9
4
‘Will he really cover it up?’
It was a naive thought. I knew that perfectly well, even as I stood in front of the address sent by the eleven-digit number not registered in my phone.
1, 2, 0, 1, call. After pressing the keypad in sequence, I pulled my hat down deeper. Half my field of vision disappeared into darkness. The classic music that had been flowing slowly as a monotonous melody abruptly stopped, and the thick glass door blocking my way opened smoothly and silently.
Even during that brief time the elevator took me to the 12th floor, various thoughts crossed my mind. Countless thoughts, far more than I’d had over the past few days, passed by at an ephemeral speed.
When I got off the elevator, there was only one front door on that floor. And after much deliberation, the conclusion I reached was also singular.
Though I knew I had to go there, I couldn’t quite take a step forward, when the tightly closed front door opened first with a click, giving me an opening. I didn’t think it was kindly guiding me. It seemed to be showing me that I had no choice, that there was only one option.
I took off my shoes at the large entrance made of light-toned marble, changed into slippers, and stepped into the house. What unfolded before my eyes was a corridor with complex frames hanging sparsely on both walls, too wide and long to be called a corridor.
Though the slippers were certainly light and soft, each step was difficult to take. I slowly moved my feet, dragging what felt like shackles gently wrapping my feet.
The end of the corridor connected to a corner of a living room so vast that the term “expansive” came to mind. And on the black leather sofa occupying one side of that spacious living room, he was sitting.
“You’re here?”
Woo Tae-seon’s gaze slowly scanned me. He slightly tilted his wine glass filled with transparent liquid and crossed his legs.
“Would you like some too, teacher?”
Following the sound of classical music flowing leisurely, slippers the same color as mine wiggled. On the table level with Woo Tae-seon’s knees was a wine bottle with a bulbous bottom.
Of course, there was no cork stopper blocking the mouth of the wine bottle. So the liquid in Woo Tae-seon’s glass was definitely wine. Moreover, Woo Tae-seon, who was naturally offering me his glass, was a high school student, and I was a teacher.
But among so many issues, barely managing to shake my head in refusal was the only and best method I could employ, let alone pointing out one of these problems.
“Wouldn’t it be better to drink first?”
Woo Tae-seon, who had tilted his head, shrugged.
“Well, do as you please, teacher.”
A nod. Following Woo Tae-seon’s gesture pointing to the area in front of him, I found an empty marble floor. Perhaps because it was so large it was questionable to even call it a living room, but it seemed as if an invisible spotlight was directed at that spot, as if deliberately left empty for me.
The empty space waiting only for me and the heavy silence surrounding it forced me to move. I stood there, facing Woo Tae-seon.
What Woo Tae-seon offered me wasn’t just wine. The wine was actually on the normal side of things.
“Take off your hat first.”
At Woo Tae-seon’s voice, I removed the hat I had pulled down deep and gripped it tightly in my hand.
Woo Tae-seon picked up an angular black case instead of putting down the empty wine glass on the table. What he took out of the case was a white cigarette with a grayish filter.
Shirt. The muffled voice leaked through the lips holding the cigarette. I tried my best to diligently follow that voice, but each of my fingers trembled and wouldn’t obey. It took no small amount of time just to undo one small button.
The problem was that my fingers froze when they reached the last button. It would be over once I undid this. But that very thought of it being “over” made it harder for me to move.
“……”
The sound of a thumb rolling the flint wheel broke the prolonged silence. It was as if it was reproaching me for being slow.
Though he didn’t add any words after that, urgency began to form at each joint of my fingers, which had stiffened with tension. I thought I shouldn’t drag this out, that I needed to move now. So just as the Zippo lighter’s lid closed with a click after transferring a small flame to the dry cigarette, I managed to undo the last button.
When the knot holding everything together disappeared, the front of the shirt parted and fell in a straight line. The cold air touched my lower abdomen, which had been hidden by the shirt until now. Goosebumps rose at the feeling, both familiar and strange.
Before I could even put down the shirt I had barely removed:
“The pants too.”
The kind voice detailed that I still had more to do.
I could undo a pants buckle with my eyes closed. It was something so familiar and easy that I could do it with one hand. But today it was too difficult. I hesitated like someone who had forgotten how to undo a pants buckle, or like someone who had never learned.
