Strategic Mating Partner Chapter 40

It was not as if he was trying to claim ownership just because they had slept together. It was just that there was such a thing as moral principle. He felt that even if they did not have such feelings for each other, it was not right for a third party to get involved when one had a partner with whom they were supposed to be sleeping. He himself could just draw a line and push people away as he had always done, but Sejin might not be able to do such a thing well. It was a suggestion to come to an agreement beforehand to prevent a situation like a lover’s quarrel from occurring. At least until this relationship came to an end, so that they would not have to see each other with flushed, angry faces.

The other clauses were much the same. Kissing felt too much like what lovers do. Leaving marks would be uncomfortable since they might have to use shared facilities like a shower room, and it would be embarrassing if a situation arose. The remaining two were nothing short of common sense. He had merely bothered to document them as a preventive measure to avoid any unnecessary misunderstandings between them.

Rather, Taehyun was bothered by the fact that Sejin’s list of demands was practically nonexistent. He remembered how Sejin had wanted to touch his dick when they first met at the hotel, so he had told him to write down anything he wanted to do, but it was anticlimactic enough to be a letdown that it was all just two simple sentences.

“Are you really okay with just that? Is there nothing you want to do? It’s fine even if it’s something you’d be too embarrassed to tell a lover.”

What’s there to lose in terms of image at this point, between us. Taehyun asked, omitting the latter sentence. At Taehyun’s words, Sejin flinched for a moment and frowned before answering.

“Not really… I don’t have anything like that.”

At the fastidious answer, Taehyun felt the urge to tease Sejin.

“Why, there must be at least one thing. Like a preference for wearing some strange clothes, or a place you want to do it…”

At that, Sejin immediately looked utterly disgusted.

“Why would anyone like that. Am I a pervert?”

“No, one of my ex-girlfriends asked if we could do it while she wore a national team uniform. I heard there are a lot of people whose feti… fetich? or something like that is a dobok. You can have preferences without being a pervert.”

Taehyun couldn’t help but laugh even as he hurriedly added that. Sejin, who until a moment ago had been maintaining a rather prim, ice-princess-like composure, was now scowling with his face blotched with red. The contrast was, how should I put it, he knew it was a mean-spirited preference, but it was also a bit funny and cute, making him want to tease him more.

“A preference for things like hands or feet is pretty common, right? You don’t have anything like that? We’ll be doing it a lot anyway, once every three or four days, so it would be a problem if we get bored in the middle.”

It seemed like a frequency that even lovers who were head-over-heels for each other might get a bit tired of. When Taehyun asked nonchalantly, Sejin, still not hiding his displeasure, asked back.

“What about you, hyung?”

“Me?”

Taehyun paused for a moment to think at the unexpected counterattack. Let’s see…. Taehyun was not fundamentally the type to have strong sexual desires. His overflowing energy was naturally expended by working out all day, so there was nothing you could call sexual frustration. When it occasionally built up, he could just resolve it by masturbating while having some lewd thoughts. What do I usually think about…. Taehyun quietly tried to recall.

Although he was the type who did not care about the partner’s secondary gender or biological sex, he did have a preferred ideal type. Perhaps because he had lived for a long time as a sturdy Korean man, regardless of his secondary gender, he preferred women a little more than men. Taehyun had presented as an Omega around the time he was in high school, and until then, he had lived his life believing he had firm heterosexual preferences. He’d heard there were men in the world who could get pregnant, and there was a time when he had vaguely found it fascinating during sex education class when they explained secondary genders, wondering if it was something like being a hermaphrodite.

It was only after he became a high school student that he realized, oh for fuck’s sake, that’s me; although he was bewildered, he was more curious than despairing at the fact that a male omega’s anus could also function like a second sexual organ. When he actually tried using it, it was not a particularly moving experience, so it ended up being a letdown, but he had never experienced any discrimination, as it was an era where it was not impossible for even lifelong married couples to completely hide their secondary gender.

