Hongryun Sect (10)
Hongryun Sect (10)
"Lady Seon-go."
The ancients believed that names held great power. That simply calling a person's name could imbue it with a kind of sorcery, granting wishes and linking hearts together.
And so parted lovers, and those who pined in one-sided devotion, would call their beloved's name into the night sky without any clear reason.
Because they believed their voice would reach the other.
Because they believed the red thread trailing from their heart would fly out and entwine with the other's.
"Lady Seon-go."
A week had passed since the night of the drinking party.
Jayoung still could not forget the smile from that night. She was the master's daughter, so nothing could ever come of it. It would be a betrayal of the master who had taken him in. His mind offered reason after reason, explaining that he and Seon-go could never be together, but Jayoung's lips kept forming her name aloud, as if by habit.
"Lady Seon-go."
A name he had only ever heard spoken — never once voiced with his own lips — it spread through the air with a lovely resonance as his tongue met his teeth. The act of calling her name was intoxicating in itself, and it invited Jayoung into all manner of visions.
Visions of sitting face-to-face with Seon-go. Visions of carrying Seon-go on his back as they strolled through the fields. Visions of building a home just for the two of them and living there. Visions of having about three children and farming the land together.
In his visions, Seon-go smiled awkwardly, her face flushed red as she scratched the back of her head.
And then he closed his eyes and sighed.
Because he wished Seon-go would come to know his heart.
Because he wished a miracle would somehow occur and she would hold him.
*******
"Haa...! Ah...! Aaht...!"
Through the slightly open gap in the door, the sky was visible. A beautiful night sky. As the stars shimmered and tinged the clouds with their colors, her mouth churned the room with thick breaths in obscene hues. She bucked her lower body, her hands flailing amid the pleasure.
"Ah...! Aah...!"
And then she covered her eyes with her palm and shook her head from side to side, biting down hard on her teeth — only to twist her head away, shuddering, when a tender spot was prodded once more.
"Hah-eut!"
She saw stars in her eyes. Tonight, for some reason, she felt the stars and the moon beaming fiercely down upon her. When she met each of those stars and the moon with her gaze, her chest tightened and a strange sensation seeped in, surging up through her head with an overflowing heart — only to be swept away each time by the wave of pleasure that followed.
"Aah...! Ha...! Ah-eut...!"
What could it be?
"Haa...! S-stop...! Haa...! I-I already went...! Once...! So stop...!"
What on earth was making her suffer through these feelings?
"Now, I think I can start putting it in."
Seon-go turned her head. She saw the dark ceiling.
The ceiling she had faced for half a lifetime while writing in account books was, to her, like drawing paper upon which she spread the wings of imagination. The stain in the right corner was the forms of the Eight Immortals, and the large water stain spread across the center was the entrance to the Peach Blossom Paradise. The middle of the ceiling was faded, so it often felt like sunlight shining through the clouds.
"Where are you looking?"
And into that space came Docheol's figure.
His solid-muscled shoulders, his sharply carved face, and the gaze that swept over her entire body entered. His eyes were gleaming too, but that gleam was not starlight. It was stained with a murkier, more ominous shade — a very dangerous hue laced with sinister intent.
Seon-go tried to evade his eyes.
But each time she did, Docheol forcibly pulled her face back toward him and made her meet his gaze. Seon-go twisted her lips and spoke in a low voice.
"Today...."
"No. Today we're going all the way."
Docheol had no intention of listening to Seon-go.
Because a whole week had already passed.
It had been a week since he started caressing her body and taming it. For a week, he had put in painstaking effort to loosen Seon-go's body and acclimate her to the male organ. The moment he realized her body was now ready to receive a man, Docheol could hold back no longer.
Seon-go knew he meant to push forward relentlessly, so she shook her head from side to side, trying to dissuade him.
"That kind of.... Heu-eup...!"
But this time, Docheol was different. He seized her wrists and forced a kiss upon her. His tongue pushed in through the gap of her lips, parted in shock, and their tongues entwined as saliva flooded in. A slippery mass crawled into every corner of her mouth, encroaching, coiling like a snake, sucking.
"Heup..! Eu-heup..! Heup...!"
Even if she tried to struggle, it was no use.
Seon-go squeezed her eyes shut and tried to turn her head away,
tried to slap Docheol's back with her hands — Pang-pang —
and then reluctantly let her hands fall still.
Docheol's hands slowly crept up her wrists like spiders, overlapping her palms, interlocking their fingers. The strength drained from Seon-go's hands — the hands that had been striking his back — and she spread her palms flat, stroking down his back.
