Later, Okay?
"Ahahat...! That tickles."
Minseo turned his head to the side, trying to break the kiss that had gone on for so long. Something rough had scraped against my tongue — and now I could see why. A lock of hair at his temple had gotten caught between our mouths.
I turned my face forward again. My body tipped toward him, and just before I would have toppled over I let my weight settle onto him.
Whether he found that pleasant or not, Minseo laughed. I pressed my lips to his again as they parted on that soft little puh-huh, and I moved my tongue.
There was something in me I couldn't hold back. Unlike when I'd been passive, I wanted to push my tongue in deeper no matter what, wanted to crush our faces closer no matter what.
I forced it a little. My hands moved in a hurry, kneading the bare skin of his chest under his shirt while my tongue did whatever it wanted.
Everything was a first. So of course it should have felt awkward — and yet he welcomed whatever this was, this lust or this shattered reason or whatever name it deserved, and that willingness was sweet.
So I crossed a line, I suppose. It was the first time I'd ever put my hands on someone else's body, after all.
I was shoving my whole body against him. In raw strength, even if I threw myself at him with everything I had, he would only have given a little ground — and still Minseo eased himself slowly down onto his back.
He received that desire of mine, the need to press as close as possible, and dissolved it for me with care. He took in the urge to pin someone down that finely, that gently.
Strictly speaking our relationship had started with sexual harassment, and yet Minseo had never actually crossed the line.
He let me kiss him. It wasn't that he kissed me. He simply allowed it.
I caught his lower lip lightly between my front teeth and tugged. The pink inner membrane of his lip turned out with his gum.
Even when I pulled a little harder, Minseo only kept smiling, bright and easy.
So I crashed my mouth against his again, greedy, pulled my tongue free and worked it wildly —
and moved my hands. I savored the particular give of that full chest, the softness that offered no resistance at all, and when I pinched the slightly firmer tip of it between my fingers he only furrowed his brow a fraction and still took it.
If someone asked whether I loved Minseo, the answer was clearly no — and still I felt love.
For reasons I couldn't name, an endless rising thing like love was shaking my brain apart.
I wondered if this was a first. The thought came that acting the way I wanted had only become possible since I'd arrived here. Reaching out with nothing but instinct and the satisfaction right in front of me, without reading anyone's face or running any calculations — I thought that was new.
Dropped somewhere I knew no one, somewhere I would never meet another soul beyond a few dozen people at most. Everything I'd felt until now —
Ah. No. That wasn't it. It was nothing. You weren't supposed to think about other things while you were kissing.
At some point I was fully astride him. A matter of threshold, maybe. Or something that worked the way addiction did. Or maybe those two were the same thing.
Stray thoughts were starting to crowd in.
I just lowered the hips I'd been holding up. Settling onto him with my legs spread to either side, I felt something hard. The sharp jut of bone on both sides of his pelvis came up through my thighs.
"...?"
The moment I did that, the corner of Minseo's eye twitched. For a fraction of a second his face looked exactly like a movie hero who has just found a bomb alone on a train, and then —
"Wait —"
Hearing Minseo say the words I usually said filled me with joy. It was pleasure. So satisfying I thought I might come.
"...Heh, hh...!"
A laugh slipped out of me. When I rolled my hips a little, I felt the muscle connected to that thing surge. The center of him hardened further, then eased, then surged again. I could feel it throbbing as if it would burst.
"H-hey. Wait a se—"
The way he always did, he cut himself off mid-sentence.
From the right-angled seam of his lips, breaths that never became words leaked out — ha-eup, heu-eup.
"Hh, hihiit...!"
I thought I might cry. Something surging up from deep in my chest was forcing its way out.
I snapped my hips. I felt the skin sheathed over that pillar drag against my own skin and move with it.
Minseo's hands caught my shoulders, but the strength in them was still weak. In that touch I could feel him wanting more while pretending otherwise — and maybe that was why he had never stopped me before.
Because kissing felt good. Because up through the kissing my head would go hazy and I'd float.
I worked my hips harder — then stopped dead — and now Minseo was frowning outright, looking at me, trying to sit up.
I shoved the hand that had been on his chest straight down into his pants. I flinched when I met that thing much farther forward than I'd expected, and then I laid my palm against it anyway.
