The Heat That Wouldn't Fade

I stayed up all night with my eyes wide open.

Lying in the guest room, I couldn't hold out long and wandered out to the living room. The heat boiling up from deep inside my body refused to fade. It couldn't possibly be a tropical night in October, so this was entirely my own problem. Still, if I'd had my way, I would have shoved my entire body into a freezer. Maybe then it would cool down a little.

The moment I closed my eyes, the sensation of Min Chae-yoon's lips rose up. I had never known the mucous membrane inside a person's mouth could feel so smooth. When I licked it with my tongue, the thin surface seemed to cling right back. Human saliva isn't sweet, yet an unbelievably sweet sensation threw my brain into delirium. I wanted to lick without end, to suck, to taste even deeper inside.

And her teeth—neat, small, hard little teeth brushing the tip of my tongue—easily stoked the fire in my gut. The soft-yet-firm roof of her mouth, her plump tongue, and above all her breath, her breathing…

Min Chae-yoon, do you have diabetes?

Truthfully, I couldn't tell about the taste. The sweetness wasn't a flavor; it was a sensation. It felt like boiled sugar syrup coating my insides, sticky and clinging.

Min Chae-yoon was on my bed.

Wrapped snugly in a thick winter comforter, she slept soundly, oblivious to the turmoil she had left inside me.

Sitting on the living-room sofa, I suddenly stood up, wanting to give Min Chae-yoon—who had turned my insides upside down—a piece of my mind. This bizarre heat had clearly been caught from her.

…I'm used to it, is that it?

It wasn't even a first kiss.

Of course not. We're thirty-three.

I knew it was strange that I had reached this age with no experience. But just imagining a woman leaning into me, clinging, pushing those caterpillar-like lips toward mine made every drop of blood in my body run cold. Far from excitement, it brought nausea and cold sweat. The same with men.

It had been my first kiss. It hadn't been yours, of course.

Even back in university she seemed to have a boyfriend. Min Chae-yoon flipped her phone face-down when it rang, but the name on the screen was a man's, and childishly a little heart sat at the end of it. And with the guy she'd walked around arm-in-arm with a few years ago—surely they'd at least kissed. Of course they'd done more than that…

So she'd press her face against a man's thigh! Because she was used to it.

Even after we kissed, Min Chae-yoon stayed perfectly composed. Her breathing was a little rough. She seemed startled that I would lunge at her, but after blinking a few times even that flicker of agitation vanished.

She had looked down on me.

Did she think I'd tuck my tail and run the moment our mouths met? Thinking even middle-schoolers do it, had she expected me to panic and shove her away?

Min Chae-yoon's lips were nothing like caterpillars. Those plump lips were cute, and the soft, rounded pressure of them pushing against mine felt strangely erotic—like melted candle wax sliding over skin. I had to clench my fists so I wouldn't claw at her waist.

Even that was easy for her.

Min Chae-yoon had always been like that.

She'd call without being asked, insist on meeting first, yet she never wanted to get too deeply involved with me. If I cursed women she'd go, whatever; if I cursed men, whatever. You're like that, huh? Nothing to do with me.

I'd hated that side of Min Chae-yoon since long ago.

If you're not interested, just don't contact me first. If you don't persistently beg to meet, we wouldn't even see each other's faces. Even talking about eighteen years of friendship, I knew the relationship had been built on Min Chae-yoon's one-sided efforts.

To Min Chae-yoon I was nothing more than a pitiful friend from a different world who'd been abused by the old hag.

Whenever she looked at me, a faint pity seeped into her eyes. She herself would never know it even if she died. Those eyes that had once looked down at my bleeding forearm hadn't changed for a single moment in eighteen years.

I hated being pitied, but Min Chae-yoon was somehow bearable.

The old hag had hated it terribly that Min Chae-yoon followed me around. At first I met her solely because that amused me. But gradually, little by little, only Min Chae-yoon understood me. Understanding? Maybe that word wasn't quite right.

We were a little deeper than that. Definitely.

No matter what happened, no matter what state either of us was in, there was a certain conviction that we would never leave each other—even if we mocked one another.

That was why it was troublesome.

I couldn't gamble anything with Min Chae-yoon on the line. I didn't want dirty, vulgar desire to taint the bond we shared.

