The Taste of Lies Chapter 18

He folded one leg and rested it on Youngmin’s thigh. Youngmin, who had been fumbling over his clothes, soon began to touch bare skin.

Their lips parted.

Pulling Sangtae close with both arms, Youngmin smiled brightly. He said.

“Do more.”

“…”

Sour saliva trickled down his throat.

Sangtae sat down with his hips between Youngmin’s wide-spread legs. He pressed close, wrapping his legs around Youngmin’s upper body as if embracing it. And then, he did what he had wanted to do but hadn’t dared to at the moment their lips had parted in reality.

With no trace of playfulness, Sangtae pressed his whole body against him. Kisses done at someone’s request had happened several times, but a kiss he initiated himself was a first. So this was as good as a first kiss. Sangtae lost his composure.

He pulled his T-shirt off over his head. He wanted to press his whole body against Youngmin’s. He took Youngmin’s hand as it fumbled for the buttons of his police uniform, made him grip his waist and hips, and rubbed their groins together as they kissed.

The weight of both of them made the chair back creak. Their pants bulged taut. It felt stifling. Sangtae reached in and pulled out his cock. He rubbed its pink glans, as pink as his flushed cheeks, against the belt buckle engraved with hibiscus flowers and eagles.

…Ah, that feels good.

Sangtae raised his gaze. Youngmin was looking at him with a pained expression around his eyes. Whenever Sangtae’s cock brushed against his chest, Youngmin bit his lower lip, frowning.

His cock too gradually stiffened. Just like his own.

Sangtae was happy. Licking Youngmin’s chin with his tongue, he pulled down the zipper. The cock sprang out, as if he wasn’t even wearing underwear. It felt like even sound effects were accompanying it, and Sangtae laughed.

Holding both cocks together and stroking them made him happier than anything. He couldn’t stop his ragged breaths and moans. When they came at the same time, he felt like he could die happy. This place was heaven. Sangtae stuck out his tongue, licked his palm wet with precum, and pressed his ear to Youngmin’s chest.

That was when the abyss came.

From the chest he pressed his ear to, no heartbeat could be heard.

The pounding pulse belonged to only one person.

“Are you satisfied?”

“…Huh?”

“Now it’s time to wake up.”

Youngmin said. The faint voice from midair sounded like it might have been the shell’s.

Sangtae was exiled back to reality.

His eyes snapped open.

It was a dream. So vivid in every detail that he couldn’t possibly raise his face. Without looking, he knew that the area between his legs, just beginning to cool, had become a mess.

The person who had appeared in his dream was sleeping soundly right next to him, oblivious to the world. In utter despair, Sangtae rubbed his face with his palm. Cold sweat was pouring from his entire body, and he even felt a fishy smell—it was deeply unpleasant.

Careful not to wake Youngmin, he got up. Walking on his heels, he shuffled to the bathroom and turned on the light.

Lifting the waistband of his shorts to check, it was exactly as he’d expected—a complete mess.

“Shameless bastard. No, a brazen bastard.”

Self-loathing washed over him.

The tissues he hadn’t cleaned up in time had led to a wet dream. Just three hours ago, he’d been angry about being misunderstood as having jerked off, insisting that he wasn’t so shameless as to do that while living off someone else’s kindness. Sangtae gripped the sink with both hands and hung his head. He couldn’t muster the nerve to look at himself in the mirror.

He couldn’t deny that he liked Youngmin. It was only natural to admit it.

He was the most handsome person Sangtae had ever seen. His features were on a whole different level from the people of Mukhyeon, who were lucky just to have eyes, nose, and mouth in their proper places.

If it weren’t for the rumor that clung to him like a label—no matter how much he denied it, that he was a concubine’s son—the people of Mukhyeon would have been fighting underground, no, waging war, to marry their daughters off to him. He’d heard more than once at the market or the bus stop the aunties saying that if he weren’t a shaman’s son, they’d let their daughters marry him.

But it wasn’t just his handsome looks, tall stature, and well-toned, solid body. Those external factors weren’t all of Youngmin.

Sangtae was drawn to Youngmin’s dark side. A mixed-race child and an illegitimate child. Both had been abandoned by their biological parents. And on top of that, Youngmin couldn’t leave him alone and had brought him into his home, providing him with food and a place to sleep.

