New Year's Reward
January 1st.
And so the days slipped by.
It had been nearly two weeks since the Dimensional Gate opened, and the newcomers were already starting to look like proper guild members.
The remaining two in my squad were managing to keep up, more or less.
At least on the surface, the days were ordinary ones.
That day, too, I was on my way to Yerin's office.
As I passed the lounge, someone called out to me.
"Oh, Hajun!"
It was Jaehyuk.
He was sitting on the sofa beside Seoyun, waving at me.
It was too late to pretend I hadn't seen them. I had no choice but to stop.
"...What are you two doing?"
"It's break time, isn't it? Seoyun wanted to know what tomorrow's Verdict is all about, so I'm filling her in."
Jaehyuk slid closer to Seoyun's side as he spoke, casually draping an arm around her waist.
"Hey, sit down too. Unless you're busy, that is."
"I am busy. Yerin's waiting."
"Aw, come on. At least say hi to Seoyun. Seoyun, this is Hajun. Remember, you saw him in the plaza on the first day?"
"...Hello, sun...bae-nim."
Seoyun looked up at me. At that word, sunbae-nim, Jaehyuk cocked his head.
"Aw, you don't have to be so formal with us, Seoyun. Hajun, she can just call you casually—oppa, even."
"Ah, that... yes. Hajun-oppa."
Seoyun had been about to say teacher, then smoothly patched it over.
"Hajun's my classmate. Our year has the most classmates, and even so, he's the closest to me out of all of them. He seems a little boring at first, but once you get to know him, he's fun."
While Jaehyuk snickered through that little speech, I wanted nothing more than to be on my way.
Then Seoyun looked straight at me and asked out of nowhere.
"Hajun-oppa, that Verdict thing. Can people actually die?"
"...It can happen. That's the rule."
"That's scary."
Seoyun gave a small shiver and reached out to lightly take hold of Jaehyuk's arm.
"Jaehyuk-oppa, do we have to do that too?"
"Hey, don't worry. Nothing like that's going to happen to a rookie like you. I'll block anything that comes."
Jaehyuk puffed out his chest with obvious pride.
Seoyun looped her arm through his.
As she pressed herself against him, her chest naturally came to rest against Jaehyuk's arm.
And then... she looked at me.
Our eyes met.
Just for an instant.
Her expression froze into something I couldn't read.
Then, holding my gaze, she leaned even more of her weight onto Jaehyuk's arm.
"So dependable, our team leader."
The words were for Jaehyuk, but the eyes were on me.
Was she deliberately doing this to make me jealous?
Last time it was only her mouth that lied—was it her eyes lying to me today too? I couldn't tell.
"...Right. Rookies can't enter the Verdict even if they want to. Anyway, I'll get going. Yerin's waiting for me."
Those words barely made it out.
There was no need for me to feel jealousy in a situation like this.
"Ah, sure. See you."
Jaehyuk waved.
Seoyun didn't even say goodbye. She just kept looking at me.
As I turned to leave, her voice—sugared with aegyo—floated out from behind me.
"Oppa, tell me more about that. You said last time the Verdict used to be fought between the Arab factions themselves?"
Jaehyuk's ongoing explanation and the sound of Seoyun's laughter trailed after me.
I quickened my pace.
Until I could no longer hear them.
Was she doing it showily, on purpose?
Was she telling me it was because of me?
The moment I entered the office and closed the door, Yerin looked up at me, sitting tilted sideways in her chair.
"Oh, Hajun's here. What's with the face?"
"...It's nothing."
"Hm."
Yerin set down her pen and studied my face intently.
"That's not a nothing-face. What, did the rookies cause trouble again? There's only two of them left, you know."
"It's not that. I'm just a bit tired."
"Tired, hm?"
The corner of Yerin's mouth curled up.
"...I think our puppy's been overworked lately. I haven't even gotten a proper look at his face in days."
Yerin beckoned with a crook of her finger.
When I hesitated, she raised one eyebrow.
"Hajun... aren't you coming?"
"...Weren't you in the middle of work? I thought you called me for business."
"Business, my foot. The moment you walked in, business was over."
Yerin swung her chair around beside the desk and pointed at the space in front of her.
"Come here. Don't make me say it twice."
Ah, here we go again. I'm really not in the mood for this right now.
Her voice was soft, but there was something in it that permitted no refusal. The exact tone she used when giving orders.
