You're a Terrible Kisser

I caught his soft lips between mine and drew a shallow breath.

I'm kissing Kang Sa-eon right now.

The thrill was strange, almost ridiculous. I traced the thick column of his neck and the line of his shoulders with careful fingers, eyes lowered. I didn't need to look to know his lashes were trembling in tiny, rapid flutters. Of course they were. He was tense.

He smelled warm, fresh from the shower. A cozy soap scent mixed with some fragrance I couldn't name. Every time I caught this smell from now on, I would remember this moment.

I hesitated over whether to open my eyes. I decided to open them. We weren't the kind of people who closed our eyes and shared body heat. If I kept them shut like this, I would get swept away.

This was just contact. Just a kiss. I couldn't let myself get emotional. I had to stay cold. And yet I couldn't even move the lips pressed against his.

But this was Kang Sa-eon.

Those plump, reddish lips that poured out outrageous remarks the moment they opened. It wasn't as if men wore lip tint, so wasn't it cheating that his skin was so pale while his mouth carried such a healthy flush of color? Even now that he was a fully grown adult, the beautiful boy he'd once been still lingered in that hue.

When I looked up at him from below, when I watched him sitting across from me eating or drinking coffee, I had often imagined kissing those lips. I had been committing betrayal right in front of his face. How shocked would he be if I just clamped my mouth over his? Kang Sa-eon, patience worn to nothing, would finally cut me off for good. That fantasy always followed.

Back in my teens, I had even dreamed of sharing a first kiss with Kang Sa-eon that tasted like green apples. In reality, my first kiss had been stolen by a drunk returning student in a cigarette-stinking alley behind a bar. All that remained of kissing as an act was disgust. Other people's saliva was filthy, their breath stank, and it tasted like salty bar snacks.

But now my chest was simply full. The mere fact that these lips belonged to Kang Sa-eon made me feel like I might cry, just a little. I had finally made it this far.

I lifted my chin and pressed my lips firmly against his, and those plump lips yielded. Lukewarm. Just like with that senior, I couldn't even breathe, afraid the puff of air from my nose would bother him.

I needed to look like I knew what I was doing, but my waist was trembling so hard I thought I might collapse. I wanted to show some boldness—grind my hips against his thighs—but I had only ever kissed three times myself, so I had no idea what to do.

First, uh, I should put my tongue in, right?

I lifted the eyes I'd been keeping down. Kang Sa-eon's meekness was ominous. He had gone still as stone with our lips still pressed together, and I was terrified it was because he had frozen in fear of me. But I couldn't look away forever.

"......"

"......"

Kang Sa-eon neither closed his eyes nor looked away. He was staring at me with pitch-black, sunken eyes, as if he were crushing down a surge of rage. The thrill of kissing the man I had unrequitedly loved for so long lasted only a moment before I felt like a hideous molester. Which, in fact, I wasn't far from being. I was about to pull away quietly when he spoke.

"Are you done?"

Our lips were still touching.

I pulled back a little. Or rather, I tried to. The instant our lips parted, he grabbed the back of my head roughly. Our teeth clacked together. Teeth—no, lips. My front teeth had slammed into his lip. I was so startled I didn't even feel the pain. I was about to say something in my panic when a thick, slick mass of flesh shoved into my mouth.

"Mmph."

Kang Sa-eon inhaled, swallowing my breath. He pressed down on the back of my head and licked along my gums and teeth. His tongue was like a living snake's head. Wet flesh writhing, filling my mouth completely. Ah. I didn't know how to breathe. Unable to get air, my head started going hazy.

"Hah—nngh, nnngh!"

The other person's tongue, licking wildly through my mouth, pressed against the inside of my cheek, and ah—I shoved my sinking hips backward, trying to catch a breath in the gap. But that wasn't a good choice. I hadn't even managed half a breath when the space between my legs pressed against his hard thigh, and I lost my balance. Kang Sa-eon didn't miss the opening. He grabbed my entire head. Both my ears were crushed shut against his huge palms.

Wait. Move— Even my words were swallowed. Instead of licking inside my mouth, Kang Sa-eon seized my recoiling tongue. His thumb pressed into my cheek, forcing my mouth open, and he sucked on my outstretched tongue like it was candy.

