Having roughly assessed the situation, Yoonshin went straight to Seheon’s office. However, the owner of the room was not there. Only stacks of documents were waiting for him. When he casually asked the office manager guarding the secretary’s office, the reply came back that he didn’t know for sure, but it seemed he had gone upstairs again.
Hearing that answer, Yoonshin instinctively guessed.
Whenever he needed time to think, he would head to the highest point of this building. Since there were separate lounge spaces on every floor, the rooftop was rarely visited. That stillness was comforting. He had mentioned it in passing, so Seheon would surely remember.
He took the elevator up to the highest floor and tried the doorknob.
Creak.
He opened the door, stepped inside, and looked around.
‘He’s there.’
Fortunately, he saw a tall, lean back leaning against the railing in the distance, smoking a cigarette. As soon as he confirmed it was his lover, he locked the door first.
“Seheon Sunbae.”
Even though he must have heard his presence, let alone his voice, Seheon showed no sign of turning around. Even though he was only a short walk away, Yoonshin’s heart grew anxious for no reason, and he ran quickly toward him. Catching his slightly rough breath, he hugged Seheon’s back from behind.
Thinking he might push him away like earlier, he decided to cling to him more tightly before being pushed away, but surprisingly, he stayed still.
Several seconds passed with their bodies touching. Whenever Seheon drew in breath through the filter and exhaled, his firm body calmly rose and fell.
Hugging him and comfortably resting his weight, Yoonshin tightly interlaced his fingers over Seheon’s flat abdomen. He pulled him in as if locking Seheon inside his narrow world and closed his eyelids. As the muscles of his broad back touched his cheek, this posture felt very secure.
A gentle breeze brushed past their heads.
Yoonshin’s red lips slowly parted like a blooming flower.
“When did you come up here again?”
Even at his softly spoken words, Seheon did not reply much.
“Do you not want to talk to me?”
He was still silent. However, he didn’t not know that Seheon’s interest, who had only been looking at the skyscrapers ahead, was actually focused solely on him chattering behind his back. Yoonshin rubbed his face against his broad back and calmly continued speaking. His voice became a bit clearer.
“I went to the control room and secured the original CCTV footage myself. It seemed like we should cut the front part before handing it over, so I said we’d submit it later. Your testimony is absolutely necessary, so you’ll help... right?”
Phew, Seheon’s shoulder heaved once like a low rolling wave as he let out a deep sigh.
He had acted on instinct during the earlier crisis, but now that things were sorted out, it seemed he didn’t want to help that much. Yoonshin hadn’t expected it anyway.
“Anyway, I’m planning to keep him at the firm for about half a day for now.”
Seheon, half-listening, exhaled heavily once more and rubbed out his cigarette. Then, he took out another cigarette from the pack on the railing, lit it, and put it in his mouth. Yoonshin, who had paused his words while Seheon lit a new cigarette, opened his mouth to continue his situation report on how the earlier incident would progress. However, he was suddenly thwarted when Seheon undid his interlaced fingers.
For some reason, a feeling of indignation arose. So, deliberately, as if to show him, he pushed both hands back into the gap between his arms and torso. Then he waved them as if greeting right in front of him. At that, Seheon pushed his hands away again this time.
“Wow... you’re really too much, huh?”
Just as he was about to say something to him for keep pushing him away even when he was doing this much, Seheon suddenly pulled Yoonshin’s slender arms. Then, he wedged Yoonshin into the very narrow gap between the railing and his own body, and they faced each other very closely.
Phew, getting the cigarette smoke blown directly into his face, Yoonshin hit Seheon’s shoulder.
“My eyes sting.”
At that, he tilted his face and gave a light peck on the lips, then put the filter back in his mouth.
“Can I do it too?”
“...”
“Say something. I want to hear your voice.”
Instead of replying, Seheon offered one cheek. Yoonshin kissed the cheek right in front of him and fiercely hugged him back.
