Prologue

Drops of blood splattered onto the cement floor with a heavy, wet sound.

A male student wearing a blue school uniform was pinned over a boy much larger than himself, repeatedly raining fists down on him.

Yeonwoo huddled with his bare, pale legs curled close, staring at the scene.

Even though it was a story from more than ten years ago, Yeonwoo remembered every single detail of that night without missing a thing.

Everything down to the most trivial things, like the shape of the shadows the streetlights cast over the campus wall and the smell of the dirt in the flower bed.

‘Inwoo….’

When Yeonwoo called his name, the child in the blue uniform paused.

His tightly clenched fist remained frozen in midair.

Yeonwoo pushed his knees against the ground, unsteadily dragging his body up as he spoke.

‘Stop it, Inwoo….’

As if barely holding back what he wanted to swing, Inwoo repeatedly unclasped and reclenched his fist.

Yeonwoo barely supported his collapsing body with both arms, staring at Inwoo’s face.

The outline of his face, glowing bluish under the backlight, looked colder than ever before.

His sharply extended long eyes, the dark shadow cast over the corners of his eyes, his straight nose bridge, and his red lips that repeatedly clamped shut and parted with ragged breaths.

In an instant, the face he saw every day grew unfamiliar, as if it had jumped several years ahead in time.

The back view of him holding his fists tight was no longer the small back of a middle school student he used to know.

Inwoo, who readjusted his grip on his fists several times, eventually could not hold back and swung his arm wide.

Following a thudding sound, a crushed groan leaked out from between the teeth of the male student pinned underneath.

Yeonwoo crawled on his knees toward Inwoo’s side.

In the meantime, Inwoo’s fist fell over the male student’s face once more.

A sound as if bones were shattering echoed, and two white teeth rolled onto the ground.

Even after the male student’s teeth broke, Inwoo did not stop punching.

It was a blind movement, like a machine powered by rage.

Yeonwoo wrapped his arms around Inwoo’s back and spoke.

‘Stop it. You are really going to kill him at this rate….’

The end of his voice trembled thinly with tears.

The back that Yeonwoo wrapped his arms around heaved heavily.

Inwoo’s huffing breaths roughly tore through the silence of the night.

The male student beaten by Inwoo was no longer making even a groan.

Inwoo, who had been stiff for a moment, brought his fist down again.

Yeonwoo wrapped his arms around Inwoo’s arm and pulled, clinging to him.

‘Stop it. Stop it, Inwoo…. Enough now….’

Yeonwoo hugged Inwoo’s back tightly and pressed his face into the nape of his neck.

Inwoo’s hot pulse reached him completely through the thin summer uniform.

Yeonwoo desperately held onto Inwoo’s arm, which was trying to move again.

Inwoo, who was stubbornly swinging his captured arm, planted his bloodied fist on the ground and spat out a bitter curse filled with rage.

‘Fck… piece of sht homo….’

In front of the payment machine at the unmanned motel, Yeonwoo flinched slightly.

Why on earth did those words cross his mind right now of all times?

And so clearly, down to every single breath.

As Yeonwoo gathered his change with a lifeless smile, the man watching him from the side asked.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because it’s funny.”

Yeonwoo replied without even looking at the man’s face.

The man bitterly twisted the corners of his mouth as he watched Yeonwoo’s back as he walked away coyly.

Stepping inside the guest room, Yeonwoo sat heavily on the bed without even looking around the room.

Unwinding his tie slowly to loosen it, Yeonwoo had an exhausted expression, as if he had just finished a business trip.

The man crossed his arms while leaning against the doorway and spoke.

“Not going to shower?”

“You go first.”

“Together?”

Just as he was loosening his tie, Yeonwoo lifted his head.

His face was expressionless.

The man pointed toward the bathroom at Yeonwoo.

A fine wrinkle formed between Yeonwoo’s brows.

“I showered before I came out. Just you need to go.”

