TCBW C19

Chapter 19

At those words, Dowoon slowly began walking toward Suhoe.

In the silence, the faint sound of his slippers scuffing against the floor seemed unnaturally loud.

The closer that sound came, the more Suhoe’s head lowered, as though drawn down by gravity.

Before long, his gaze was fixed on his own toes, drawn up tensely under him. His two hands, neatly folded on his lap only moments before, were now clasped so tightly they had turned white, the blue veins standing out in stark relief on the backs of them.

His heart was pounding so hard it felt ready to explode, and in his ears he could hear the thud of his own pulse.

Every nerve in his body was focused on Dowoon as he approached.

At last, the sound of footsteps stopped, and a pair of gray slippers stepped into view. Without realizing it, Suhoe sucked in a breath and raised his head.

Dowoon was standing right in front of him. Even fresh from a shower, he was immaculate, without a single sign of disarray.

Unlike Suhoe — whose palms were slick with cold sweat — Dowoon displayed not the slightest hint of tension. That utter composure made Suhoe feel all the more overwhelmed.

Unable to even avert his eyes from the accidental meeting of their gazes, Suhoe found himself frozen, unmoving before Dowoon.

His stare was like a pin piercing a butterfly; Suhoe felt pinned in place like an exhibition specimen, unable to move a single muscle as Dowoon’s gaze swept over him from head to toe.

Without any warning, Dowoon reached out his hand toward him.

Suhoe instinctively hunched his shoulders and squeezed his eyes shut.

He knew that hand was going to touch him — and that it could reach anywhere.

As an aegbaji, he had gone through many “night lessons,” so he had a fair idea of how things might proceed from here. He had decided simply to go along with whatever Dowoon wanted.

But no sensation came.

Time passed awkwardly, with nothing happening.

The silence, if anything, was even more unsettling. Finally, Suhoe couldn’t resist sneaking his eyes open just a slit.

What he saw then was Dowoon’s hand brushing, just barely grazing, the pale skin of his cheek.

…Huh?

Suhoe’s gaze instinctively followed Dowoon’s fingers.

In the next instant, Dowoon was deftly loosening his hair.

The hair that had been tightly bound spilled down in a soft cascade to his waist.

As Dowoon’s fingers grazed the sensitive nape of his neck in the process, Suhoe let out an involuntary, small sound.

“…Mm.”

Gathering the loose ends of Suhoe’s hair lightly in his palm, Dowoon bent close to meet his gaze.

“It’s not that you wouldn’t undo it — you wanted me to be the one to do it.”

The remark pierced straight through to his true thoughts. Suhoe could only gulp and glance up at him silently.

When Dowoon came even closer, Suhoe tilted his head in a posture of acceptance, offering no resistance — this time, not even pressing his lips shut.

It was as if he had left them slightly open on purpose, ready to admit Dowoon’s tongue.

“…”

Eyes gently closed, lips parted defenselessly in readiness to receive him — without realizing that this, too, might stir something inside Dowoon again.

The claim that he “couldn’t undo” his own hair; that waiting‑look in his eyes when Dowoon approached; the statement that he couldn’t undress for fear of revealing his body — every naïve, unknowing thing he did kept striking against Dowoon’s nerves.

Strictly speaking, under the contract, Suhoe had the right to refuse any physical contact other than penetration.

Meaning, there was no reason whatsoever for him to be sitting there, tense and expectant, waiting for a kiss.

A relationship founded on a contract had no need for sentimental affection such as a gentle kiss. There was even less reason for him to make himself so docile.

Whether through the deep indoctrination of his role as an aegbaji, or simply due to his nature, Suhoe continuously adopted a submissive stance in all his dealings with Dowoon.

“….”

Certainly, he must be a bit of a simpleton.

Ending the thoughts circling in his mind, Dowoon closed the slight distance to Suhoe’s parted lips with a motion that was more forceful than gentle.

As he had said — this was a transaction, a contract. There was no need for kissing.

If there was any reason at all, it was a kind of sadistic curiosity — a whimsical desire to see just how far this compliant partner would endure without resisting.

“Mmhp.”

Suhoe’s short, startled hum was swallowed up between their joined lips.

Dowoon’s tongue pushed between the unguarded, yielding membranes without hesitation, and Suhoe had no choice but to accept it helplessly.