I sighed and walked over.
Yerin smiled, satisfied.
"Good boy. But you really do look off? Did something happen? Tell me."
"...I told you, nothing did."
"Sure it didn't."
Yerin peered into my eyes. Playful as always, but somewhere in them, strangely serious.
"Well, fine. If you don't want to talk, don't. Instead—"
Yerin took my hand.
Then, slowly, she drew it toward her chest.
"Our puppy seems to be in a bad mood today, so I'll give you a special reward. Go on, touch."
"...Really?"
"Mm. When was the last time? You can't even remember, can you?"
It was true. It had been so long the memory had grown hazy.
When I carefully laid my hand on her chest, a full, warm softness filled my palm completely.
So this is what it feels like. And here I thought one line—oppa, want to touch my breasts?—solved everything.
Yerin smirked as she watched me touch her so tentatively.
"You can squeeze harder. It won't break."
At those words, I began to knead her breasts.
"Wow... I think this is the first time I've touched them since your Awakening..."
The soft, yielding feel of them seemed to sweep every thought cluttering my head clean away.
So this is what it felt like.
Yerin let out a satisfied moan and stroked my hair.
"Mmm... good boy, Hajun. Now, while you're touching—suck."
"...Here? Just like that?"
"Mm. Suck."
With one hand Yerin undid her buttons and bared her chest completely.
Her pink nipples were already standing stiff and hard.
Ah. So this is why she called me.
"Mmh..."
I carefully lowered my head and pressed my lips to her nipple.
The moment I flicked it with my tongue, Yerin shuddered faintly.
"Ah... Hajun, you have to suck harder than that."
I took her nipple into my mouth and gave it a gentle pull.
"L-like this...?"
Yerin's hand stroked my hair softly at first, then gradually tightened.
"Haah... good. Our puppy's doing well."
Her breathing grew rougher, and she pulled my head against her and whispered.
I worked harder and harder, sucking at her chest. I teased around her nipple with the tip of my tongue, kneaded the other side with one hand—and slowly, my hand began to slide downward.
The moment I slipped my hand between her thighs and started to ease her panties down—
"...No."
Yerin caught my wrist, gently.
"Did you wash your hands?"
"...Huh? Ah, no..."
"Then no. Hands are off-limits today."
She lifted my hand back onto her breast and slowly parted her legs.
"Mmh... my Hajun has a mouth, doesn't he? Why would you use your hands."
Yerin spread her legs and hiked up her skirt.
Before my eyes, her white panties came into view.
How long had it been since I'd seen these, too...
She pulled the fabric aside and looked down at me.
"It's been so long since Hajun did it with his mouth. I've wanted it so badly—you know I couldn't, with how busy things have been."
Yerin was always like this.
Because if she got pregnant, then who would run the guild as guild master?—she refused full relations, and in the end, the means she'd chosen to relieve her desire was my mouth.
At her instruction, I lowered myself beneath her chair, knelt down, and settled between her legs.
As I drew close, her warm, soft thighs closed in around my cheeks from both sides.
"..."
The moment my lips touched her clitoris, Yerin pulled my head in tighter.
"What are you doing? Do it properly. You have to put your tongue in."
"Mmh... yes..."
I extended my tongue and licked her.
A faint saltiness, and then her peculiar scent spread over me—sweet, yet cold as midwinter.
Yerin let out a soft moan.
"Ah... yes, just like that... haah. Good boy, my Hajun."
Her fingers seized my hair hard.
Bolder now, I moved my tongue, licking her clitoris and drawing it into my mouth.
—Schlup, shluuurp, schlup.
The sound of me kneeling beneath Yerin's chair, servicing her with my mouth, echoed through the office.
"Mm... your tongue feels so good, Hajun... Aahng!"
Yerin's hips lifted slightly off the chair.
She tugged my head in harder as she spoke.
"Keep going like that... and take yours out too. Touch it. Jerk off while you eat me."
"...Right now?"
"Mm. Right now. Suck me while you stroke yourself. I'm tired today—I won't have the energy to use my hands on you later. Or do you not want to?"
"N-no, it's not that..."
I hurriedly pulled down my pants with one hand and took out my cock, already fully hard.
Gripping Yerin's thigh with one hand and licking her clitoris, I wrapped my other hand around myself and began to stroke.