At Yeonwoo’s answer, the man’s cheek, which had been pulled up into a smile, twitched slightly before twisting.

The man, who kept silent for a moment as if gathering his thoughts, nodded his head and spoke.

“Alright then.”

After the man entered the bathroom, Yeonwoo let the tension leave his shoulders and let out a long breath.

The scenery of the guest room finally entered his sight.

Windows covered with thick curtains, yellow lighting, dark brown furniture, and cheap skin lotion placed on the vanity.

The man preferred unmanned motels.

Motels with no front desk or even hallways, where there was no chance of running into anyone coming or going.

It was a choice that showed he wanted to avoid the eyes of others, but Yeonwoo had never once raised an objection to that.

He was originally that kind of man.

A man who saved face well, acted like he knew everything well, and acted like he knew nothing even better.

The sound of rain was tapping against the closed window.

The socks soaked with rainwater felt damp.

Yeonwoo bent his body and hesitated just as he was about to take off the wet socks.

He saw that the heel part of the black socks came all the way up to his ankle.

Those socks, much larger than Yeonwoo’s feet, belonged to Inwoo.

Finding it ridiculous, Yeonwoo let out a hollow laugh.

To think that what he wore out on a day like this was, of all things, Inwoo’s socks.

‘Fck… piece of sht homo….’

Inwoo’s voice echoed from a distant memory.

Yeonwoo chewed over those words slowly, let out a short sigh, and pulled off his socks.

The lightly tossed socks hit the corner of the wall and crumpled up shape-lessly.

Yeonwoo, who had been staring endlessly at the crumpled socks, raised his head at the sound of the door opening.

He saw the man coming out of the bathroom while wiping his short hair with a towel.

“What were you doing?”

The man asked.

Yeonwoo did not answer at all.

The man spoke again.

“You could at least watch TV.”

Instead of answering, Yeonwoo climbed onto the bed.

Yeonwoo had not come here to have a conversation with the man.

When Yeonwoo stared at him with languidly blinking eyes, the man smiled with an ambiguous expression.

Tossing the wet towel onto the floor, the man lightly mounted over Yeonwoo’s body.

Feeling the heavy weight of the man settling between his legs, Yeonwoo wrapped his arms around his waist.

Yeonwoo liked the man’s body.

Broad shoulders, solid forearms, and things like the pleasure that body could give.

Entrusting his body to the man’s hands, Yeonwoo’s gaze caught on the crumpled socks at the end of his vision as he took slow breaths.

Yeonwoo closed his eyes tightly and turned his head away.

The man’s lips groped along Yeonwoo’s tautly stretched neck.

Yeonwoo arched his waist gently so the man could touch his body as he pleased.

The man, smiling as if satisfied with Yeonwoo’s movement, sucked on the thin skin of his neck with fierce movements.

Yeonwoo urgently stopped the man and spoke.

“I told you not to leave hickeys.”

The man, who paused for a moment, seemed to pull his lips away from his neck, but subtly bared his teeth.

Yeonwoo grimaced and pushed the man’s body away.

“Kwon Juhyeok!”

At his name being called, the man’s eyebrows twitched.

Yeonwoo wiped down his face with his palm and then spoke in a low, suppressed voice.

“I told you not to leave hickeys.”

When you don’t even like me.

The unspoken words he swallowed tasted bitter.

Yeonwoo glared at Juhyeok’s face while breathing softly.

Juhyeok, who had been silent for a moment, soon nodded as if understanding.

When Yeonwoo reached his arms out again, Juhyeok slowly lowered his body.

Juhyeok, tilting his head so their eyes would not meet, began unbuttoning Yeonwoo’s shirt.

Yeonwoo placed his hand on Juhyeok’s back, conscious of the touch of fingers brushing over his chest and their misaligned gazes.

The jacket resting over Yeonwoo’s shoulders fell to the floor, and his white shirt was stripped off.