It was hot. A shape similar to Jiwoo's and different at once. Of course I'd never properly seen one; all I had was the texture I'd felt inside my mouth.
Goosebumps prickled up my arms. It was disgusting, but it was fine. Like he'd said — I was getting used to it, wasn't I?
The way a food full of a scent you hate can, with age, one day smell fragrant. The way you find virtues in someone you disliked and slowly tip into fondness.
I took hold of the head.
I'd thought it before: if I truly applied myself, I could be very good at this.
The past version of me — real or fabricated, no one could give a clear answer — had masturbated too, after all.
At the very least I knew where on that thing felt good — I was more thoroughly educated on it than on the body of the opposite sex I was supposed to prefer.
The tip was already sticky. It was slick enough that I cupped the head in my palm. My hand reshaped itself to match.
I gripped the steep rise of the shaft and the gentle slope that fell away after, and another strong pulse kicked through him —
"Augh...!"
Minseo's hands locked near my shoulders and shoved me off. Pain seemed to fill his face.
"Ah, hep, heu-eup, e-eup—!"
My face was suddenly far away; my tongue was still moving the way it had inside his mouth. It fluttered forward, but I couldn't overcome the force of him.
"Let— let go...!"
I shouted it. When I moved my hand again, Minseo let out another choked sound.
"Hey, that hurts...! No — I told you to wait!"
Minseo said it, drew a sharp breath, and then my whole body was simply lifted and set down on the mattress beside him.
"...Huh? Why, why...?"
I couldn't understand. I had no idea why he was pushing me away. I'd meant to get him off properly once, to sneer at the sight of his come painted across his own body, and to offer up my first time doing it.
It was clearly what he'd wanted most. Minseo had hungered for my first time — or even if it wasn't a first, for my body.
"You little— hold on— no. I said wait. Don't move."
An order. So I stayed still.
"What's wrong with this thing. Hm? Augh, that stings. Was it that rough on you? Hm?"
"W-what..."
Minseo's face was wet with my spit. But he was looking at me with a gravity that wasn't like him at all.
What had gone wrong?
"You can't just thrash it around like that. Ugh, what the hell. Felt like you jammed it into a penguin's beak."
He shoved a hand down into his underwear, seemed to adjust the position of the thing inside, then used the rebound of his body to close the distance by a step — ...by one hip?
"..."
Had it hurt? Meaning — had I touched him too clumsily?
"...D-did it hurt...?"
I asked it carefully. Clearly, near the end, a little —
"Yeah. If you grab it raw like that, it hurts. You need, I don't know, some kind of lube? No — you might not know — of course you wouldn't know. I'm not scolding you."
Minseo explained it kindly, the way you would to someone meeting that thing for the first time.
And so my vision went swimming and watery again, the image of him wavering. Of course — of course these were fabricated memories —
"...Don't cry! Why are you crying again! I told you it's normal! Of course you wouldn't know! Um, so! With women, this, well, whether they're masturbating or whatever, lubrication happens on its own! Here it does too, but only a tiny amount... that, uhh, what was it? It neutralizes the acid in the urethra and lubricates so the semen comes out cleanly—"
Minseo kept explaining. I already knew all of it. I'd had as much sex education as anyone.
When the tears that had pooled started tracking down my cheeks, he came closer, told me to close my eyes, and wiped my face and eyes in one smooth pass.
"There, there. I'm sorry. You didn't like it and I was just fooling around. Right? Sorry. Want to hit me? Ah — should we go wash up? Want me to look for a tub? There's probably one if I search. Foldable, but..."
"...N-no. No. I d-don't want to."
"Augh. I, uh, didn't realize it was this bad."
"I don't want to. L-let's have sex. I-it's my first time, but I, I know how—"
At that, contrary to everything I'd expected, Minseo grabbed the blanket, covered his waist with it, and pulled me into his arms.
"......Heh-heh. Okay. Later. Okay? Can we just stay like this for now? Holding's nice too, right?"
Foom. I was gathered against him. Chest met chest and the shapes of us crumpled together, and when I set my face against his shoulder I caught a good scent and, at the same time, the warmth of his skin and the line of his collarbone and shoulder.
...It was better than I'd expected. I nodded.
Some things you just have to admit.
"You don't have to be embarrassed, you know?"
"..."
"You almost done in there?"
"......"
