Chapter 17

Yi-tan’s tongue entered his mouth again, sweeping over the sensitive lining until stars burst across Myeong-joo’s vision. He squeezed his eyes shut against the flashes of light. Sensation seemed to leak out of him by degrees; his chest prickled, and a heavy warmth gathered low in his body. How could a touch be this addictive? He had no choice but to admit it. Yi-tan’s kiss was sharp as a line of poetry, cutting him open so completely that he knew, with sudden certainty, he could never return to the man he had been before it.

“…Will that do?” Yi-tan asked.

Without warning, the dreamlike haze was shattered, hurled ruthlessly against the cold pavement. Blinking in confusion, Myeong-joo saw that Yi-tan had already pulled away, his face turned toward the observation mirror. His profile appeared utterly composed, devoid of the feverish delirium that had reduced Myeong-joo to helpless gasps.

“You have seen the result. Please proceed,” Yi-tan said.

His cadence was entirely devoid of emotion, sounding as though he had just concluded a monotonous piece of clerical work. Speaking toward the glass, Yi-tan unwound the gauze from his hand; the fabric fell to the floor with a soft rustle, stained with dark reddish-brown blood. Flashing a bright smile toward the mirror, Yi-tan flexed his hand, revealing pristine skin with only dried blood clinging to the surface.

“Because the efficacy is undeniable,” Yi-tan added with a smirk.

Murmuring almost melodically, he stepped back from Myeong-joo. The moment the contact broke, Myeong-joo was forced to confront the physical transformation wrought upon his own body.

His nipples remained painfully taut, and a heavy, unmistakable swelling strained between his thighs. The thick denim of his work jeans—bought near the American military base—did nothing to conceal it.

Myeong-joo’s face went scarlet in an instant.

[Test concluded.]

The automated announcement crackled through the speaker. Yi-tan turned his gaze back toward Myeong-joo, sweeping his eyes slowly down the length of his body. It was a moment of searing humiliation.

“The restroom is to the right as you exit, Instructor,” Yi-tan informed him calmly.

Myeong-joo could offer no response.

That was all. Unable to bear another second, Myeong-joo practically bolted for the door. The prominent swelling between his legs chafed with every stride, multiplying his disgrace until hot tears pricked the corners of his eyes.

Slamming the restroom door behind him with a deafening bang, Myeong-joo could barely recall navigating the hallway to reach it.

“Dammit…”

The reflection in the mirror showed a pitiful sight. Flushed cheeks, bloodshot eyes, and engorged veins throbbing at his temples—it was the savage, frustrated face of a beast denied release.

“You absolute piece of trash…” he cursed himself.

Self-loathing crashed over him. To see himself wearing such a beastly expression was unbearable. He cranked open the tap and splashed cold water over his burning face, wishing he could simply disappear.

***

“Take a look at this,” Yi-tan said, holding up a printed graph.

Myeong-joo remained silent, staring out the car window.

He found himself seated inside the sedan once more—the second ride in Yi-tan’s car in two days. Myeong-joo could not fathom how he had emerged from the underground facility and ended up here, completely drained of energy.

“Here is my supernatural wavelength reacting to your harmonization,” Yi-tan said with quiet excitement. “The numbers are exceptionally high, aren’t they?”

Myeong-joo offered no answer, merely staring at the fluctuating lines with an unreadable expression.

“This places us in the uppermost tier of the entire Special Forces,” Yi-tan continued proudly.

Myeong-joo closed his eyes in fatigue.

Yi-tan sounded as ecstatic as a child on the eve of a school picnic—a voice Myeong-joo had not heard since the boy was young, when he would chatter endlessly about shooting soda bottles from two hundred meters away with his power. In that very same boyish cadence, he bragged without ceasing.

“The graph is truly lovely,” Yi-tan murmured in fascination. “It is positively beautiful.”

He whispered like someone lost in a reverie. Myeong-joo blinked slowly, his throat so constricted he could barely muster words.

“…I can make my own way home,” Myeong-joo murmured, his voice hoarse.