Exposing his naked body, Yeonwoo spread his two legs loosely.

Juhyeok’s fingers groped between Yeonwoo’s buttocks and dug deep inside the narrow entrance.

At the touch touching a sensitive spot right away, Yeonwoo’s body wriggled slightly.

“Take… your hand out.”

When Yeonwoo spoke, Juhyeok stopped moving and asked back.

“It’s not here?”

As if it wasn’t.

Juhyeok was a man who knew Yeonwoo’s body better than anyone else.

His fingers were accurately pointing out Yeonwoo’s erogenous zone.

Yeonwoo shrank his legs at the tingling sensation given by the inserted finger and spoke.

“I feel like it’s going to get hurt.”

“You did it like this before.”

“And that’s why I bled.”

Juhyeok’s face clouded slightly.

He seemed to be recalling an old memory.

A memory that was probably more than ten years old.

When they first crossed bodies, the two were college students who had barely stepped out of being freshmen, and for both, a man’s body was a first.

Back then, Juhyeok often used to leave injuries on Yeonwoo’s body.

“Your fingers hurt me easily. Hurry up and take them out.”

When Yeonwoo repeated himself, Juhyeok pulled his hand out.

Yeonwoo spoke as he tore open the foil wrapper of a condom.

“Looks like you haven’t been doing it either. Not even knowing something like that.”

The corners of Juhyeok’s eyes distorted.

Yeonwoo let out a smirk and rolled the condom onto Juhyeok’s erect length.

“Come in slowly. I hate pain.”

Yeonwoo spoke as he wet between his legs with clear lube.

Juhyeok swallowed his saliva as he watched Yeonwoo’s slender fingers slip between his spread buttocks.

Yeonwoo, who wet the entrance until it glowed smoothly, gathered his legs coyly and twisted his waist slightly.

Juhyeok bit his bone-dry lips to wet them, turned Yeonwoo’s body face down just like that, and breached him from behind.

As the thick length scraped down the inner mucous membrane, a groan leaked out from Yeonwoo’s lips.

As if ignoring the words to come in slowly, Juhyeok intentionally moved his hips back and forth broadly as soon as he entered.

“Ah… ahh….”

Yeonwoo, making short, broken groans, crumpled the sheet and buried his face in it.

Juhyeok continuously parted the tight interior, looking down at Yeonwoo’s back and waist.

A body thin enough for his spine to show, neatly spread shoulders, and an unusually slender waist—each of those things entered his vision and lodged inside.

“Ah… it hurts….”

Yeonwoo pulled his body forward, crawling on the bed with his knees.

Juhyeok grabbed his shoulders and pressed him downward so Yeonwoo could not escape.

Caught and unable to move forward, Yeonwoo’s legs collapsed limp.

Pressing down on Yeonwoo’s body with his thighs, Juhyeok pushed his length in all the way to the root.

“Ah… ngh… ahh….”

As he repeatedly pierced deep, pained sounds burst out endlessly from Yeonwoo’s lips.

Looking down at Yeonwoo’s back twisting in pain, Juhyeok recalled Yeonwoo when he had just passed twenty.

Back then, Yeonwoo had a back more inexperienced and softer than now.

Whenever he looked at that back, which was always slightly hunched, almost every time, to an unbearable degree, he would want to hold him.

“Does it hurt?”

When Juhyeok asked, Yeonwoo nodded his head with his face buried in the sheet.

Juhyeok brushed Yeonwoo’s hair behind his ear and stroked his back.

The back that crossed a time of ten-odd years from twenty was no longer hunched like before.

Time stripped the inexperience away from Yeonwoo’s back, leaving behind a firm shape and a precarious atmosphere instead.

Juhyeok completely flattened his upper body onto Yeonwoo’s back, moving his hips gently as if rubbing their whole bodies together.

At Juhyeok’s movement changing the angle and scratching a ticklish spot, feverish breaths leaked out from the corner of Yeonwoo’s mouth.

