Sleep With Me
Aside from the occasional brief stop-in, this was the first time he had actually come home to stay since Yuju had moved into the house.
Whether he was simply buried in work or something else, he had not once returned for the night after bringing her here.
His promise that he would keep coming home from now on had been genuine. And Yuju, who understood exactly what those words meant, felt her heartbeat begin to climb at an exponential rate.
I'm not as safe as you think I am.
She had no idea why that line suddenly rose to the surface of her mind. The truth was she knew all too well, which only made her tremble harder. Ever since she had heard him say it, Seo-won—who had already been difficult enough—had become even more so.
Ordinarily, he was hard to approach simply because he stood so high above everyone else, so impossibly impressive. Still, true to form as a friend of her upright, proper older brother, she had always thought of him as a man of integrity and principle.
But that day, for the first time, she had seen a razor-edged look in Seo-won's eyes and a presence that crushed the air out of a room. It had hit her then—that the man she had believed to be so safe was also a man with desire.
Click.
Just the thought of being alone in the same space with Seo-won made Yuju hold her breath. In that moment, a sound cut through her spiraling thoughts.
It was the noise of something being set down nearby. Right after it, she felt Seo-won's hand approaching her. She had steeled herself, and still she flinched without meaning to.
Did he notice?
But his hand was not slipping under the covers. Instead, he smoothed the blanket back into place, covering the legs she had left exposed to the air, and drew it all the way up to her neck so the chill could not reach her.
And then—
Thud.
The next sound was the door closing. After that, not a single trace of him remained.
Sensing something odd, Yuju opened her eyes. She confirmed it again: she was alone in the room.
"What… is this?"
Just that morning he had spoken as if they were about to begin living as husband and wife. And yet he seemed to have simply walked out.
Did he go back to work?
Suspicion prickling at her, she sat up. Soft as a thief, barely breathing, she slipped out of the bedroom.
When she reached the living room, the sound of water was coming from somewhere nearby.
Was that not what he meant when he said he'd start coming home?
He had warned her that he was not safe. He had even brought up contraception. She had taken it to mean he intended to sleep with her, and she had interpreted his words that morning as a signal.
Confronted with a course of action so completely at odds with that reading, Yuju stood frozen in place, trying to make sense of the situation. When she still could not find an answer, she edged closer to the bathroom.
The door was slightly ajar. It looked as if Seo-won had gone in without managing to shut it all the way.
"……!"
Her gaze drifted, almost of its own accord, through the narrow gap. And at the scene laid out before her, her eyes went wide.
Seo-won was in the shower. Completely bare—not a single scrap of clothing on him.
"……."
For a moment, Yuju's mind flashed pure white. She froze so thoroughly she could not even form the thought that she ought to close the door.
People said that when someone was shocked enough, the machinery of thought simply stopped. This was exactly that.
But before long, the panic faded into something else entirely. Her eyes locked onto a man's naked body—one she was, in truth, seeing for the first time.
M-maybe… it would be okay?
It was the instant her fear-filled heart flipped over.
When, in all her life, had Yuju ever had occasion to see a man stripped bare?
And more than that—what she was looking at far exceeded anything she had imagined, so her thoughts could no longer travel in any normal direction.
Beneath broad, powerful shoulders, muscle carved itself in clean, deliberate lines. Even at a glance, it was a solid body—one you could tell would be hard without ever laying a hand on it.
The path from his chest down to his abs called sculpture to mind. Without even realizing what she was doing, Yuju studied Seo-won's body the way one might study a work of art.
A physique like that, the kind you only ever saw in photo spreads, did not seem ordinary. And it was not the only thing that was not ordinary.
She came to a halt mid-motion, as if under a spell. At the unmistakable sight waiting below those taut abs, her face burned scarlet.
That was when it happened.
"You—what the hell."
Seo-won, belatedly registering her presence, spoke in a sharp, clipped voice. Yuju jolted out of her daze and lifted her head.
Yanked free of her fantasy, she finally understood what she had just done.
"I—it was an accident, I'm sorr—"
She was already stumbling backward in a scramble to flee when her feet locked in place.
The arranged marriage was cancelled.
Out of nowhere, the story her brother had told her earlier that day rose to the surface.
The moment she became certain that her own marriage had caused her brother's arranged match to fall through, she made up her mind: from here on, she would do everything a wife was supposed to do with Seo-won.
She wanted her brother to marry someone he truly loved.
She wanted him, even now, to find the work he actually wanted to do.
For that, she felt she could do anything. Because all this time, he had done the same for her.
Yuju calculated just how useful Seo-won would be in securing her brother's freedom. He was a man with the power and influence to bring their father to his knees.
The calculation finished, she simply blurted it out.
"Sleep with me!"
"…What?"
Seo-won forgot even the fact that he was standing naked in front of his friend's little sister and went completely still.
The look on his face said he half-suspected he had misheard—that his ears must be playing tricks on him.
But Yuju meant every word. In those clear eyes, still clouded with shock and fear, a hard resolve had taken root. And ironically, nestled right alongside it was a curiosity she could not quite erase.
"Nngh…"
She strode toward him with surprising boldness. Before the frozen Seo-won could stop her, her lips crashed into his.
Separate from the tremor of stepping into unknown territory, she felt as if she might cry.
Because now that she was the one doing it, she finally understood the heart with which her brother had protected her, the sacrifices he had made.
That every single moment of it had been desperate. Urgent.
"Ah…"
Turning that over in her mind gave her the courage to go further. She bit down on Seo-won's lips—lips still locked rigid by the dreamlike absurdity of the situation. When the pain made his mouth open on reflex, she slipped inside, clumsy and determined.
A hot, wet sensation spread across the tip of her tongue. It was a feeling she had never known in her life. Slowly, the stalled circuits of Seo-won's mind began to light up again.
"Ugh…"
Only then did he seize both of her arms and pull her off him.
She had never stood a chance of matching him in strength. Yuju's whole body lurched in the direction of the force he applied.
Cold tile met her back. His hands pinned her there, binding her so she could not continue.
"Haa…. Ha…"
Above Yuju's head, water still poured from the shower he had not yet turned off. Seo-won shut it off in a hurry.
But she was already soaked through. Her clothes clung to her without a single gap, every line of her body laid bare. He jerked his gaze away.
"Haa…"
It had not been a kiss fierce enough to leave either of them breathless. How could it have been, when she barely knew what she was doing? All she had managed was to press her lips to his, tangle her tongue in a clumsy knot, and sweep through his mouth.
And yet in Seo-won's dark eyes, a thick desire was already rolling. It was like a vast flame. Want—raw, the kind that longed to swallow the other person whole—lived in that look.
And that was not merely Yuju's imagination. In the act of restraining her, their bodies had been pressed flush together.
The hard, unyielding sensation transmitted through skin was unmistakable. Even with no experience to her name, Yuju was not so naive that she failed to understand what it meant.
"What the hell do you think you're doing."
Seo-won fought down the impulse and forced his mind cold. He held his reason by a thread so thin it seemed ready to snap at any second.
But Yuju showed not the slightest intention of helping him keep it.