"Haah... Yerin..."
"Our Hajun is so adorable. Keep going until you come, just like that ♥"
Yerin was smiling, but she couldn't hold back her moans, twisting her hips.
"Ah... that's it. Our puppy's so good at this."
Her words stoked something deep in me—the craving to be praised—and my tongue moved even more desperately.
I plunged my tongue into her entrance with everything I had, sucking, licking her clitoris with focused attention.
Her body was betraying her pleasure in a thousand small movements, and the hand stroking myself sped up to match.
Yerin's moans grew louder.
"Haah... Hajun... there... yes... Aahng! Keep going... I'm close..."
Her thighs clamped around my head.
"Aahng... so good. Our puppy, keep... haah!"
The more she spoke, the tighter her thighs squeezed.
"Yerin... I... I'm gonna..."
"Aahng, hold on just a little longer for me. Come. I... I—"
Yerin's fingers yanked my hair hard enough to hurt, but I didn't stop. My tongue kept moving.
"Hajun... I... coming! Aaaahn—!"
Yerin's whole body shuddered as she crested.
Her pussy pulsed and contracted against my tongue like a spasm, and her juices began to flow.
"Yerin... me too...!"
I buried my face deep, sucking hard at her still-quivering pussy while my hand moved like a madman.
"Aahh... me too... coming...!"
In the end, with my mouth still working eagerly at her, my whole body shook and I came.
Hot semen spattered onto the office floor, drop after drop, again and again.
"Haah... haah..."
As I gasped for breath, Yerin kept stroking my hair, a sly smile creeping across her face.
"Whew... good job, our puppy. Come up here."
She said it playfully, tugging my head up toward her chest.
Her eyes were curved like crescent moons.
"Isn't our Hajun just too cute?"
Yerin peppered kisses on my cheeks and whispered.
"Thank you so much for working so hard today. I love you, Hajun."
My face still nuzzled against her chest, I looked up at her.
"I... love you too, Yerin."
Yerin pressed a kiss to my forehead and murmured.
"Still—next time, try to last a little longer. Okay? That way I can give you an even bigger reward."
I gave a small nod, face buried, and opened my mouth.
"...Mm. Um, by any chance... can I ask for what I want as a reward?"
Yerin's eyes narrowed slightly as she looked down at me.
"Let's hear it. Don't tell me it's that thing again?"
"No, it's... I was wondering if, maybe... you could do it with your mouth? I know it can't go in, but..."
A moment of silence.
Yerin stared at me, then burst out laughing.
There was teasing mixed into that playful laughter.
"Wow, Hajun."
She tilted my chin up with a fingertip.
The moment our eyes met, a mischievous smile spread across her lips.
"It's cute how suddenly honest you get... but you're really asking me to use my mouth?"
I tried to look away in embarrassment, but Yerin wouldn't release my chin.
"I understand what our puppy wants, but..."
Yerin tilted her head slightly and whispered.
"Not yet."
"...Why not?"
"Why do you think? Because I haven't given permission yet."
She playfully booped the tip of my nose with her finger. But her voice was soft.
"You can barely last through my hands before you blow. If I used my mouth... you'd finish in what, a few seconds? And that would just make me sad. I want our Hajun to enjoy that good feeling for a long, long time."
Yerin stroked my cheek, smiling slyly.
Her eyes still brimmed with love, but the control hidden within them was unmistakable.
"Instead... I'll use my hands specially today, and make it long. Or, should I use my chest?"
She lifted her breasts slightly, watching me like an invitation.
"As for my mouth... I'll think about it after our Hajun practices lasting longer. How's that, our puppy?"
Yerin whispered sweetly into my ear.
I sighed and answered.
"Pretty sure surviving your hands is harder than your mouth would be..."
"Then you'd better try your best. Because I want to give Hajun everything, too."
Yerin stroked my head one last time, then rose to her feet.
Her hands straightened her clothes with the practiced calm of someone erasing evidence—composed, as if nothing had happened at all.
I walked over to the office sofa and more or less collapsed onto it.
My legs had no strength left in them; it was less sitting than crumbling.
Watching me, Yerin's mouth twitched upward at the corner.
"What, was it that good?"
"...Yeah."
The answer came out obediently. My heart was anything but.
It had felt good. But that was where it ended.
In the end, I'd finished with my own hand, hadn't I?
