Halfway to Fifty
"You walking again today?"
"Yeah. Figured I'd walk it — you know, for the diet. I'll take you up on that ride another time!"
It had already been three days since I'd last caught a ride home with Dongmin-hyung. The diet line was just an excuse. I wasn't actually going home, so hopping in his car was out of the question.
"Alright. Get home safe."
"Dongmin-hyung — thanks for everything this year."
"Yeah. Next time we run into each other, we'll both be a year older."
I watched the Avante pull away, then fished a cigarette from my pocket and tucked it between my lips.
Twenty-five already, huh.
Midnight had come and gone. It was December 31st now. The time I had left to be twenty-four wasn't even a full day.
That old phrase — halfway to fifty — landed with a weight I hadn't expected, and a restless, unsettled feeling crept through me. Still, I'd gotten my hands on the Sex Coin app, so at least my wallet was fat. Next year I'd be back in school, too…
The phone buzzed against my palm, dragging me out of my thoughts.
"Oppa, are you still at work?"
"Just finished. I was about to call you, actually."
"Want me to go ahead and grab a room?"
"Don't bother. I'll be there soon. Just hang tight, Heejung."
Running into Cha Heejung at the movie theater had been three days ago. Ever since, I'd been meeting her the second my shift ended. It was always late, which meant the destination was always a motel, and I felt bad about that — but Heejung actually seemed to love it.
I wasn't complaining either. Thanks to her, I could mine Sex Coins every single day. Still — didn't most women hate it when the only date on offer was a motel? Especially when she was carving time out of the hours she should have been sleeping just to see me…
Ah, well. She says she likes it.
And it wasn't just talk. How much she enjoyed each round with me was right there in the Sex Coin app, plain as day.
We were still clearing ninety on Satisfaction every time, but the number kept ticking down, and that was starting to get under my skin. I knew why. I was wiped after work, and she was wiped from cutting into her sleep every night just to see me. Knowing it in my head didn't make the drop any less annoying.
Tonight, I'm setting a new high.
Tomorrow? No — today…
Damn it. Once the clock rolled past midnight, the whole day thing got confusing.
Either way, the pub was closed, and my own schedule didn't kick in until evening. I had every reason to give this everything I had.
I settled the motel bill and stepped into the elevator with Cha Heejung. She glanced over at me, looking almost guilty.
"Oppa, aren't you blowing way too much on motel rooms? I keep telling you, let's just go to your place."
"That'd be a disaster. One moan out of you and the neighbors would be banging on the door."
"Tch, I am not that loud, okay?"
She wasn't wrong about the money, though. The motel bills weren't nothing. Sixty thousand won on a weekday, eighty on a weekend like tonight. Just the rooms I'd taken with her had already blown past three hundred thousand won. At this rate, renting a studio and using it like a motel would've been cheaper.
Yeah, except then I'd have to clean the room afterward.
Thanks to Sex Coin, every round put millions in my pocket. The old me would've flinched at a motel bill. The current me could pay this in his sleep.
"This much is fine. Don't worry about it."
"I just feel bad, that's all. I was going to pay tonight."
"Ah-ah. The guy pays for the motel."
I said it, and I knew it was bullshit. What did it matter who paid? But if we started splitting it, Heejung's wallet would take the hit, and she might start feeling like seeing me was a burden. I remembered that feeling all too well — back in the day, the first thing I did before meeting a girlfriend was check my bank balance. If there was even a chance of that happening, it was better that I just covered everything.
"You're not going to stop seeing me because you're out of money, right?"
She'd landed on the exact same thought I had, and I couldn't help laughing. She watched me laugh and kept going, her voice turning earnest.
"If you're broke, just tell me honestly. Don't start dodging my calls. I can pay, okay? Got it?"
That look on her face — I couldn't take it. The second the elevator doors slid open, I grabbed her hand and pulled her straight to the room number printed on the key.
I didn't even give her time to kick off her shoes. I ducked my head and caught her mouth with mine. The kiss unfolded like it had been waiting for us — a slow, easy trade of breath and heat, our tongues sliding together in a rhythm that needed no rehearsal. What started in a bare entryway, with no mood and no warning, didn't end until about the length of a song had passed.
When we finally broke apart, her face was flushed and her breathing had gone ragged, the kiss having lit her up from the inside.
