TSBIRBV Ch 140

Chapter 140 The Oldest (2)

Haryang’s touch grazed softly along the nape of Yegyeol’s neck.

Yet the sensation was like a chill breeze brushing past, raising gooseflesh.

“Because… Senior Brother taught me directly.”

Avoiding his gaze, Yegyeol muttered the words. Something like a laugh brushed faintly against his ear.

“…Yes. I did, didn’t I.”

After a pause, Haryang let fall a careless remark.

“It doesn’t seem you’ve picked up bad habits.”

Yegyeol’s shoulders jerked.

If you learned from anyone else, you would have picked up bad habits—

The very same words, yet from utterly different lips.

That single line tightened his chest with an icy dread.

It meant Je Haryang had never once loosened his watch, but more than that, it was proof he was forging a bridge between himself and the Black Ghost.

The man who had divided his two selves—keeping Je Haryang apart from the Black Ghost—while seizing both Yegyeol’s day and night, had at last made his choice.

A ragged breath, born of agitation, brushed against Haryang’s arousal. Yegyeol’s hand moved in a hurried rhythm, as if terrified his inner thoughts had been exposed.

“Ah…”

A low sigh, almost like a groan, spilled from Haryang’s lips.

The steam, the humid air, the splashing water—all of it urged Yegyeol onward.

Who on Kunlun would ever have parted Haryang’s immaculate robes to glimpse his nakedness?

Who would have imagined the chivalrous hero who roamed the world, bearing the aura of one beyond the mundane, aiding the suffering, and felling villains—reduced to sighing with desire?

Even Hwangbo Yak-rin, with whom Je Haryang was once rumored to have an affair, was acknowledged as his half-sister. Thus, across all the vast Central Plains, Yegyeol alone had seen Senior Brother like this.

The world tilted, as if even his eyelids were heavy with heat. Yegyeol dared a sidelong glance.

And met Haryang’s eyes.

“Uht.”

Startled, Yegyeol tightened his grip, nearly losing hold of the shaft when Haryang groaned, pleasure and pain twined together.

Those eyes, blackened by lust, were filled with nothing but Yegyeol.

Does he even mean to hide himself?

He had thought his elder would avert his gaze out of shame, or at least to mask his true intent—but no.

“It hurts.”

The complaint, like a child’s pout, was laced with tender amusement.

“S-sorry.”

Yegyeol flushed crimson, fumbling as he broke away from Haryang’s stare. But then, a larger hand closed over the back of his own.

“It’s fine. Even so—”

“Wh-what?!”

Embarrassment upon embarrassment crashed over Yegyeol. Even while gazing directly at his half-formed expression, Haryang gave no sign of releasing him.

“If you stay wet too long, you’ll catch a chill.”

As though by chance, a droplet fell from Haryang’s damp hair. It slid down his chest, trickling between the faintly revealed planes of muscle and disappearing into the cleft of his chest.

Yegyeol stared, entranced, forgetting even to voice his plea for release.

The hands that had once cherished him now guided his own to stroke, rough and insistent. Yegyeol could scarcely tell whether he was grasping Haryang’s manhood, or if Haryang was wielding his hand.

He knew his elder would not cross the line—not yet. But when he looked up at the faintly furrowed brow above him, his mouth went dry.

It felt as though he could hope for more.

The heat in his hands seemed to climb into his head, leaving him feverish.

“Krhh…”

That deep sound, rasping as though scraped raw from Haryang’s throat, made guilt creep into Yegyeol’s chest.

More… I want to ruin him more.

The thought seared through him.

At the moment his tongue darted out to wet his parched lips, Haryang climaxed. A sticky spray struck his face, trickling hot down his skin.

Yegyeol’s shoulders flinched. The cloying scent of spilled seed flooded his nose, pulling him back to himself.

“Ah.”

Bared as he was, the only thing covering him now was Senior Brother’s release.

No need to see to know his appearance was indecently disheveled. He raised a hand to wipe it away, but Haryang was faster.

“I’ve soiled you.”

The wet sleeve that brushed his cheek burned against his skin. Yegyeol pushed weakly at his wrist, mumbling incoherently:

“No—it’s fine. I can wipe it off quickly—”

“Then allow this Senior Brother to bear the responsibility to the end.”

Haryang gripped his chin firmly. With no thought of resisting, there was no escaping.

His wet sleeve passed slowly across the other cheek.

“I should wash as well, don’t you think?”

He smiled easily.

And so Yegyeol, pliant in his hands, received his elder’s ministrations. Astonishingly deft, as though bathing him was something he had always known how to do.

And… so plain. So matter-of-fact.

Yegyeol’s mind wandered in a daze. His head felt emptied.

It wasn’t the hot water, nor the steam filling the bathhouse.

It was the man, who after all that had just transpired, now wiped him clean with formal care, as though nothing had happened.

“Looking at me like that—makes me shy.”