In the rough clash, his lip split; but there was no time to pay attention to the pain — breathing had to take priority.

Whenever a brief space for breath appeared, he made clumsy, awkward attempts to mimic the movements of Dowoon’s tongue.

Dowoon, eyes half‑lidded, observed those pitiful, desperate efforts, then encircled Suhoe’s neck and waist with his arms and lowered him onto the bed.

Suhoe offered no resistance, though his jaw trembled with tension when Dowoon’s hand moved up along his back — still, he tried to accept everything.

Even as Dowoon’s mouth was persistently exploring his, his hands never stilled.

The one stroking his lower back slid slowly upward, cupping the clean curve of his cheek, skimming the ear, then tracing down along the slim, fragile line of his neck.

The heavy palm passed over his pronounced collarbone to the flat plane of his chest, and, without hesitation, Dowoon located the small, hardened peak beneath the thin cotton of his shirt.

“Uh?!”

At the unfamiliar sensation, Suhoe flinched sharply, but Dowoon paid no mind.

He began to roll the taut nub beneath his thumb, first lightly rubbing, then pressing and pinching more firmly in a repeated motion, wholly absorbed in the task.

With each insistent stroke, heat and pressure seeped through the shirt, sending unfamiliar shocks through him. Finally, the sensation overcame the difference between this and a mere kiss, erasing his ability to resist — his body trembled in involuntary spasms and helpless gasps escaped his lips.

“Ah…uhn…!”

He didn’t know what this feeling was, what kind of emotion it should be — only that his mind was growing hazy and his thoughts were slipping away.

Just before he lost himself completely, a cool hand slipped under the hem of his worn shirt to press against bare skin.

The sudden, cold touch shocked his fogged mind back to clarity in an instant.

By instinct alone, he flung out his hand and pushed hard at Dowoon’s shoulder.

“W‑wait…! Please, wait!”

At this first unmistakable refusal, Dowoon relented and withdrew.

With some space between them, their gazes met in the air.

Suhoe’s chest heaved as he sucked for breath, looking up at Dowoon with a mix of astonishment and resolve.

His voice shook with adrenaline.

“Haa… mm… haa… As I said before… I don’t… I don’t want to take my clothes off.”

“I didn’t take them off.”

In contrast, Dowoon was perfectly composed, his face showing only a waning interest — as though Suhoe had reached his limit too quickly to hold his attention.

“E‑even so… please… take your hand out.”

At the plead in his voice, Dowoon immediately pulled his hand back from under the shirt.

“…You said you’ve never been with a man before. Don’t you feel any aversion to this?”

“Didn’t you just ask if I might be willing to try with a man? I’m doing exactly what you said — so what’s the issue?”

The question was delivered with genuine nonchalance.

Suhoe mouthed wordlessly for a moment, staggered by the reply — and yet it wasn’t as though he could say it was wrong.

In fact, he was even a little grateful for Dowoon’s overt willingness.

But those words — “willing to try” — were a double‑edged blade.

There was no guarantee that, when faced with his male body for real, when Dowoon touched his bare skin, he wouldn’t have a change of heart.

He wanted to cut off that possibility entirely — to avoid any and all negative scenarios that might arise from undressing or being touched bare.

And another reason for pushing him away: he didn’t want to repeat what had just happened, where his mind went blurry and out of control.

For reasons unknown to him, all through the foreplay his thoughts had scattered beyond recall; everywhere Dowoon’s hands touched, his body reacted in strange ways. That alien, consuming sensation was unbearable.

In truth, it was nothing more than the arousal and excitement most people felt during intimacy — but having no experience, Suhoe judged all those sharp, vivid reactions as “abnormal symptoms” in his body.

The years of night lessons had never covered anything outside the formal procedure of consummation. It was only natural he had no knowledge of what such sensations might be.

After all, who would teach such detailed things? Regardless, all his confusion stemmed from a lack of understanding about sex itself.

Not knowing this, Suhoe only knew that foreplay frightened him, and that a body responding willfully beyond his own conscious control left him flustered and lost.

Even now, though he had escaped Dowoon’s touch for the moment, he wasn’t sure he could maintain control if it happened again.

“I-it’s not that I don’t want to do it.”

And so, in that whirl of nameless confusion, Suhoe decided it was better to cut out the cause entirely than to keep losing his mind in the same helpless way.