TFN C26

Chapter 26

However, a last scrap of conscience poked its head up.

“There’s something I failed to tell you.”

It felt like making a confession for a sin already committed.

Wonhyo tossed aside talk of fate and destiny and swung straight for the core.

“If there’s contact with me, there’s a chance of getting badly sick later.”

“Is it a statutorily notifiable infectious disease?”

“No, not that. It’s more like misfortune setting in.”

As Cheongmun stared straight at him, Wonhyo lowered his gaze.

“There could be a serious accident.”

“In that case, it’s fine.”

Not merely “fine.”

Wonhyo searched for the proper word to make the explanation fit.

“I will place my hand.”

Earlier he’d thrust in fingers without a word; this time he didn’t ask permission so much as declare it.

His head tipped up under the grip that seized cheek and jaw.

Lifting Wonhyo’s chin, Cheongmun’s gaze shone—polished, unreadable, hard to name.

“Again: if it’s only accidents, it’s fine. At least so far, there’s been nothing that could injure me.”

Hunters being sturdy—Wonhyo knew that well; but if a person is going to die, they can drown in a dish of water; there was no way it was truly fine.

Wonhyo looked into Cheongmun’s eyes.

In the left eye, something reflected.

“It really is fine.”

The plainness of that obvious assertion shook the pendulum in his heart.

The conscience that had weighted one side of the scale felt as if it had evaporated.

As if noticing this, Cheongmun’s fingers stroked skin slowly.

The fingers slid down from cheek along the nape.

At the light, soft brush, gooseflesh rose.

It wasn’t unpleasant, or repulsive. Only unfamiliar.

It would have been better had things been chaotic enough to leave no room for reply.

The slow caress kept the thoughts going.

Who it was touching him now. How he had joined mouths with this man.

His heart now thrashed as if it would leap from his chest.

Not trusting himself to bear all this in a steady mind, Wonhyo shut his eyes tight.

That was a mistake.

Breath touched right above his face.

If he snapped his eyes open now, wouldn’t he bolt instead? But the firm fingertips rubbing along his lips made his shoulders hunch.

“Open your mouth.”

Wonhyo couldn’t shake off the last hesitation. Yet he didn’t run.

Then, with something like a sigh, or a laugh, came that strange sensation—soft yet firm, that hot flesh he’d once felt already—tracing over his lips in a lick.

He knew it was a prompt, but couldn’t muster a response.

At the feel of lips lightly nibbling the place the tongue had licked, a shiver ran down his spine.

Meanwhile, Cheongmun bit his lower lip, then his upper.

As if every nerve had gathered in his lips, his mind sparked, then went hazy.

“Hff!”

He had thought he’d been breathing fine; only then did he realize he had forgotten to breathe, held in a stop since a moment before.

When the tongue parted his lips and came again, he couldn’t bear it and his mouth opened.

Breathing is through the nose, not the mouth—but as he panted and greedily sought air, that other flesh wound through his mouth.

What had brushed lips and tongue-tip went deeper and deeper.

With Wonhyo at a loss, Cheongmun moved with care, as if to try everything thoroughly.

When Wonhyo couldn’t stand it and pulled back, Cheongmun came closer.

Half-climbing from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat, that weight pressed him down.

Breaths mingled; as heated flesh rubbed flesh more slickly, a warmed body soaked.

Wet sounds came in succession; only when his head was on the verge of spinning did Cheongmun lift it.

Haa, haa.

Clutching at the sleeve like a lifeline, Wonhyo exhaled hotly.

If he lifted his chin, their mouths would meet again; from that distance, Cheongmun looked down at him.

It wasn’t the same fear as at the first meeting, and yet those eyes made his body prickle.

“How is it now?”

If he offered any answer, it felt like things would go worse.

Instead of summoning the status window for a precise number, Wonhyo set his neck and chose to flee with every ounce of strength.

He slipped a hand behind him to the door handle, popped it open, and tumbled backward out.

He didn’t look back.

Hunching as if a containing cube might come flying, he bounded up the steps and yanked the front door as if to break it down. Then, through a gap not fully open, he shoved himself inside.