Yerin was always like this.
She gave exactly as much as she wanted to give, and pushed everything beyond that to next time.
So today, too, she never used her mouth after all.
And at that precise moment, of all things, Seoyun's words stabbed into my head.
[Would you like me to suck yours, Teacher?]
A brief chill ran through me—at myself, for thinking it.
I was in the same room as Yerin, right now, and I was thinking about another woman.
And in this way, of all ways.
It was the worst.
I closed my eyes and forced the image out of my head.
While I did, the sound of Yerin finished tidying her clothes, her chair scraping back, and the air in the room settled by a full degree.
"Now, then. Let's talk business."
When I opened my eyes, the face that had been grinning playfully at me only moments ago was gone without a trace.
Yerin, spreading out the Verdict documents she'd been poring over for days, had reverted entirely to the guild master.
I was still stuck in the afterglow, sitting blankly on the sofa.
Seeing that, Yerin gave her fingers a light snap.
—Crack.
A small chunk of ice that had been hanging in the air shattered at the sound and scattered.
"Focus, Hajun. We need to talk business."
My scattered mind snapped back at the sound.
"...R-right."
I pulled myself up off the sofa and walked to the chair across the table.
"Misaki never came back."
I lifted my head.
"Longmen's gone silent. In the two weeks Satoshi gave them, not a single answer. If they intended to send her back, they'd have done it by now."
Her voice had dropped low.
"At this point, it's clear. Longmen can't return Misaki. Because she's not... in a state to be returned."
The end of her sentence was heavy. I didn't need her to say the words that would have followed.
"The Verdict is proceeding as planned."
With a gesture turning the page, the next words came.
"Tomorrow. No cancellation, no postponement."
I looked at the stack of documents. The same ones Yerin had been digging through for days.
"...What's all that? Verdict preparations?"
"Less preparation than... response. We're not a party to it."
Yerin leaned back in her chair, a short sigh following.
"When the Verdict ends, the board is going to shake. After tomorrow, the entire power map of the Royal Capital's guilds gets redrawn."
The tip of Yerin's finger pointed at the documents.
"Longmen, the second-largest guild after Greystone, becomes an Public criminal tomorrow—publicly convicted. Every guild that traded with Longmen, everything lent to them, the minor guilds under their wing. All of them will have to realign. I'm sketching out that picture in advance."
The more I listened, the more something kept snagging in my mind.
"...You've been talking this whole time on the assumption that Longmen loses."
"Yes."
The answer came as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"...Isn't the Verdict something you only know once it's fought? Nobody even knows who Longmen's champion is yet."
"Hajun."
Our eyes met head-on.
"It's because you've never actually seen that woman."
"...I was there for the Black Wolf swarm raid, but... different front line. I guess I never saw her directly."
"Words don't do it."
Yerin shook her head slowly.
"Tomorrow won't be a duel. It'll be closer to an execution."
"...An execution?"
Yerin's gaze drifted briefly into the air. The look of someone recalling something. And whatever she was recalling was clearly not a good memory.
"That was when I first saw her, on the eastern defense line. Those things were pouring in without end, and everyone was thinking about nothing but running. Me included."
Yerin paused for a moment.
"But that woman walked, alone, straight into the middle of it all, and—"
"..."
"After that... I honestly don't know how to describe it."
Yerin chose her words slowly.
"I kept wondering how a human being could do that. It wasn't holding a line, it was... slaughter. Not a single flicker of expression. She was closer to a killer, honestly. If a woman like that Awakens on top of it, then the entire evaluation of the Japanese guild Yakumo will have to be rewritten."
Yerin rubbed her arm absently, as if the memory gave her chills.
"Still, isn't that overstating it? She's non-Awakened. And back then, all of us were weaker too. It's been over two years—maybe things are different now?"
"I think you're under one misconception, Hajun."
Yerin looked at me straight.
"You can't say an Awakened always overwhelms a non-Awakened. It depends on the Awakened ability. They're wildly varied—not every Awakened is built for combat."
"...True."
"But Sakuragi Yuko is the opposite case. Without having Awakened at all, she's already above most Awakened. Do you think that woman got weaker than she was two years ago? Not in a thousand years. She'll have honed herself all the harder in the meantime. If she's anything like what I saw that day... probably worse than we're expecting."
Her tone was offhand, matter-of-fact.
