“Mm….”
The blanket barely clung to his broad, completely bare back. As Yoonwon slowly raised his upper body, the sleek muscles beneath his tanned skin rippled like those of a predator.
“I feel great.”
Yoonwon smiled languidly with his face buried in the bed. He felt fantastic. His entire body was light, and his headache had vanished without a trace.
The bed creaked as he got up. At first glance, he might have seemed slender, but his body was packed with muscle and not an ounce of unnecessary fat, making him considerably heavier than he looked.
After a brisk shower in cool water, he felt better than ever. Leaving his upper body bare, he headed downstairs.
“Who the hell was that?”
He slowly ran his fingers over his lips. He had seized someone and kissed them like a man possessed.
Was that how someone lost in the desert felt upon finding an oasis? He couldn’t help wondering if that person might be the woman he had searched for all this time. If he truly met his destined partner, perhaps even this goddamn headache could be subdued.
Could it have been Hana?
No. Every instinct in his body told him otherwise. That silhouette, that scent, that touch—they hadn’t belonged to Hana.
Then who? Why had they vanished like smoke? Had he forced himself on them? Damn it, why did they have to appear when he was out of his mind? Thirst rose within him, and Yoonwon slowly swept his tongue around the inside of his mouth.
“Damn.”
It would have been better if he had never tasted them at all. Briefly holding them in his hands only to let them slip away had left him thirstier than before. If they ever caught his eye again, he would never let them go. Then perhaps this damned headache, this burning thirst, and the fever would all disappear.
“Where the hell did they go?”
He muttered languidly as he descended the stairs. Soon, he heard the clatter of dishes coming from the kitchen. That little white body was probably bustling around in there. If he popped out and said boo, the boy would stare at him with those wide rabbit eyes.
That tiny little thing.
The corners of Yoonwon’s mouth rose before he knew it. Deliberately muffling his footsteps, he rounded the wall at an unhurried pace and spotted the white figure. Hayeop was setting the table with astonishing speed, as though he were performing magic. He might be tiny, but he certainly knew how to work.
A laugh escaped him. So that was how Hayeop had avoided his notice for an entire month. Like a secret housekeeper, he must have slipped around cooking and doing laundry before scurrying back to plant his ass in that tiny room. No wonder Yoonwon had never found so much as a single strand of hair.
“Uh….”
A pink sausage rolled under the table. The white figure dropped to all fours and crawled after it, wriggling his bottom as he disappeared beneath the table. The hem of his short gym shorts rode up, exposing the soft crease beneath his buttocks as his plump little ass swayed.
Yoonwon slowly bent his knees. Hayeop had picked up the fallen sausage and was munching away at it. Yoonwon’s eyes curved.
“Well, well.”
Hayeop’s round cheeks stopped moving at once.
“Who do we have here?”
Bones protruded here and there from his slender, supple body, while his elbows and knees were tinged pink, lending him a strangely sensual air.
“It’s our household parasite.”
Why did Yoonwon always find this boy underneath him? Remembering their first meeting, he couldn’t suppress a series of quiet snickers.
Back then, too, Hayeop had stared at him with only his enormous eyes visible, like a cat hiding in the dark. Or did he look more like a fox? With those large ears and round eyes, he resembled a damned fox. That must be why he kept catching Yoonwon’s attention.
Yoonwon crooked a finger. The sensation that had met his fingertips—it hadn’t been an illusion. The skin had been unbelievably soft. It had glided beneath his fingers as though it might melt and cling to him. Just thinking about it felt enough to make his cock rise.
Ah.
Yoonwon let out a quiet sigh inwardly. What if it hadn’t been a woman? What if the person who had kissed him and fled was his household parasite?
What good was a pretty face when he was a man with the same thing dangling between his legs? Was fate playing a joke on him? Yoonwon had to find out.
“Are you avoiding me?”
“……”
Hayeop’s enormous eyes darted about. His reddened lips glistened with oil. Yoonwon imagined they would taste rich and savory if he took them into his mouth and sucked.
There was no way that could be his destined partner.
How could the mate his ancestors had finally obtained by praying to the fox god be a penniless boy who couldn’t even continue the family bloodline? One who picked pink sausages off the floor and ate them, at that. It was impossible.
The narrow waist and ankles slim enough to fit in one hand were certainly to his taste, but he had no interest in taking men to bed.