They rubbed their already tightly pressed bodies even closer together. In that state, some time passed. As Yoonshin obediently waited for him to speak first, finally the long-awaited voice reached his ears.
“Yoonshin-ah.”
“Ah, it feels so good to hear your voice. Yes, tell me anything.”
“I was offered the co-representative position.”
Yoonshin immediately leaned his upper body back as if letting it droop and met eyes with Seheon again. He tilted his face again like a moment ago and gave a short kiss. He repeated that action a few times as if imprinting the sharp scent of cigarettes on him, then rubbed the cigarette butt out on the railing.
Watching him in bewilderment, he asked back.
“When? Did Representative Song offer it? What are the conditions? Isn’t it incredibly unconventional?”
“It’s been a few days. It’s true that Sunbae Mihui offered it, it was verbal, the conditions aren’t set yet, and it’s quite unconventional. If it pushes through, the industry will be noisy for a while about whether I really have the qualifications or not.”
“Why are you telling me this now... There was a timing to talk about such an important thing!”
Seheon replied dispassionately.
“Was there really?”
“Like when we spent time together briefly at night the day before yesterday. Or on Sunday dawn, when we woke up side by side...”
His gaze staring intently at him was imbued with many indescribable emotions. Whether counting by frequency or by duration, there were far more and frequent times when he neglected him. But here, he couldn’t assert that. They had always explained the situation to each other convincingly, and even if it was already decided, seeking the other’s consent was the rule, but this time he hadn’t done so.
This is why one shouldn’t commit a foul.
“...So?”
“Isn’t this strange?”
“Even if it’s a story that could turn the industry upside down, that’s because this field is conservative as a seniority-based society. Everyone would probably accept it inwardly. It’s a shock to me too, but Representative Song’s decision makes sense.”
What it feels like to have an upright and smart person like Kang Seheon beside you, Yoonshin understood better than anyone else in this world.
“Not that.”
“Or what, is it still awkward for you to discuss your future with me?”
He seemed to ponder for a moment and only half-agreed with this proposition.
“That’s not very natural either, but I’ve gotten used to it.”
“Then...”
“I mean, my life keeps taking root somewhere. I’ve made others cry a lot all this time, so I thought I shouldn’t have such things.”
Yoonshin’s mouth closed in a straight line. It was because he vaguely understood what he meant by those words.
It must mean that his life, which couldn’t properly give its heart to anyone or anywhere and floated like air, was trying to change from some point into a form stuck deeply somewhere, supplying nutrients. And although he didn’t add that, it was clear that he himself had triggered that starting point.
To Kang Seheon, life had been about enduring. It was the comprehensive process of fighting, winning, and surviving. It would have been a battle where being pushed back meant the end, a war where losing meant elimination.
Even for someone like him, something to protect had appeared. As he adapted to the sensation of protecting something, he must have faced the fear of losing it at the same time, which might be why he sought him out more over the past few days. Reaching such a guess, the thought that their timing was truly bad crossed his mind once again.
Swipe. Yoonshin slowly stroked down from Seheon’s stiff shoulder blade to his chest with both palms and overlapped his gaze clearly with him.
“Trees with deep roots last long originally. You know that, right?”
“You’ve grown a lot. Seeing how you’re teaching me everything.”
“It seems Sunbae wants to accept that offer.”
“Probably.”
“You wanted to discuss that with me and decide, but I wasn’t here?”
“That’s for sure.”
That must be why his expression was so complex. He must have felt that he should be by his side when writing the milestones of his life, and was clearly anxious because the seat next to him kept being empty.
He was angry, but contradictorily, Yoonshin became happy because of the fact that his own scent was fully on the traces of Kang Seheon’s deep contemplation about his life.
“I thought I’d be the one to propose first. Is it okay to intercept like this and steal the first move?”
“What are you talking about? Who did such a thing?”
Yoonshin clicked his tongue in dismay.