"We'll find out exactly what Sakuragi Yuko's ability is tomorrow... Honestly speaking? Even as I am now, if you told me to face her alone, without you—I'd decline."
That was Yerin saying it—one of only two Awakened in Baekho.
"...But Yerin."
A stray thought flickered through me, and I asked.
"Every time a Verdict happens, they open a betting pool, right? So shouldn't our guild bet on Yuko while we can and make some money? At those odds, it's basically a sure thing."
"That's a bit..."
Yerin's hand stopped mid-page-turn.
"The odds have already bottomed out—you'd win pocket change. And a guild wagering on people's lives, win or lose, just looks bad."
"...I guess."
"Personally? I couldn't care less. But if word gets out that we scraped together a few coins that way, the headache that follows is worth far more than the money."
Yerin finished sorting the documents and added,
"Besides, the odds aren't even meaningful at this point."
"...Then what if I—"
I ventured carefully.
"went right now and placed a personal all-in bet?"
"You genuinely don't hear a single word I say, do you."
Yerin took her hands off the documents and looked at me.
"And Hajun—you don't seem to realize what you are."
"...What am I?"
"You may not look it, but the moment you go around placing bets like that, the whole city hears about it by dinner."
"...Me? Why?"
"Did you forget Greystone floated a scouting offer at you last year?"
"...Yeah, and I turned it down, remember. A guild that huge, poking its fingers into everything, everywhere—wasn't that the reputation?"
"It wasn't just the once."
Yerin fell silent for a moment. It looked like she was weighing whether to say it—and if so, how much of it.
Then, as if she'd decided, she opened her mouth.
"They came back several more times after you refused. Kept raising the figure they'd offer us. And the last time... they named half a year of Baekho's operating budget. For you. One person."
"...That's the first I'm hearing of it."
"I made sure it never reached you. I sent every offer back myself, at my level."
"...Why? An amount like that would've helped the guild too. You should've asked me first and—"
"Because I was afraid you'd waver if I asked."
A short silence passed.
Having said it, neither Yerin nor I spoke for a while.
Yerin fiddled with the corner of the documents using the hand holding her pen—a gesture that didn't suit her at all.
Then, finally, she lifted her head toward me.
"...It was probably the right choice, for you. Resources, treatment, everything—Greystone's above us in all of it. Your English is good too, Hajun. You'd have had no trouble settling in."
"Then why did you send them away?"
"Because I'm not them."
As if the words wouldn't come easily, Yerin added the rest a beat late.
"I know. It's selfish. It might be me blocking your path."
It was the voice of someone who knew perfectly well it wasn't the right thing.
"But Hajun, if you... went to Greystone, what would I do."
The ever-composed woman let her eyes drop slightly as she said it—the only time.
"Without you, I... how am I supposed to run this guild alone? It only works because you hold it up from behind, you know that."
It had been over three years since I'd last heard Yerin sound this weak.
Back then, Yerin wasn't a guild master yet either.
In the days before there was even a guild called Baekho, whenever anything happened, Yerin came looking for me first.
When she was scared, she said she was scared; when things were hard, she said they were hard—she was the girl who'd cling to me over nothing at all and drag it out late into the night.
That Yerin, at some point after putting on that coat of hers, had made herself strong—so she could be a guild master who never wavered in front of others.
And somewhere in all that, we ended up in the relationship we have now.
These days it was Yerin pulling me along more often than not, and I was always the one being dragged.
Maybe that was why.
That face I hadn't seen in so long—
strangely unfamiliar, and strangely welcome—
left me unable to answer.
Only that it didn't feel bad, hearing those words.
Perhaps the silence grew awkward, because Yerin cleared her throat first and returned to what she'd been saying.
"...Anyway. That's why—don't go making yourself a rumor mill over a few coins of betting money."
"...Ah. I should've bet in advance."
"..."
Yerin snapped her fingers.
—Tap.
Something small and cold shot at my forehead and burst.
"Hajun. Are you going to keep saying ridiculous things?"
My wincing must have been funny, because Yerin tugged the corner of her mouth up in a bad imitation of suppressing a laugh, then turned back to the documents.
"Let's finish the business talk."
With her eyes back on the pages, Yerin was once again, seamlessly, the guild master of before.
But that side of Yerin from moments ago—no one but me would ever have seen it.
Probably never will, either.