"Hah… hah. Oppa, you're in a hurry tonight."
"You just look even prettier than usual."
Down below, my other self was already raging. We always showered first before the main event, but tonight I couldn't wait that long. I toed off my shoes and headed straight for the bed, drawing her along by the hand until she sank back onto the mattress.
I kissed her again, and this time her tongue slipped into my mouth like it belonged there. I let the invader do as it pleased and put my hands to work on our clothes instead.
"Hah… I really like that new cologne you switched to."
She whispered it in the brief window when our mouths parted so I could pull my shirt off. I'd been worried I might still smell like a full shift, but the cologne I'd put on before work had apparently hung on.
"Good. Glad you like it."
"You should keep wearing this one… ahn!"
I rubbed her through her panties and the rest of the sentence collapsed into a moan. She was already soaked. The fabric clung to her, dark and wet.
"Why are you this wet already?"
"Hngh… don't say it like that~."
Not that I had any room to talk. I'd been ready since the entryway. I stripped off what was left, rolled a condom down my aching cock, and she followed suit, peeling out of her clothes until she was bare against the sheets.
Those full, straining breasts that her clothes usually kept hidden. That impossibly smooth waist, not a spare ounce on it even though she never seemed to work out. And below that, a wide, generous swell of hips set against the narrow cinch of her waist, a dark thatch of hair veiling the cleft between her thighs.
I swallowed. No matter how many times I saw it, the sight made my mouth water. There wasn't a meal on earth that could compete with this.
I ignored my other self's desperate plea to just bury itself in her right then and there, and brought my mouth to her first.
I sealed my lips around that hidden spring and sucked, and the taste of her flooded my mouth. It wasn't enough. I dragged my tongue through every fold, savoring her, mapping her, taking my time.
"Ahn— hngh!"
Her moans climbed higher, and I could feel her orgasm gathering like a wave. I didn't send her over. I pushed myself up and looked at her face instead — that carefully made-up face, gone slack and hazy, her eyes asking me why I'd stopped.
I pretended not to see it. I caught both of her legs, hooked them over my shoulders, and lined myself up against her.
"I'm putting it in now."
"Hah, right now…? Just wait a little… aahhh—!"
I let her protest slide right past me and drove in to the hilt in one stroke. Her walls seized around me, fluttering and clenching as the climax I'd held just out of reach tore through her.
"I… I just came, so…"
She forced the words out through the aftershocks. I could guess the rest of that sentence, but that was one request I had no intention of granting.
My hips slammed home, the wet clap of skin on skin filling the room, and her voice broke open with it.
"Hah—! Aaah—! Hngh—! Aahhhn!"
If this had been my studio, the neighbors would've been at the door already. I kept thrusting and leaned down, my voice low against her ear.
"See? A one-room and we'd be screwed right now."
"Hngh, that's… aah! Because you…!"
So this was my fault? Seemed to me the real culprit was Cha Heejung, showing up with a body like this and daring me not to lose my mind. I picked up the pace, punishing her for refusing to own it.
With both legs pinned in my grip and nowhere to go, she stopped trying to talk. All that came out of her was a raw, panting stream of sound.
"Hahk—! Nnh—!"
"Hah… hahh…"
It was a full-body workout with no breaks, and I could taste the iron at the back of my own throat. Even with Correct Posture cutting down on the stamina drain, the sheer volume of sex was no joke.
Just a little more…
My thighs were starting to seize. I felt like I could blow at any second. I still couldn't stop. I could feel her second orgasm coming on, instinctive as a change in the weather. If I'd been planning to quit, I never would have pushed inside her at that earlier moment.
How many times had I done this in the last month alone? There was no way I was folding over something this small.
I held the edge and kept moving, and her body broke first. Her folded knees tried to straighten, shoving at my shoulders. The small of her back left the mattress entirely, arching up against gravity like a drawn bow.
"Aaaaaahhnnn!!!"
I didn't miss it. I put my weight behind the next thrust and buried myself as deep as her body would take me. I felt her insides shudder around me, and I finally let go.
The release hit in thick, pulsing waves, flooding my head with white. Every ounce of strength left my limbs at once. I sagged forward and collapsed over her, our bodies stacked and slick and spent.
"Hah… hah…"
"Hahh…"
We lay there listening to each other breathe. Then, without either of us deciding to, we found each other's mouths again.