The words were little more than a polite refusal; all Myeong-joo wanted was out of the car. The memory of his own face in the restroom mirror still tormented him, making the confined space excruciating. He wanted to part ways at once, but Yi-tan had insisted on driving him home.

Hee-wan has already left for the day. She mentioned she delivered your bicycle to your house. Allow me to take you home in my car.

Hee-wan was evidently the female officer from earlier. Stunned that his bicycle had already been ferried home, Myeong-joo felt thoroughly unnerved by Yi-tan’s uncharacteristic obstinacy in bringing the car around. The man had never been this willful in the past, making Myeong-joo wonder what had possessed him today, yet seeing him boast like an excited child left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Naturally, discovering their exceptional compatibility was not an unwelcome revelation. For one, unlike the past when Yi-tan’s wavelength matched Myeong-in, the prospect of Yi-tan marrying his sister had grown infinitely more distant. Secondly, knowing he could genuinely aid Yi-tan was a relief. Yet the fact that their compatibility was extraordinary did nothing to erase the humiliating memory of becoming violently aroused before watching eyes—and worse, having that unfiltered desire laid bare before Lee Yi-tan himself.

He admired the generous impulse to see him home when he wanted nothing more than to crawl into a rat hole and hide, but the only kindness he truly craved was to be let go.

“What are you talking about?” Lee Yi-tan said, his voice flat. “It is late.”

He had already returned to an impassive expression. He tossed the sheaf of documents in his hand into the back, scattering loose sheets across the rear seats. As Myeong-joo glanced back in dismay, the officer gave him a cool, unblinking look.

He gripped the steering wheel. “Fasten your seatbelt. We are leaving.”

“…”

Myeong-joo had no choice but to buckle his seatbelt. Why was the man so angry? Yi-tan had never been someone with such volatile, erratic moods. Had the harmonization fallen drastically short? Yet even when his harmonization had run completely dry, Lee Yi-tan had previously led a battle against demonic fiends to victory without showing the faintest hint of distress.

He had no idea why the air between them had turned so sharp. As the car rolled forward into the dark, Myeong-joo carefully turned words over in his head, attempting to break the prickly tension.

“Well… I encountered a demonic fiend on the road today,” Myeong-joo ventured.

“Is that so?”

Daunted by the indifferent tone, Myeong-joo closed his mouth. Ordinarily he would never have fidgeted before Yi-tan like a dog desperate to relieve itself, but tonight he was a man who had become aroused against his former student and could not stop treading carefully around him.

Just then the sedan rolled to a stop at a red light.

Yi-tan glanced sideways, breaking the quiet. “I am glad you were uninjured. It seems the Defense Bureau deployed personnel immediately?”

“Ah… no, nothing like that,” Myeong-joo replied, shaking his head. “It was a rather strange demonic fiend.”

“…In what way was it strange?” Yi-tan’s voice dropped lower.

Myeong-joo rubbed his knuckles, taking a moment to steady his breathing. “It felt as though it deliberately let me go.”

“A demonic fiend did?”

“Yes. I know it sounds absurd—I thought so too—but it is the truth. There was something about it that didn’t feel like a demonic fiend at all…”

Ahead of them, the traffic light shifted to green, yet Yi-tan made no move to accelerate. Wondering what was wrong, Myeong-joo turned toward him. His gaze collided with Yi-tan’s, fixed on him in the gloom. The streetlamps were too sparse to carve out the officer’s features cleanly, but his irises seemed to catch a strange luminescence—a hue blending pale amber and green.

“What about it did not seem like a demonic fiend in particular?” Yi-tan asked quietly.

Behind them, a horn blared. Despite the quiet hour on a road where few owned automobiles, a truck had pulled up behind their bumper. Turning his gaze forward without haste, Yi-tan finally shifted into gear and set the sedan in motion.

As the dark cityscape slid past the glass, Myeong-joo turned the question over in his mind. What had struck him as the least monstrous?

“Its eyes…” Myeong-joo murmured.

Yi-tan kept his gaze fixed on the road, saying nothing.

