Damn! Damn! Chapter 40

Achim marveled at the face anew, but catching Nils’s eye, he belatedly snapped back to reality and gave a nod.

It looked hideous, but just as the man said, it hadn’t exactly been painful, and in truth, Achim hadn’t even had the mental capacity to interpret the words at the time. Moreover, since his goal was to rescue Nils, who had given him a helping hand, Achim put off further thought and nodded once more.

Meanwhile, Nils’s face had grown even gloomier than before.

That bastard. He had gone out of his way to save the mate’s life twice now, so why on earth did he look like he had just chewed on a piece of crap?

Ah, could he have noticed the relationship between the guy and him? If that was the case, it saved him the trouble of explaining separately, so it might actually be for the better. Above all, he didn’t have the energy to peer into anyone else’s mind right now, so Achim decided to stop his thoughts there.

He had intended to at least thank him for the concern, but because a lingering stare that made his cheeks sting kept landing on him, Achim gave up on even that.

Crazy bastard. Achim clicked his tongue inwardly and simply gave a light bow toward Nils.

It was just as Achim grabbed the back of Michael’s arm with the intention of walking away immediately. The stare that had been fixed on his cheek dropped straight down like a vertical fall. Watching him quietly, the line of his lips curved into a beautiful arc, and Michael’s face once again turned into a smiling facade.

Why does this crazy bastard keep smiling? For some reason, a wave of resentment washed over him, making Achim take a step forward irritably.

As he moved his feet while holding the back of the arm, Michael followed along submissively for a rare change. That part felt unsettling, but getting out of this spot was the priority for now.

Terrified that he might lose his grip, Achim held onto Michael tightly and kept walking until they were completely out of Nils’s line of sight.

Should be far enough now. The exact moment Achim tried to glance back, the arm he was holding slithered right out of his grasp, and in reverse, his own wrist was gripped and twisted in a firm lock.

He didn’t even have a moment to realize what was happening. As their positions reversed in an instant, Achim let out a dumb sound, “Uh,” before being pulled along as if sucked in by a powerful force.

“Ugh!”

Achim let out a groan as his back collided with the hard building wall.

“You.”

It was before he could even open his automatically closed eyes. A deeply settled voice dropped right over his forehead.

“Don’t test my patience.”

Patience or whatever, the shoulder that hit the cement wall was hurting like hell. Dammit. Achim swallowed a curse inwardly and massaged his opposite shoulder with his free hand.

Right then, Michael abruptly leaned his face in, forcing Achim’s head back as if it were about to be slammed into the wall. Michael looked back and forth between Achim’s two eyes and spat out words with the exact same smiling face he had worn until a moment ago.

“You seem to be misunderstanding something.”

“…”

“You’d better not even try to think that I’ll fall for that pathetic lie.”

He firmly pressed the back of Achim’s hand, which he was holding, against the wall. Between each finger, he slowly intertwined his own.

“Whatever the case, if I did happen to fall for your lie…”

Michael then tightly closed his grip. It was an immense amount of grip strength. Achim’s face contorted at the pain that felt like his finger bones were about to be crushed.

When an uncontainable groan slipped from between his teeth, Michael paused his words for a moment as if listening to the sound, before resuming again.

“I chose to play along. It wasn’t that your flimsy lie actually worked.”

Achim endured the pain and stared clearly into the uniquely colored eyes.

This is why I shouldn’t do things I don’t normally do. It felt like he had brought a headache upon himself just to save a single innocent person.

As Achim merely stared back in silence with belated regret, the man curved the corners of his eyes and slowly relaxed the strength in his hand. Then, he brought Achim’s hand, which he had just held as if to crush it, up in front of himself.

“You know it too, that I treat you specially.”

“…”

Hadn’t he been trying to break his fingers just a second ago? Wondering if that carried some special meaning to him, Achim lost all will to talk back.

“So…”

Michael lowered his head slightly and lifted his eyes to look up at him.

“Stop making me feel like absolute shit.”

“…”

Achim hesitated to answer. He didn’t have the confidence that he wouldn’t make the man feel like absolute shit in the future.