Seureureuk, they slipped down, and Teolsseok, fell onto the blanket.
In that moment, Seon-go
briefly recalled someone's face and name.
Jayoung.
Jayoung.
But she could not speak that name.
She must not think about that person.
She tried to look at the ceiling with her eyes narrowed open, but whenever she opened them, all she saw was Docheol.
Seon-go closed her eyes again.
*****
Jayoung opened his eyes.
"Jayoung, what are you doing?"
"Huh? Oh, nothing."
In the silent night of the manor, another servant called out to Jayoung as he wandered alone and forlorn. The man, who had entered service around the same time as Jayoung, was five years older, but the two spoke freely and treated each other like brothers. Jayoung wished for the man's happiness, and the man wished for Jayoung's.
"Nothing, sure. You were thinking about the lady again, weren't you?"
The two also shared their secrets. Jayoung knew the man's assorted private matters, and the man knew that Jayoung was in love with Seon-go, the daughter of the Crimson Ring Sect.
The man sat down beside Jayoung, plucking blades of grass as he spoke.
"You need to keep it in check and let this go. It's not just an impossible match — if anyone even finds out you have feelings, you'll die. You already know there are disciples here who find you suspicious."
Jayoung understood the man's words. He wasn't saying this out of jealousy or to look down on Jayoung. Jayoung, who had nothing, was fated to die if the sect's trainees so much as blew on him.
"Still, a man's heart doesn't obey like that."
But Jayoung shook his head.
He grasped his trembling legs and let out a sigh.
"...If even I turn away from the lady, who will be there for her?"
The man laughed in disbelief.
"Hey, you...."
"...Tomorrow I'm thinking of picking some flowers to offer the lady."
The man's expression hardened as he stared at Jayoung. Jayoung had fixed his face in a silent, firm look and was gazing at the sky. Knowing Jayoung was sincere, the man could no longer dissuade him. Instead, he scratched his head and let a remark drop.
"...As far as I'm concerned, I don't know anything about that."
The man's voice echoed.
******
"...I've never done... anything like this before...."
Seon-go's voice echoed through the room. Docheol was panting, his tongue slightly protruding. Both their lips glistened, and Seon-go, amid the shock and her pounding heart, murmured flustered words.
"Heu-eup...!"
Docheol kissed her once more. This kiss stretched longer and more languidly than the first time they had tangled tongues. Seon-go neither pushed Docheol's shoulders away nor pressed her thighs against him. She simply accepted Docheol's tongue that way, clumsily mingling her own with it, trying her best to match him.
"Haa.... Haa...."
"Hoo...."
And when he lifted his head again, moonlight seeped in through the gap in the door.
The saliva between the two caught the light and glistened, and Docheol buried his head in Seon-go's chest once more. Seon-go turned her head away. It was because Docheol's member, now exposed with his pants lowered, looked far too large and grotesque. This time, Docheol did not stop her from turning away.
Instead, he wrapped his hands around her waist and, very slowly,
very slowly, sank down into her body.
"Ah...!"
Seon-go's mouth opened.
She could hear the sound of her sealed fissure — something she had guarded all her life — breaking apart bit by bit.
"Ah...! Ah-eut...! Aah...!"
Tearing at the blankets and flailing her head from side to side, Seon-go looked up at the sky to call out someone's name.
"Ah...! Aah...!"
But from her lips, that someone's name never came.
"Haa...! Ah...! Aah...! I-is it all the way in...?"
Only a demure question.
"Almost all the way. Just bear it a little longer."
"J-just a moment...! Ah...!"
Only the most demure exchange passed between them.
Docheol held her close and whispered into her ear.
"Seon-go."
******
The man scratched his head and disappeared.
Left alone, Jayoung slumped down where he sat, sighed, and looked up at the sky.
And then, he opened his mouth once more and called her name.
"Lady Seon-go."
******
"Seon-go."
The ancients believed that names held great power. That simply calling a person's name could imbue it with a kind of sorcery, granting wishes and linking hearts together.
"Haa.... Haa...! Ah...!"
The moment Docheol called her name, Seon-go unwittingly recalled that story.
That parted lovers, and those who pined in one-sided devotion, would call their beloved's name into the night sky without any clear reason.
That they believed their voice would reach the other.
That they believed the red thread trailing from their heart would fly out and entwine with the other's.
"We are husband and wife now."
Between her thighs,
red blood Ttoreureu.
trickled down.