It was a brutal kiss.

This wasn't a kiss we were sharing. It was one he was taking, shoving me back one-sidedly. I couldn't breathe, reality slipped away, and I was simply dazed. Technique and sensation didn't matter. He looked like a man who would die if he didn't swallow my tongue. It wouldn't have been strange if I were being eaten alive. With my ears sealed against his palms, the wet sounds—a thick schlick, a dragging shhlurp—crashed like thunder. My senses were razor-sharp, every nerve on edge. Did a wet sound have any right to be this filthy.... He looked ready to drink down every last drop of my saliva.

My tongue hurt so much that tears welled up. I blinked, and my vision cleared a little—and there were Kang Sa-eon's eyes, staring straight through me. More than the sensation of him ransacking my mouth, that gaze clenched tight around something deep in my belly. The shameful, alien feeling of myself growing wet, a slow seep between my legs, locked my whole body rigid.

The strength drained from the hand I'd clamped around his wrist. Kang Sa-eon's tongue traced my teeth and swallowed my lips whole.

Hah. Hah. He was panting every bit as hard as I was.

"It hurts...."

"......"

Could he tell I was shaking? He couldn't. The hands that had been covering my ears dropped onto my shoulders. I thought that was as far as they'd go, but then he grabbed both my arms hard. I couldn't drop my head, so I had to look at him.

His lips were wet and glistening. His weren't particularly swollen, but mine were definitely puffy.

Kang Sa-eon, who'd been glaring at me like he wanted to kill me, grabbed my arms and shoved me back.

"Move."

"Uh, okay...."

Kang Sa-eon didn't just say it. As if he couldn't wait for me to fumble out of the way, he practically lifted me and set me down in the seat beside him, then shot to his feet. He went behind the sofa, putting distance between us, raked his still-damp hair back, and sighed.

The heat drained away fast. It felt like I'd plunged from a sauna straight into a cold plunge.

Kang Sa-eon didn't look even slightly aroused. If anything, he looked furious. He raked his hair back several times, trying to settle himself, but it didn't seem to help much. He stared at me with a cold glare.

"Do middle schoolers do this kind of thing?"

"...Shocking, right. I hear kids these days are all shameless."

Kang Sa-eon muttered something that sounded like a curse, dragging his thumb across his lips. I stared at him like an idiot. This hadn't even been my first kiss, and yet this—this was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. I didn't know kisses like this. Not that I knew all that many, but I couldn't draw a line and call this mere physical contact. The raw sensation of being wrenched open and plundered, of not tongues but the emotions themselves colliding in whole, unprocessed chunks.

"This is nothing to you either, then?"

"At this age, you think I haven't even had a first kiss?"

Kang Sa-eon clicked his tongue. Was he less angry than I'd expected? I looked at him with a flicker of hope, and immediately regretted it. Kang Sa-eon was looking down at me without bothering to hide his disgust. Like he was looking at some easy woman. That... stung a little, unavoidably.

I swallowed the hurt and hid it with practiced ease. That, at least, I was good at.

"You can do it, Sa-eon. You'll get better and better."

Ha. A sharp, hollow laugh burst out of him.

"Min Chae-yoon. There's a limit to treating someone like an idiot."

Yeah. I figured he'd get mad.

"When did I."

Don't make such a fuss over a kiss. I needed to make it clear that there was no ulterior motive, no hidden agenda in this act, but my mouth wouldn't open. As I fumbled, Kang Sa-eon snapped at me.

"You like this?"

"......"

"You like turning me into a wreck?"

"Do I look like that's what I'm doing?"

Who the hell would go this far just to mess with someone.

When I shot back without backing down, Kang Sa-eon just furrowed his brow in silence. I dusted myself off, stood up, and walked over to him. Whether he was on guard or actually scared, he tensed up awkwardly. I rose onto my toes the way he'd done to me and pulled him down by the nape of his neck. Surprisingly, he came. I kissed his lips quickly, then stared him dead in the eye and said,

"You're a really terrible kisser."

"Min Chae-yoon, you...!"

That was the truth. I'd thought he was going to rip my tongue out.