Haryang flicked the surface of the water. Droplets sprayed onto Yegyeol’s cheek and eyes, and he turned his head, lips trembling as he muttered while hugging his knees:

“I… this disciple… am clumsy, and confused.”

He gazed at Haryang steadily, crouched but searching. His eyes were not wholly innocent.

It had already been twice—Je Haryang himself, not the Black Ghost, had touched him. They could not simply drift past it.

“Did you… dislike it?”

Haryang wrung out the cloth, water dripping down. A hundred possible answers rose and vanished in the churn of the bathwater.

“…No.”

“Good. Nor did I.”

Smiling, he tilted his head and chose his words carefully.

“Not dislike… no, that would be a lie.”

The faint twist of his lips looked oddly crooked, unlike the Senior Brother Yegyeol knew. He blinked, uncertain if his eyes deceived him.

“What happened in Hangzhou—I liked it. Perhaps because I had not fully awakened, it felt to me alone like a dream. Or perhaps… for some other reason.”

The hand that had been drying his arm drifted from cloth to skin, the touch unmistakably intentional.

“I wanted to confirm.”

“B-but…”

Yegyeol’s chest nearly burst with suppressed laughter, though he forced it down as he looked up at him.

“But aren’t we… senior and junior disciples?”

His lips trembled, fearing he had invited calamity.

But he trusted the man who had already crossed the forbidden line.

“Gyeol.”

The soft call made his heart plummet.

There was no majesty, no wrath—only tenderness. That made it all the heavier.

“You are kind, and still show this elder respect. But the man called Je Haryang long ago forfeited the right to be addressed as your Senior Brother.”

Though he had known it, his throat still caught painfully.

“A very long time ago.”

His elder whispered gently.

So… from the beginning, to him, I wasn’t even the continuation of my old sect?

Yegyeol felt like a man struck hard, left dizzy.

After that, he yielded like a puppet with its strings cut.

Lifted from the tub, dried, swaddled in cloth, and carried in Haryang’s arms down the corridor.

The path back to his chamber was dim; no sign of Samrang or any other attendants.

Water-logged, limp, Yegyeol must have been heavy—but Haryang bore him as though cradling a pebble.

Seated on the chair by the bed, Yegyeol drooped like a balloon drained of air. Droplets fell from his still-damp hair, darkening the floorboards.

Somewhere, Haryang procured a towel and wrapped it about his head. Yegyeol startled, raising his hand.

“…I can do it.”

The first words he had spoken since leaving the bath.

But Haryang brushed away his hand with ease.

“You permitted me this far. Allow me to bear the responsibility to the end.”

Smiling, he paused, then lifted Yegyeol’s wrist. He frowned as he examined the end of his fingernail.

“Ah.”

“Huh?”

The nail was slightly broken.

“When did this happen?”

Yegyeol had no memory.

“I must have gripped too roughly earlier, and broke it.”

Haryang clicked his tongue apologetically.

Knowing full well when that “earlier” was, Yegyeol could not speak it aloud, only shook his head.

“N-no… it’s fine.”

Perhaps it had been from hitting the tub wall. An Esper’s nails were not titanium, after all.

My hair doesn’t grow. Neither do my nails… but if they break, then what?

He stared at his hand. Hair and nails not growing was no great burden.

Yet, because everything else had gone so uncannily well, he sought unease in such trifles.

It was inevitable. Yegyeol had never known the privilege of trusting happiness as his own.

“You know…”

Without a title, his voice slipped out, and tension flashed across Haryang’s face.

But the words that spilled were nothing calculated, only impulse.

“…May I keep calling you Senior Brother?”

Relief spread in the wake of his fleeting anxiety, though Haryang remained silent for a long time.

At last, he gazed at Yegyeol with an inscrutable look, and answered in a voice heavy with depth.

“Then so be it.”

Though their relationship had twisted far from its origin, his promise remained: if his disciple wished it, he would allow anything.

“As much as you like.”

Only after watching Yegyeol drift into sleep did Haryang return to his own chamber.

He locked the door tight and lit every candle.

Night was driven away until the room shone like midday.

Haryang searched each corner carefully. At last, beneath the bed, his eye caught a sliver of white lodged in the tiniest crevice.

He plucked it up.

A fragment, light as air, lay in his palm.

He stared at it for a long time, covering his mouth with his hand.

Then lowering it, he scrubbed his face hard with dry palms, before glaring again at what he had found.

The bloodshot in his eyes gleamed with a chilling light.

Had he not known its source, he might not have recognized it at all.

Gyeol… you have.

A faintly twisted smile crept across his impassive face, shadowed by the fragment clenched in his fist.

So you’ve finally discovered it.

The blaze of countless candles cast long, endless shadows at Haryang’s back.

Eyes fixed on the blackened floor, he thought and thought again of the disciple he cherished with such merciless devotion.