Of course, since the majority of the population was Beta, there were times when stories about prejudices against Omegas would fly into his ears, but he could just pretend not to know. In fact, because of his tall and sturdy build, as well as his masculine features, many people mistook him for an Alpha, though Taehyun never revealed it. In any case, because his identity as a man was stronger than his awareness as an Omega—to hell with secondary genders and all that—Taehyun only used his front when he relieved his desires by himself. Naturally, what he imagined in his head was a soft and full chest, not a man’s body. So, well…. There was no way Sejin could satisfy the preferences Taehyun had. To put it bluntly, his own chest was bigger.

“I don’t really have any either.”

Until now, it had been the norm for him to accommodate the other person’s preferences, so nothing else came to Taehyun’s mind either. If he had to name an ideal type as a partner, rather than a sexual preference, was it the innocent type? Someone with pale skin, and glossy, straight black hair…. Upon thinking that far, Sejin’s face came into view.

A prim-looking, innocent yet glamorous impression, and straight black hair… that much was correct. The fact that he was a man and not a woman was a rather significant difference, though. Taehyun let out a pfft, a burst of laughter without realizing it. Sejin immediately frowned and asked.

“Why are you laughing?”

“No, it’s just….”

Is it okay to say this? Taehyun was the type who, when faced with a choice of whether to say something or not, would usually commit the former, and this time too, he could not resist running his mouth.

“I was just thinking that I guess I like people with pale skin.”

It was not exactly something he would call a complex, but Taehyun maintained a relatively healthy-looking skin tone. When he was young, there was no such thing as sunscreen, so in every remaining photo, he had a face like a golden-brown piece of toast. As he got older, he no longer had to do outdoor activities like back then, and the dojang master’s wife also took care of him, so it never happened again, but even now, Taehyun was far from having a pale and milky-white image. It was more of a natural and firm look. Maybe that was why he was fascinated by people like Sejin, who were born as white as snow. The impulse to touch that skin, which looked so soft unlike his own, would sometimes rise. Though he had never put it into practice. In that sense, Sejin could be called a partner who satisfied Taehyun’s preferences in his own way without doing anything.

“……!?”

At Taehyun’s incomprehensible words, Sejin’s face instantly turned red. Taehyun found even that expression funny and cute, and ahaha, he finally burst into laughter and explained.

“So you don’t have to worry about catering to me. Other than that, I don’t have what you’d call preferences in the first place.”

“……”

And you wouldn’t be able to satisfy them anyway. As Taehyun lightly curled the corners of his lips, Sejin nodded with a somewhat dejected expression.

“Anyway, for that reason, I don’t have anything I particularly dislike either, so we can just figure it out as we go. We might think of something we want to do as we do it.”

Taehyun glanced down at the piece of paper on the table and added one more thing.

“Oh, and. They say it’s better for pheromone absorption to just do it, so I took my medicine today.”

At the sentence he threw out as casually as if he were talking about tomorrow’s lunch menu, Sejin’s eyes filled with bewilderment.

“Why the medicine….”

“Ah, not the pheromone suppressant, the birth control pill. They said it works on a different principle from pheromones, so it has nothing to do with pheromone secretion.”

He even had to make several calls to the pharmacy to purchase a type that was safe for an athlete to take. After finally finding and buying it, he was still worried that it might contain an ingredient he was not aware of and that he might fail a doping test, so he ended up contacting the national team’s doctor to confirm. Only after receiving confirmation that it was a drug that had no effect on pheromones and had no known side effects on athletic function could he take it with peace of mind. Taehyun explained to Sejin, who was still flushed and red-faced with surprise.

“So we don’t have to use a condom.”

Simply put, it meant let’s just do it. Sejin, realizing the meaning of his words, once again turned the back of his neck bright red. Taehyun went puhaha, bursting into laughter again as he teased Sejin.

“Why, are you excited at the thought of doing it raw?”

At that, Sejin whipped his head away and covered his face with the back of his hand.

“…Stop teasing me.”

But what can I do. You’re the type that’s so fun to tease that I can’t help myself. Taehyun curled the corners of his lips up and stood up from his seat. Sejin went swoosh, looking up at the standing Taehyun and hesitating before he asked.