“What you just did is exactly a proposal, you know? Ask a hundred people on the street. All hundred will agree with me. I’m in your future, Sunbae. That’s why my opinion needs to be gathered.”
However, the very person involved folded his eyes sharply as if he couldn’t agree.
“You’ve grown a lot, probably, that’s for sure—where in those is such a meaning?”
After sharing joys and sorrows with him for the past few years, he had now become completely accustomed to dealing with Kang Seheon, who would relentlessly drive him to the edge and then take a step back just when he could reach out.
“Pervert. Sadist. Coward.”
“Lawyer Do Yoonshin, are you trying to start something with me?”
“Why are you saying such things all of a sudden? Pervert, sadist, coward. Where in those words is such a meaning? Are you admitting that’s what you are?”
Seheon, who got his words thrown right back at him and took a counterpunch, smirked. Then, he rubbed his sharp nose bridge against the bridge of Yoonshin’s nose.
Knowing each other well from dating a long time showed exactly in moments like this. Their heads moved left and right to find their most familiar kissing posture. In the process, their thin and sensitive skin lightly rubbed against each other several times like cotton candy.
Seheon, who sequentially inserted his lower lip and then his upper lip between Yoonshin’s lips and rubbed them, reached his hand back. As if embracing something precious, he pulled Yoonshin’s occiput and poured a rain of kisses even on the hair clumsily scattering in the wind.
Yoonshin, who had been standing quietly enjoying the soft touch he gave, pushed his upper arm. He wanted to see Seheon’s face. He must have been thinking the same, as he stared intently into his eyes and aligned their gazes like a cat giving an eye kiss.
“You said it would be good for me to be by your side now too. Don’t worry. I’ll be stuck right by you.”
“I might be busier than I am now, and I might become a bad person.”
He would be. If he accepted Mihui’s offer, from then on, there would be something else to protect in his life besides Do Yoonshin. Of course, as a law firm, he wouldn’t have the same rights as the management of a general company to control the firm, but the symbolism of the name of the representative of all lawyers would clearly make Seheon more defensive, and at the same time, more aggressive.
“Even more than now, I can’t expose you to the outside.”
That was something he had prepared for from the moment he chose him.
“Since I know well what you can’t do, now tell me what you can do.”
Seheon, who had been carefully pondering while looking into his white eyes, simply replied after a long deliberation.
“I won’t regret discovering you.”
His low voice lingered around their ears like a melody.
He added more clearly.
“I won’t make you regret choosing me, either.”
The air wrapping around them settled heavily like the sea of a silent night.
He knew he had unexpectedly romantic sides. But he hadn’t expected him to confirm it in such a moment, in such a way.
Yoonshin’s stiff eyelids fluttered slowly. Soon, his trembling transparent pupils stared only at Seheon. Their gazes overlapped as if even the ends of each other’s shadows touched.
Yoonshin, who became completely defenseless in front of Seheon, moved his lips. He was enveloped in a passive impulse not wanting to take even a single step out of the boundary he had set. He wanted to say something, but his will didn’t become a sound. As if knowing that well, he egged him on with a low voice.
“You should tell me you love me too. When you usually do it so well.”
“Because I didn’t even imagine you’d give such an answer. You’re always the person wondering what to buy for me. You’ve been getting a perfect score often lately, Sunbae.”
“You keep impudently grading me.”
As he returned to his usual Seheon self, Yoonshin, whose tension finally eased, smiled softly.
Yoonshin interlocked his with Seheon’s lips. Instead of intensely mingling their tongues for a moment, they only overlapped their skin, then quietly pulled away. Following that, he took out a small envelope folded wrinkledly from his pocket. When he opened the flap and dropped what was inside onto his palm, two platinum rings fell with a tap onto his soft skin.
Actually, he hadn’t wanted to give it like this. After pondering to find a more decent method, he had even booked a restaurant with a beautiful night view. Since they couldn’t really have a ceremony, he wanted the most magnificent picture the two of them could remember as the background.
