Chapter 51

Swallowing a ragged gasp, Mu-yeong looked down. Choi Yook hadn’t merely caught hold of his cock. He was pumping his hand roughly, slapping skin against skin with loud, wet smacks.

Unlike Mu-yeong’s own, Choi Yook’s hand was thick-knuckled and corded with raised veins. The dusky fingers wedged between his pale thighs kneaded and pumped the seized flesh without mercy. Choi Yook held Mu-yeong’s gaze in an unblinking stare.

“What are you looking at?” Choi Yook drawled. “You should be focusing on Sijin.”

The raspy voice scraped down Mu-yeong’s eardrums. Yet he couldn’t possibly obey the command. It was merely masturbation aided by someone else’s hand, yet each time Choi Yook moved his fingers, lightning seemed to crash through Mu-yeong’s entire body.

His tingling lower back arched and twisted, the tips of his toes barely grazing the floor as they frantically dug into the carpet. Mu-yeong gasped on the verge of tears.

“Ngh, mmh… Section Chief,” Mu-yeong whimpered, his voice trembling.

Choi Yook answered nonchalantly, wearing an utterly placid expression, “Yeah, Seo Mu-yeong-ssi. I have no idea why you’re calling me,” he remarked in a biting tone. “If you’re going to call someone’s name, shouldn’t it be Sijin’s? Isn’t that what you usually do whenever you jerk off?”

Without pausing his hand for even a second, Choi Yook pressed him with caustic mockery. Before Mu-yeong could even fully process the words, instinct made him push back in denial.

“Ngh, n-no, that’s not it! I never did that!” Mu-yeong gasped.

“There’s no way you haven’t,” Choi Yook scoffed. “Tell the truth. What do you usually mutter to yourself? That it feels good here, so touch you? Fuck, how much have you been shooting off on your own for your body to be this sensitive? You’re leaking so much water already that it’s sticking right to my palm.”

Choi Yook sneered as he roughly stroked the length of his shaft. Yet far from answering, Mu-yeong couldn’t even part his lips. A blank, dazzling white was rapidly overtaking his mind.

It was a place he had never imagined anyone else touching. The rough, imposing hand easily engulfed Mu-yeong’s own, the rasp of thick calluses abrading his foreskin. Even that slight, stinging friction served as a vivid reminder that this was Choi Yook’s hand, making Mu-yeong’s head burn with dizzying heat.

Every time their eyes collided, sparks flared across his nerves. Gripping the duvet, Mu-yeong twisted the fabric and shut his eyes tight. But the moment he did, Choi Yook clamped his left hand over Mu-yeong’s chin. Kneading the cock in his right palm like modeling clay, he gave Mu-yeong’s face a sharp nudge.

“Look at your phone,” Choi Yook ordered, his grip unrelenting.

If he took those words literally and actually looked at it, this whole ordeal felt like it wouldn’t end before the day was out. Mu-yeong shook his head so violently it made him dizzy. He took back his earlier thought about being the crazier one. It was utterly impossible to predict what Choi Yook would do next.

“Ngh, I won’t look… ah, I won’t,” Mu-yeong pleaded, panting raggedly. “I won’t do it. I was… ngh, I was wrong, all right?”

Mu-yeong did his absolute best to wave the white flag and tuck his tail between his legs. But Choi Yook didn’t halt the movements of his hand. If anything, he only quickened the pace, as though toying with him.

“Why aren’t you looking? I never told you not to,” Choi Yook taunted. “I said look. Since you’ve got such a pitiful body that can’t even come without Sijin, go right ahead and do whatever the fuck turns you on, Seo Mu-yeong-ssi.”

Mu-yeong whispered between ragged breaths, “Ah, but… Section Chief, you’re doing this right now because you hate the idea of me looking at Sijin…”

The instant Choi Sijin’s name left his lips, the grip around his cock tightened viciously. When Mu-yeong’s legs flailed, Choi Yook merely arched a brow.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Choi Yook drawled. “I’m just going out of my way to help you, Seo Mu-yeong-ssi. You’re the one acting like you’re half-castrated because of my little brother. In my position as his brother, the least I can do is offer the victim some relief.”

It was pure bullshit. Yet Mu-yeong lacked the stamina to mount a logical rebuttal. He wanted nothing more than to bring an end to this pleasure that only grew ceaselessly more intense.

