Chapter 54

Upon returning to the military encampment, they found Ahn Hee-wan strapped into full combat harness, preparing to run punitive laps around the makeshift drill ground.

“That woman deserves every bit of it,” Yi-tan muttered, his tone so dispassionate that Myeong-joo nearly asked what she had done before the reason dawned on him.

Yi-tan clearly considered her failure to keep track of Myeong-joo the sole reason he had been abducted by the demonic fiend. Believing it had not been her fault in the least, Myeong-joo felt both guilty and awkward, yet as Yi-tan was her commanding officer, intervening was out of the question.

Come to think of it, he had never even learned why she had come to fetch him from the supply path in the first place. Watching Hee-wan begin her laps in silence, Myeong-joo quietly looked away.

Yi-tan walked ahead with long strides. Each time sentries and passing soldiers saluted him crisply, he returned the gesture with brief efficiency. Staring at the young officer’s broad back, Myeong-joo quickened his pace, stepping close to slip his hand firmly into Yi-tan’s large palm.

“…”

Halting in his tracks, Yi-tan stared down at their joined hands with unmistakable astonishment.

Myeong-joo offered a rueful smile. “Did you seek me out because you were lacking harmonization? You should have said something sooner. I ought to have channeled it earlier while dangling from your arms in that rather embarrassing posture.”

“…”

Yi-tan offered no answer.

Filled with gratitude toward the man who had come to his rescue, Myeong-joo tightened his grip. Despite the massive release earlier, the limited conduits of his body brought an involuntary furrow to his brow as a familiar throbbing ache surged anew. Still, compared to the agony of projecting his wavelength across the mountain range, this modest discomfort was entirely bearable. It seemed almost miraculous that Yi-tan, starving for energy, had managed to trace such a faint, dissipated ripple through the wilderness.

“It didn’t reach the point of an overload, did it?” Myeong-joo asked, searching his face. “Really, if that monster hadn’t dragged me off, I would have tended to you much sooner. How do you feel right now?”

He received no reply. Instead, an insistent tug on his wrist pulled him forward through the maze of barracks. Yi-tan looked down at him with a stony, unreadable expression before hauling him along. Unlike the officer striding ahead with effortless momentum, Myeong-joo was forced almost into a jog to keep pace.

“Second Lieutenant, slow down a bit…”

Ignoring Myeong-joo’s breathless plea, Yi-tan swept aside the canvas flap of the platoon leader’s tent and turned toward the sentries guarding the perimeter with an icy glare.

“Make sure no one loiters anywhere near this tent,” Yi-tan barked with lethal finality.

Maintaining blank expressions, the guards saluted and promptly backed away without a single question.

Myeong-joo grew acutely nervous, wondering what grave matter required such strict isolation. Had something catastrophic occurred, the entire camp would be buzzing with alarms, yet the silence was absolute. Behind them, the tent flap fell shut.

Just as Myeong-joo parted his lips to ask what was happening, Yi-tan’s dark eyes—gleaming with an unnatural, oily luster rather than their usual light pigment—locked onto his waist. Backlit by the interior lamp, the deep shadows carved across Yi-tan’s impassive face stole the words straight from Myeong-joo’s tongue. An unsettling sense of déjà vu washed over him, though the atmosphere felt anything but familiar.

Before Myeong-joo could avert his eyes, Yi-tan’s large hand clamped around his jaw, locking his gaze in place.

“Give me something more than holding hands.”

Startled, Myeong-joo asked, “Give you what?”

“Something like this, for example.”

With those words, Yi-tan sealed his lips over Myeong-joo’s. Caught with his mouth slightly parted in surprise, Myeong-joo could offer no defense as that thick tongue swept boldly inside, cutting off all possibility of retreat.

“Mmh…!”

Cupping Myeong-joo’s cheeks in his large palms, Yi-tan delved deeper, thoroughly tangling their wet tongues together. His immense hands covered Myeong-joo’s ears, amplifying the slick sounds of their mingled saliva inside his skull. His eyes slipping shut, Myeong-joo did not even realize Yi-tan had pulled him flush against his frame until that rock-hard lower half pressed with unyielding insistence against his groin. As Yi-tan stroked the sensitive lining beneath his tongue, a shiver wracked Myeong-joo’s spine, making him acutely aware of the rigid length bearing down against his lower belly.

Beneath that heavy pressure, Myeong-joo wriggled reflexively to break free, only to still himself a moment later. He realized instinctively that Yi-tan desired harmonization through physical union. Constantly having to remind himself that the primary reason for their marriage had been to conduct intimate harmonization was intensely humiliating.

Assuming Myeong-joo’s distraction stemmed from reluctance, Yi-tan broke the kiss only to lap wetly at Myeong-joo’s glistening lips.

“Will you not allow it?”

To ask whether it was allowed while his tongue continued to tease the swollen flesh of his mouth was brazen beyond measure. When Myeong-joo let out an incredulous scoff, Yi-tan lifted his head, an expression of desperate craving flashing across his features. The raw tension and fierce hunger painted across that handsome, masculine face stunned Myeong-joo into silence.

“Please answer me,” Yi-tan pleaded in a fervent whisper.