The thin door banged and clattered, but the racket was buried under the pounding of his heart.

He couldn’t even get his shoes off properly before collapsing with a flop at the entryway.

His knees trembled so badly he couldn’t stand.

But a worse problem seized his body.

He brought a shaking hand to the lower region where blood had surged to a throbbing ache, then subsided.

The heat that lingered spilled out; stickiness wet the underwear that was already messy.

His vision went dark.

He swallowed a great breath.

Though he’d never shared skin with another, he wasn’t so ignorant as not to know what this was.

He had gone through puberty; and though he hadn’t attended school long, he’d had basic sex education.

He’d never “paired with a ghost,” but he had seized many a lecherous spirit and personally shoved them down the road to the afterlife.

Still, that he’d climax from a single kiss—

“Ah…”

A lament slipped out.

“Damn it.”

A curse followed.

“I need to make talismans.”

Before writing talismans, one ought to be abstinent, to purify the body, to keep one’s bearing upright; he had botched it from the first step.

Even if one might ask what abstinence is needed when items are produced once materials are fed in, at his current low rank the skill was locked, and he had to follow the manual procedure by hand, step by step.

There was no other way to make them.

In this rough world, the one thing he could rely on was the talisman-making skill—and that was blocked.

He pressed his face to his palm, then lifted his head again.

He’d best deal with the briny, raw smell first.

“Detecting the location of a marked target.

▽ Yun Wonhyo (Current location—Jongno-gu, Seoul)

The target’s condition has improved.”

Even without the system alert, Cheongmun could tell roughly from the movements caught by his senses.

Even through concrete walls, his hypersensitive sense let him see how someone breathed and which way they went; only when he intentionally crushed it down did the pounding headache settle.

When the over-activated senses dimmed, it felt stifling—but for surveying the surroundings, this was better.

He clicked his tongue at the gloves with the backs of the hands exposed.

He hadn’t touched anyone barehanded in years; the long-unfelt warmth of another clung like a brand that wouldn’t fade.

He splayed his fingers, then clenched them hard, and started the car.

As he had told Wonhyo, his hours were indeed flexible; yet there was too much to receive and report before leaving.

Retracing the distance driven, he returned to the floor of the Special Judicial Police Team office; the deputy came running, grabbing him.

“Team Leader.”

“What’s wrong?”

Unlike teammates who prickled at everything, the deputy had a rather positive circuit of thought and stout nerves that didn’t rattle at most events.

At the face of such a person plainly stamped with “currently very flustered,” Cheongmun asked that first.

“What is it? Ah, truly… something big has happened.”

His brow shot up.

In a few long strides, he entered the office.

When outsiders were present, it sat at the far end of the corridor; in truth, it was the closest office to the elevator—so quick to reach.

Crossing the threshold, he saw faces as baffled as the deputy’s.

It wasn’t threat or surging irritation—no negative emotion.

It was the absurdity of the brain failing to process what the eyes saw—that feeling fit better.

As he scanned each person, he realized one was missing.

“Has the Team 2 Leader woken?”

He hadn’t hit with neck-breaking force, but it had been strong enough to keep him out half a day; perhaps the one virtue of his body was toughness, since he woke earlier than expected.

At the check, the deputy nodded vigorously.

“He woke ten minutes ago, but—”

“Huh? Team Leader Lee?”

At the voice from the corridor, Cheongmun turned at once.

At the face of the one who called him, a faint perplexity seeped in.

“You just stepped out a moment, and you’re back already?”

He blinked and looked to the deputy.

In eyes that seemed to have given up on understanding, the deputy merely accepted everything.

Which made sense, because on the face of the Team 2 Leader walking toward them bloomed a gentle, serene smile.

At the change in a man who till now had bristled with spines over his whole body—acting as if he’d die if he didn’t jab someone—Cheongmun recalled the “mangryang” that Wonhyo had drawn out of that body.

“Could there be a cerebral issue…”

“The Team 3 Leader personally checked everything—from whether he’d been brainwashed by illusion magic to a drug panel.”

“Hahahaha!”

At the words passing between them, the Team 2 Leader laughed.

A most hearty laugh.