Even if to Min Chae-yoon all of this was nothing special and she was fine with it.

I shouldn't get excited over Min Chae-yoon of all people—yet why?

I couldn't understand why only for Min Chae-yoon my cock grew so stiffly, painfully hard. Sitting in the living room I yanked my pants down and gripped it tightly.

“Haa.”

I had no intention whatsoever of soothing or enjoying the desire. I was sincerely annoyed and furious at this hardened lump of flesh. It felt filthy, and guilt flooded me. If there was one person in this world I must never defile with lust, it was Min Chae-yoon.

But that was reason. The heat that had built through the long dawn was something else entirely.

Her small teeth, the recessed mucous membrane of her palate, the pressure of her hand gripping between my side and chest. The faintly spilled breath, her body heat, that familiar scent unique to Min Chae-yoon.

From the cock I roughly squeezed and shook, sticky cloudy fluid burst out. I yanked a tissue free and wiped it away. I couldn't stand how dirty and repulsive I felt about myself.

After losing her husband, the old hag had involved herself directly in the group's affairs for several years.

Grandfather's death had been a sudden accident. It was a chaotic time both inside and outside the family—Father had only recently become vice president. Money drives people mad, and before desire, blood ties or affection are nothing but trivial clues. In that turbulent period when well-hidden ambitions inevitably erupted, Father's younger brother would have turned his back on the family long ago if not for the old hag.

On top of that, Father had married Mother for love around then, and she hadn't been the person the old hag wanted from the start. Mother's family wasn't bad, but that period had simply been too overwhelming. I heard the old hag had wanted Father to marry the cousin of Aunt's husband. If that had happened, Uncle wouldn't be slandering and obstructing me at every turn the way he does now.

Mother, who had married for love, couldn't endure even ten years and ran away.

So the old hag had hated me from the beginning. The period she shut herself away in Gyeonggi-do Gwangju was the very year I was born. How much she must have hated the sight of me. Especially since as a child I had resembled Mother to an unusual degree.

From right after my birth until the year Mother fled when I was seven, I never properly saw the old hag, but I heard the news all the same.

The eldest madam has returned to her hometown and is living quietly, exchanging visits with a friend couple, they say.

That couple has a granddaughter, and she dotes on the child so much.

“Is she some kind of genius who knows ten things the moment she learns one?”

“She looked smart, but not genius-level.”

“But with the eldest madam's personality… there has to be a reason, right? Is the friend couple enormously wealthy?”

“The friend taught for a long time, and the wife was a teacher too. An educator family.”

“Oh my. Then they don't have money.”

“Yeah, that's right. Ordinary.”

“But she finds her cute?”

“Hugely, hugely cute. I've never seen honey dripping from the eldest madam's eyes like that.”

“Really?”

“While she's so cold to her own grandson…”

In this household there was no one who didn't know Min Chae-yoon.

People who went to the Gyeonggi-do Gwangju mansion on Father's errands all came back chattering about her. I hadn't known the name then, but I already knew that kid.

Father knew Min Chae-yoon too, and even liked her quite a bit. Every summer he'd go visit the old hag and stay two nights. He even packed gifts once, saying they were for the neighbor kid.

Neighbor kid.

Even then, to be called a kid—Min Chae-yoon, that is, the two of us—we were already fifteen.

I recalled yesterday's conversation.

“It's a shallow trick, but it should be effective.”

“We really are dating. It's true the misunderstanding was unpleasant as well.”

“The daughter of Hyungwon Foods seems to have lived her life better than you. There were more people who believed her than I expected.”

“……”

“You chose your partner well. If it's Chae-yoon, she'll understand what I mean.”

The good neighbor kid who catches on quickly.

To Father, Min Chae-yoon was still stuck in those days. In truth even then she had been a little rascal far from an obedient child—but she had always been polite to adults.

“Be careful about pregnancy. I need to be able to face the teacher with some dignity.”

Min Chae-yoon's grandfather had been Father's high-school teacher.

“Don't show any weakness to Je-hyeon. Don't leave even the slightest clumsy opening.”

“Yes.”

“Go.”

The face that had been smiling so slyly in front of Min Chae-yoon snapped back to its usual form the moment he brought up his younger brother. The expression I knew so well.