Click. I undid the lock and opened the door. Minseo stood in front of it with a mischievous look; Jiwoo looked worried.
"There we go. Heh-heh! That's more like it. Come on. Your back okay?"
"...Yes..."
When I stood up from the toilet, my hamstrings and lower back prickled with pins and needles. Maybe from sitting too long in an uncomfortable place.
"Pff, heh-heh! Hht! Augh. Cute. Seriously."
The instant I was on my feet Minseo yanked me in and hugged me, then slid a hand straight under my clothes and kneaded my ass.
...I stayed still. I had nothing to say.
The mental spiral had hit hard. If your mind short-circuits that badly, you'd think the memories would at least vanish — and yet every one of them was still vivid.
There was nowhere to run. I had to take the punishment of being fully sober and ashamed of everything I'd done.
"Let's go sleep. I'm tired — first real workday in a while."
"...Are you all right?"
That was Jiwoo, who'd been quiet until now. I nodded. He seemed to think it was his fault — meaning, he seemed to think what had happened in the shower was the problem — but...
Saying I was fine would have been strange in its own way. All I had to do was quietly endure the embarrassment of this hour.
And so we reached the room. Shift was over; most people would be drifting off to sleep soon.
When all you did was freeload, cause trouble, and have breakdowns, the night never came late enough — the days ran long.
Hyejin wasn't in the room, just as she'd said. The moment we stepped inside Minseo shut the door, bolted for the bed, and patted the space beside him with quick little slaps.
"Eut... a-aren't you going to sit...?"
I asked. Sitting over there felt too humiliating all over again.
My face burned. Hot enough to scald — I must have been red to match.
"Of course I am! Heh-heh! We've still got something to do, don't we?"
Minseo couldn't hold his laughter; it kept slipping out of him in little snorts as he asked.
...I remembered perfectly well what he meant.
"...Stop teasing her. She had a hard day. Hm?"
Jiwoo, who hadn't been there for any of it, sat on the edge of the bed and tried to help me — but Minseo was stubborn.
"We've got to have sex! Right? I'm going to fuck you until you pass out. Mm! Heh-heh...!"
"......"
"Hey. You seriously—"
"N-no, it's fine..."
I stopped Jiwoo as his voice started to drop, as if he thought a line had been crossed. It seemed Minseo hadn't told him everything.
Which made Minseo a genuinely strange creature. I kept wondering what he even was.
That position of his, I guess. The thought had started to form that he wasn't a flat person at all.
On the surface he looked like someone who lived on sexual harassment, who quietly needled people by their weak points and acted straight out of lust —
and yet when I was struggling he refused me outright, and instead sat still for thirty minutes holding me so that my annoying self could calm down...
The consideration of even laying a blanket down so that thing wouldn't touch me was strange. It was a side of him you never saw ordinarily. Enough that I'd almost started to think he didn't actually like me.
You couldn't explain it as pain, either. The lust rising out of that thing in the first place wasn't something a little pain could do anything about.
...Unless he had some hyper-perverted streak that specifically hated tormenting people who weren't in their right mind, it was hard to account for.
"Heh-heh! I'll tell you tomorrow. Ah, seriously, you were so cute. Auuugh. So — you coming?"
"..."
Thinking of it that way, he didn't seem quite so hateful after all. So I walked over a little slowly.
I sat beside him. At once he caught my waist, laid me down, crushed me into his arms, and patted my stomach in a steady rhythm while he breathed out a contented little hum.
"...S-sleep?"
"Yeah, we should sleep. You too, Jiwoo. Ah — can you get the light?"
"...Honestly. Just let her rest..."
Jiwoo grumbled, but he got up and turned off the light anyway. Then he groped through the dark room to his own bed, said good night to Minseo and me, and started watching something on his terminal.
"Heh-heh. Yeoreum. Sleep well? You have to dream about me, okay? A dirty dream would be even better. If you want to have sex, just say so. Got it?"
"Aeut..."
"I'll just get right up and, you know. Hm? Just like that. I'll go until you're crying please stop, I'm begging you."
"......G-good night..."
And in that small bed that almost let you pretend only the two of us were left, I fell asleep to a steady stream of sexual harassment.
"No. Should we just do it now? Want to try taking your pants off? I'll only put the tip in a little. Heup!"
...In truth, it took me a little while longer to actually fall asleep.