“I’m fine, though.”
“You’re not fine. You know now. I lied to you a lot. A huge, huge amount.”
“…Yes.”
“You can meet a better person than me. It’s just that I’ve been next to you for too long and gotten comfortable, and you haven’t met many people yet, so you’re drawn to me out of habit. And, me hitting on you as the Grey Coat was… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… No, I did mean to… I won’t do it anymore. I won’t wish for a kiss or sex. So.”
“Taehwan.”
Jehee, who had been listening quietly to my rambling, gently cupped my cheeks with the hands that had been tracing my features, and stroked my eyelids with her thumbs.
I wanted to immediately grab her wrists and cover her palms with kisses, but I held back, biting my lip hard.
“I’ve met a lot of people. I’ve made many colleagues, I have many people I can call close, and many people like me. People recognize me on the street, talk to me, and wave to me warmly.”
“…”
“But the only one I love is you.”
Without my wishing for it, Jehee first put her hand on my lips.
She put strength into the hand holding my cheek and pulled me toward her fiercely.
Very lightly, Jehee’s lips brushed mine. Soft, plump, and warm.
“The only person I want to kiss and have sex with is you.”
Inside the Gate, where everything was pitch black, I was sure.
That the Jehee looking at me now was smiling.
With the face I loved most in the world.
In a way that was undeservedly lovely.
“Taehwan, let’s be a couple.”
“…”
“It’s because I feel like I can’t live without you.”
That was a lie.
Jung Jehee could live without me.
Jehee was brave, smart, diligent, and lovely; she would attract good people around her even if it weren’t me, so she would somehow overcome it.
In the relationship between her and me, the one who couldn’t endure without the other was me.
I hadn’t just cared for Jehee for the past thirteen years solely for her sake.
I clung to Jehee to save myself.
I desperately stuck to her, even resorting to lies, begging her not to leave me.
“Look. When I’m with you, I’m not afraid even if it’s dark. I’ll overcome everything. So…”
Even now, it was the same.
Jung Jehee was willing to overcome even her trauma for me.
Someone so strong and resolute wouldn’t be tied down by me.
But knowing this, and because I knew it, I wanted to believe in Jehee’s strength.
If the resolute Jehee insisted on choosing me… wouldn’t I deserve a chance, just this once?
That thought gave me hope.
“Kiss me, Taehwan.”
This time, I couldn’t hold back.
I immediately seized Jehee’s lips.
I could do it even without seeing.
Because I had seen, touched, and felt Jehee countless times, from her head to her toes, and engraved her onto my mind and body.
As I pressed my lips against hers as if to devour them, Jehee’s lips parted as if she had been waiting, and her two arms wrapped around my neck.
As if inviting me to enter deeper, as if welcoming me.
“Haa… Ung.”
I tilted my head and eagerly delved into Jehee’s mouth.
However… the kiss we were sharing today had a subtly salty taste.
To be precise, something that tasted like that kept seeping between our lips.
Jehee’s cheeks were already dry, without a single tear drop left.
But why…, just as I thought that, I finally realized that I was crying.
I wanted to stop the tears, but if it were possible to do so simply by wishing, I wouldn’t have cried in the first place.
The emotions that had already exploded were not easily calmed.
At least the surroundings were dark, and perhaps Jehee was without her sight, so I was fortunate that she couldn’t clearly see my crying face.
When I didn’t stop crying easily, Jehee kissed my cheek and eyes several times as if to tell me not to cry, but ungratefully, I not only failed to stop crying but only greedily explored the lips that were trying to soothe me.
“Eup, uh-ung. Heu.”
I held her trembling body in my arms, pressing our lips together tightly until they felt mashed, as my breath became increasingly insufficient.
I tilted my head so that both saliva and tears flowed into Jehee’s mouth, and she intermittently swallowed with a gulp, gulp.
Then, she opened her mouth and let out a hot breath, ‘Haa’, as if yearning for something.
“Taehwan.”
“…Ung.”
“Put it inside.”
The question of what, and where inside, flashed through my mind, but I didn’t need to hear it to know the answer already.
Because I was craving the same thing.