Mu-yeong writhed in an attempt to pull away from him. At that, the hand clutching his jaw shifted to his shoulder, pinning him flat. Choi Yook’s heavy right leg pressed down across Mu-yeong’s thigh, easily neutralizing any movement. He was now effectively straddling Mu-yeong.

Unlike the sharp cologne that usually clung to him, a faint scent of shampoo and toner drifted through the warm air. Water dripping from Choi Yook’s damp hair soaked Mu-yeong’s chest, mingling with the seeping sweat to slick his feverish skin. It felt as though he had been dropped squarely into the middle of a sweltering monsoon summer.

Even the skin beneath his T-shirt tingled with unbearable sensitivity. Panting, Mu-yeong stretched out a trembling hand and fumbled across the sheets. He intended to glimpse the phone screen at all costs. He thought that if he could just cool his head, he might escape this nonsensical sensation. Dealing with Choi Yook’s fury could wait until after.

But the very moment his fingertips brushed the phone, Choi Yook’s thumb blocked Mu-yeong’s urethral opening, rubbing the tip abrasively. A sudden surge of pre-ejaculatory fluid welled up and spilled over the engorged, crimson glans. Overwhelmed by the piercing rush of pleasure, Mu-yeong helplessly clawed at the bedsheets.

“Ngh, this… why is it… no……”

Choi Yook asked with cool indifference, his gaze traveling over Mu-yeong with a chilling edge, “What are you so surprised about? If what you said was true, isn’t this what you wanted?”

“Your body’s keeping its chastity all on its own—what a grand, devoted love story,” Choi Yook sneered. “Though going by the sounds you make, you sound no different from a filthy slut who’s been passed around the block.”

Mu-yeong stammered in desperate denial, “No, ah… I-I never have! It’s the truth, ngh, it’s not that, it’s just…!”

Choi Yook questioned coldly, “Just what? Ah, do you not usually jerk off like this? You grab your dick and rub it up and down, don’t you?” He set a hand on Mu-yeong’s abdomen and pushed down firmly. Though he merely leaned in close without taking off his clothes, a heavy, suffocating pressure settled over Mu-yeong.

“No, hic… I’ve never put anything inside,” Mu-yeong wept. “N-nothing… that’s not it, it’s not!”

Choi Yook warned, his voice dropping dangerously low, “Speak properly so I know what isn’t, Seo Mu-yeong. Where did your honorifics go? Am I your friend? Who do you think is in front of you right now that you dare drop your speech?”

Mu-yeong wept, his voice shaking. “Ngh, I’m sorry… Section, hic, Chief. Mmh… Section Chief Choi, ah… ah!”

Broken, disjointed syllables tumbled out alongside his ragged panting. Desperate though he was to hold out, he had reached his limit. Each time the ridge of Choi Yook’s palm struck against his groin, Mu-yeong’s hips twisted and his toes curled tight. As if water were filling his skull, his mind grew hazy and his breath came in desperate gasps.

Forgetting all fear, Mu-yeong clutched at Choi Yook’s robe-clad forearm. It was right then, feeling the fabric slip beneath his grip as he looked up.

Mu-yeong’s eyes met Choi Yook’s as the man stared down at him. Because Choi Yook had leaned down so close, the distance between their faces was barely a handspan or two. A stray droplet fell from the separated strands of his wet hair, landing directly in Mu-yeong’s eye.

As Mu-yeong blinked, the droplet tracked down his burning cheek. The dry edges of his eyelids dampened, bringing Choi Yook’s features into sharper focus.

Choi Yook kept his mouth shut, his face devoid of expression. His dilated pupils rendered his eyes pitch-black, and the tension locked in his lower jaw defined his sharp jawline even more starkly. When Mu-yeong’s lips parted slightly as if in involuntary awe, Choi Yook’s prominent Adam’s apple bobbed with a visible swallow.

Pouring out no further insults, Choi Yook appeared utterly absorbed in the act. It felt as though he was immersed not in some ulterior motive, but in Mu-yeong himself.

The instant that realization flooded his mind, Mu-yeong’s lower abdomen tightened fiercely. The droplets spattering down felt like a scalding downpour. Far beyond being merely damp, his whole body seemed thoroughly steeped in Choi Yook’s scent. Mu-yeong bit the inside of his cheek, letting out a fractured breath.