But now that he was actually standing here. This rooftop, like a barren desert of the firm where he had met him, didn’t seem like such a bad choice. Coming up after fighting intensely, getting a promise out of Seheon, and giving it to him felt like a much more fitting event for the two of them.
“It’s a couple ring. From now on, wear it every day. It’s only hard at first; you’ll get used to it soon.”
“Making a fuss over just this... What exactly does that couple ring prove that you abandoned me for 2 weeks putting so much effort into making it. Couldn’t you just have bought something roughly sold?”
He was glad that he could now return the words Seheon had once said to him while putting a ring on him.
“The condition that we are each other’s is true. Now, there’s no reason for you to be lonely anymore, Sunbae.”
Seheon, who had been looking at Yoonshin blankly, smiled softly. His mouth, which curled up, was sensual.
“I like that ‘us’.”
Following that, he immediately reached out his hand. He had expected to struggle and eventually have to bring up his last wish, but surprisingly, things went easily, making him feel strange.
As if he intended to put it on him first, he chose the one with the narrower circumference of the two. Then, he stepped back slightly and grabbed Yoonshin’s left hand. He politely kissed the simple ring Seheon had gifted him years ago, took it off, and placed it between Yoonshin’s lips.
While he was obediently holding it in his mouth, he, who had checked his own initials engraved on the inside of the ring, furrowed his brow.
Soon, Seheon put the ring on his long ring finger. The luxurious platinum ring with a smooth surface fit perfectly. Yoonshin, smiling as he looked down at it, put the ring he had been holding in his mouth into his pocket as if to protect it.
Knowing each other’s hearts was enough, so he thought Seheon would ruin the mood, asking why they had to share a cheesy ring like this, but the fact that he didn’t was amazing. He was doing his best in this moment.
As he was smiling briefly and looking at him, Seheon suddenly brought this up.
“Did you engrave initials on mine too?”
“Of course I did. That’s the most important part. It means that if you go out and do useless things, I won’t be the only one buried in the bedroom wall. Please take note.”
He shrugged his shoulders as if to tell him to do as he pleased and held out his hand. Fortunately, today he was very cooperative with ticklish matters.
Yoonshin first observed his hand. His hand, with bones protruding at every joint, was remarkably neat. He stroked his closely trimmed fingernails, just as he often did when holding his hand, and pushed the ring onto his ring finger with a very careful attitude.
Putting the pointed part up and slowly inserting it, fortunately, it went in well. However, the moment he filled the ring like pulling up a zipper to the end and let go of his hand. The back part swiftly spun around. At some point, the pointed protrusion side was covering the side of Seheon’s ring finger.
Yoonshin’s face as he looked down at it blankly stiffened slightly. Seheon’s mouth looking at that sight twitched in the exact opposite way. Then, eventually, he hugged Yoonshin tightly, kissed his earlobe incessantly, and burst into laughter. Embarrassed, Yoonshin made an excuse.
“They said they can’t make the small ones larger, but they can reduce the large ones... I definitely measured it again while you were sleeping. But how could it be right to just do it by hand estimation?”
“Is there no concept of using something like a measuring tape in your head?”
“Then you wake up, Sunbae.”
“...I’ll protect you while you’re sleeping, Sunbae.”
Yoonshin, who had been slightly fidgeting, stopped releasing all kinetic energy and paused. His flustered look was fully evident on his face. The embarrassing sentence that slipped out of his mouth was what he had whispered to Seheon early this morning when he thought he was asleep.
Therefore, it meant he was awake at that time.
If he had been awake when he said that, it also meant he had been feeling all the persistent gaze observing his face as he crouched beside him. Yoonshin’s face turned red as if reflected by the sunset.
This must be why they say you shouldn’t write letters at dawn.
“You weren’t asleep when I thought you were?”
“How could I not wake up when you’re rustling about. And since it seems you don’t know, let me tell you, when you wake up, I unconditionally wake up too. Since I wake up no matter what, you can move a bit more comfortably.”
