Chapter 06
It was impossible to take his words—asking her to stay the night—as simply meaning, “I’ll give you a room, so get some sleep and go to Seoul tomorrow.” The look in his eyes, his tone, his voice—everything shook Jisu without mercy.
Even more so because the person who said it was excessively handsome, because she had received his help and kindness from the afternoon until now, because he had called her mother “mother-in-law,” and because it was now quite deep into the night.
All the circumstances were too clear to dismiss as a misunderstanding, so Jisu couldn’t say anything and only chewed her lips. She didn’t even want to ask the stupid question of whether he really meant just sleeping.
His car stopped in his garage, and Jaegyeom turned his body fully to look at Jisu.
“You’re going to dump the piece of trash, right?”
Jisu easily understood that the piece of trash he was talking about wasn’t the faded compact car parked in his repair shop. Jaegyeom continued as if it hadn’t been a question requiring an answer.
“Actually, it was already over the moment that bastard left you here and took a taxi. I can just be your new boyfriend. I’ve already greeted your mother, after all.”
“That’s, that’s not such an easy thing.”
“What’s hard about it?”
“We don’t, we don’t know anything about each other…….”
Jaegyeom took out his wallet and placed his ID in Jisu’s hand. Along with the words that she should keep it.
Yoon Jaegyeom. Born in the same year as her, a citizen of the Republic of Korea. In the photo was a version of him from a few years ago with slightly shorter hair.
“I graduated from Gyechon High School, run a repair shop in the town, and I’m Yoon Jaegyeom. You’ve already seen my house, and I roughly explained my family situation earlier.”
“…….”
“You’re Lim Jisu, a Gyechon High graduate. You work at a company in Seoul, and you’re Gyechon’s pride.”
“That…… stop saying ‘pride.'”
“Then what should I call you? Jisu.”
When he met her gaze and lowly recited her name, Jisu felt her heart clench. She wanted to demand why he called her name like that, but even she herself didn’t know what that “like that” was. An instinctive sense of danger followed—that she shouldn’t dig into his feelings.
Of course, just as Jaegyeom said, Kim Yeongbaek was a relationship that had ended today. But the end with Kim Yeongbaek didn’t mean the same thing as “now starting with Yoon Jaegyeom.” She had never begun any human relationship surrounding her in such a sudden way.
Not knowing whether it was courage or recklessness, she took the hand he offered and followed him. She never would have guessed that at the end of the most absurd day of her life, the most dramatic night awaited. Standing beneath the pouring stream of water, Jisu cleanly emptied her brain. She decided not to think about anything.
After washing for quite a long time, Jisu headed to his bedroom on her own.
She was wearing only a shower robe that belonged to Jaegyeom, one far too big for her body. With hair not yet dry and cheeks flushed, she stood facing Jaegyeom and courageously opened her mouth. She couldn’t help her voice trembling.
“Yoon Jaegyeom. I, it’s my first time. This kind of thing, I don’t really know how to do it.”
Unable to handle his answer, his expression, or anything else, Jisu rushed at his lips like she was headbutting him the moment she spat out what she had to say. It was a violent first kiss that made a “thud” rather than a “peck.”
“Is this an attack?”
“It’s not!”
Jaegyeom embraced Jisu, whose eyes were squeezed shut. He laid her on the bed and gently stroked around her eyes with his fingertips. Jisu slowly lifted her eyelids. Their gazes intertwined warmly, holding a suitable tension.
“You’re this brave for your first time?”
“Um…… could you not say anything?”
“All right. I’ll shut up and do what I have to do.”
Unable to believe that Jisu was lying in his bed, Jaegyeom watched her quietly for a long time.
It was the day his first love, kept only in his heart for so long, dropped down like a Christmas present, unsuited to the sweltering heat.
Even her stubborn expression, refusing to give a positive answer to any words meant to properly define their future relationship, was cute. Lim Jisu probably wanted to dismiss what happened today as a simple happenstance.
After saying he would do what he had to do, he had only been looking down from above, so Jisu swallowed and asked again.
“Aren’t you…… going to do it?”
“As if I wouldn’t.”
As if it had been a lie that he had only looked at her plainly until just now, Jaegyeom’s touch began persistently exploring Jisu’s soft skin. The knot of the robe came loose helplessly. The moment everything was revealed under Jaegyeom’s unobstructed gaze, Jisu chose a different method than covering herself out of shame.
Jisu’s slender fingers dug into Jaegyeom’s hair. Then, when she softly pressed her lips to his first, as if he had been waiting, his hot, soft inner flesh boldly and sensually swept over the red, tender mucosa inside Jisu’s lips.
It was a kiss that made every cell and sense composing her body feel as if they had all floated up into empty air at once. Jaegyeom’s unhesitating movements quickly made Jisu, who had been frozen with tension, languid, and then made her hold him tight as if afraid she might fall. The man’s firm bare body touched hers without any hesitation, as if covering her. And his large hand made Jisu a little more aroused.
“Ah…….”
Jaegyeom’s fingertips touched a place she had never permitted to anyone. His lips, too, as if branding her, passed her ears and neck and left pink marks one by one below. Jisu’s moan, sounding as if she were ill, soon rose in pitch.
Before new stimulation she had never experienced, the thought of telling him to stop or to quit didn’t even occur to her. Every part Jaegyeom brought down made Jisu feel good and made her more excited. It was around the time she didn’t know how much she had lost her reason under his touch.
“Lim Jisu.”
“Mmm…….”
“Allow me.”
It was a low voice that seemed to give himself one last chance to stop before becoming a beast. Jisu, so steeped in pleasure that she didn’t even know she was crying, barely opened her eyes and looked up at Jaegyeom. She didn’t dislike the sight of the man desiring her. Permission—hadn’t she already given it? Did he not know?
“Jaegyeom. Hurry.”
At the urging that went beyond permission, Jaegyeom finally overlapped his body as if he had resolved himself. Jisu trembled at the destructive thrill that crashed over her like a tsunami. Until dawn, Jaegyeom made Jisu cry all night long and kept her awake with ragged breaths.
Before falling asleep in each other’s arms after the long night passed, Jaegyeom whispered sweetly into Jisu’s ear.
“Jisu. Not ‘pride’—I thought of what to call you.”
It seemed like something she shouldn’t hear, but then again, what great difference would hearing this one thing make in a day that had already been entirely arbitrary? In a voice completely worn out, she deliberately asked lightly.
“What is it?”
“First love.”
Startled by the sudden appearance of the word, Jisu buried her face in Jaegyeom’s arms and began pretending to be asleep. As if he knew all of Jisu’s thoughts, Jaegyeom held her closer with his hot heart and closed his eyes as if following along.
“How loud the sound of your brain spinning is, worrying about when and how to run away, Lim Jisu.”
“…….”
“Wow. You don’t even make excuses denying it. Pretty bold?”
Just as Jaegyeom said, Jisu had planned to wake at dawn and run away. But she failed spectacularly.
It was a night where sickeningly good and absurdly unbearable kept alternating, and moments of willingly accepting and then shuddering from how hard it was continued persistently. Amid the repetition of stimulation she had never experienced before, Lim Jisu, who usually woke well in the morning even without an alarm, slept deeply and late as if she had never existed.
Jisu, who had gotten up alone from the bed, saw her clothes bag that Jaegyeom had brought from the car and let out a disbelieving laugh. She was grateful that he had thought to put clothes to change into in there, but that was one thing—there was a Post-it attached.
[Don’t think about running away, come out to eat.]