“How about this?”

“…Ngh… mm… ah….”

To Juhyeok’s question, Yeonwoo made a strange sound that was neither an answer nor a groan, then reached out with his palm to grope Juhyeok’s body.

With a gesture that was clearly an affirmation, Juhyeok rolled up the corners of his lips and gradually raised his pace, slamming his hips over Yeonwoo’s body.

The sticky sound of flesh colliding sped up, and after dampening down a few times, heat began mixing into the air that had been chilled cold.

Juhyeok stared at the nape of Yeonwoo’s sweat-soaked neck, pushing his waist down deep.

Yeonwoo, who was letting out suppressed groans at the fierce insertion strong enough to push his body forward, shook his head side to side as if he could not take it anymore.

“Ha… ahh… wait… slowly….”

“You want me to go slowly?”

When Juhyeok asked, Yeonwoo nodded his head with his eyes fixed on the bedsheet.

Juhyeok pulled out what was inserted and turned Yeonwoo’s body face up.

Yeonwoo, exposing his belly, squeezed his thighs as if conscious of the wet space between his legs.

It was a movement that could look cute at a glance, but his eyes turned toward a distant place as if ignoring Juhyeok were far from cute.

Juhyeok forcefully grabbed and pulled Yeonwoo’s thighs apart, exposing his perineum slick with pre-cum.

Whenever Yeonwoo tried to fold his legs while conscious of the exposed spot, the inner muscles of his thighs twitched and trembled.

Juhyeok pressed down on Yeonwoo’s knees with rough grip strength, placing his lips against the wide-open inner thigh.

When the hard touch of teeth touched the thin skin, Yeonwoo made a surprised sound, saying, ah.

Unbothered by that sound, Juhyeok sucked a mouth full of skin soft as whipped cream, then set his teeth to bite down gently.

“Don’t leave a mark… !”

Yeonwoo spoke urgently.

Juhyeok felt a sudden surge of spite and applied strength to his teeth, but pulled his lips away.

He didn’t want to needlessly provoke Yeonwoo’s feelings and create an uncomfortable situation.

When Juhyeok let go of the thighs he was holding, Yeonwoo let his legs hang weakly.

Juhyeok swept a long gaze over Yeonwoo’s slightly tossing body.

Fine ivory skin, pretty bone joints bulging out everywhere on his long body, fair thighs, smooth calves, and pearl-like toes.

Sometimes, he genuinely hated himself for being gravely intoxicated by this body.

No, actually, very often.

Juhyeok overlapped his body over Yeonwoo’s stomach, pushing the hard-hardened length between the small buttocks.

Yeonwoo, who was groaning at the pressure piercing the inside of his belly, soon moved his hips to match his body.

Savoring the feeling of their bodies fitting tightly together, Juhyeok began moving as if smoothly stirring around, looking for a place Yeonwoo would like.

“Mmh… ah… Juhyeok-ah….”

Yeonwoo, pouring out heated sighs, hugged Juhyeok’s shoulders tightly.

His smoothly extended two legs were loosely wrapped around Juhyeok’s waist.

Juhyeok looked at Yeonwoo’s face while listening to his own name whispered languidly.

Reddened, wetly parted lips, long eyelashes settled beneath tightly closed eyelids, and a nose bridge pretty from any angle.

On Yeonwoo’s face as he accepted the invasion of pleasure deep into his body, the usual cold expression or businesslike attitude could not be found.

It was an appearance that looked like an endlessly sweet lover, but Juhyeok knew.

The moment their eyes met, that lover-like appearance would disappear and a cold dismissal would return, and after the relationship ended, a weary gaze mixed with contempt would inevitably be directed at him.

But it didn’t matter.

Juhyeok liked whatever emotion was contained in Yeonwoo’s eyes.

Whether it was contempt or hatred, as long as it brought Seo Yeonwoo to him.