“Why?”
Hayeop ducked his head slightly, exposing one ear. His face was scarcely bigger than a fist, yet his ears were rather large and stood perked upright.
It’s bright red.
Yoonwon slowly licked his lower lip.
“There’s no particular reason I need to see your face.”
Would you look at that… Is he sulking? Why?
No matter how Yoonwon looked at him, something was suspicious. His cheeks were all puffed up. His lashes were thick, and his lips were plump. With a face like that, having a younger sister would be dangerous; it made Yoonwon want to ask whether he had an older one.
Though, in truth, there was something else he really wanted to ask.
“Did you come into my room yesterday?”
“…No.”
“Really?”
“I told you, I didn’t.”
Hayeop turned his head away, feigning innocence.
Why did he have to appear without a shirt on?
Even his gray sweatpants hung precariously low on his hip bones, making him look indecently alluring.
The silver dog tags around his neck drew even more attention to his bare upper body. The sight of his chest, sculpted entirely from muscle, made Hayeop’s face burn. He had heard that Yoonwon loved swimming and practically lived in the water whenever he had the chance, but he had never imagined his body would be built like that.
“So you really never came in.”
Muttering almost to himself, Yoonwon gulped down the barley tea. His Adam’s apple, jutting prominently from the middle of his elegantly shaped throat, bobbed heavily.
He really doesn’t remember anything. He has no idea.
That’s right. Young Master doesn’t need to know.
But what made it so infuriating was that Yoonwon had stolen Hayeop’s first kiss and left him completely dazed, yet couldn’t remember any of it himself. Hayeop almost hated him for it.
“While you were asleep, Young Master…”
Hayeop mumbled through his red lips. He looked so insignificant that he resembled some tiny creature, a squirrel crouched in a corner and grumbling with its cheeks stuffed full of acorns.
“Women called for you.”
He truly was frivolous beyond belief. Hayeop wasn’t the only one he treated that way. He probably whispered the same sweet words and gave those same tender looks to everyone else. Young Master really was a fucking slut—a worn-out, threadbare rag with holes in it.
“Women? Who?”
As he asked, Yoonwon moved close and took the plate from Hayeop’s hands, slowly brushing their fingertips together. A sharp current shot through Hayeop at once.
“F-four of them, I think….”
Yoonwon picked up one of the pink sausages and tasted it. It was cheap and disgustingly salty. Did Hayeop actually like things like this? There were countless delicacies in the world, but it seemed the boy had never had a chance to enjoy any of them. Yoonwon wanted to take him to taste steak in Yeongdeungpo. After that, Hayeop would never put another pink sausage like this in his mouth.
“Who could they have been? I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Yoonwon murmured as though speaking to himself, sucking the grease from his thumb.
“Is that why you’re sulking?”
The slow, wet sound of him sucking his finger brushed Hayeop’s ears.
“Hayeop.”
Hayeop.
Hayeop.
Hayeop.
He had said his name. It was the first time. Yoonwon’s voice, like a bead of water rolling down a rain-dampened leaf, gently soaked into Hayeop’s heart.
Tremble, tremble…
The pale fingers clutching the plate fluttered like pussy willow branches in the wind. His heart surged like the waves.
He’s a man, Lee Hayeop. Get a hold of yourself. There’s nothing special about my name, so why is my heart pitching like a sailboat caught in a storm just because he said it once?
“The lotuses in the courtyard have bloomed. They’re beautiful.”
Why was he telling Hayeop that the flowers had bloomed? Hayeop lowered his gaze, his lashes trembling along the curve of his gentle eyes.
“They bloomed ages ago.”
He hurriedly moved his hands. The ticklish feeling in his heart was making his chest flutter for no reason. Nothing that itched was ever good. He had once been bitten by fleas, and the pain had nearly done him in.
But people like Hayeop had a plain, homespun warmth of their own. He wanted to ask whether Yoonwon was completely better now and whether there was anything he wanted to eat. Yet he must not get entangled with Young Master again.
Pretend not to notice. Look away.
He was trying his hardest to do just that.
“Uh….”
But then a long arm reached from behind and snatched the plate away. Hayeop turned around with a forlorn expression.
“If your name is Hayeop…”
Yoonwon smiled in apparent delight. His voice was so low that a shiver ran the length of Hayeop’s spine.