The fact that his birth hadn’t been blessed was a secret between the two of them. No one in Mukhyeon knew.

When walking down the street and hearing people covet Youngmin, Sangtae felt proud of the marks of misfortune stamped on himself and on Youngmin, and on top of that, he was tormented by a vile desire to expose those marks in front of others so they couldn’t set their sights on him. But the only reason he didn’t was purely because of Youngmin.

He didn’t want to make things difficult for him. He didn’t want to make things hard for Youngmin, a police officer who had to deal with people every day, engage in rough verbal sparring, and sometimes even physical fights. He couldn’t repay kindness with betrayal.

The wet dream about Youngmin was the same. This wasn’t right toward someone who had helped him.

Come to think of it, Youngmin had been remarkable to take him in. Self-harm threats, brawls, smoking, and on top of that, attempted solicitation. Even most educators would have run away. Even if it was just a prank done in anger, mixing tongues was, by his own standards, too much.

Self-deprecation and self-loathing washed away with the semen stained on his underwear. Normally, he’d just toss it in the washing machine and let it handle it, but now he couldn’t.

He washed his underwear clean, scrubbing until his fingers were pruney, then rolled them up with his shorts in a dry towel and put them in the washing machine.

He returned to the room with bare legs. As he pulled underwear and pants from the drawer and threaded his legs through them, Youngmin didn’t open his eyes.

Had he taken a sleeping pill?

Kneeling down, Sangtae quietly looked down at Youngmin, then suddenly waved his palm in front of his eyes. He didn’t stir. Sangtae bent down and pressed his ear to Youngmin’s chest.

A pounding heartbeat could be heard. This was clearly reality.

He was relieved it had been a dream he had alone. He was reassured that his true feelings hadn’t been exposed. Wriggling like a grub to slip back under the covers, Sangtae carefully lifted the blanket.

“…Huk!”

He’d just confirmed that this wasn’t a dream, yet an unreal object appeared before his eyes. Through the slightly rolled-up leg opening of Youngmin’s boxers near his thigh, his cock was protruding. It was clearly different from the one Sangtae had held and rubbed in his hand in the dream.

The real cock was much bigger and thicker. Its color was dark reddish, so much so that it looked nothing like a human’s.

“Is this a dream within a dream?”

He couldn’t believe it. Hoping it was a dream, he slapped his own cheek. Smack! At the sharp sound, Youngmin stirred.

“What is it… what’s going on…?”

At the sleepy voice, the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

“Oh. I just went to get some water. My throat… was dry.”

“Stop rustling around and go back to sleep. That’s how you grow tall.”

“I’m, I’m already tall, you know?”

Sangtae turned his back and lay down as if pouting. Youngmin went “yeah, yeah,” pulled the blanket up to Sangtae’s neck, and lay back down himself. Stroking Sangtae’s head with his large hand, he said.

“Let’s go back to sleep.”

As if those words were a spell, his eyes closed smoothly. Sangtae didn’t open his eyes once until the morning sunlight crossed the windowsill. The sensation that there was warmth behind him, belonging only to him, was far sweeter than a spoonful of sugar on his tongue.

∞ ∞ ∞

Morning began. Since Youngmin had been on duty the day before, it was his day off. Able to skip getting ready for work, Youngmin prepared breakfast more leisurely than usual.

“You changed your shorts.”

It was a casual observation, but Sangtae nearly dropped the soybean paste stew he was carrying. As nonchalantly as possible, wearing a scornful smile of disbelief, he shot back.

“What are you talking about? I wore these to bed last night.”

He’d changed in the middle of the night, but anyway, he’d worn them to sleep, so it wasn’t a lie. Shamelessly rationalizing, Sangtae shoved a big spoonful of rice into his mouth.

“When’s your birthday?”

Youngmin asked. The sudden question was an offer of a pact. Sangtae immediately understood it as a suggestion to mutually pretend not to notice the suspicion about his shorts.

“December 30th. Why, you gonna give me a birthday present?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan.”

“Pfft! Cough!”

He’d tried to answer calmly, but ended up choking. The resolve he’d made not to get caught burst out of his mouth along with the grains of rice.