“Weren’t there times you didn’t wake up...?”
“There weren’t. I was just closing my eyes and holding you.”
“Why?”
“Because you do cute things thinking I’m asleep.”
He tried to recall his experience over the past few years, but there were too many to calculate. There were times he fiddled with his thick eyelashes when his eyes were closed, and many times he needlessly rubbed his cheek against his. There were countless times he playfully touched his erect member in the morning with his fingertips, and frequent times he smelled the shampoo from his hair or kissed his closely trimmed fingertips.
Yoonshin’s face turned bright red.
“How could you not say a word about that for years? Can a human be this vicious?”
Thinking that he must have felt all his actions, he wanted to hide somewhere right away. But Seheon was blocking him like he was tying him up, making it impossible.
Embarrassed and at the same time, a bit deflated. He had been happy thinking he could be an exception to his sensitivity, but he wasn’t.
“I liked thinking you were a pervert who only accepted the touch and sounds of my body... but the signs and noises I make aren’t an exception either.”
He, who had been looking delighted as he kept teasing Yoonshin, suddenly deeply furrowed his brow.
“Do you think I’m some cold-blooded animal? You’re sometimes really out of your mind.”
“If my tossing and turning bothers you, should we use separate beds from now on?”
“Stop talking nonsense. You must sleep unconditionally stuck next to me.”
“You said you wake up right away.”
“When I wake up and you’re next to me, I feel relieved. Your noises are an exception.”
Press, Seheon pushed Yoonshin’s crown with his chin and stood with his back to the railing. In a good mood from his affectionate expression, Yoonshin smirked and leaned beside him, looking at the same place and lifting his left hand. Thinking of drawing this hand against the fading sunset sky as a background color, it had quite a picturesque feel.
Assuming the surrounding skyscrapers were roughly guests, the clouded orange sky was roughly the venue, and the air and wind wrapping around this place played the wedding march, it seemed an officiant wouldn’t be necessary.
Looking at it, he fell into various pleasant thoughts, then suddenly something came to mind and he opened his mouth again.
“It’s platinum. They say this is also used in pacemakers. It’s a substance that’s fine to implant in the body. They say there’s no allergy either. Since it’s safe, you must never take it off.”
Seheon, who had been listening seriously, responded low as if talking to himself.
“Seeing that you put it on me, you’re probably thinking of wearing your ring around your neck.”
As expected, he read him well.
Although the design was different, the large framework of embedding a diamond in a neat platinum ring was the same. Also, when the two overlapped, they looked like one layered ring.
He knew logically that the possibility of someone finding the rings they both temporarily took off and overlapping them together was slim, but their relationship was one where they had to be careful of even that one in ten thousand chance. There was nothing wrong with being cautious to love each other longer and safely.
“Yes. I’m planning to wear it on my hand only on days I don’t go to work. But Sunbae, you have to wear it every day.”
“You just wear it around too.”
Seheon was sometimes reckless in this aspect.
“What if someone notices?”
“We’ll have to accept it. Like catching a cold.”[4]
“...”
“There are already so many things we can’t do; I hate making you hide even that.”
Yoonshin smiled as he recalled the phrase from the book that was their common denominator. He turned his head and stared intently into his eyes, smiling back. He was captivated once again by Seheon’s smoothly curled-up lips.
This face. Yoonshin knew that only he could draw this out. He wanted to enjoy this happiness in the future too. As if Seheon read that feeling as well, he pulled up the back of Yoonshin’s hand and kissed it lingeringly once more.
Even without some grand promise starting with “Until our black hair turns white...”, even if this relationship wasn’t guaranteed legal binding force, even if no one around them understood, this was enough.
Nothing would change in their lives in the future. Even if Seheon became a co-representative, even if he became something else. It would stay the same.
They would go back down like this and finish what they were doing. Since Kang Seheon had wasted the entire day today with concentrated self-hatred and jealousy for two weeks, it was obvious he would extend his work at home until the weekend. He also had to finish cleaning up the earlier accident, so the situation was similar.
