung wanted to embrace me face-to-face, so I had to change positions.
The warmth of our naked bodies touching was always pleasant. Holding me in his arms, hyung kept giving me bird kisses on my face as if I were pretty. As I clumsily tried to reciprocate, making smooching sounds with him, I peeked out at the vibrating sound coming from somewhere.
As a result, hyung’s lips touched the corner of my eye. Slightly frowning, I winked the eye that his lips had touched and looked down at the floor, searching for the source of the vibration sound that rang out again.
“I think there’s a phone call.”
“We can check it later, can’t we?”
“What if it’s yours? What if it’s from work?”
Saheon hyung frowned, looking displeased. I became more anxious, remembering that I had heard somewhere that in airlines, you might have to write an explanation if you don’t answer urgent calls.
The hand that was on my shoulder moved down to my waist, then caressed my lower abdomen with a lingering touch. I gently removed hyung’s hand, which was weaker than before, and moved my body to the floor.
My legs were weak from exhaustion. Stumbling like a newborn foal, I landed on the floor and fumbled around for the source of the vibration. It was coming from the pocket of my jeans.
As soon as I realized it was a call from Choi Hyun-oh, the call ended. Knowing now that hyung disliked Choi Hyun-oh, my shoulders tensed slightly with an odd sense of nervousness.
“Who is it?”
“…A friend.”
“Which friend? Hyun-dol?”
“Just… someone.”
I mumbled vaguely, but Saheon hyung narrowed his eyes. I tried to act as naturally as possible while averting my gaze in an obviously awkward manner. Just then, a messenger message arrived from Choi Hyun-oh.
“Hey hey hey Cheongmyeong”
“What are you doing next Sunday???”
“If you’re free”
“Shinmyung Women’s University”
“With the dance department girls”
“……”
“Lee Cheongmyeong.”
“Yes!”
I startled and looked up. Saheon hyung was leaning on his elbow, looking down at me. His calm voice spoke:
“Bring the phone here.”
I had only seen up to “dance department,” and I tried to glance down to check the rest of the content. But because I had already unlocked the home screen, the message content had disappeared. I was already worried, feeling that if it was a message from Choi Hyun-oh, there wouldn’t be anything good for hyung to see.
Eventually, I got up wearily and returned to the bed. As I put my knee on the bed, the mattress sank under my weight. I held out the phone politely with both hands. Hyung took the phone with his right hand and extended his left arm as if telling me to come closer.
I settled back into hyung’s arms. Adjusting his position so I could see the phone well, he went to the missed call list.
“…It’s Choi Hyun-oh?”
“Yeah…”
“Why is he contacting you on a day off?”
“He must have… had something urgent.”
“You’ll see him again on Monday anyway. It seems our Mungmung often contacts Hyun-dol on weekends too, huh?”
While conducting this interrogation-like questioning, Saheon hyung checked who had called and then swiped down to bring up the notification panel. Choi Hyun-oh’s messages appeared in a stream. Hyung muttered with narrowed eyes:
“A mixer with Shinmyung Women’s University’s dance department?”
I opened my eyes wide and confirmed the messages with my own eyes. The contents of the messages that had been bundled together due to their frequency were now visible in the notification panel.
“With the dance department girls”
“Want to go to a department mixer?”
“It’s technically a department mixer, but for us, it’s more like a blind date?”
“There are only you and me as guys in the French department ㅠㅠ I’m trying to gather as many people as possible”
“We’re just tagging along”
“I got asked by a guy from the physical education department too ㅠㅠ Is there any way we can make it?”
Saheon hyung looked at the contents of the notification panel with indifferent eyes. Feeling unnecessarily anxious, I inwardly grumbled at Choi Hyun-oh for sending messages at this timing.
“Should I reply?”
“What?”
Before I could say anything, Saheon hyung entered the notification panel. After taking a deep breath, he started typing a message, imitating my way of speaking.
“My hyung is strict, so I don’t think I can. He said he won’t let me off if I cheat.”
“Hyung!”
“No, let’s say it’s not hyung, but your parents who are strict. Say you already have an arranged marriage partner decided since the Joseon Dynasty’s King Jeongjo era.”
I looked at Saheon hyung, who was making strange sounds that could be either words or farts, with disbelief, and then hurriedly tried to stop his fingers as he started composing a new message.
“No, no. Let me do it. I’ll decline.”
“How about I send, ‘Sorry, I have plans that day so I don’t think I can make it’?”
However, what came out of Saheon hyung’s mouth was a plausible excuse. I ended up watching as hyung sent the message. Looking at the unread ‘1’ mark, hyung muttered disapprovingly:
“What’s with the ‘sorry,’ damn it.”
Strangely, something like a heat haze rose from deep within my chest at that sight. It seemed as if Saheon hyung was showing possessiveness towards me.
It seemed that because I had put on lenses to find evidence that it might be okay to confess this time, everything in the world looked pink. Trying hard to remain calm, I voiced a past incident that suddenly came to mind.
“But hyung, you said before that it was okay to go to mixers. You said CC wasn’t allowed, but… Shinmyung Women’s University isn’t CC, right…?”
I gradually lowered my voice under the pressure of Saheon hyung’s sharp sidelong glance. I had merely repeated what hyung had said on my first day living in this house when he offered to drive me to school, but Saheon hyung looked cold.
“…So. You want to go to mixers and try CC too?”
Saheon hyung pinched my nose tightly. With my breath cut off, I answered in a nasally voice.
“No.”
“You’re already tied to hyung. Sorry, but it’s not allowed.”
“But hyung, back then…”
“That was then, this is now.”
