Foot Worship Chapter 2

“I know.”

He was as calm as if he had expected it. Huh…? I hurriedly pushed my chair back and jumped up from my seat. If he’s asking even while knowing I’m a sub, that means he’s a Dom. I clutched my chest as if to hold down my heart, which had started racing wildly. Jerome was observing my actions intently with a face full of composure. I swallowed a dry lump in my throat and carefully opened my mouth.

“A-and, I was wondering. Are you, a D-Dom?”

“Yes.”

At the affirmative answer, I had the illusion that fireworks were going off in my head. Brilliant, five-colored lights were not only making a mess of my mind but stirring it up. I was already out of my mind due to the excessive secretion of dopamine.

“You still haven’t answered my question, do you happen to have a lover or—”

“N-no, I don’t. I don’t.”

I shook both hands to deny it strongly. Then, Jerome’s lips curved softly, drawing a beautiful arc. My whole body trembled at this unbelievable situation. How often does it happen that people feel attracted to each other the moment they meet? And that, too, between a Dominant and a Submissive.

Moving only my eyes, I slowly licked and scanned Jerome from his left shoulder to the opposite side. He probably had a solid body with a moderate amount of muscle tightly bundled together, even if not overgrown like mine. I hoped, if possible, that he was a Dom who would strip completely. My mouth kept going dry. Just as I was about to drink the cold, stale coffee, Jerome reached out and stopped my hand.

“I understand.”

“Pardon?”

“Then, have I been hired?”

“…Pardon? Ah, yes. When can you start—no, wait, you asked if I had a lover. I, I don’t have one.”

“Yes, I see.”

At his monotonous voice, my nerves, which had been pulled taut, went limp as if a string had snapped. I let out a dry laugh because it was so absurd. I had done all the drumming and cymbal-playing by myself, but in the end, it was a dog-like situation where I was left with nothing. What on earth was I expecting? Jerome just looked at me as if watching from the sidelines with no expression.

The anger rising from within surged up to my throat. Whether he knew my feelings or not, he casually took the phone from the table, put it in his pocket, and prepared to leave.

“Please send me the administrator ID and password via email. Then, I’ll be going now.”

“No, wait, a-are you just leaving like this?”

“Yes.”

“You asked if I had a l-lover. But, why… why,”

Suddenly, Jerome stood up, placed both hands on the table and the armrest of the chair I was sitting in, and leaned over. I was pushed back and slumped into my seat because of that. The scent of his cologne settled thickly on the tip of my nose. My breath trembled as rage and excitement mixed together. However, I was so overwhelmed by his presence that I couldn’t say a word.

“Then what do you want me to do? Tell me.”

“…”

“I think it’s been about 15 minutes since we met.”

He rolled up his sleeve to check his wristwatch and leaned in again. Jerome’s breath touched my ear and shattered. My heart was beating uncontrollably, making it hard to breathe. As I swallowed, I choked on my saliva and coughed, and his hand lightly patted my back. No, “touched” was a more appropriate expression. As his palm struck my back, his thumb subtly stroked the lines of my back muscles.

“You have a truly wonderful body.”

“…”

“I was going to back off because I thought it was rude to act like this on a first meeting, so why are you holding onto me?”

“…”

“Do you want me to do this because you want to strip naked in front of me and get slapped?”

I put strength into my thighs and brought my legs together. Every word flowing into my ears seemed to be sucked into my brain. I bit my lips and squeezed my eyes shut. Imagining myself kneeling in front of him and getting slapped made it impossible to hold back any longer. When I opened my eyes to escape the imagination, his teal eyes were staring intently at me.

Jerome pushed the table back and shoved his knees between my parted legs. Hick! I swallowed my breath and stiffened in place.

“Don’t wiggle your body, stay demure. Next time, I’ll make you cum with my own hands.”

∞ ∞ ∞

For a while, I sat still with a vacant look on my face. The more I chewed on my thoughts, the more I felt like I had been played by the man. He only spat out words that stirred me up, but he didn’t say a single thing about what he wanted to do with me or how.

Well, there’s no way such a fantastic Dom would have fallen for a guy like me. I had just jumped to conclusions all by myself. How laughable it must have been for him, a guy who looks like a Dom, to hear that I was a sub. It happens often, but for some reason, I felt more sorrowful than other times. I looked at Jerome’s application on the table, crumpled it up, and threw it to the floor.

Bad bastard. He shouldn’t have left me hanging.

I let out a deep sigh of dejection. I grabbed the bag containing my judogi and headed to the gym. It was better to move my body than to sit still and kill time.

I changed in the locker room and warmed up lightly. I usually tried to clear my head as much as possible when exercising. I tried to focus and use my body because the moment I thought about something else for even a second, it led to injury. There was nothing like exercise to flip the off-switch on a complicated mind.

Having spent two hours dealing with everyone who came at me, I was almost half-dead and rolling on the gym floor by the time I finished my last sparring session. My stamina was a mess because I had taken a break from working out to manage the site.

“Ah… this is fucking hard.”

“Good work, sunbae.”

I didn’t have the energy to respond even to the loud greeting, so I just waved my hand in the air. As I was lying still, closing my eyes and catching my breath, someone kicked my shoulder. I wanted to grab their ankle and trip them, but since the opponent would be off guard, I let it go. Anyway, there was only one person in this gym who would kick me like that.

“Hey, Park Beomjin.”

“…Yes.”

“In judo, you know, it’s not about resisting the opponent’s strong force, but complying with it and using that force to subdue—”

“My head is just complicated. I won’t do it next time.”

Yang Suho, the owner of ‘Suho Judo Gym’, was my direct sunbae. We were in the same weight class, so we sparred a lot and were proud to know each other’s techniques the best. He was a capable athlete who swept gold medals at international competitions, but he retired earlier than the average age due to chronic knee pain and was running the gym. He looked like a ferocious beast on the outside, but on the inside, he was an incredibly soft and pliable person.

“Wash up quickly and get lost.”

“Yes, yes. I’m going.”

“And take this.”

Yang Suho took a white envelope out of his pocket and tossed it toward my head. I struggled to flip over and fiddled with the envelope. It was obvious it contained the gym fee I had sent to his account a little while ago.

“Sunbae, are you uncomfortable with me coming to the gym?”

“What kind of absurd nonsense is that?”

“Then why don’t you take the gym fee?”

“Why would you pay a fee when you only show up once in a blue moon? Shut up.”

Yang Suho pressed his foot onto my shoulder one more time and started sweeping. Ah, that bull-headed stubbornness. As I pursed my lips and grumbled, Yang Suho glared at me with hawk eyes. Thinking I might get hit with a broom if I stayed any longer, I quickly dusted off my butt and stood up.

When I finished my shower and trudged outside, the deep darkness welcomed me. I let out a deep sigh and looked up at the pitch-black sky. Unexpectedly, the face of the man I met earlier today floated up into the starless, pitch-black sky. A hollow laugh leaked past my lips. Even if I were starved, it was too foolish of me to not only feel sexual attraction to a man just 15 minutes after meeting him but to also look forward to what would happen next. I waved my hands in the air as if to erase Jerome’s face.

I took my phone out of the front pocket of my bag containing the judogi and looked at my call history pointlessly before calling Kwon Raewon. Kwon Raewon had been living in the United States all along, but he recently moved to Korea and was learning the ropes of the company. It was only after a long, boring ringtone that I heard his familiar voice.

―Why.

“Drinks.”

―Call.

“Nagunae.”