The clicking sound when metal hit metal was both desperate and not. Even knowing that this behavior was nothing more than stalling, the hand holding the buckle wouldn’t move.
“Just to let you know. Playing hard to get. Not my thing.”
As if I were “playing coy” as they say. Woo Tae-seon’s slightly furrowed face was saying such things.
Strangely, I wasn’t very angry at those words. Was it because I didn’t have the energy to get angry at each and every remark? It was something I had prepared for to this extent, but I was consuming all my energy just worrying about whether I could endure what was about to happen to me. Perhaps it was fortunate that I wasn’t shaken as much as expected by his words.
I recalled again why I was standing here. What I came to obtain. What I came to get back. Why I was obediently following what Woo Tae-seon demanded. I thought about that reason again.
I barely managed to spit out a sentence.
“…This is really all I have to do, right?”
I couldn’t go against Woo Tae-seon’s mood.
Woo Tae-seon had proposed, and I had accepted. Though Woo Tae-seon and I might not be in a relationship of much mutual trust, at least for me, it was a promise I had no choice but to believe and had to believe.
“Then do you want to do more?”
Woo Tae-seon exhaled a faint smoke along with a light laugh.
“I’m fine with it.”
Is he really telling me to do more? Without even having a clear idea of what “more” meant, I felt a sudden fear. I carefully observed his manner. Fortunately, it didn’t seem like a question waiting for an answer.
Only after thinking that I should quickly get done with what I was given before the hidden intentions behind his casually thrown words changed in any way did my hesitant hand finally move.
“……”
There wasn’t even a hint of a smile on the face I glanced at. Now the only thing covering my body was a single piece of underwear, but he didn’t seem particularly interested or pleased.
Woo Tae-seon tapped his fingers on his knee. Looking at those fingers pressuring me, I knew that the line he had drawn for me to stop was still far away.
The hand holding the waistband of my drawers rounded down over my buttocks, past my thighs, and at my knees, let go of what it had been holding. The flimsy drawers fell lifelessly to the floor, and I was in between. I stood alone, receiving everything with my whole body amid the cool gaze.
“Now try it.”
It was a very light tone. Laughably so, considering how I had been tormented for days, deliberating hundreds of times day and night without finding a suitable answer.
As if the current situation was nothing, Woo Tae-seon seemed unbothered. I, who couldn’t even get permission for a single piece of clothing, wasn’t a singularity here. Me having to stand naked wasn’t a strange sight in front of Woo Tae-seon. Here, I was no different from an ordinary scene.
I grabbed my limp dick, which was pointing downward, with one hand. I could feel the gaze that had been sweeping from the top of my head to the tip of my toes converging on one spot. I moved my hand slowly, conscious of the gaze following me.
‘Please don’t… tell anyone else.’
Of course, I was the one who had to show my belly first without even being able to bare my canine teeth.
It was courage squeezed out with all my might, but what followed was a suffocating silence. Thinking back now, it seemed like a brief moment. Of course, to me then, even the moment of swallowing saliva felt long.
Even in the same silence, Woo Tae-seon could leisurely contemplate his choice, while I had to desperately cling to a thin rope.
‘I’ll do as you say, teacher.’
‘R…eally?’
I belatedly realized that the moment of silence wasn’t time for Woo Tae-seon to contemplate my fate, but time to firmly instill and subjugate me into our future relationship.
‘Then show me properly.’
‘…Huh?’
Saying he was just curious, Woo Tae-seon had laughed lightly. He laughed like that while looking at me, frozen, unable to close my mouth or open it.
‘I will. I’ll do as you say.’
But even to such a prodding, playful invitation, I had no choice but to respond with a solemn vow. I had to.
Of course, I did consider running away.
But the fact that he was the grandson of the chairman of Seongjin High. The mention of a prestigious family that still produces key figures in the education sector came to mind. Which meant that if I let go here, it wouldn’t simply be leaving one current job.
“No strength? Is it because you don’t have gym clothes?”
Above all, my senior was sitting next to me. I really didn’t want all of this to be known to my senior. I literally hated it more than death.
Unconsciously, a bit more grip was applied to my palm. I could feel my soft dick slowly gaining strength, as if this too was physical stimulation.
No matter how familiar the stimulation, I felt pathetic for so easily igniting in such a cold place. How could I comfortably erect my dick even though I knew the current situation?