After pinching my nose bridge a few times and gently shaking it left and right, hyung let go. I rubbed my sore nose bridge with my finger. It must have turned red even without looking in a mirror.
“If I had my way, I’d call him and tell him to stop fooling around and not send these kinds of messages.”
There were a few short vibrations as if a reply had come from Choi Hyun-oh, but Saheon hyung put my phone on the bedside table. My heart started pounding for no reason.
I decided to think very rationally to calm my rapidly beating heart. As if this situation had become someone else’s affair. My rational and cool brain began a simulation.
There are two people. They’re just sleeping together, but one person is in unrequited love with the other. But then the object of that unrequited love says something that seems to show possessiveness.
Is it okay to interpret this as a positive signal? I wanted to interpret it that way. I had to catch my rising corners of my mouth as I chewed on my lower lip.
Even objectively, even if someone else heard it, Saheon hyung’s words would be impossible not to find thrilling. Having reached that conclusion, I burrowed further into hyung’s arms to hide my reddening face.
Hyung’s scent and faint perfume wafted over me. Embracing the warm sensation of our bare skin touching even more, I took a deep breath, then pursed my lips inward at the thought that everything came down to one thing.
Then why doesn’t he ask me to date him?
The corners of my mouth that had been rising naturally lost strength. Is it that he has no intention of developing a deeper relationship, and just likes my body for sex? I had to pull myself together from the negative thoughts as I rested my forehead near hyung’s solar plexus.
I can confess first. This time, I’ve found several pieces of evidence that it might be okay to confess, so it might be alright. When I’m certain that I won’t fail, then I’ll be the first to…
“…Hyung.”
Words I couldn’t catch slipped out between my lips. I had to quickly gather the question I really wanted to ask. I wondered if Saheon hyung had ever been in a campus couple. Somehow, I felt like I knew the answer.
“What about hyung?”
“It’s nothing. I was just wondering… if you had any mixer opportunities or things like that when you were in college…”
Saheon hyung lightly stroked the back of my head, laughing softly.
“Back then, hyung was stuck in the countryside, remember? Are you too young to remember?”
I remembered that hyung had gone down to a rural area in Chungcheongnam-do where there was an airfield, but I noticed that hyung had skillfully avoided answering. Even though I had overlooked numerous pieces of evidence since childhood and naturally thought it must have happened, the feeling of having it indirectly confirmed was nauseating.
I hid my naturally distorting expression by burrowing into his arms. Thinking it was just me being affectionate, a small laugh was heard. The hand stroking the back of my head was affectionate.
I know hyung had many girlfriends. How many were there? Were they relationships where they just slept together like with me? Or were they serious relationships with marriage in mind? A strange feeling of wanting to know yet not wanting to know dominated my head.
It was like touching a forbidden fruit, knowing I shouldn’t ask but still wanting to know. In the end, unable to resist the temptation, I asked in a slightly sulky voice.
“So are you saying you did or you didn’t?”
Saheon hyung gave an awkward smile. Of course, I could tell that it meant yes. A thick, dark red emotion like lava bubbled up from deep within my chest. It would be a little later that I realized it was jealousy.
“Answer me.”
“…There were some.”
Hearing my voice that had become sharp despite trying to hide it, Saheon hyung hastily added an explanation in a flustered voice.
“But I didn’t date for long. I think I dated for about 100 days as a freshman and then broke up.”
“You remember all that from years ago? Even the exact number of days?”
“Uh… thinking about it again, I think it was a week. We just met briefly…”
“A week? How is that possible? When you date someone, you should do it with marriage in mind, what’s with just a week!”
Hyung pressed his lips tightly. A strange urge to challenge everything Saheon hyung said surged within me. I continued to probe, exhaling sharply through my nose.
“Was it CC?”
“Uh…”
Saheon hyung seemed uncharacteristically flustered. But to me, who was urging for an answer, even the moment of choosing words felt long.
“I asked if it was CC.”
“…Same school, aviation service department…”
“Flight attendant department? She must have been pretty?”
Although I felt a bit sorry for speaking in such a biting tone about a woman I didn’t even know, I wasn’t that sorry since she had dated Saheon hyung. I glared at hyung with eyes full of jealousy, then realizing that hyung’s current workplace was an airline, I was swept up in even greater anger.
Last time he was absorbed in the role of a pervert captain harassing a new flight attendant, was his actual preference flight attendants? Suddenly, anxiety rushed over me. Hyung’s workplace was full of flight attendants.
“You only dated one person throughout college?”
I didn’t know such anger was hidden inside me. Saheon hyung endured my nagging silently, eyes lowered, as I poured out words as if I had been waiting for this moment. I wondered if he was reflecting on his promiscuous past.
“How did you meet?”
“Somehow… naturally.”
Saheon hyung seemed to know very well that in this situation, not answering or trying to escape by saying there’s only me would provoke even greater anger. Seeing him answer while hiding things appropriately, as if experienced, somehow made me even more jealous.
“Naturally? So hyung just naturally confesses and starts dating everyone?”
Then why don’t you naturally confess and date me? I had to suppress the words that had risen to the tip of my tongue. I abruptly got up from hyung’s arms.
“I only had hyung. But hyung has done CC, gone to mixers, and had girlfriends.”
After snatching my phone from the bedside table on hyung’s side, I planted my feet on the floor, though my legs felt weak. Hyung hastily sat up and asked in bewilderment:
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to my room. We’ll use separate rooms from now on, so don’t talk to me.”
Even though I tried to reply as coldly as possible, my jealousy wasn’t subsiding. It felt like I needed to hit something to release my anger. The pillow I had been using until just now came into view. I threw the white pillow at hyung with a thud.