“No, forget it. That is hardly something to say about a demonic fiend—and hardly appropriate to tell an officer,” Myeong-joo added with a self-conscious shake of his head.

“Go on. I want to know.” The tone carried a quiet, uncompromising urgency.

Assuming Yi-tan was merely high-strung from navigating the dark streets, Myeong-joo brushed it off. He scratched the back of his neck and spoke with unvarnished honesty. “Its eyes were strangely gentle.”

Yi-tan remained silent, his hands resting steady on the wheel.

“It took the form of a beast rather than a reptile, and it looked strikingly handsome,” Myeong-joo added. “Fierce and noble, like a wolf or a great leopard.”

“…”

Myeong-joo let out a dry, self-deprecating chuckle. “It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? To an officer who battles those abominations daily, it must sound utterly foolish. I shouldn’t have spoken so carelessly.”

Here was a man who suffered on the front lines bleeding against monsters, while Myeong-joo sat babbling about how handsome a beast had looked or how gentle its eyes had seemed. Just as he was about to apologize and drop the subject, the young officer spoke.

“Not at all.”

Myeong-joo blurted, “Pardon?”

“It is not strange,” Yi-tan said softly. “Instructor.”

The address carried a tender cadence, reminiscent of the days when uncomplicated warmth had existed between them. The car moved steadily forward, its headlights cutting through the frosty gloom toward the hillside shantytown where Myeong-joo lived. That gentle tone stirred memories of the young cadet from years ago, carefree and wondering aloud if they might pick spring azaleas to fry into flower pancakes. Back then, an instructor could have smiled and fondly replied, Why not fry a few for me as well?

“Haha… the things I talk about…” Myeong-joo murmured hollowly.

Silence settled over the car once more, but it no longer stung. He could finally pretend to put the afternoon’s mortification behind him. Of course, I’ll bring you the prettiest one. He found himself aching for that young boy who had beamed with such an innocent smile.

Yi-tan kept his eyes on the road ahead. “I intend to expedite the wedding.”

Myeong-joo froze, every scrap of nostalgia wiped clean from his mind. “What did you say?”

“Our wedding. I will expedite it.”

What had begun as a mere proposal had turned into settled certainty in the space of a single breath. Myeong-joo gaped before finally finding his voice. “Why? What is the reason?”

“The reason?” Yi-tan glanced sideways with a grin that held a distinctly fierce, wolfish edge. Pressing down on the accelerator, he sent the sedan surging forward with a low growl of the engine, his eyes flashing in the dark. “Because I want to gorge myself until my stomach bursts on what you gave me earlier.”

That was all he said. Myeong-joo racked his brain, wondering what on earth he could have offered to provoke such ravenous hunger. Amid his confusion, the car ground to a halt at the foot of the hillside neighborhood.

“Must I leave you here again tonight?” Yi-tan asked.

“Ah… the neighborhood is rather rough,” Myeong-joo replied, forcing an awkward smile. “Safe travels, Lieutenant.”

He fumbled with his seatbelt under the heavy, piercing weight of the young officer’s gaze. Watching him intently, Yi-tan gave a slow, deliberate nod. “Well… this, too, will not last much longer.”

“What do you mean by that?” Myeong-joo pressed.

Giving him a brief look without answering, Yi-tan stepped out into the night, rounded the hood, and opened the passenger door. Stepping out like an honored guest despite his bewilderment, Myeong-joo looked up at him.

Lee Yi-tan held the heavy door steady. “I hope you have sweet dreams, Instructor.”

“…Yes. You as well, Lieutenant,” Myeong-joo murmured.

The parting remark felt so peculiar that it took him a long moment to nod. Flashing a slight smile, Yi-tan clicked the passenger door shut. As if that latching sound were a signal, Myeong-joo hastened his steps up into the hillside village. Strangely, his body felt far lighter than when he had left home, making the steep slope effortless to climb. Behind him, there was no sound of an engine driving away, leaving the back of his neck prickling with the acute sensation of being watched.

Even then, Myeong-joo climbed without once looking back—like the Greek poet warned he would lose his wife the instant he turned around.

Today had been a thoroughly bizarre day.

***