“Ah, stop… I’m about to……” Mu-yeong pleaded, his voice breaking.

Before he could even finish the sentence, a thick, milky fluid erupted messily from the tip of his cock. Mu-yeong’s eyes flew wide. The sensation of sharp pleasure piercing straight through his body was familiar yet chillingly foreign. From his thighs down to his calves, his muscles locked taut, and his airborne toes curled tightly.

Panting heavily, Mu-yeong looked up. The semen drenching his T-shirt had also splattered a single white drop onto Choi Yook’s cheek. Against the man’s deep, tan skin, the contrast was strikingly stark. Straightening up, Choi Yook wiped the stray drop of semen from his face with a towel, entirely unperturbed.

“You really have a peculiar way of lying, Seo Mu-yeong-ssi.”

Choi Yook looked down at Mu-yeong, his voice half-husky. As if that fevered intensity in his gaze had been nothing more than Mu-yeong’s imagination, a languid, chilling sneer now played at his lips.

“You claimed you couldn’t even ejaculate without Sijin,” Choi Yook taunted smoothly. “Yet if you’re going to squirt and leak all over the place just from being stroked a little, how am I supposed to trust a word you say?”

Perhaps because he had thoroughly bested him in the end, Choi Yook looked rather satisfied. Even so, Mu-yeong’s sharp tongue had recovered its strength as well.

“I never… l-lied.”

Limp from the sudden crash of lethargy and still panting, Mu-yeong corrected him shamelessly.

“Empirically speaking, that was… really the truth,” Mu-yeong said brazenly. “It must just be that your technique was exceptionally good, Section Chief. Do you sleep with men, too? You’re remarkably skilled.”

Even if framed as praise, an evaluation was still an evaluation. Finding it irksome, Choi Yook tossed a damp towel onto Mu-yeong’s chest.

“Wipe yourself off,” Choi Yook ordered curtly. “Unless you want to walk around reeking.”

Mu-yeong vigorously scrubbed away the semen smeared across his T-shirt, then scooped his trousers from the floor and pulled them on. He shoved the damp duvet off to the side as well. In the meantime, the flush burning his face gradually receded.

Choi Yook walked into the bathroom. Having slipped back into his scattered shoes, Mu-yeong reclined halfway across the mattress. From the bathroom came the faint hiss of running water.

I’m the one who broke a sweat, not him. There’s no reason for someone who already showered to wash up all over again.

The heat that had begun to leave his head rushed back in a warm wave. Mu-yeong clasped his fidgeting hands together and closed his eyes.

Sleep eluded him. Despite the excellent mattress, the plush bedding, and the white noise providing an ideal atmosphere to drift off, his senses only grew sharper.

Beneath his closed eyelids, he could picture the angle at which the shower droplets fell and spattered. He could envision the dispersion of steam filling the bathroom just as clearly. It felt every bit as distinct as the presence of the black sliding door standing between Choi Yook and himself.

It didn’t take long for the water to stop. Hearing footsteps peel away from the tiles, Mu-yeong opened his eyes. Having stepped out of the bathroom, Choi Yook stood before the mirror, adjusting his slipped bathrobe.

With each movement of his arms, the muscles across his exposed nape and back rippled. Droplets tracing down smooth, tanned skin sank silently into the terrycloth robe. Unable to tear his eyes away, Mu-yeong noticed something odd.

“Section Chief, wasn’t that a snake on your back?”

Asking so abruptly made his voice come out slightly cracked. Knitting his brow faintly, Choi Yook glanced back at Mu-yeong.

“It is a snake.”

He cracked his neck from side to side, as though working out a stiff knot.

“The head’s a snake, so of course it’s a snake,” Choi Yook muttered.

“But it has a horn,” Mu-yeong pointed out. “That makes it look more like a dragon.”

When it had been concealed beneath a shirt collar, he hadn’t noticed, but the snake across Choi Yook’s back bore an ornate single horn. Mu-yeong found himself liking this newly discovered horn. He had always had a fondness for absurd mythical beasts.

After all, he was something similar to one himself. Yet Choi Yook shut down all room for imagination entirely.