What should I do? Hadn’t the man just told him not to lie? Just as Achim was hesitating over whether he should tell one last lie—

Michael, who had brought Achim’s gripped hand in front of his eyes, half-closed his eyelids and pressed a long kiss against his palm.

At the sensation that made his skin prickle, Achim tightly shut his eyes before opening them again. When he made eye contact with him through his parted fingers, it felt ticklish and bizarre for some reason, causing Achim to frown deeply and yank his hand back.

Son of a bitch. Achim chewed on a curse inwardly, but nodded his head as if submitting.

🖤🥀

“Achim, why the hell do you look like that?”

As Linus spoke, his eyes were fixed on the area around Achim’s neck.

Achim swept a hand down his nape once, claimed a corner of the table where Linus was sitting, and asked:

“Where’s the beer?”

“Gotta order it.”

“Right.”

Achim raised his hand and ordered two glasses of beer.

It was right after finishing the simple order. An unfitting silence fell between the two. In truth, there was plenty to say, but because he knew exactly what Linus would bring up first, Achim hesitated to part his lips.

“Babe.”

“…”

At Linus’s call, Achim forced his gaze, which he had deliberately kept to the side, back to the front.

“How much is it?”

“…”

“Ten days, ten days…”

As if he hadn’t expected an answer, Linus suddenly began counting the days.

When Achim tilted his head at the meaningless behavior, Linus suddenly covered his eyes with his palm and let out a deep sigh.

Did something happen? It was right when Achim was thinking this, watching the mate look uncharacteristically serious.

“What a waste!”

Linus abruptly shouted. Because he spoke loudly while slamming his hand down on the solid wood table, the attention of the people around them gathered on them.

Right around when Achim, whose mouth was half-forced shut by a scene that felt like he had witnessed somewhere before, was tracing through his memories, Linus made another loud outburst.

“I could have won the bet!”

Linus lamented, rubbing his face with both hands as if genuinely devastated.

“It was fifteen days, Achim! Why couldn’t you have just slept with that man a bit sooner…?”

“…”

At those words, Achim moved his hand without a sound. His right hand, which had shifted to the side, gripped one of the legs of the wooden stool.

Achim stood straight up from his seat while holding the stool leg. At the sound of the chair scraping against the wooden floor, Linus finally lifted his eyes.

Belatedly grasping the gravity of the situation, Linus hesitated and lifted his hips from his seat, following Achim’s lead.

“U-Uh, babe. C-Calm down.”

Achim readjusted his grip tightly on the stool leg as if he was about to hurl it right this second.

“Fuck… I didn’t…”

Achim added some words after spitting out a curse, but because the surroundings had grown noisy again, it was hard to hear clearly. At that, Linus braced himself for a flying chair and asked back, prompting Achim to yell at the top of his lungs with an still bloodthirsty expression.

“I didn’t sleep with him!”

“…”

“I didn’t do it with that bastard, with that psychopathic prick. Fuck, I’m telling you I wasn’t penetrated. My back is perfectly fine!”

The exact moment he shouted, a dead silence fell. To be precise, from the very instant Achim opened his mouth.

At the open and overly kind explanation that his backside was safe, the gazes of the men nearby shifted directly toward Achim’s lower half.

“…”

Dammit. Noticing the stares from the surroundings, Achim muttered another curse and had no choice but to sit back down.

“Then what are those marks?”

Taking advantage of the moment Achim set the chair down, Linus wiped the sweat from his forehead and asked.

“Didn’t that man leave them?”

Achim couldn’t bring himself to answer and merely let out a long sigh.

Once Achim’s hand completely fell away from the stool, Linus sat down with him as if relieved and asked:

“You said the scandal isn’t real, but it also is. Achim, what on earth happened?”

“Haa…”

Achim pressed a hand to his throbbing forehead. He didn’t know where to begin or how to explain everything he had been through during that time.

“First of all, it’s true that he left those marks.”

“…”

“…I told you we didn’t sleep together. Don’t look at me like that, Linus. It makes me want to find something to throw at you.”

Linus, who had been looking at Achim with eyes full of suspicion, let out a startled “Whoops!” and adjusted his gaze.