“…”

What an unfair man. Myeong-joo had no choice but to give a slow nod.

Conducting harmonization like this in the middle of a military garrison was profoundly embarrassing. Unlike him, who knew little of the norms between Aberrants and Harmonizers, the sentries outside had almost certainly deduced what was about to transpire when ordered away. The entire situation felt dreadfully self-conscious.

The instant Myeong-joo nodded, however, Yi-tan began peeling off his outer coat, leaving no room for lingering hesitation. The heavy field jacket thudded onto the floorboards. Keeping his dark eyes fixed on Myeong-joo to prevent him from looking away, Yi-tan shed his own uniform jacket with brisk efficiency.

There was none of the gentle subtlety he had shown when disrobing Myeong-joo at the hotel. Standing awkwardly for a moment, Myeong-joo slowly began removing his own uniform as well. The rustle of fabric echoed through the heavy silence. While ordinary couples might share a romantic prelude, their union was far from conventional, making this stifling awkwardness only natural. All the while, Yi-tan never took his eyes off Myeong-joo’s movements.

“Aren’t you staring a bit too intently?” Myeong-joo asked with an embarrassed chuckle.

“…”

Even to his self-conscious joke, Yi-tan offered no reply, causing heat to flood Myeong-joo’s cheeks under that unblinking stare. Catching Myeong-joo’s wrist, the young officer drew him toward the narrow field cot. Sitting down first, Yi-tan pulled Myeong-joo between his parted knees. Looking down at that clean-cut, masculine countenance gazing up at him, Myeong-joo could not avoid his gaze.

“Instructor,” Yi-tan called softly as he pressed his brow against Myeong-joo’s solar plexus.

The sudden resting weight was heavy yet strangely calming, sending a ticklish warmth rippling through Myeong-joo’s chest. Inhaling deeply, Yi-tan released a long, low sigh against his skin, like a weary traveler finally returning home to find rest.

“Hmm, you have… only a single whorl.”

Unable to endure the suffocatingly heavy tension, Myeong-joo made the observation in a lighthearted tease. Yet having spoken it aloud, genuine curiosity overtook him, and his fingers reached out involuntarily to stroke the short, dark hair atop Yi-tan’s head. Though dusted with grit from the mountains, the strands were lustrous and remarkably coarse, springing back into place the moment his fingers swept through them.

“They say two whorls mean you’ll marry twice,” Myeong-joo said, idly smoothing the hair.

Absorbed in the unexpected texture, he had blurted an absurd superstition entirely unsuited to the mood. When his hand paused mid-stroke, the brow pressed against his abdomen leaned in with heavier, more deliberate weight. It tickled him immensely, yet Myeong-joo could hardly claim he disliked it. Exhaling what sounded like a quiet sigh of relief, he resumed stroking the thick hair.

“Instructor…”

Yi-tan called his title once more. Why do you keep calling me? Myeong-joo wanted to ask, yet the question remained unspoken.

Having this massive, formidable man clinging to his waist with his head nestled against his stomach felt remarkably like the willful affection of a large hound, evoking a sense that was far from unpleasant. It was as though an apex predator that terrorized the mountains had voluntarily rested its cheek upon his open palm—a subtle, intoxicating feeling of quiet elevation.

“You’ve been exhausted all this time. You must have suffered terribly in this freezing cold—all the more so because I caused you extra trouble at the very end,” Myeong-joo murmured softly.

Perhaps because of that realization, his voice emerged soft and soothing, just as when he comforted young Myeong-hui. As he stroked the back of the young man’s head with gentle consoling words, Yi-tan gazed quietly up at him. Sliding both forearms beneath Myeong-joo’s arms, Yi-tan wrapped his large hands firmly around Myeong-joo’s shoulders and shoulder blades, coiling around him like the thick roots of an ancient tree.

“I was exhausted.” Yi-tan nestled deeper into his neck. “It was truly an ordeal.”

“Yes, I imagined it must have been.” Myeong-joo nodded gently.

Even if lauded as the most powerful Aberrant in recorded history, Yi-tan remained mortal; how could he not feel fatigue? It occurred to Myeong-joo that the soldiers of the Special Corps had idolized him too excessively, treating a flesh-and-blood human being as an invincible weapon incapable of suffering injury or weariness. Mindful of the strain weighing on the young officer, Myeong-joo stroked Yi-tan’s smooth forehead with sincere care. That polished brow had an aristocratic elegance, as though sculpted from pale jade.

“Only you truly see me for who I am, Instructor,” Yi-tan whispered with raw vulnerability. “At times, I yearned for that so desperately it felt as though my very throat were constricting.”

The sheer gravity of his confession hung so heavily in the air that Myeong-joo paid no mind to the fact that Yi-tan was speaking of things he could not understand. As Myeong-joo merely nodded in heartfelt sympathy, Yi-tan exhaled a low, shuddering breath.

“I feel as though I will lose my mind if I cannot be inside you.”

Struggling to comprehend the stark declaration, Myeong-joo blinked in bewilderment. As he strove to fathom the true implication of those words, Yi-tan caught the nape of his neck and drew their foreheads together, resting his brow flush against Myeong-joo’s.