I immediately unzipped Jehee’s pants, and Jehee put her hand on my pants too.
Jehee’s buttocks, one of the few fleshy parts of her body, were quickly grasped by my hands.
Even without seeing, their white, round shape was clearly etched in my mind.
My already heated body grew even hotter.
Because I knew what it felt like to be inside her.
Although several months had passed, I remembered it clearly, as if it were just yesterday.
Because of that, I had to compose myself.
I put my finger in my mouth, wet it with saliva, and slid my middle finger to the inside of her buttock crease, rubbing it against her opening, when the arm around my neck tensed.
As if scolding me that this action was not allowed.
“You don’t have to loosen me up… Just quickly, quickly…”
She urged me on as if she were impatient, but I knew.
Jehee was still maintaining a stiff posture. If she could move her legs, she wouldn’t be like this.
The sensation I felt when I touched her opening, which I mistook for a reaction, must have been purely a coincidence.
My chest felt constrained.
Was there any meaning in continuing this act if Jehee couldn’t feel it?
Wouldn’t it just turn into a situation where I was one-sidedly satisfying my desires on Jehee?
Realizing that this wasn’t the right time, I tried to pull my finger away, but Jehee put her lips to my ear and whispered.
“Quickly put yours inside.”
“…No.”
“It won’t hurt anyway. It’s okay. Quickly.”
“No. It might hurt later.”
“I told you it’s okay!”
A resentful fist pounded on me, and she even chewed on my earlobe, but I couldn’t back down either.
I couldn’t just blindly trust and follow Jehee’s judgment right now.
I shouldn’t.
She was already someone who prioritized me over her own safety and pain, and especially now, just like in the mountain, she seemed to still lack sensation in her lower body.
The fact that she wasn’t even letting out a moan despite me touching her prostate, and her front barely reacted, suggested this was true.
…Was it okay to have sex with Jehee like this? Should I really stop right now?
“Taehwan, please. Hurry.”
I was struggling to control myself, repeatedly deliberating with a mind flushed with desire, but Jehee was the one who endlessly urged me.
She couldn’t move her lower body, but she grabbed mine with her hand and tried to force it in, which made my mind momentarily spin.
I swallowed my breath and barely managed to answer.
“Alright. Alright, fine.”
Because Jehee’s hand had touched me, I could no longer hold out.
And truthfully, no matter how much I stretched her with my fingers, Jehee’s opening would quickly become tight again, making the act pointless.
Eventually, I gave up on the process of preparing her with my fingers, only dropped saliva onto my penis to smear it on, and tightly gripped Jehee’s waist.
“…Tell me if it hurts. And be sure to tell me if you want to stop.”
“Ung. …Aah.”
Was this a coincidence again?
The moment I pushed myself into Jehee’s inside, her body flinched greatly.
The arm hugging my neck also gripped me tightly.
But since only her upper body flinched, it seemed she still lacked sensation in her lower body.
That fact bothered me like a sharp thorn, but that level of guilt couldn’t quell the heat that had spread through my entire body.
Jehee was snugly accepting me into her opening, which was so tight that it could be believed this was her first time.
Even though insertion, with only saliva as lubrication, must have been difficult, she breathed in shallow gasps, hugging my neck with one arm, while the other hand repeatedly fumbled over her own stomach.
As if to check if I was completely inside her.
Or as if urging me to hurry and enter.
“Hut, haa…”
“…Am I, all the way in?”
“…”
“Aat. Ah!”
I couldn’t stop in the end.
I firmly pressed down on Jehee’s waist and drove myself all the way in.
Then, through my extremely sensitive glans, I could feel Jehee’s fingertips, however slightly, over her belly skin.
“Heu, I’m all the way in.”
Feeling the tight, hot Jehee, I tried to quell the raging desire that felt like it would explode at any moment, but the moment I heard her whispering, ‘It’s Taehwan’, while smiling sweetly and stroking me where I was embedded deep inside her belly, I failed.
Eventually, my head caught fire.
A huge fire.
By the time my head, flushed red like a hot iron, was able to do something called ‘thinking,’ I was already wildly thrusting myself into Jehee’s inside.