Still, they would fall asleep in the same bed, and wake up together. They would repeat their ordinary daily life.
As Yoonshin fell into happy imaginations again, Seheon reached out as if he couldn’t bear even that brief digression. He wrapped his arms around Yoonshin’s waist, pulled him as if rolling him half a turn toward him, and hugged him while facing his clean face.
The moment he tilted his head as if to kiss as a token of promise, Yoonshin swiftly covered his own mouth with his left hand.
“Call me honey. Then I’ll let you kiss me.”
Seheon immediately retorted.
“I told you not to try to eat me raw. Set a more proper condition.”
“Even at a time like this, even in such a moment. In short, today is our anniversary!”
“How about this. When we have sex tonight, let me do everything I want. Then I’ll call you that.”
That was originally having it my dick’s way even if the sky split in two.
As if conveying such a message, Yoonshin stared at Seheon with a reproachful look. At that, he pushed his lips, which touched his palm, even more strongly forward. Smack, as the back of his hand touched his lips, Yoonshin couldn’t speak anymore and only blinked. Undeterred, he tilted his jaw to a more comfortable direction with his eyes open.
Seheon’s movement became strange as he stuck out his tongue around the hand and started stimulating as if he were thrusting into his palm. Flustered, Yoonshin quickly pulled his hand down. Then, his tongue tip and lips that had been pressing against it briefly touched and separated.
“Ugh, I haven’t used my last wish yet. I’m going to use that.”
“Are you sure it’s okay to use it for something this simple?”
Yoonshin was smart enough to do at least three things after learning one. Now that he had acquired a satisfactory negotiation method to claim compensation for Seheon’s neglect, he just needed to learn it well and use it appropriately when he unilaterally abandoned him.
“A busy season for you will come again soon.”
He watched Seheon with a triumphant expression.
He stared back with a look of disdain as if such Yoonshin was in the palm of his hand.
Soon, he replied like a whisper in a languid tone.
“Open your mouth, honey.”
Gasp. In an instant, Yoonshin’s face, which had turned to stone, flushed red as if on fire. He hadn’t guessed he would really do it right away. That Kang Seheon with his bad personality would melt his heart a few times, as he often did.
So he was anxious because it happened in a moment when he couldn’t focus properly. It would be nice if he could do something like listen to it again like a machine, but he couldn’t, which was disappointing.
Startled, his reflex reaction was half a beat late. Scream-like exclamations leaked out from between his slowly parted lips.
“Wow, you’re crazy! Kang Seheon, you actually did what you were told, mmph!”
Right at that moment, Seheon, who overlapped his lips as if annoyed by the noise, plunged into Yoonshin without hesitation.
In a place full of twilight mood, the flesh that entered between the moving skin overlapped with a squelching sound.
“Uht, eugh...”
His tongue, which swept past as if skimming his teeth, interlocked with Yoonshin’s. Naturally, the intense reaction gradually subsided.
They overlapped slowly enough to be boring, and then the interlocking tongue movements quickly gaining speed were voluptuous. Digging in so deep as to swallow the root of his tongue and entangling, Seheon’s skilled driving of Yoonshin was even steeped in possessiveness at the tip of his tongue. The hand hugging his dry back fidgeted constantly like withered leaves burning away.
The kiss grew deeper and deeper. The density also rose along with it. The evening sunset, which was getting redder and redder, settled down fluttering over the heads of the two people intensely focusing on each other’s tongues.
His tongue tip and saliva were all sweet today unlike any other day. Was Seheon feeling that way too?
Yoonshin, who hugged Seheon as if passing both hands over his shoulders, clung tightly to him.
A transparent diamond sparkled on the side of his left hand inserted between Seheon’s fine hair. From inside his left hand that hugged Yoonshin’s back as if supporting him, the same brilliance flashed and shone.